“I think the solution’s pretty clear to both of us,” I told her, forcing myself to accept that reality.
It hurt to think about it, but there really was no other option. Time was up.
In a few hours, she’d be on a plane, and I’d be headed back home. I needed to keep her from coming to live with me in Matt’s house again on the faint hope of continuing what we’d once started there.
There was nothing I could do except let her go because I wasn’t the right man for her.
“What are you talking about?” she asked thickly, wiping her eyes and smearing mascara down her cheeks.
“We can’t do this. Look at us…” I gestured at myself and then at her. “You’re a young woman with dreams and plans and a full life ahead of you. I’m a complete disaster. I am more fucked up than you could possibly imagine,” I admitted, letting my arms go slack against my sides in surrender. Crushed, once again, by the obstacles that bitch destiny had thrown in my path.
“I don’t have the strength to fight more impossible battles, Selene. In another life, if I were a different man, I would have fought for someone like you,” I told her. I wasn’t stupid. I knew how rare it was to encounter someone like Selene. I knew the values she possessed; I knew how good her heart was and how pure her soul. But I just had too many demons on my back.
She couldn’t see them—no one saw them—but I felt them all the time. They spoke to me regularly, especially the Boy. He constantly told me that if I chose one woman and quit my bad habits, I would be abandoning him and he would die.
“Wait…” she sobbed, but I wasn’t going to wait for anything at all.
I wasn’t going to wait for her or for a destiny that would likely never be on our side.
I went straight back to my room and locked the door before spending a sleepless night trying to put my head back in order.
***
I went home the next morning.
I’d decided to attend Matt’s birthday after wrestling with my own torments, all to get a look at her. Just to spend some time with her, with my Babygirl.
I wasn’t expecting us to fuck or to resolve everything between us in two days.
Once, all I needed to do was seduce her. A few touches and that was it—Selene would give in, and I could ease my woes with a straightforward fuck. Now, though, I felt the urge to get close to her in other ways. Ways that I wasn’t accustomed to at all.
During our one day together, we’d done nothing but talk, and her eyes, glittering like blue diamonds with her tears, were the only memory I took with me from the beach house. It dragged along heavily behind me, her practically begging me to stay and listen to her.
And yet again, I raged at myself, falling back into that vortex of anger. It was a false friend, company in misery, a whore that fucked me relentlessly in the head, and I couldn’t deal with it.
“I’ve just been waiting for you to get back,” Jennifer whispered into myear, gliding her hand down from my chest to my lower stomach. We were sitting on a bench in one of the school’s many green areas, killing time between classes. Her touch was irritating, but I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that I didn’t bother putting her in her place.
“So you’re telling me you let your dad find the pills in your house?” Xavier was giving Luke shit because his dad found ecstasy in his bedside table drawer.
“The fuck are you laughing about, dickhead?” Luke snapped. “I’ve got a ten-year-old sister, and he started going off on me about how irresponsible I was because she could’ve found it. He’s right; it could have been a tragedy. And now he thinks I’m a drug addict and a bad example for her and…” Luke continued to blather on and generally lose his shit all because his big-shot lawyer daddy had gotten a peek behind the scenes of his son’s life.
Luke used sometimes and got high with Xavier. I was the only one in the Krew who didn’t fuck with any of that. I’d always been a shithead for sure, but I could be thoughtful about some things. I’d only given in a few times when I was a kid, curious to know what pot felt like or what cocaine would do to me, but I’d never been remotely tempted to abuse it.
“What, you gonna fucking pussy out now, Luke?” Xavier burst into laughter as he taunted him. Meanwhile, Jennifer continued to pet my chest, running her fingers languidly over the contours of my muscles. She planted a kiss on the hollow of my throat and pressed her breast against my arm. I kept my hand resting lazily on her thigh.
The feel of her saliva was uncomfortable on my skin, but I liked kisses on my neck, so I decided to let her keep doing it a little longer.
“He wants me to take these tests, and if any of them come back positive, he’s going to kick me out on my ass. Do you realize what that means?” Luke exploded, digging a hand into his blond hair.
Jennifer, meanwhile, had started moaning and pressing herself against me to signal that we needed to go to my car or somewhere else we could get some alone time. I quit listening to the other two and turned to look at her.
“What?” I asked her in a flat tone, and she grinned, delighted to have captured my attention.
“I want to…” She moved closer to my ear. “…suck your cock,” she said in a temptress’s whisper.
Anyone else in my position would have jumped at the opportunity, but I couldn’t. And not just because we were in a public place either. There were certain indulgences I could no longer allow myself to have while following my therapist’s instructions.
The idea of shoving my hard-on into her mouth was enticing and not just a little bit. But, unlike most men, I was capable of keeping my head, even with a woman as seductive as Jennifer.
