This Love Page 3

  It lands on its side by the desk and an unopened box of condoms tumbles out of it and onto the floor.

  Oh, God. Oh, dear God.

  When he clears his throat, a shiver surges through me, from my toes to the center of my brain. I squeeze my eyes shut and count to five. Then, I drag my attention back to the tennis shoes and up to strong, thick legs. Gray cotton gym shorts that do nothing to hide the outline of his dick. A narrow patch of light brown hair leading up to sculpted abs and a chest glistening with perspiration. The dimpled smirk that’s always stolen my breath because it’s attached to the boy—no, the man—that mastered being the center of the universe long ago.

  “Morning, shit-talker.” Bennett tips his water to his lips and chugs a quarter of it. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he tosses the bottle on the bed along with a bottle of ibuprofen he digs from the pocket of his shorts. Both land close to my right thigh.

  “Sorry I woke you. You were snoring so loudly, I figured you wouldn’t hear me working out next door.”

  My hands quiver in my lap. I tighten them into fists before I grab the bottle of pain reliever. Taking three, I open the water and sip slowly, centering my gaze on the edge of the bedspread. “I don’t snore.”

  He climbs on the bed. I hold my breath. Grip the sheets to my chest as he crawls across the giant mattress toward me, his muscles swelling with each motion. My mouth goes dry at his scent, sweat fusing with the fresh, airy aroma of his cologne. It’s potent and breathtaking.

  “You’re right, you don’t snore.” He hovers his face over mine and takes my chin in the arc of his thumb and forefinger. “But you sure as fuck talk in your sleep.”

  “No, I—” Damn, there’s nothing I can say because he’s telling the truth. Mom took me to a specialist when I was a kid, but that was a bust. He suggested medication with a two-page list of side effects, so Mom and I mutually decided that rattling off to-do lists in my sleep was better than the shits, the shakes, and shortness of breath.

  “So,” I start nonchalantly, combing the knots from my hair with my fingers, “what did I say?”

  “Nothing too interesting.” Nothing too interesting doesn’t evoke expressions like that. It’s a grin that gradually breaks his features to transform his face into something that twinges my chest. He sits back, the side of his body to me and his hip pressed to my outer thigh. From this angle, it’s easy to make out one of the tattoos on his back. An ace and king of spades.

  “You’ll like what you said before you fell asleep more,” he finally informs me with a wicked curl of his lips.

  Oh, God. Oh, dear God.

  I toy with the edge of the sheet. “Like?”

  “That Liz should invest in gum.” My jaw slackens, so he keeps talking, laughter saturating his voice, “She deserved it. She was being a cunt and said something about your stepdad’s job. You looked right at her, took a shot of tequila, and said—and I quote—‘So what? At least he doesn’t have shit breath, so get the hell out of my face.’”

  I cover my eyes. This isn’t the first time someone from their circle made a snide or passive-aggressive comment about my father being a sanitation worker, but it is the first I didn’t just shrug it off. “How much did I drink?” I moan.

  “Enough that Judson thought he could talk you into going home with him.” That I do remember. Bennett stepped away to get a few shot glasses, so Judson parked himself on the couch, sandwiching me between him and Liz. Other than the occasional wink or leer, he never paid me any mind while he was still at Birchwood, but last night he was annoyingly attentive.

  So much that I recall telling him to back off.

  “Bennett … he didn’t try to—”

  “Fuck, no,” he spits out. The tension floats from my body, so I drag my hands from over my eyes. He fixes me with a harsh look. “I wouldn’t be here with you this morning if he had.”

  “What happened to your hand?” He’s clenching and unclenching his fingers, the same as he was doing last night while he sat across from Judson and me. Only in that memory, his knuckles weren’t raw. “You didn’t hit him or anything, did you?”

  A bitter sound passes his lips, and my forehead creases with worry. I reach out to touch his bruised flesh. He easily evades me, cruising his fingers to the back of his neck to massage the muscles there. “It was a drunken fall when we were coming up here.”

  “Please tell me I didn’t trip you.”

  But when I say that, another image from last night streams through my thoughts. Thousands of city lights shimmering through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his bedroom to punch through the darkness. My hand on his bare chest and the thrum of his heartbeat beneath my fingertips. His coarse breath as he shook his head and sat me on the edge of his bed, gripping my shoulders.

  His words.

  “You have no clue, Veronica. No fucking clue.”

  I pluck at the neckline of my—his—tee shirt, allowing what I said before that to play through my head. “I keep telling myself not to want you. Because you don’t want me back.”

  A tight fist constricts my chest. I’ve got to get out of here. If the floors aren’t going to open up and drag me down a couple layers of earth, I’ve got to get out of this room, this apartment, this part of the damn city. “W-what time is it?”

  “Just after eleven. I sent Jon a text from your phone that you were spending the night with Charmaine.”

  “Charlotte,” I wheeze.

  “Yeah, well I had it right when I sent the text.” His brow puckers into a frown when I swing my legs off his bed and sink my toes into the ivory wool rug. “Vero, where are you—”

  “I need to get home.” I ravel a section of his tee shirt around my fist as I scan the room for my shoes and bag. “I’m sorry for whatever I said last night. Everything I said.”

  “Veronica,” he starts, voice deep with warning, but I can’t stop now.

  “I drank too much and acted like an ass.”

  “Vero, stop.”

  Noticing my belongings in the chair at his desk, I hobble in that direction, making the needles piercing my head pick up speed. “That person—it wasn’t me and I didn’t mean anything I said. Coming to the party wasn’t even me.”

  “And yet you came.” The cold fury in his tone stops me in my tracks. I regard him over my shoulder, zeroing in on the cords twanging his neck. “My sincerest apologies at having contributed to your corruption.”

  His sincerest apologies at … now he’s just being sarcastic.

  “Don’t be a dick.” Knees weak, I turn my back to him. Clumsily, I snatch my shoes and bag from his chair. “I’ll see you later. I’ve got to get a cab home and get ready for work.”

  The mattress squeaks as he rises from it. I shove my sandals on, but my balance is off, so I sway slightly on the second shoe. Strong hands circle my upper arms to steady me.

  “I’ll take you home, Veronica,” he says, voice hitching on the second syllable of my name because I flinch away from him.

  Humiliation gnaws at my chest, my face, my neck, but I lift my eyes to his. Ignore the ropes that seem to wrap around my ribcage to squeeze away any chance of breathing clearly. “Thanks.”

  It’s a walk of shame—skulking from his room to the elevator—but it only gets worse when the car goes up to the third floor and the doors open on Monica. She’s in immaculate form today, a 180 from the slurring, crying woman from last night. She glances between us, posted on opposite ends of the elevator, and arches her light brown eyebrows.

  “Good morning, Bennett. Veronica.”

  “Good morning, Mom,” he grinds out as she waltzes inside, her designer slingbacks that match her royal blue sheath dress clicking a staccato beat on the floor. “Feeling better?”

  When she speaks, after we transition from the privacy elevator to one that will take us to the main floor of the building, she ignores him. Which is tragic because he might be her only child that actually gives a damn. “You’re here early, Veronica.”

&nbs
p; “I was helping Bennett clean up from last night.” He whips his head toward me, gaze hot against my profile. “The cleaning crew won’t be back until Monday, so I figured he might need some company.”

  I say a silent prayer the first level isn’t a disaster.

  “Hmm.” The lift stops, and she steps into the lobby first. “You always were good with that sort of thing.” She turns, clutching her Birkin close to her chest, and my breath catches at the withering stare she shoots my way. Before she married and had children, she was an actress on a soap opera where she played a spoiled, pampered heiress. Cain used to say the part prepared her for her current role of Mrs. Erik Delaney, so her expressions—at least the bitchy ones—are spot on.

  “If you need a reference for a summer job,” she drawls, “I’d be happy to have my personal assistant draft you a—”

  “I think she’ll manage.” Bennett’s hand grazes the small of my back, and I try my hardest not to show any emotion when he nudges me forward, into the lobby. He doesn’t move his fingers as he addresses his mother, so I’m left in agony. “Plans this morning?”

  “I’m going to lunch with friends before Erik gets home. I’m making him take me to The Hamptons tonight.”

  He cocks a thick, dark eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t going this summer.”

  “It’s my house, Bennett, so I’ll visit whenever I’d like. Since your father will be in town, I’ll be doing so tonight.”

  I’ve known Bennett Delaney for over two-thirds of my life, so I can pinpoint when he’s lying. His mom can’t. That’s why she doesn’t stop simpering when he tilts his head to one side and strokes his thumb over his full lips. “I see. Well, have a good time.”

  “I will.” She flays me with another frigid smile. “It was nice seeing you again, Veronica.”

  “Likewise.” Neither of us mean it, so I’m grateful that she struts off toward the black car waiting on the curb outside the revolving doors. Folding my arms over my chest, I follow silently beside him, the heat of the sun bouncing off the concrete as we walk the block to his metallic gray Supra.

  He opens the passenger door for me and glances toward the empty leather seat without uttering so much as a word. I shake my head. “What?” He gives an audible breath through his nose. “Would you rather take Judson’s car?”

  “You were lying to her.”

  “This is what you’re choosing to talk about? My mother? Since when did you start giving a fuck about her?”

  “I—” Then I remember the conversation they had last night. Where he told her to get some rest for his father’s arrival. “Erik’s not coming home today, is he?”

  He extends his hand toward my face, fingers stiff, teeth gritted like he’s in physical pain, but then a muscle tenses in his jaw and he gestures inside the car again. Like he’s swatting away a gnat. “You’re going to be late for work, remember?”

  Yeah, I remember all right.

  I sit as far apart from him as the interior of the car will allow, huddled against the door panel as tension pummels me. And it’s a tension I shouldn’t feel. I shouldn’t have gotten in his car. Shouldn’t care that the veins in his neck are taut. Shouldn’t give a damn that his hands grip the steering wheel so hard his knuckles are white. But, of course, it all goes back to one shouldn’t.

  I shouldn’t have gone to the damn party.

  Scratching the back of his neck, he breaks the silence. “It wasn’t a lie. It was just misinformation.”

  “How so?”

  “My father won’t be home until the middle of the week. That’s what he called to tell me last, so I’d know he’ll be around for my birthday this year.” He turns nineteen in a week, and I already know there will be another crazy, extravagant party.

  Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t.

  “You got her hopes up for nothing?”

  He glowers at the bumper of the Dodge van in front of us. “Dad is coming home, just not today. I didn’t correct her because that’s what she needed to hear to be all right last night.” When I ask why he didn’t let her know the truth this morning, while we were standing in the lobby of his building, he continues to stare straight ahead. “You know my mom, she’d rather rage in private than air dirty Delaney laundry to the world.”

  CHAPTER 4

  VERONICA

  “You’re lucky you’re too old to ground, kid.”

  Those are my dad’s first words to me after I pad out of my bedroom and into our small kitchen the next morning. His curly head is bent over the Sunday edition of the Times that’s spread out on the table, so he doesn’t see my shoulders bow over my chest.

  I laugh uncomfortably, arching my toes upward in their fuzzy yellow socks. “Dad, you’ve never grounded me.”

  He sounds one hundred percent pissed when he mutters, “There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?”

  “I sent you a text message.” I reminded him of that over the phone yesterday, too. He called me at the music store during his break to let me know he was working overtime—and that I worried him sick by not coming home. It was easier to face his disappointment with a few miles separating us. “Dad?”

  He folds the newspaper in half and lifts frustrated brown eyes to mine. “I didn’t find it until after you told me how to check my messages. That was a horrible feeling, Veronica, not knowing where you were and all my calls going to your mailbox. You’ve never done anything like that before.”

  No, I haven’t. My parents were never particularly strict, but that was because I didn’t give them a reason to be. I got good grades, made it home in time for curfew the few times I went out, and never dated or brought around boys that made them do a double take. I pop an everything bagel into the toaster and turn to face him, relaxing my back against the L-shape of the counter. “It won’t happen again.”

  After what happened at the Delaney’s—after all those silly, lovestruck words I spoke to Bennett—there's a good chance I won’t attend another party there.

  “I mean it,” I say.

  Picking up his coffee mug, he nods curtly. “I hope not.” He glares down at the steam wafting from the black liquid, then sighs and softens his features. “I just like to know where you are. I’ve lost Vanessa already, I don’t want to lose you, too. I know I’m not your real…”

  He doesn’t have to finish for me to make out where he’s going because his air quotes give it away.

  Father.

  “Don’t say that.” I sit on the edge of the chair closest to the counter and lay my hand over his. After Mom died last November, he grieved heavily—so had I because I adored her, looked up to everything she did since, in my eyes, she was the epitome of a great mom and a good person.

  But then, Dad’s grief melted into worry. About the future. About money because the medical bills were through the roof. About me taking off without a word. I turned eighteen in December—and the only person linking us was gone.

  I scrunch my nose and squint because it keeps the moisture pricking my eyes at bay. “You’re stuck with me, you know that.”

  “That’s what you said when I told you I was marrying your mom.” He chuckles and cocks his head to one side. “You didn’t make that face, though.”

  “What’s wrong with my face?” But I smooth my expression into a smile. My father was never in the picture, he and Mom parted ways when I was a baby, but I never lacked love or affection. She had plenty of it to give. When I was eight, she met Jon Silvestri. He never treated me like anything but his, never flinched when people glanced between us—at my gray eyes and light blonde hair to his dark features—whenever he introduced me as his kid.

  “My father’s Italian,” he always told them, sending me a wink, “that must be where she gets it from.”

  My bagel snaps up in the toaster, hauling me back to the present. “I really am sorry I scared you.” I give his hand another squeeze before leaving the table. After a night of tossing and turning and thinking about Bennett-Freaking-Delaney, I’m starving.
Rummaging around the cupboard for a plate, I say, “If it makes you feel any better, I was safe.”

  “With Charlotte.”

  My shoulder blades mash together. I don’t lie to my father, I never have, but I also don’t want to admit I spent Friday night in Bennett’s bed either. I settle on a half-truth I pray he won’t see right through. “Yeah, with Charlotte.”

  "Where'd you go? Her place?"

  I set my plate on the Formica counter and toss my bagel onto it, wincing because both slices are piping hot. “A party at Graham’s. A belated-fourth-of-July sort of thing, you know.”

  “Delaney?”

  Blowing on the tips of my fingers, I nod. “The one and only.”

  Dad goes so quiet, I have to glance behind me to make sure he’s still in the kitchen. My stomach hardens at the strained, pensive stare he's shooting at me. “I thought you were done with that family now that you’ve graduated.”

  Ignoring my breakfast, I face him, lacing my fingers taut. “Graham’s one of my best friends.” He presses his lips into a fine line, so I laugh, a forced and foreign vibration in my ears. “The guy wouldn’t let me be done with him if I told him to piss off on a billboard in Times Square.”

  "You never know unless you give it a try."

  "Not funny, Dad. Not funny at all."

  “It’s just—” He glances up at the ceiling, lips parted like he’s waiting for the right words to push from them. The wait is excruciating and sets off dozens of alarms in my head. He offers me a wavering smile. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  I open the fridge and search for the cream cheese, letting the temperature cool my face. He couldn’t possibly know what was said between Bennett and me, but it doesn’t stop the embarrassment from flooding me. I’m as calm and collected as I’ll ever be when I straighten my spine, gripping the tub of spread in one hand and the fridge handle in the other. “I know Graham can be a bit…”