The Debt (16 page)

“About last night...”

I exhaled. Mission aborted.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. That’s not what I mean. Just...are you okay? Is that what it’s like every time?”

“Just about. Except I do it alone and sometimes I throw up before I can breathe again.”

“Was it...”

The stops and starts were getting on my nerves.

“Don’t be shy or embarrassed or whatever the fuck else. Just ask. I’ll tell you the truth.”

“Did I make it worse? By asking you to stay, not letting you handle it your way?”

“No.” I pulled her lips to mine and brushed her hair back from her face. “No. Making love to you was the highlight of my fucking year. I’d like to do it again. Often. Now would be good. I can’t promise you it is going to get better anytime soon. The panic attacks, not the sex. I mean, I guess that could get better. I thought it was awesome. You tell me what you want—”

She put her fingers over my lips and smiled. “Awesome covers it. By the way, you’re a lot bigger than I remembered.”

I squeezed a handful of her ass. “You brilliant girl. Now just tell me you didn’t think it would fit and I can die a happy man.”

“Nah.” She pecked my lips and wiggled her hips on top of me. “I’ll save that one for our first fight.”

“First?”

She rolled her eyes. “First where makeup sex is an option.”

“I think the first time was makeup sex. You did call me stupidhead, if I remember correctly.”

“Huh.” Hadley kissed along my jaw.

I turned toward her, taking her mouth as she mumbled through my efforts.

“I guess you’re right. I’m pretty sure I forgave you, Punkyfucker, so I guess it worked.”

“No, no,” I protested against her lips. “You kneed me in the balls. That warranted reparations.”

I slid my tongue along hers, my left arm holding her waist. And just like that, we were cracking jokes about the night that had ruined our lives for five years. Shit. I never imagined a day when such a thing could be possible. Then again, with Hadley naked in my arms, nothing else seemed important or so scary.

“Wait a minute.” I pulled back. “You called me Punkyfucker.” I laughed when it sank in.

“Sure did.”

“I think I like it. I’m keeping it. Maybe I’ll get that tattooed on my dick.”

“The hell you will.” Hadley tugged on one nipple ring.

I went still. That could go very right or very wrong real quick.

“No names. It’s bad luck. You know that.”

“Too late.”

“What? You didn’t. Where?”

She sat back, scanning my torso and arms. I raised my left arm. Hidden in the trash polka illustration she’d designed, Bear had inked her signature that he’d copied from a photograph.

“Josh.” She ran her fingers over the image. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You’ve always had my heart.”

She looked up, biting her lip and failing to hide her sweet smirk. “That’s the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”

“That? That’s what you tell me when I profess my undying love for you? Fuck, Punky. You’re killing me.”

She laughed, grabbing two fistfuls of my hair and shaking my head. “I love you, dummy.”

Our phones rang. We’d been content to stay in bed and put off the inevitable. The inevitable, however, caught up with us all at once. Resigned, Hadley and I turned to opposite sides of the bed and reached for the phones.

“Morning, Dad.”

“Hey, Tom.”

Hadley moved to get out of bed. I halted her, grabbing her chin to kiss her. She smiled, rolling her eyes to something Tom said, and then shimmied out from under the covers. I was distracted by watching her bare ass saunter out of my room.

“Josh?”

“Hmm?”

I rolled to my back, propping my injured hand above my head on the pillow. It was already starting to itch like a motherfucker.

“I just spoke with Tom,” my father answered in that dry, reserved tone that I knew so well.

“Figured.” Their tactic now was to divide and conquer.

“You sound tired. Did I wake you?”

“Not really.” I decided to ease us into the topic with something more pleasant to start. “We were just getting out of bed.”

There was a loaded pause. “I see. Well, I take it the two of you had a constructive conversation.”

“Quite,” I answered with a smirk.

“Good.”

“My hand’s in a cast.” I brought it down, again scanning Punky’s work. It was even better in the daylight. “Boxer’s fracture. Fourth and fifth transverse necks of the metacarpal bones.”

“The dean gave me a summary of the incident.” Another uncomfortable pause. “You fractured Gregor’s jaw.”

“I had to leave, Dad. It would have been a lot worse if I’d stuck around.”

“I understand.”

Another uncomfortable span of silence ensued.

“I’m fine. Got it out of my system. Now I just need to know how much trouble I’m facing. Should I turn myself in?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I will contact our lawyers and they’ll follow up. Tell me what happened.”

I figured I had better get used to repeating the story. I did so, filling my dad in on the events of the previous evening.

“He touched you.” Simon’s voice was calm—that violent calm that concealed surging rage.

Yes, he understood.

“This will go away,” he said in a clipped tone. “It happened on campus and quite publicly; there’s nothing to be done about that. You’ll get a slap on the wrist because the university has to act. But don’t worry about this, son. That man wouldn’t dare face us in a courtroom. Just do me a favor and keep your nose clean for a while.”

“I can do that.” I was relieved, sure. More than that, I was just so fucking grateful that Simon was my father. “Thank you.”

“I’ll have an attorney contact you Monday morning.”

“Dad?”

“And I’m going to find out why Alexei was invited to campus in the first place. You should have told me. You shouldn’t have had—”

“Simon,” I interjected again.

He paused.

“I love you. I’m okay. Hadley took good care of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. I would have told you, but it just slipped my mind the last time we talked.” For obvious reasons. “He’ll be sucking his meals through a straw for the foreseeable future. That makes me feel pretty fucking great.”

“I love you, son. And, in this particular case, I’m proud of you.”

What he meant was,
I don’t condone violence, but I would have liked to run the bastard over with my car.

“Thanks.”

“Damn it, man. What the hell?” Trey took note of my cast and then leveled an exasperated look my way when I walked into the greenroom at the Nest thirty minutes before our set.

I put my guitar cases in the corner at the end of the couch, then took a seat on top of the counter that stretched along the far wall.

“What, you didn’t hear?” Corey pulled out his phone. He swiped his fingers across the screen, taking a seat on the couch next to Trey. “Shit hit Facebook quick.”

I had a pretty good idea what was in the video, confirmed by the accompanying background audio.

“That was a hell of a shot, dude. Wait, wait.” Excited, Corey tapped the screen a couple times. “This is my favorite part. Right...here.”

He stood and brought the phone over. The video was paused at the point of impact, showing Gregor’s crumpled skin around my fist.

“That’s one for the highlight reel,” he said.

“Don’t encourage him,” Trey said. “Can you even play?”

“I’m good. I spent a few hours practicing in the garage this afternoon. I’m also a little hopped up on painkillers the ER doctor prescribed.”

“Who was that guy?”

“Someone I never thought I’d see again. He deserved it.”

We spent the next several minutes working out our set list, Trey and I tuning our instruments and getting into show mode. I had to take a piss before the show but found the toilet in the greenroom busted.

Fighting my way through the throbbing crowd, I headed to the restrooms. The mass seemed to inhale and exhale as one being, pulsing forward and back in waves. A cycle that churned people toward the bar counter and spit them back out.

In the hallway, a hand wrapped around my forearm and spun me around.

“There you are.” Kate all dolled up in her tempting best.

I tugged my arm free. “I wasn’t hiding.”

“No, you weren’t.” She glanced over her shoulder, though we were obstructed from the crowd. “You and your roommate?”

“That’s right.”

“Won’t that get messy?” She pressed her back against the wall, a flirtatious smirk on her glossy lips.

“Things are different now. I’m done with the hookups.”

“Really?” She eyed me like a predator who found amusement in my discomfort. “I find that hard to believe.”

“I couldn’t give a shit. We fucked, Kate. Don’t confuse that for knowing anything about me.”

“I know you enough.”

I turned to walk away, but she grabbed me by the waistband and pulled me back.

“Don’t,” I warned her.

“We’re the same, Josh. That’s why we have fun together. You’re going to get tired of playing house with her.”

“You’re not the end all, be all of fucks. Get over it. I love her. Period.”

“You can tell yourself that, but we both know you bore easy.”

“Maybe we’ve been fucking the wrong people.”

“Were you bothered by that?” Not-Doctor Reid sat in a black office chair that looked more fashion-forward than comfortable.

I’d had it with the stiff upholstered chair and now made my home on the small sofa. I wondered if that was the plot. Adorn the room with lumbar-killing chairs and eventually the reluctant client would be forced to submit to the cliché of the couch. Fuck that. I’d stand for the hour-long sessions before lying down.

“Which part?” My eyes drifted from my notebook to my cast, perusing the details of Hadley’s painting.

“Kate’s suggestion that you couldn’t have a fulfilling sexual relationship with Hadley.”

“No.”

I pulled a plastic knife from my pocket and shoved it inside the cast, attacking the infernal itch on the underside of my wrist that wouldn’t go away. There was something comedic or ironic about that, considering my surroundings, but I decided not to speak it aloud.

Not-Doctor Reid was silent too long. I glanced up, reading her patient expression, which called bullshit.

“Fine. Sure. Yes. It’s a crock of shit, so it doesn’t matter. We have great sex.”

“How would you describe your relationship with Kate to that point?”

“Nonexistent.”

“You carried on a sexual relationship,” she insisted.

“We fucked. That’s not a relationship. There was no relating. There was penetration and as few words as possible.”

“But she was the only one you had sex with multiple times, correct?”

“What’s your point?” I leaned back, rubbing my good hand through my hair. “Let’s clear something up: I hate these leading questions when it feels like you have a particular answer you’re trying to pull out of me. Just ask the question outright. We’ll get along a lot better that way and our time will be far more productive.”

“Okay, Josh. Why, if there was nothing special about Kate, was she the only one you fucked repeatedly?”

“Because she was zero maintenance. No hassles.”

“And not because she fulfilled some specific need?”

Sitting forward, I leveled my eyes with the short, curvy woman. Reid had explained during our getting-to-know-you period that her area of study was modern sexuality; curious, considering that it was my anger issues that had landed me here. Thus far, our sessions had concentrated more on my exploits between the sheets than the many misdeeds of my fists.

“What do I need? The vast majority of my orgasms have resulted from the stimulation of my own hand, the exceptions being Hadley. Even a warm body isn’t a need. So, to answer your question: No, Kate did not fulfill a particular need for me that could not have been satisfied by anyone else.”

“Then why do it at all?” Reid set her iPad aside, signaling we weren’t close to a conclusion on this topic. “Was it only to appease your partner?”

“You overestimate my desire to please them. For that matter, you overestimate to what extent I gave a fuck. They were a means to an end.”

“You cared enough to bring them to climax.”

There was no smart answer for that. “I wanted to be good at it. That’s entirely selfish and vain.”

“Was it enjoyable? Fun?”

“Sex isn’t fun.”

“Not even with Hadley?”

“No. Making love to her is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t call it fun. Foreplay is fun. Flirting is fun. Teasing and getting her worked up—those moments fall into the fun category.”

“Then I return to my previous question: Why do it at all?”

Enduring childhood in a series of overstuffed foster homes taught me something about the nature of want versus need. We fought for toys, we fought for beds, we fought for food, and we fought for enough personal space to breathe. At five years old, the requirement wasn’t much, and yet we still struggled to claim it.

After my first sexual experience with Hadley, I was terrified of sex. For a brief time, I thought maybe I would never have it again. In theory, I wanted to be balls deep in a girl. That fantasy centered around Hadley most often. The reality was far less appealing.

Imagine being a male in his late teens to early twenties. While the hormones went on about their business without any care for emotional sensitivity, I was this paralyzed person unable to act on the most natural instinct. My friends were getting laid. The girl I loved had scratched the itch. I shot loads of frustrated desire down the shower drain. All the while, I was a closeted freak walking among the normals and doing my best to hide the scar I carried.

Along the way, the want for theoretical sex turned into a need to break down the barrier of fear. I wanted to get past the psychological hurdle because I needed to feel whole again. I fucking required proof that I held absolute command over my body. I did it because I had to. I thought, maybe, I could fix myself.

“Kate is an emotional cripple. I had no responsibilities to her. She used me, and I used her because I couldn’t hurt her.”