Empty Net (9 page)

Not good, not good, not good
.

“You look amazing, A, so fucking amazing,” Levi whispered against her cheek.

Levi’s hard hot body pressed against her. The hair along his jaw tickled her cheek while his spicy cologne played tricks with her mind. God, he smelled good, but she knew this was bad. She couldn’t let Levi get to her. He was going to hurt her and she knew it. But when he looked at her, his bright hazel eyes swirling with lust, she had a hard time remembering that he could break her into a billion pieces.

“I’ve missed you, Cupcake. Haven’t you missed me?” he whispered again.

Ah, his nickname for her. No matter what, he could have her withering with just that one sweet word. It was as if the word caressed her, making her feel like she wanted to drown in his
love and worry about the hurt later. Right now he wanted her, and maybe later he would too, and she was living for right now and wanted him too.

“I have,” she whispered back as his lips dusted her cheek.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Audrey shook her head. “I can’t leave my date.”

She was drunk, but even she knew that she couldn’t leave Aiden without dancing with him. When she glanced toward the dance floor and saw that he was busy getting down with Jakob Titov’s little girl, Allison, she smiled. Guess Aiden wasn’t too worried about his old aunt; he had his eyes set on sweet Allison. She looked just like her father, beautiful brown eyes and long, straight brown hair. She was beautiful, and together. Aiden and Allison were so cute!

When Levi pressed his body against her, she took in a deep breath, her body humming for his.

“I think your date is busy,” he said. “Now come on, let’s go. I want you naked, now.”

Audrey arched her back, further pressing herself against him. She knew this was wrong, but she was horny and drunk. Plus, part of her hoped that he was for real and wanted her back. Part of her knew that wasn’t true, but the hopeless romantic in her prayed it was.

“Well, when you put it like that, how can I say no?”

But even as she said it, she knew she was making another mistake.

“Shit.”

Audrey rolled over, stretching her arms above her head. With a satisfied grin, she opened her eyes to see Levi putting on his shirt from the night before. She only caught a glimpse of his tight abs before they were quickly covered by the shirt. Memories of running her tongue and mouth along those abs hit her hard, and she was soon ready to go again. Before she could suggest that he join her back in bed, Levi reached down to pick up his shoes. Audrey sat up, covering her chest with her blanket as she glanced at the clock, seeing that it was five in the morning. What the hell was he doing?

Surely he wasn’t leaving after last night. They had made sweet burning love, he whispered how much he’d missed her and how he was never going to leave. He told her everything she had wanted to hear, playing with her heartstrings. So why was he in a rush to leave?

“What are you doing?” she finally asked.

Levi glanced up, then back down at the white shirt he was buttoning. “Janet has called like ten times, I think she knows I went home with someone, which sucks ’cause now I’m going to have to listen to her bitch all day.”

Whoa, say what?

“Excuse me?” she croaked out as her pulse kicked up a notch.

Levi glanced over, and when his eyes met hers, a condescending smile crossed his gorgeous mouth. “Oh come on, A, you really didn’t think this was a start to something again, did
you?”

The air rushed out of her as Levi shook his head and started moving around the room. Audrey got out of bed, grabbed her dress from the night before, and slid it on. Her hands shook uncontrollably as she zipped up, turning to face Levi. Her heart was beating so hard that it felt like her chest was vibrating. She didn’t want to fight with him, she wanted to go back to bed and cuddle. But he had taken that fantasy away from her. He was still with someone.

She took in a shuddering breath before saying, “You slept with me, and you’re still with someone?”

Levi rolled his eyes as he tucked his keys into his pocket. “Yeah, so?”

“Oh my God,” she said, her hands coming up to her stomach. She felt like she was going to puke. What the fuck was wrong with her? “You said you missed me!”

“I do. I miss fucking you, but I don’t want you.”

“You asshole!” Audrey screamed, her heart breaking all over again.

“You’re killing me here, A. When are you ever going to figure it out? I don’t want to be with you.” He reached the door, turned, and pinned her with a distant look. “I just want to fuck you. See ya around, Cupcake.”

Audrey took in shuddering breaths as she listened to him run down the stairs. When she heard the front door slam, she fell to the floor, holding her knees close to her chest.

I just want to fuck you
.

How many times had she heard that? How could she have let this happen? Why did she always do this to herself? Why couldn’t she see through his lies? As the questions swam in her head, she sat staring at the dark mole on her knee. Slowly, her vision clouded with tears, and when they started to fall, she popped up and ran to the bathroom. She didn’t want to feel the tears
rolling down her cheeks, it would make everything worse.

Still wearing the beautiful dress her sister had picked out, Audrey jumped in the shower. She turned the water on the hottest setting, filling the bathroom with steam. The dress started to hurt against her skin and she began tearing it off, destroying it. She didn’t know whether the pain coursing across her skin was from the water or from Levi.

She felt dirty, disgusting.

Grabbing her loofah, she started to scrub her body, crying as the roughness and the hot water burned her skin. She welcomed the pain, though. With every swipe of the loofah, she felt less dirty. She needed to get the smell of Levi off her! She couldn’t take it. Never had she felt so cheap. Only Levi could do this to her, and it happened every time.

When she finally felt clean, she dropped to her bottom, pulling her knees up under her chin as sobs ripped out of her. She had never felt like such a failure, such loss, so worthless, other than when she’d had the abortion years ago. She had always thought highly of herself, believed that one day everything would work out. But now she didn’t feel like things were ever going to get better.

As Audrey rocked back and forth, her body becoming numb, she still couldn’t figure out what she had done wrong. Part of her knew she never would. Her heart needed to accept it and move on, but it was hard. And at that moment, crying at the bottom of her bathtub seemed like the best thing she could do. All she needed was for her neighbor to start playing his piano and everything would be better. When she remembered that her neighbor was Tate Odder, a new round of tears rushed along her cheeks. She had fucked that up too.

God, she was such a whiner.

She stayed in the bath until the water ran cold. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she
turned the water off and climbed out, wrapping a towel around her splotchy red body. She felt better. A good cry and hot shower usually helped her cope with the pain. Her head still wasn’t right, but then she probably never would be. Not until she learned that she wasn’t the one who messed up, it was actually the idiots she continued to date.

As she made her way back into her bedroom, she wrapped her hair in a towel. It was early but she needed to get up and get going. Nora, her mother, would be coming by that afternoon with Aiden. He was staying with her for the week, while Fallon and Lucas were in Goa. Even in her state of depression, Audrey was excited. They had a lot planned, and being with Aiden would take her mind off the dickhead.

She pulled shorts, a tee, and underwear out of the dresser, throwing them over her shoulder and onto the bed. When she turned around, stray pillows lay on the floor along with her panties and bra from the night before. She stared at the bed that she and Levi had had sex in, the sheets tousled. Her eyes filled with tears as her heart beat in overdrive.

She reached for her underwear and went through the motions of putting on her clothes as her body started to shake. Then, without thinking, she ripped the sheets off the bed and threw them out the open door into the hall. One by one the pillows joined them before she bolted into the hall, picked up everything, and ran down the stairs. It surprised her that she didn’t fall on her face. The next thing she knew, she was throwing the sheets and pillows out on the front lawn.

Running back upstairs, Audrey pulled the mattress off the bed frame with so much aggression that the towel around her hair fell off. She managed to get the king-size mattress downstairs, knocking picture frames off the walls and twisting her ankle. She pulled the mattress through her living room, knocking over a bookcase and two end tables before getting it out the door. After laying the mattress on top of the other things she’d thrown out, she clapped her hands
and ran back inside to grab anything else that might remind her of Levi.

One by one picture frames flew out the door, hitting the mattress with so much force that they bounced off and broke.

It was so invigorating!

She found anything and everything that reminded her of him. All their favorite shows, DVDs, snacks from the kitchen, their favorite blanket. It all had to go! She stood in front of her pile of Levi, breathing hard, as she thought about anything else that could be in the house. Remembering the old Xbox that sat in the closet, she ran inside, grabbed it, came back out, and threw it on the pile too. Still breathing hard, her body covered in sweat, she ran her hand through her wet hair as tears welled up in her eyes.

Stupid asshole.

There was only one more thing to grab, but she knew it was going to take a minute, so she took a second to catch her breath as she silently said good-bye to their things. Even though she wanted to kill him, it still hurt to look at them. To know he was gone for good. After she calmed down, she turned to go back inside. At the top step of the porch she was surprised to see Tate sitting in a lawn chair, drinking coffee, and she let out a loud scream. Tate let out his own girlie scream before falling out of his lawn chair, coffee flying in the air, landing at her bare feet. When it didn’t burn her, Audrey realized it wasn’t coffee but chocolate milk.

“What the hell!” he yelled, jumping up.

“You scared me!”

“How? I’m just sitting here. You are the one throwing stuff and screaming out obscenities!”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“What? I am sitting here, enjoying my milk and watching the show! What did you want me to do, say, ‘Hey Audrey, I am watching you freak out and declutter your house, do you need help?’ ”

She narrowed her eyes, but then it was like a lightbulb went on. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I need help! Come on,” she said, walking back inside. She went to one end of the couch and looked up to see Tate standing in the doorway. “Grab the other end,” she told him.

“Huh?”

“Help me,” she knocked her body into the end of the sofa, “get this sofa out.”

“Really?”

“Yes! Or I’m gonna do it myself!”

Tate shrugged his shoulders before he bent down and took the other end. They carried it downstairs to the pile that lay on the lawn. Audrey threw down her end, and without much choice, he threw down his. She ran inside, retrieved matches and the lighter fluid from the grill, and reemerged. She started to drench the pile then, making sure it was good and wet, struck a match, tossed it on the pile, and watched it become engulfed in flames.

It was beautiful, seeing Levi’s things burn. She hadn’t realized that doing this would be better than sitting on the bathroom floor bawling her eyes out. As the fire burned, she felt Tate take a step closer to her and she remembered he was there.

“Please don’t tell Lucas or Fallon,” she whispered as her couch—the same couch she had made beautiful sweet love to Levi on—burned.

“I won’t,” he said softly. “Can I ask why?”

“Because they will think I’m psychotic.”

“No they won’t. It’s not like you’re rocking back and forth on the floor, crying. That’s when you have hit rock bottom.”

Audrey looked up into Tate’s soft eyes. “I did that before I started the fire.”

Tate seemed to cringe as he looked away. She studied his profile, the light from the fire bringing out the stubble that lined his jaw. When he turned back to look at her, he smiled. “Come here,” he said, then took her hand in his, bringing her close to him before wrapping his arms tightly around her. She went willingly, needing a hug at that moment. As tears rolled down her cheeks, she took a shaky breath as the two of them watched the fire burn.

“Are you allowed to burn things on your front lawn?” Tate asked.

Audrey shrugged. “I don’t care.”

They stood there wrapped in each other’s arms for a long time. Audrey’s body was in overdrive, from waking up to Levi’s leaving, from de-Levi-ing her house, and now from being in someone else’s arms, which tightened around her body. Tate rested his head on top of hers. She knew he didn’t want anything from her, which put her at ease. He just wanted to hold her because she was hurting, and that alone was refreshing. She was tired of people always wanting things from her. For once it seemed that someone was being nice to her because they cared and were worried about her.

Tate made her feel like that.

Just like her things, Audrey’s body also was on fire. She wanted Tate. She wanted to stay in his arms forever. She missed him more than she had ever missed Levi, even though she had no clue who he was. She didn’t care, though. He seemed like a good person. Young, but solid, steady.

Not that she was thinking about any more than the present. She knew she couldn’t think
seriously about being with anyone right now, after everything with Levi. And also because Tate probably thought she was a psychotic slut. She hadn’t started out on a good foot with him, so her hormones would need to slow down. She really needed to get it together.

When a fire truck, a fire marshal, and four cop cars pulled up, Tate’s body shook with laughter.