Chapter 15 Camden #2
She knows. From the way she can’t hold my gaze, she knows.
I try to play it cool and shrug. “Since I’m home, I can pick up Paisley from school. Do you want to come with me?”
“No.” The venom is back in her voice. “Not after how you embarrassed me.”
“Better than having him assault you,” I say to her back when she stomps past me.
“He’s a nice guy.”
I follow her to the elevator and use my key card to call it, pressing the button for the penthouse when we step inside. “You know how many nice guys take it too far after earning your trust?”
She fumes at me over her shoulder. “You don’t need to mansplain the female experience to me. I know what it’s like for the nice guy to go too far.”
“You what?”
I reach for her hand, but she brushes me away. “Nothing.”
She clearly didn’t mean to blurt that out, though I’m not going to drop this subject. “It’s not nothing. Did someone hurt you?”
The elevator opens to the entryway of my apartment, and she marches off, trying to get away from me and this conversation. Not happening.
“Who was it? When?” I place my hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stop right inside the door. “Nadine, please.”
I don’t beg, but I will. I will beg her to explain this to me. Because I won’t rest until I know.
Stepping in front of her, I gently tilt her chin up, finding that stubborn look in her eyes. “River.” I stroke the pad of my thumb over her jaw. “What happened?”
She leans away from my touch, shifting her attention away from mine. “Every woman has a story. I’m not special.”
She is. She is so fucking special, and I force myself to keep my hands at my sides. I’m consumed with the need to break something because this is something every woman experiences. This is something I need to worry about with my sister. This is something Nadine has been forced to suffer through.
“You shouldn’t have a story. No one should have a story.”
Her snort of laughter is part condescension, part exhaustion. “I don’t really want to make it a thing, okay? It happened, it’s over, and there isn’t anything you can do to change it, so I’d really like you to stop the nostril-flaring and fist-clenching.”
I take a deep breath and cross my arms so she can’t see my fisted hands anymore. “What happened?”
“I was friends with this guy in college. We flirted and kissed a few times, whatever.” She waves a flippant hand. “We were at a party at his off-campus house one night. Both of us had been drinking, and I had been making out with him—”
“Please don’t make excuses,” I grit out, my voice so low even I’m surprised at what it sounds like.
“I’m not. I’m just explaining to you what happened, and why I felt…
” She slips past me to the kitchen, stuffing her keys and cell phone into her purse.
“We were hooking up, but I was still a virgin and I wanted to stop.” She presses both of her hands into the counter, closing her eyes.
“I just wasn’t comfortable enough to tell him to stop.
He was my friend, so I didn’t want to disappoint him, I guess.
And he kept going, kept taking his clothes off, kept taking mine off, and I… ”
She lifts her head, glancing over her shoulder at me as if I could fill in the rest. I can, and it makes me furious. “You never actually consented?”
“I kept quiet. I don’t know why. He wasn’t violent or disrespectful, but he kept telling me how long he’d been waiting, how he was so happy to finally be doing it, and that he’d make sure it felt good.”
My jaw aches with how hard I’m clenching, barely grunting out the words. “But it didn’t?”
“No.”
I think my jaw cracks from the pressure of grinding my teeth. She lifts a shoulder, and I’m getting tired of her shrugs. Then again, womankind is probably tired of my existence. Of men, in general.
“I didn’t say no, but I also didn’t want it to happen. I didn’t fight back, I didn’t leave, I just…let him do what he wanted. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t like it.”
It feels like a physical blow, and I hunch over, holding back a shout of frustration. “Consent, enthusiastic consent is the fucking bar. The lowest bar. And he didn’t wait. He didn’t ask. It was as—”
“Don’t.” She throws her bag over her arm, car keys in hand. “Please don’t say it out loud because it makes it worse. It’s a thing that happened, a bad experience I’ve dealt with and learned from, okay? I’ve never let it happen again. I stand up for myself now.”
Yeah. I know that firsthand, and when I step toward her, she shakes her head. She doesn’t want me in her space. So I stay right where I am, helpless.
She pushes a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “I told you because I don’t need you bulldozing into my life, talking about what nice guys do. I know what they are capable of.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“Some girlfriends.” She smiles the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. “These are stories we share in whispers over wine. Battle scars we show off to each other.”
I don’t have words for how utterly useless I feel. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She ignores the apology and brushes past me. I don’t bother chasing her, understanding that she needs time alone. I need time alone. But I do stop her with one more question.
I stand in my open door as she waits for the elevator. “What happened to him?”
“Don’t know. He never talked to me again after that night.”
Motherfucker.
“And just so we’re clear,” she says, the spark I love so much back in her eyes. “I am fully aware of who is a nice guy and who is not.”
With the way she scowls at me, I assume she means I am not a nice guy. Well, if the shoe fits…
A day later, as I’m on my way to the team dinner in the hotel, I receive a text.
Did you get a second trainer hired?
Don’t know what you’re talking about.
There is a second trainer in the gym now. A woman named Mina.
Good.
This is an overreaction.
No. An overreaction would be getting him fired.
OMG
You wouldn’t.
If he crossed a line? Absolutely.
You can’t get him fired.
I’m just saying, if it doesn’t work out there for him, it’ll be for a good reason.
Meaning you got them to hire a second person just in case?
No comment.
Like you don’t know anything about the donation made to every teacher in my former school district for their entire supply lists?
Doesn’t ring a bell.
And none of that has to do with me?
It has everything to do with you, I want to say, but instead, I send a different text.
I didn’t realize you thought the world revolved around you.
I learn from the best.
You.
Now that, I’ll own up to. Being the best.
But just so we’re clear, I’m not a nice guy. I won’t hesitate. I’m not afraid to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Except yours.