Truly Madly Deeply: Chapter 35

“What’s Up?”—4 Non Blondes

I discarded my backpack on the ground, rushing toward the swings. I grabbed the frosty chains and planted one foot over the rubber seat, hoisting myself up, finding my balance, then started rocking my body, creating momentum. “Now all that’s missing is a stolen bottle of your dad’s Tito’s!” I howled into the night, a cloud of condensation rolling through my lips.

Row sighed like a wary parent, producing a bottle of vodka from his messenger bag and raising it between us. I wasn’t sure whether he’d planned this or if it was just another item to add to my evidence file that he was an alcoholic. First, shaking hands, now this.

“Ambrose Rhett Casablancas!” I shrieked, beaming in delight. “You knew our darkest secret?”

“That was a secret?” He scowled. “I’ve met thongs more discreet than you two.”

Row trudged toward me, holding the vodka bottle by its neck. He perched on the swing next to mine and cracked the bottle open, taking a swig and passing it to me. I sat down and took a gulp, kicking my feet to sway back and forth.

I squinted at the mountains draped by the night. Suddenly, I had the distinct feeling I was in exactly the right place, at the right time, with the right person. A tiny part of a trillion-piece puzzle that neatly fit into this universe.

“So.” Row received the bottle from me, unscrewed the vodka cap, sipped, then handed it back to me. “Start from the beginning. What happened that made you stop running and swear off humans?” He swished the clear liquid in his mouth. “Who did this to you?”

“Sure you want to find out?”

“How else would I know who to kill?”

His face told me he wasn’t kidding.

My heart told me he was a safe person to open up to.

“I was bullied at school.” The words rolled off my tongue without prior consent from my brain. Like Row’s heartbeat next to mine was enough to squeeze the truth out of me. “Actually, it started in preschool. That’s when kids realized not only was I an odd bird but I also came from an eccentric nest. My parents would send me out with socked feet and sandals in the summers. I looked ridiculous, and ridiculous makes five-year-olds laugh.” It was silly for my throat to clog up about something that had happened almost two decades ago. “But what my peers found amusing in kindergarten, they found worthy of antagonizing me in elementary school. I dressed odd, I spoke odd, I lived odd. I had my eye tic every time I was nervous, which made me shy away from all the plays, parties, and major school events. To rub salt on a corroding wound, my parents were thrifty, so instead of eating at the school cafeteria, they sent me with cold meat sandwiches. They’d buy liver sausages and pork tongue at a deli and tuck them in my sandwiches. My lunches smelled from miles away and I’d be teased for it mercilessly.”

“Why didn’t you tell your folks sandals and socks don’t go together? That you prefer jelly and sunflower butter on your sandwich?” Row’s thick eyebrows slammed together angrily.

I pressed my lips together. “Because what people saw as quirks were actually my parents’ upbringing. They grew up in Russia. It was the makeup of their DNA. The way they’d been brought up. I didn’t want them to think they weren’t doing a good job or that I was ashamed of what we are, of who we are…” My nose stung, and I held back tears. It was all so silly. Water under the bridge. Then, why did thinking about it make me feel like I was drowning? “I think…I think being an immigrant can go two different ways. You either preserve, or you hide. My parents chose to wear their heritage like a badge of honor, and so, their legacy became mine. Every day I was taunted, I kept reminding myself of how lucky I was. I had two languages. Two cultures. Two worlds to enjoy. I could read Tolstoy in his native tongue. How lucky was I?”

Row’s sunset eyes were glowing embers in the dark. He stared at me wordlessly, and in that moment, it did feel like I was unloading my baggage onto his broad shoulders. “You chose to get hurt so your parents wouldn’t. I get it.”

The bullies were gone now, but the scars they’d left lingered. “Anyway,” I sniffed. “Kids didn’t like me. Other than Dylan.”

Dylan had had total main character energy from the get-go. She had been there to shoo the bullies away. To snitch on those who’d pulled the chair from under my butt. She had chosen to sit with me at lunch unfailingly, and one day was even brave enough to try my tea sandwich with the liver, even though it had smelled like a whey protein fart. She stood up for what she believed in, and she believed in kindness.

Row nodded in my periphery. “How many people are we talking about?”

“Like, sixty percent of my grade?” I let out a snort. “It made it worse that I didn’t want to fit in. I didn’t try to dress, look, and talk like everyone else. I had the audacity to like my baked milk cookies and pork stew lard and Hypnotic Poison.” I still wore the latter as a perfume.

“People always tell you to be your true self, but when you’re unapologetically you, it pisses them off,” Row grumbled.

“It’s the chicken-and-the-egg situation,” I sighed. “I’m not sure what came first—me having social anxiety and being bullied for it, or being bullied to the point I developed a fear of interacting with humans.”

“You don’t fear interacting with humans. You interact with them all the time—you moved to New York, got a degree, work in hospitality. It’s the fact you don’t bend to boring social norms that makes you stand out.” Row elevated an eyebrow. “I’m here to tell you, don’t ever change.”

“Why?”

“Because your quirkiness is one of your best fucking features.”

A delicious sensation of pride and warmth washed over my entire body.

He rubbed his palms over his legs to gather heat. “Anyway, back to your story.”

“In high school, the bullying got worse. Before, I was weird but meaningless enough not to warrant any special attention. But now, I’d started taking up space. Boys began noticing me. I joined the track team. I was an award-winning mathlete. A lot of people decided to overlook my weirdness and befriend me. They all wanted something from me, but I was so hungry for positive attention, I was happy to give it to them. That’s when the lying began. When I realized I could mold myself to be whatever people wanted me to be, and that made them stay, at least for a while. For the first time in my life, I actually had friends who weren’t Dylan. My stock went up, and that’s when shit went down.”

“They were jealous.” His eyes darkened to two black holes, threatening to suck me in whole, and his mouth latched on to the vodka bottle angrily.

“Jealous?” I kicked the ground, throwing my body backward on the swing. “Doubt it. I don’t think those girls wanted to swap places with me. They just didn’t like me in their sphere. The track team was the worst.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I was really good. Competed over first place in my freshman year with this girl who was desperate to get a scholarship through track. She was a senior, and neck and neck with me. She always had a nasty remark at hand when I passed her. I called her Queen Bitch.” In my head, anyway. I was incapable of being rude, even to the most awful people.

Row passed me the vodka. When I grabbed it, it seemed much lighter. We were both whimsically drunk. In that existential spot where the world made more sense because you’d stepped out of your point of view for a minute.

The clear liquid scorched a path down my throat. Finally, I got to the part I’d never shared with anyone. The part that had carved me into who I was today with a rusty Swiss knife. A girl who’d sworn off men forever. “Worse than potentially taking the first spot from Queen Bitch as the fastest female runner at school, she found out one day that the boy she liked, Franco, was my secret boyfriend. He was eighteen. I was fourteen. We did…stuff.” Almost went all the way. Stupidest thing I’d ever done to be liked. “It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. I still did it. He was the captain of the hockey team. Made me feel seen. Grown-up and beautiful. He said we were his favorite secret. I agreed to lie for him, not even telling Dylan about us.”

Franco had been using my body and my pariah status to get his rocks off. I’d always known that in the back of my head. But fourteen-year-old me had been desperate to make a friend in the popular hockey hero.

Row hummed with hot, furious energy. I could practically feel his fury trickling into my system, hiking up the temperature in the park by ten degrees. He glided his tongue along his upper teeth, stifling a curse. “Continue.”

“It all came to a head when Queen Bitch caught us in the locker room…well, me, giving Franco…uhm.” Head. I couldn’t say it. But I didn’t have to. Row’s nostrils flared and he closed his eyes, bracing himself for the knockout confession. “Franco could’ve gotten in insane trouble for messing around with me, but he thought himself so untouchable, it didn’t even cross his mind.” My heart was about to spill out of my chest like a broken egg, I felt so raw talking about it.

“You were abused.” Row’s lips curled over one another like burned paper. “You should’ve never gone through this alone.”

“When she caught us, Franco just…laughed. I wasn’t sure how I was expecting him to react, but I knew it wasn’t that. He told her I was a groupie, a stupid little whore. He pushed me off him so carelessly, and when I hit the back of my head on the grimy floor, he let out a snort. She tried to laugh it off too, I think. To show that she didn’t care. But I think it was just too much for her. I was the weirdo freshman. I wasn’t supposed to take her scholarship and the guy. I don’t even know why she wanted the scholarship so bad. It’s not like she didn’t have money. So during one of our morning five-mile rounds around the woods, she went after me.” An icy shiver licked over my skin. “Along with everyone else on the team. They all looked up to her. Bigwig dad, money, looks, reputation. Everyone on the team wanted to please her.”

“What was her name?” His voice was low, husky, deadly.

But I was in a trance, transported back into the moment. “What started as a routine practice ended up as a bloodthirsty chase. They’d had enough. I was drawing too much attention, making too much noise. Coach wasn’t there that morning. It was just us girls. Queen Bitch, the ringleader, said, ‘Time’s up, Litvin. You didn’t really think you were going to get away with it, right? Being normal and popular and shit.’”

I still remembered every word like it was yesterday because each had left a scar on my heart.

“The woods stretch out for hundreds of acres from either side of this town.” I kept my eyes on the ink-black sky, avoiding his pitying look. “I knew I stood no chance against all of them. It was just me and them and their hate.”

Row’s fingers were screwed tightly into his eyes. “Dot…” His voice was gruff. “That time you broke your ankle…you didn’t fall, did you?”

Everyone had thought my injury was a freak accident. After all, I was a klutz. I closed my eyes. “They chased me.”

“Let’s see how fast you run now, you little shit.”

“Said they’d skin me alive when they got to me. It took them twenty minutes to catch me.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Turns out I really was the fastest. But then my teammates were everywhere. Snaking between trees, lurking behind bushes. Queen Bitch was the one who ended up snatching the hem of my hoodie. ‘Well, well. If it isn’t Franco’s little hussy girlfriend. You know he only dates you because you’re a Russian whore, right?’ She dragged me by my feet toward the river. I kicked and screamed, clawing at the wet ground. Two of my fingernails snapped out of my skin. I begged for help.”

“Aw, she’s a feisty one. Franco said your tics go crazy when you go down on him. Is that true?”

It was. And I had been nauseous with humiliation because he’d shared the most intimate, shameful part of me with my enemy.

“You know he told me he put pictures of you naked on porn sites? Your face is all over the internet with you cupping your tits. What kinda freshman whore even sends a senior naked pictures? Jesus.”

The revelation had poured hot, renewed rage into me. I’d managed to kick her in the face. She had stumbled back, bracketing her nose, blood gushing between her fingers.

“Catch her, Becky!” Queen Bitch had called out to Rebecca Stanton, who’d stood limply on a tree trunk, watching with horror.

“She’s so fast, though!” Rebecca had whined.

“Just do it!”

Disoriented, Rebecca had pounced on me. She’d grabbed my foot and tugged it sideways sharply. The cracking sound it had made bounced with an echo over the treetops. A shriek had pierced the air. The pain had been so sharp, I couldn’t breathe.

I sometimes wondered why I was so afraid of men when girls were the ones to physically abuse me. I once touched that subject with a therapist, though, and she said something that resonated with me. After the abuse, it was women who picked me up and saved me. It was Dylan. It was Mom. It was the therapist herself. They were my safe haven.

“Everybody freaked out.” I blinked furiously, my eyes matching the drum of my heart. “Queen Bitch said they should mercy-kill me, because my legs were my best asset, and now that I couldn’t open them to seniors or run, I was truly useless.”

“We could get away with it. No one will be looking for her for hours.”

“Queen Bitch decided burying me alive was the ultimate solution to her problems. At first, everyone was so shocked they just went along with it. The power of herd mentality, I guess. They flung dirt on my face and body as I cried and screeched and begged her to rethink it. They knew I wouldn’t snitch on them. Knew I would never go against the powerful teammate who led this thing against me. Clout in small schools is everything.” My entire body rocked back and forth as I came face-to-face with the memory. “They were screaming and arguing by the time I couldn’t breathe. I had so much mud on me. I could barely hear them, their voices muffled. I don’t know who convinced them to stop or how, but they did. Queen Bitch wanted to kill me for real, but…the others were too scared, I guess. Two girls dug me out of the shallow grave and yanked me up. They ran away before I could ask for water, for help.” I tried to swallow the bitter lump in my throat. Failed. “I had to crawl my way back to town with a broken ankle.”

I let the vodka bottle slip from between my fingers. The liquid sloshed on the sand. The silence around us was a big, loud wall. I wanted to scream to penetrate it.

“The worst part”—I heard my voice floating between us, and I knew that my lips were moving but wasn’t sure what was going to come out of my mouth—“is that when I finally reached the edge of the woods, where the forest kissed the residential street, the thought crossed my mind to make a U-turn and die. I didn’t want to face my life post this incident. Post the attack. Post Franco.”

I had already made up my mind not to tell my parents what happened. It would have crushed them. I’d just had to keep on lying. Spinning the untruths like cotton candy over a stick. Fluffy, sugary, and inviting.

Franco hadn’t lied. He had put my pictures on some small porn sites. Probably to appease Queen Bitch and show her that I had meant nothing to him. I’d go on these sites years after the fact to punish myself for trusting. For believing a guy like Franco could love a girl like me. I felt violated. Ripped to shreds and robbed of my consent.

“And Franco?” There was a slight tremor in Row’s voice. A wave of queasiness washed through me.

“He visited me at the hospital, but only to tell me he was now dating Queen Bitch and not to interfere. He said he’d ruin my life if I said one word about what had happened. That he’d kill me with his own hands if I took away everything he built, because he’d have nothing to lose. I was fourteen and scared shitless. Crushed from the rejection, injury, and betrayal. Bottling up everything, feeding my parents lies so they wouldn’t be worried—lies like I had an accident, I fell, I was actually close with my teammates.

“It turned out not only were Franco and I nothing but that he actively hated me for ‘putting everyone in a bad spot.’” I air-quoted Franco. “He ended up dropping out of college a year or so later. In and out of jail for selling drugs. You know, I thought it’d make me feel better, how bad his life turned out to be. It didn’t, though. His misery didn’t erase mine. His failure didn’t diminish the fact that he took away from me the ability to trust a man. He made me see every strange man on the street as the enemy, as the villain.”

“He’s dead now,” Row said, his voice devoid of emotion. I wasn’t surprised or moved in any way. Didn’t feel anger, joy, or relief. “A mutual friend told me a few months ago. Overdose. Shame.”

“Shame?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I’d have loved to kill him myself.”

“That’s a nice sentiment, but I would never want you to screw your life over for someone so meaningless. Queen Bitch is still around.” I stared at my feet, flinging them in the air to keep me warm. “All the other girls are here too, as far as I know.”

“I need a name.” There was something in his tone this time that indicated he would shatter the earth to dust if I ignored him. “I need to know who did this to you.”

“Allison.” My eyes met his across the swings. “Queen Bitch is Allison Murray.”

Even though I’d kept my mouth shut about that day, my dislike for her had been public knowledge. Dylan had even made a voodoo doll of her for my entertainment for one of my birthdays. We’d never used pins on it, but I’d once given it a nasty haircut.

The silence engulfed us like thick smoke, trickling into our lungs, suffocating us. I couldn’t look at him, but from the corner of my eye, I saw the shift. Row was normally pure power. Greater than life and self-assured. Now, he fished his cigarette pack from his front pocket and flipped it open with his thumb, pulling a cigarette using his teeth and lighting it up. His hand tremored in the dark. “Fuck.”

He smoked half the cigarette in complete silence, staring into nothing and trying to calm himself down. Finally, he flicked the cigarette out to the sand.

“Dot, I—”

But I interrupted him, quickly wiping my tears away. “Whatever. You know what they say. What doesn’t kill you makes you acutely emotionally damaged to the point of having dysfunctional relationships with everyone around you. Thing is, no matter how much time passes, I will always be that girl who was running away from her problems, from her bullies. I will always live with the consequences of not telling on a bunch of people who wanted to kill me. They should’ve been punished.”

“They should’ve,” he agreed, bracing his elbows on his knees, drawing closer. “But that girl who ran away? She grew up to be a strong fucking woman with zero outside help. You shouldn’t be so hard on her. She did her best.”

I wished it were that simple.

I couldn’t bear how raw and self-conscious I felt, so I changed the subject quickly. “Tell me how you got to romancing my nemesis. Spare no detail. Unless she’s a better kisser than me. I really don’t want to know that.”

He snapped his mouth shut, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “She was a mistake.”

I snorted out a laugh. “Are you saying that because of what I told you right now?”

“I’m saying this because she was like putting a Band-Aid on a decapitated fucking head. I’m saying this because…because…” He spluttered, running his fingers through his moussed hair, looking adorably, uncharacteristically boyish. His edges smoothed and his claws withdrawn. “I didn’t even touch her, okay?”

“What?” I blinked, confused.

“I. Didn’t. Even. Touch. Her,” he said, slowly now, his eyes glittering in the dark, boring into mine. “We went on a few dates, mainly in hopes you’d find out and see that I’d moved on from your ass. I don’t remember where. I don’t remember what she wore. What we talked about. I only remember how she made me feel.”

“How?”

“Bored to fucking tears.”

“She wasn’t what you were looking for?” I licked my lips, feeling guilty about drawing so much pleasure from hearing this.

“She wasn’t you.”

My jaw fell open. “I… We…” I wasn’t completely unaware. I knew Row was attracted to me. That he wanted us to be something, at least for the duration of our time in Staindrop. “I hadn’t realized your feelings ran that deep.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not as good a liar as you. I can’t stop thinking about you, and it’s killing me. Killing me that I somehow ended up wanting the only woman I could not have. That someone came along and ruined you before I had the chance to even show you how great it could be. That this someone was fucking Franco. It’s killing me that I now need to spend the rest of my life trying not to kill Allison Murray, despite her being highly murderable. It’s killing me that we could’ve been there for each other, but we weren’t. That we could’ve healed each other, but instead, we just cracked deeper and harder. Most of all, it’s fucking killing me that I only feel alive when you’re around.”

This was his moment. His moment to kiss me. We were inches from one another. Drunk. Vulnerable. Sad. Full of so many emotions and cloaked by a silky sheet of starlit night.

But he didn’t kiss me. Instead, he pulled away, releasing his hold from the swing and ruffling the back of his hair, staring down at his feet.

“He noticed,” he croaked.

“Huh?” I sniffled, still stuck on the fact that he liked me.

“My dad. You were wrong. He noticed when you and Dylan stole his vodka.”

My stomach tightened. “How come he never said anything?”

Row licked his lips, squinting hard at the houses across the street, gracefully stacked together, like in Monopoly. “I took the fall.”

“Row, why—”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t tell me that! We could’ve apologi—”

“Wouldn’t have worked.”

“But wh—”

“Because.” The roar ripped from his mouth. “He would’ve hurt you, and I’d have killed him if he did that.”

Stunned, I watched as he yanked his phone out of his pocket, tapped the flashlight, and tossed it into my hands. He stood up from the swing and turned his back to me, slowly raising his shirt. I aimed the flashlight at his back.

My chest caved inward. Scars ran like a busy road map across his triangular back under the elaborate ink. Long, jagged, faded, roaring poems of pain. Some pink, some white. Some shallow, some deep. All told the story of unbearable pain, years of abuse, and unforgivable trauma.

My fingers quaked around his phone. Violent nausea washed through me.

His back was still to me when he spoke. “My father was a raging alcoholic. He drank himself to near-death at least twice a year. Whenever he wasn’t catching fish, he was getting hammered and causing all kinds of trouble. Most times he went fishing in the middle of the night, I lay in my bed praying the boat would flip over and he’d drown. Never come back. You didn’t know because Mom and I wheeled him away from view, tucking him in their bedroom whenever Dylan had company. We tried to make her life as normal as possible. Or at least not as screwed up as ours.”

It had worked. I’d had no idea. I mean, yeah, Mr. Casablancas hadn’t been the nicest person in the world…but I’d never thought he had an alcohol problem. I’d just thought he was naturally grumpy. Like Row.

“I wish you’d have told me.” I rose on unsteady legs. His back was still to me, and I had a feeling he preferred it this way. “Or Dylan. Someone. We wouldn’t have stolen his bottles. We thought no one noticed. I can’t believe I caused this.”

His shoulders trembled with bitter laughter, and he slid his Henley back down, spinning in my direction. Molten amber eyes met mine.

“You didn’t cause shit. You were just teenagers doing teenager stuff. He’d have found something else to get pissy about and hit me. I mostly managed to keep him away from Mom and Dylan—not always from Mom. She had to tolerate some abuse.”

“And Dylan?” My voice was brittle, crisp, a crunchy autumn leaf under a boot.

He shook his head. “I don’t think she knows. We did a great job, and he worked long hours, disappearing days at a time when he was in the midst of his binges.”

I thought back to the flippant comment Dylan had made about her father passing when she had come to Dad’s funeral and didn’t know if Row was right in his assessment. Knowing Dylan, she did know but figured Zeta and Row took comfort in her obliviousness.

Taking a step toward him, I said, “That’s why your mom flinched when Rhyland touched her.”

The column in his throat rolled. “He’d drag her around the house by the hair when Dylan was at school. Kick her ribs. One day he—” He stopped.

I put my hand on his chest. His heart was beating wildly. Our scents, heat, and breaths swirled together, and I felt closer to him than I’d ever been before. Even when we’d had sex. “You can tell me,” I whispered softly. “I want to be your safe space too.”

“One day, Dylan was sleeping over at your house. You stole his Tito’s. It was his last one, and he was too broke to buy another. I told him it was me. I was afraid he’d drive to your house and fight you for it or something. He’d cracked my rib only two weeks earlier. So this time, Mom tried to protect me. He hurled her against the stove while it was on. Gave her a second-degree burn. Her entire arm was pressed into it, the skin melted onto it.”

Was that why Zeta always wore long sleeves? Even in the summer?

“Then, when she was sobbing on the floor, clutching her arm, he took his dick out and pissed on her. ‘There, honey. That’ll put out the fire.’”

“Row.” My fingers curled around the fabric of his Henley, clutching him tight, breathing him in, putting him back together.

Row.

Row.

Row.

I’d always felt this kinship between us. Like our souls were a two-part friendship necklace. Now I knew why. Because we’d both tasted darkness. Looked evil in the eye and survived. We were always destined to connect. Mac and Bitchy. Row and Cal.

Row’s eyes dimmed. “When I saw him do this to her, something snapped in me. I couldn’t take it anymore, living in this never-ending nightmare, losing sleep over the idea he’d hurt Mom, or Dylan or…or you.” There was a tense pause. “I beat the shit out of him. So bad I punctured his lung and broke his jaw.” I could imagine the entire scene in my head. Row taking back his power, finally controlling the narrative. “Mom was hysterical. More about me landing in jail than anything else. The only reason I didn’t finish the job was because he wasn’t worth shitting all over my future.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. Your conscience wouldn’t have survived it. You are too good…incorruptible.” I shook my head, tears flying off my cheeks. “What happened next?”

“He came back home after a week and a half. No one went to visit him. We told Dylan he had a stroke and that he didn’t want her to see him like that. She never questioned it. I made it clear to him he wasn’t welcome in the house unless he sobered up. So…he did.”

“Just like that?” I squinted.

“No, I’m giving you the bullet-point version.” A rueful smile touched his lips. “There were tears, arguments, and meltdowns. Furniture and promises broken.” He scrubbed his jaw. “We couldn’t afford rehab, so I had to lock him in my room. He climbed the walls. He begged and bargained. Tried to assert power over us again. But in the end, I tired him out. He kicked the habit.”

A ragged breath passed between us. It felt like we were sharing oxygen. Row continued, “But it was no victory. There was no happy ending. The trust was gone. Mom was scared and resentful, and Doug became a shadow. Moving around, casting darkness everywhere he went.”

“How did he die?” I rasped.

“Liver failure. The damage was too much, even after he quit. Can’t say it was a sad day for me. I never forgave him.”

“Unpopular opinion…” I trailed a finger up his chest. “It’s okay not to forgive people who destroy our lives.”

Row clasped my hand over his heart. He leaned into my palm, and it felt like the universe was giving me the rarest gift, tying us together in a red satin bow. I wondered how drunk we were. If we were going to regret our confessions tomorrow morning. Or if it would finally break the corroded wall we’d built between us all those years ago.

“Opening Descartes was my fuck-you moment to him.” A broody chuckle escaped him, and he was especially gorgeous now, bare and vulnerable, swimming in the dusk like a mythical creature. “He’d always wanted to open a restaurant. It was his dream. He went to culinary school when he was young. Had to drop out when Mom got knocked up with me.” A sharp exhale. “I was a mistake, and Mom’s Catholic parents didn’t like out-of-wedlock mistakes. So, in a way, I stole his dream twice. Once when he quit school, and a second time when I got accepted to one.”

“You never asked to be conceived.” I rubbed the edge of his neck with my finger distractedly. His erection was pressed against my belly, but now wasn’t the time to concentrate on it.

“He wanted to show the world he was more than a blue-collar drunkard.” Row sucked in his teeth. “But the truth was…he wasn’t.”

“You opened an entire restaurant to spite a dead man.” I shook my head, chuckling at the madness of it all. “That is so…unlike you.”

“Why?” he asked.

“You normally don’t care.”

“Oh, I care.” He looked away, turning his head as if the truth had slapped him. “I care too fucking much, that’s the problem.”

A snowflake landed on my nose. Row scooped it with the pad of his thumb, slowly popping it into his mouth. I grinned.

“What?” His forehead creased. “I wanted to see why you always taste the weather.”

“Verdict?”

“Tasteless.”

Our mouths were less than an inch away. A rush of warmth and adrenaline coursed through my veins. My lips gravitated toward his. Row pulled away slightly. I groaned in frustration. He flattened his hand on my stomach, walking me backward, toward the swings. “Anyway. I learned from a very young age that hope was the cruelest form of punishment. You offer me hope, Cal. It’s a tempting deal, but I’d be a fool to take it, knowing who you are and who I am.”

He was still backing me toward the swings, while I watched his face, mesmerized. “Who am I?” I whispered.

“A person who can’t fall in love, doesn’t want to fall in love, and has deep trust issues with men. Flaky and unreliable.” He continued walking me backward, and I continued stumbling in his desired direction.

“And who are you?” I gulped.

“A man who can’t fucking resist you.” He dragged his fingers through his mane. “But I’ll be doing both of us a disservice if I don’t state this outright—I don’t care about the consequences. I want you. And what I want, I get.”

“Row, I…” But I didn’t really know what I wanted to say. That maybe I could fall in love? That I was afraid if we started something, I would be left destroyed?

He removed his hand from my tummy, plastering a finger over my mouth to shut me up. The backs of my thighs crashed against the swing’s seat.

“Don’t, Dot. Don’t try to convince me you’re unlikable. I want you. You’re funny, authentic, sassy, and have the best ass I’ve ever seen. And I’m not being hyperbolic.” Pause. “We’re going to have a brief, no-strings-attached hookup while we’re both in this shithole, and then we’re gonna go back to our respective lives. Whatever state I’ve gotten myself into after this thing is my business and my business alone. If I can’t have the heart, I’ll take the pussy.”

I could do this. I could do casual. With him, my body could open up. It was my heart I was worried about.

“We’re two passing ships.” He cupped my cheek.

His hand was warm and inviting, and I wanted to press into it, to get lost in him. Did he say this to assure me or himself?

“Now that we’ve established we’re both messed up,” he threaded his fingers in my hair, tugging it slowly to extend my neck and tilt my head up to meet his gaze. “How about we make tonight interesting?”

“Was this evening not eventful enough for you?” I spluttered.

He chuckled, rubbing the spot next to my bandaged forehead soothingly. “Remember you and Dylan had a game? You called it swingers.”

“Is that what we called it?” I snorted. “Clearly, we did not think it through.”

“You stood up on the swings and whoever fell first, lost.”

I remembered that. Amazingly, I should add, considering the amount of concussions I’d suffered as a result.

“What are we betting?” I probed, feeling beautiful and alluring and worthy under his gaze. Every girl needed a Row Casablancas to make her feel seen.

“If you fall first…” He bracketed his arms on either side of me, gripping the swing chains and trapping me in place, his vodka breath skating down my face.

“If I fall first?” I whispered, wondering if we were still talking about the swings.

“You let me kiss you.”

His words soaked into my skin. Goose bumps rolled over every inch of my flesh.

“And if I win,” I said slowly, watching him as his eyes traced my lips hungrily. “You make me and Mamushka a three-course picnic lunch. We’re going to spread Dad’s ashes and I want to make a day of it.”

“Done,” he said without missing a beat.

I pressed my finger to his chest. “And I would be the one in charge of the menu.”

“You’d choose cheese sticks and corn dogs.” He looked disgusted.

“Hey, I have a little more class than that.”

“Lies.” He studied me skeptically. “What are you thinking?”

“Pop-Tarts, curly fries, and soy burgers.”

“Soy?” He gagged, glancing around, making sure we didn’t have an audience. He lifted a finger between us. “Nobody, and I mean nobody, can know I made those…”

“Dishes?” I smiled brightly.

“Culinary crimes.”

“Shouldn’t have told me that. Now I’m fully prepared to blackmail you with this piece of information when the day comes.”

“It’s not gonna come, since you’re not gonna win.” He worked his jaw back and forth. “Fine. Deal.”

We were up on those swings in seconds. Me, standing straight and clutching the chains in a death grip, and him, crouching down so his head wouldn’t bump against the metal frame.

We ready, set, go-ed, then started swinging. I cheated a little, barely moving back and forth, then gained more speed and force when I realized Row was moving with so much momentum, the entire frame shook. He almost tipped me off with every move of his body.

“Can you tone it down?” I grumbled. “I might need more stitches after this game.”

“Here to win, not make friends.” He swung himself faster and harder.

Dread filtered into my system. I didn’t want him getting hurt. In fact, the idea of Row feeling any kind of pain made me want to scream. Especially after what he’d told me about Doug tonight. “Row. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Used to the pain.”

“Are you serious?”

He shrugged, swinging harder, looking like a boy determined to slay an imaginary dragon, the unoiled cylinders of the swing frame squeaking under our weight. “Why do you think I have so many tattoos? Pain is the only thing that reminds me that I’m alive.”

I want you to remember you’re alive for all the right reasons. Through smiling. And laughing. And kissing. Everywhere. Anywhere on your body.

Without thinking about what a colossal mistake I was making, I hurled myself off the swing, landing face-first on the cool, snow-sprinkled sand. My face was pressed against the ground. The cold felt good on my forehead wound.

I heard the rusty chains of Row’s swing screech, followed by the heavy thump of his body landing next to mine. “Shit, Dot. You okay?”

He rolled me over to my back and covered me with his entire body, lying flat on me, pressing himself against me. His bulging muscles warmed me, his erection nestled between my thighs. Desire shot up my belly like an arrow straight from my center, making my breasts swell, nipples stand on point, and mouth pool with saliva.

“Your heart.” I curled my fingers against his chest, in awe of how warm he was. “It’s going wild.”

His Adam’s apple moved with a swallow. He brushed a finger along a constellation of my freckles. “Yours too.”

“I lost the bet.” I gazed up at him. My lips stung with expectation. My heart was a hummingbird, flapping its wings against my rib cage, desperate to escape.

“I noticed.” His eyes dropped to my mouth. Silvery snowflakes fell from the sky, framing his gorgeous face. “On purpose.”

Gulping, I tried to change the subject. “Speaking of hearts, you know what I don’t get? How anyone ever thought ‘My Heart Will Go On’ is a fitting theme song for Titanic. I mean…how on the nose is that? After Jack literally saved Rose while slowly dying of hypothermia in front of her very eyes—and yes, there was enough space on that door for both of them—they have the audacity to use a song with lyrics that say she will go on, move on, to live her best, rich bitch lif—”

“Dot?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Make me.”

“Baby, thought you’d never ask.”

There was no hesitation in his next move. His lips came crashing down on mine hungrily, sucking my oxygen and ripping my mouth open savagely, his tongue claiming mine in a kiss that made me whimper. I became lightheaded as our tongues entwined. He cradled my head in his rough palms to keep me contained, but I still thrust and thrashed, catching his lips whenever he pulled away for breath, biting and groaning, begging for more. The bandage on my forehead rustled, unfurling between us as we devoured one another. The kiss was impatient, demanding, feral, like he was already rooted deep inside me. Like this was the main dish, and not an appetizer, not a checklist to move on to something else.

I scooped his lower lip between my teeth, sucking it into my mouth, tracing it with my tongue. I snaked my hand between us and shoved my palm into his pants and boxers, cupping his dick and squeezing hard. The fat tip of his cock dripped warm precum into my palm. He let out a hiss of pleasure, pressing into my hand, and liquid warmth spread inside my chest.

“Shit, fuck,” he hissed into my mouth. In a frenzy, I circled my fingers around his shaft from the base, my thumb struggling to meet my index he was so thick. The kiss became wetter, sloppier when I began pumping his dick, stroking while massaging his balls with my pinky each time I hit the root. A feral growl of pleasure left his mouth. He grabbed my ass with quivering fingers, grinding against my hand with punishing force, releasing one of my ass cheeks only to slip his hand under the layers of jackets and shirts I was wearing, finding my bra and twisting one of my nipples through it. A shot of pleasure arrowed through me, and I moaned loudly, my center exploding with heat.

My phone began ringing somewhere from the depths of my bag. I recognized the ringtone. “Friends” by BTS. Crap.

“Dylan…” I groaned into our kiss.

“Wrong sibling,” he grumbled huskily, sucking and licking, exploring my mouth like it was ancient ruins in Greece. He rubbed my nipple with his thumb, pinching and teasing it, making the rush of heat between my legs unbearable and uncomfortable. I needed release. “But fuck, you can call me Stalin and I’d still stay for the pussy right now.”

“No, Row, Dylan is going to kill us.” I flattened a hand on his chest, ripping my mouth from his as I tried to sober up. I jerked my hand from his crotch, blindly patting the snow for my bag as the ringtone kept on singing.

Row reluctantly unglued his mouth from mine, breathless and off-kilter. His hair was a delicious mess. I tugged the phone from my backpack, but he grabbed it before I could answer and tossed it a foot from us. “Remember I told you that she knows?”

“Hmm, did you, now?” I must’ve misheard him. A side effect of all my blood moving to my clit.

“Yes. All the blood must’ve rushed to your clit.” Row bracketed my ears with his elbows, thumbing away my flyaways, staring deep into my eyes.

“Told her what?”

“That I was going to fuck you in every position. On every surface in this town. In every hole in your fucking body.” He was dead serious, looking me straight in the eye. “She said she’s okay with it. Oh, and that you’re prone to ear infections.”

I was. And I appreciated the fact my best friend didn’t want me going deaf because of one horny, ill-advised decision.

“You told her you want to…screw me?” I blinked.

“No, Dot. I spared her every obscene thing I want to do to you. Like how I want to watch my cum dripping from between your lips. Fuck you against windows and doors and national goddamn symbols.” He was still staring, and our genitals were still pressed together, waiting for the okay to pounce on each other. “So instead, I just mentioned I wanted to pursue you. Scratch that itch, to put it diplomatically.”

I wanted him to scratch the itch. Hell, I wanted him to peel me sheet by sheet until I was completely raw. And it scared me, that I wanted all those things with him. That I wanted anything at all with a man after what Franco had put me through.

“Cal, are you crying?” He frowned, looking concerned. “That’s…not something that happens too frequently when I get together with a woman.”

Oops. My face felt extra cold and wet. “A little.” I rushed to wipe off my tears. “I’m just moved that Dylan’s forgiven me, is all.” Technically, not a lie. “I won’t do anything until I ask for her permission, though. Just to be on the safe side this time.”

He gave me an exasperated look. “Fine. My dick’s about to fall off from the cold and erection anyway.”

A giggle laced into my hiccup. I swatted his chest. “Move, then.”

“Hey, Bitchy?” He stopped.

“Yes, Mac?”

“You’re okay with what we just did, right?” He kissed my temple, still pinning me to the ground, and I had a feeling he was still on top of me because he was afraid I’d fall apart and break, and was keeping me together to ensure I was all right.

I nodded. I wanted to do it again, naked and often. I wanted more kissing and touching and nipping and sucking. But I wanted the other stuff too. The conversations and the movies and the hand-holding. To be his. For him to be mine.

“Yeah?” He tilted his chin down, assessing me.

“Yeah.”

“I just…” I started, not sure what I wanted to say. “I don’t want either of us to get hurt.”

Me. I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to need to collect my scattered pieces when this is all over. It took me years after Franco. Years.

Row looked away, at the ground, his ruddy, high cheekbones flaring with heat. “I’ll take what you are willing to give me.”

I could give him just the sex part. I could. I didn’t need the boyfriend stuff. It would keep both of us protected. I nodded. “Okay.”

He hopped up to his feet, then offered me his hand and pulled me up.

“Dust the snow off, Dot. Now, how many Pop-Tarts should I make you?”