Relentless Read online

  from the second we met. I’m sitting in my apartment wondering why the fuck I only see you on weekends while you’re pumping Cora for information on me. You do realize that’s not fair.”

  “All Cora told me about you was that you moved into the building in May and you don’t go to school. That doesn’t make me a stalker.” He chuckles when he says stalker. “Have you ever considered that you might be a bit easier to read than you think you are?”

  I shake my head as we cross the street toward the hookah lounge. “You think you have me figured out because you sent me the right kind of flowers and you guessed that I dropped out of school? Well, let me tell you something, Adam, you know the Claire Nixon that moved here three months ago. And I’m starting to think that’s all you’ll ever know.”

  When we arrive at the hookah lounge, he opens the door for us to go inside, but he refuses to look at me. We sit at a booth with a low table in front of us and Adam immediately snatches the menu off the table. Senia cocks an eyebrow at me as she begins to sense the tension between Adam and me as I scoot closer to her and farther from him. I shake my head so she doesn’t mention it and she rolls her eyes.

  “Cranberry juice shisha? What a fuckin’ joke,” Adam says as he tosses the menu onto the table and reaches into his pocket. “I’ve got something that doesn’t sound like a fucking drink mixer.”

  He tucks his hand behind his back as the waitress comes by and asks for our order and what kind of pipe we’d like to smoke out of. I don’t say a word because I won’t be smoking any of it. Adam orders a water pipe and points at the first flavor on the menu: Kiwi. As the waitress leaves, his eyes follow her ass for a few seconds before he turns back to us.

  “Don’t they have water in this place?” I ask, suddenly parched.

  “We’ll get you some water, babe,” Senia assures me as Adam glances around the lounge as if we don’t exist.

  Eddie looks at Senia questioningly and she whispers something in his ear. His eyes widen a little as if he understands, but he never looks at Adam or me.

  I never really had friends until Chris got me to open up. Chris was my best friend until I met Senia so it kills me to see her whispering secrets to Eddie. A small part of me is jealous that she has something to share with him that she can’t share with me, but I know the whispering probably has more to do with Adam’s presence than mine.

  “Claire, can you please join me in the girls’ room?” Senia asks sweetly.

  Eddie stands up so Senia and I can slide out of the booth. I move quickly toward the restroom sign I see in the corner near the entrance, eager to get away from Adam and his shitty attitude. I should have never asked him to come out on a Friday.

  As soon as we enter the restroom, Senia rounds on me. “What the fuck is up with you two?”

  “I don’t know. One minute we’re joking about him being a stripper, the next minute he’s kissing me, then the next second I’m ‘testing his patience’. He’s got multiple personalities.”

  Senia rolls her eyes. “Woman, he doesn’t have multiple personalities. He’s in love.”

  “What? That’s stupid.”

  The restroom door opens and Senia shakes her head as she scoots out of the way for three girls to enter. “It’s not stupid. I’m sorry, Claire, but you were spoiled by Chris. He was too patient with you because he knew that was what you needed. But the problem is now you don’t know how most guys behave when they’re in love.”

  “He’s not in love. We’ve known each other for two weeks.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The guy is either in love or jonesin’ for your hoo-hah. Just do me a favor and trust me when I say you need, need, need to let yourself experience this. Even if it’s just a fling. He’s the kind of guy who can help you put that other shit behind you.”

  “Or bring it all to the surface and cause a mental breakdown. I haven’t told you about our little bet, have I?”

  “What bet?”

  A girl wearing way too much eyeliner smiles at me as she exits the restroom, as if she knows what bet I’m referring to.

  Once she’s gone I sigh. “He bet me that he could get me to tell him why I dropped out. If he wins, I have to go back to school.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa…. You agreed to this?”

  “I know. It’s so stupid.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s brilliant!”

  The restroom door opens again and this time it’s a guy who’s actually kind of hot but obviously stoned. His eyes widen when he sees us and he quickly apologizes as he closes the door.

  “It’s not brilliant. I’ve been out of school too long and you know I can’t go back to Raleigh.”

  Just saying the name aloud makes my body tense. Everything and everybody I’ve ever known is in Raleigh. Every memory of my mother and Chris are there. Of course, the person I’ve been trying to avoid more than anyone is there: Jackie Knight. If Jackie knew what I did after Chris left, she would hate me more than she probably already does since I disappeared. She might even hate me more than I hate myself.

  “You can go back, and you should, but that’s a whole other two-hour argument we can rehash later.” Senia grabs my arms and stares at me, her eyes pleading. “For now, just go out there and try to have some fun. Please.”

  I wriggle out of her grasp and shrug as I reach for the door handle and yank it open. “I can have fun without being a fucking doormat.”

  I storm out of the restroom and back to our booth. When I get there, I find Adam and Eddie laughing about something as Adam passes the hookah pipe across the table. The smell of the pot is hardly noticeable through the thick cloud of sweetly scented tobacco smoke. When Adam sees me he immediately stands so I can scoot in on his side. Maybe Eddie had a talk with him, as well.

  He smiles as I slide in. He sits down and immediately leans over to whisper in my ear. “You look beautiful tonight. I forgot to tell you that earlier.”

  I can smell the smoke on his breath, but the sensation of his lips against my ear is enough to almost make me forget why I was mad at him. I turn my face toward him so our noses are touching and his gaze slides down to my lips.

  “I don’t think you’re a stalker,” I whisper. “I think… I wish you were around more often.”

  It makes my chest ache with anxiety just to say these words aloud. I don’t want to open myself up to him like this, but Senia is right. I need this, whether it’s a fling or something more. I don’t want to end up a brittle old broad or, worse, a terrified shut-in like my mom.

  He smiles before he plants a soft kiss on my lips and I put my hand on top of his thigh to steady myself. He pulls away and kisses my forehead. “I’ll take you out with me next time I go to the beach.”

  I nod, too afraid that if I speak something even cornier may come out. I glance at Senia next to me and she’s pretending not to notice this exchange between Adam and me. One thing I can say about Senia is that she is great at being discreet when it’s necessary.

  Senia and I refuse to smoke both the tobacco and the weed, but I soon start to feel as if my brain is becoming as foggy as this room. Adam’s laughter begins to sound a bit distant, like canned laughter in a sitcom. I blink furiously, as if this will wake me up, and Adam looks at me funny.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “I feel like I’m in a movie. You look like a movie star.” I reach out and touch his face. “You have facial hair and it feels so scratchy. I’m thirsty.” I reach for the glass of water in front of me, but it’s empty. “I’m so thirsty.”

  “Aw, shit. You have a contact high. I think it’s time to get you home.” He stands up and nods toward the exit. “Come on. You need some fresh air.”

  Senia and Eddie stay behind while Adam walks me home. The cool night air feels like heaven on my skin, but the sidewalk looks like a treadmill belt. I’m getting nowhere. By the time I arrive at my apartment, I’m feeling more clearheaded, though I have no memory of how we got there.

  “Is Eddie staying over?” Adam
asks as I dig inside my purse for my keys.

  I laugh way harder at this than I should. “You want me to spend the night again.”

  He shakes his head. “Just trying to save you from having to listen to Senia and Eddie doing all the things we should be doing.”

  “I can’t see anything in this purse. It’s too dark.” Finally, I shove my purse into his chest and he grins. “All right, Adam, you want to have sex with me? You think you can handle this?” I giggle uncontrollably because I know I’m being ridiculous, but I can’t stop. “Bring it.”

  He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the stairs. “Oh, it’s already been broughten.”

  I laugh as I climb the stairs behind him. “I love that you always get my movie references. You’re so funny… and hot.”

  He chuckles as he climbs the last few stairs and reaches into his pocket for his keys. “I need to get you stoned more often.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Relentless Guilt

  I open my eyes and stare at the oscillating fan next to the bed. Even with the fan pointed straight at me, I’m still sweating and I quickly understand why. Adam’s chest is pressed against my back and I’m wearing nothing but a bra and panties. I have a vague memory of tearing off my tank top and shorts, but I can’t remember much else.

  His arm is wrapped around my waist and his breath is hot against the back of my head. Our bodies are sticky everywhere our skin is touching. It’s unbearably hot and humid in here. On the bright side, he’s not suffering from morning wood syndrome.

  I need to get out of here. I have a bad feeling we had forgettable sex and I don’t want to admit that I can’t remember it. I slowly attempt to scoot forward to peel my back off his chest and he grunts as he tightens his arm around my waist.

  “Go back to sleep,” he groans, and now that I know he’s awake I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

  “What time is it? I work at three.”

  “It’s still morning. Go back to sleep.”

  “I can’t. It’s too hot in here.”

  “Then take these off,” he says, hooking his thumb into the waistband of my panties. “I’d be happy to help you with that.”

  I roll over to face him and he whips his head out of the way so I don’t elbow him in the face.

  “Hey, Smokey the Bear,” I say. God, he looks so sexy when he’s groggy. “You think you’re so hot, but I don’t even remember what happened last night so it can’t be that good.”

  He laughs in my face and I can still smell a hint of smoke on his breath. “That’s because nothing happened last night.”

  “Nothing happened?”

  “You walked into my room, stripped down to your underwear, made some comment about this being the most comfortable bed in the universe, and knocked out.”

  “Oh…. Somehow, I find that a little disappointing.”

  “You’re bummed we didn’t have forgettable sex? Or you’re bummed we didn’t have sex?”

  The truth is, I’m a little disappointed we haven’t gotten the whole first time thing out of the way. It’s too much pressure. I haven’t been with anyone other than Chris and, like Senia said last night, he spoiled me. He waited more than two years before we had sex on my eighteenth birthday. I’ve only known Adam two weeks, but this need to get the sex over with tells me that we should probably wait.

  “I guess I’m disappointed we didn’t have sex,” I reply, because I know that’s what he wants to hear.

  “You guess you’re disappointed?” He brushes a lock of hair away from my face and lifts my chin so he can look me in the eye. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”

  “What? No!” I don’t know why I’m so adamant with my response. “I am not a virgin.” Though part of me wishes I were.

  He smiles as he slips his arm around my waist and pulls me closer. I swallow hard as his erection jabs my thigh through his boxers.

  Oh, God.

  He leans in to kiss me and, as soon as his lips touch mine, my body relaxes into him. I slide my arms around his neck as he rolls me onto my back. He pushes my legs open with his knee as his fingers skates up my side. His tongue flirts with mine and my nipples perk up beneath the fabric of my bra. He grinds against me as his hand cups my breast and I know this is it. We’re going to have sex.

  He slips his hand underneath me and pulls his head back when his fingers find the hook on my bra. “Is this okay?” he asks.

  My heart is pounding, but the need throbbing between my legs is more intense.

  “I want this,” I say with a nod. “I want you.”

  He unhooks my bra and watches as I slide the straps down. I toss it over the edge of the bed and he gazes at me with a deep sense of wonderment and longing in his eyes. He lays a soft trail of kisses from my sternum to my breast and I let out a small gasp as he takes my nipple into his mouth.

  His fingers move lightly over my belly to my hip. He grasps the waist of my panties and looks up at me, his eyes questioning if he can remove these, too. I nod and lift my hips so he can slip them off. He takes off his boxers and he supports his weight on his elbows as he kisses me slowly. His lips graze my jaw as he moves to my neck then down to my breast again. He keeps going until his head is between my legs.

  He looks up at me, a smile in his eyes, then his mouth is on me. His tongue swirls around my swollen clit and, it’s been so long, it doesn’t take much. I come quick and probably too loudly. His body slides over mine as he slinks up and kisses my forehead. He smiles as he slips a condom out of his nightstand and rips it open with his teeth.

  I can’t breathe.

  The nurse wheels me out of the hospital room and, after what I’ve just been through, I’m surprised I have enough energy to be frightened by the sight of the person standing ten feet ahead of me next to the nurses’ station. Joanie Tipton hands the nurse behind the desk a piece of paper then turns toward me.

  Senia steps in front of the wheelchair to block me from Joanie’s view, but it’s too late. Joanie has already seen me. And by the shit-eating grin on her face, she knows exactly why I’m here.

  Of all the people in the world, Joanie is the last person I want to see here. She’s had it out for me since our senior year in high school when Chris and I were broken up for three weeks and he still rejected her invitation to the prom. She showed up at the Knights’ house the day before he left in July to wish him well. Chris and I were just getting ready to leave to celebrate my birthday a month early. Later that night, I used Joanie as an example of all the groupies Chris would have access to on tour. I told him we should break up so he could get all that stuff out of his system. I didn’t think I could handle finding out he’d faltered while we were still together.

  Joanie doesn’t know I used her crush on Chris as an example of why we should break up, but as she stands there smiling at me I know she will move mountains to tell him she saw me here today.

  I’m not in the right state of mind to deal with Joanie. My chest muscles ache from three days of uncontrollable sobbing and I’m woozy from the mild sedative I was given twenty minutes ago. As she approaches us on her way down the corridor, the panic builds inside me, but it manifests only in tears.

  “What the fuck are you staring at?” Senia snarls at her, and Joanie’s smile vanishes just as she disappears somewhere behind the wheelchair.

  The nurse continues to push my wheelchair forward, but everything moves in slow motion compared to my racing heartbeat. She’s going to tell Chris everything and this time I’ll lose him forever.

  “Claire.”

  Adam’s voice shakes the memory loose and I open my eyes to find him sitting next to me instead of lying on top of me. Cool tears stream down my temples and into my hair. I quickly wiped them away before I sit up and curl my legs into my chest.

  “What happened?” I ask as I stare at the foot of the bed to avoid looking at him.

  I don’t want to see the expression on his face. I don’t want to see just how crazy he thinks I am.


  “Nothing. You squeezed your eyes shut and started crying. Nothing happened. I swear.”

  I feel exposed, emotionally and physically. I want to gather my clothes and get out of here, but I’m too afraid to move.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  I shake my head as I straighten my legs out in front of me and pull the sheet up to my chest to cover myself. “You think you want to know what happened—what made me drop out—but you don’t understand that if I tell you you’ll want nothing more to do with me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  He brushes my messy hair out of my eyes and the look in his eyes breaks my heart. I will never tell him.

  “Come here,” he whispers as he pulls me into his arms.

  As soon as I press the side of my face to his shoulder, the tears come again. What the hell was I thinking? Enough time hasn’t passed since that day in the hospital. I should have known it was too soon.

  Chapter Twelve

  Relentless Waves

  After Saturday’s breakdown, I’m shocked that he still wants me to go to the beach with him on Wednesday night, my only day off from the café this week. I spend all day Wednesday at the apartment. I immediately get caught up in an endless loop of watching recorded episodes of Vampire Diaries, doing laundry, and meditating. By the time Senia gets home early from work, I’ve washed all our clothes and linens and meditated four times. I haven’t felt this relaxed in weeks.

  She hangs her purse up on the peg inside the coat closet and plops down next to me on the sofa. “I can’t work with him anymore!”

  I know she’s referring to her dad. He spoils her financially, but he’s also extremely controlling. Growing up, her father dictated what Senia and her two sisters wore, ate, and who they befriended up until they graduated from high school. She wasn’t allowed to date until her senior year and only then because her date was a friend of the family. When she got to UNC two years ago, she was a completely different person than she is now. She was scared and shy, but it didn’t take long for the real Senia to emerge. In the beginning of our freshman year, it was the alcohol that brought her out. Eventually she stopped getting drunk every weekend.

  The first time she talked back to her father was when he refused to put the pink slip for her car in her name. She knew he only wanted the car in his name so he could use the car as a means to control her. From the moment she told him to fuck off their relationship changed. He now only speaks to her when he needs to for work purposes. Their relationship is almost enough to make me grateful I never knew my father.

  “What did he do today?” I ask as I reach for the remote.

  “Why do you ask like that, like you’re tired of hearing me complain about my job?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give off that vibe. I guess it was just a bad word choice. I should have left off ‘today’.”

  Senia sighs as she puts her feet up on the coffee table. “It’s okay. I’m just really annoyed right now. He wants me to move back in this weekend. I told him there’s still four more weeks before the semester starts, but he said he would take my car away if I don’t go back to working at the main office, where he can keep an eye on me. He’s tired of me leaving work early.”

  “And your response was to leave work early?”

  She turns to me and I can see by the apologetic look in her eyes that she agreed to her father’s demands. “I’m so sorry, Claire, but I need my car.”

  I nod and manage a weak smile. “It’s no big deal. I can find another roommate. And, hey, Linda might actually give me more hours if I ask Adam to go on a date with her.”

  “God, I feel like such a dirt-bag leaving you hanging like this. I really wanted to spend the rest of the summer here.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” I say, grabbing her hand. “I’ll be fine. And you and Eddie are welcome to hang out or sleepover whenever you want.”

  She stares at me for a moment and I can see the wheels turning in her head. “You should move in with—”

  “Don’t say it!”

  “Whatever. Are you two still going surfing today?”

  “Yeah, unless you want to do something. I feel like I should be spending the rest of this week with you.”

  “Oh, please. You act like I’m dying in four days.”