Page 24 of Devil's Kiss
One Week Later
DEREK SWUNG HIS arm around hard and fast, and when his fist connected with the red leather of the punching bag, a bead of sweat fell from the end of his hair to land on his nose.
Fuck this feels good, he thought as his muscles tensed and he bounced on his toes, sparring with his inanimate opponent. It was early Friday morning before class, and he’d wanted to get out of the dive motel room he was staying in before all the other occupants surfaced.
He was wound up real good, and he could sense it in the way his skin felt tightly stretched across his bones. Damn, he’d needed some kind of outlet, and this place was perfect.
It had always been a safe haven for him, and over the last week it had been his go-to. He’d been spending more and more time there, largely in part because he could work out, use their showers, and then hit school.
Just another day in paradise, right? Yeah, hardly.
Just last night at the motel, he’d gone to sleep to the sounds of an argument in the room next door to his. It had ended with a screaming match, a broken bottle, slamming door, and then the familiar sound of a woman crying. Much like the soundtrack from his early childhood. Which was exactly the reason he was down at the gym beating the shit out of the punching bag swaying in front of him.
Life wasn’t cooperating. He was supposed to be living a better life free of his father, not dreading every hour he had to go back to a room that smelled of mildew and likely had some kind of bacteria growing on every surface.
Grrr…He brought his leg around in a wide kick and his foot connected with the bag. A couple more minutes of this and then he’d have to quit and head to the showers if he wanted to get to the library before class. He’d missed his first statistics class last week when he’d been trying to track down a place to stay, and they’d been given a take-home exam. But after working out his money situation and what he could afford to spend on a place to stay, which wasn’t a hell of a lot if he didn’t want to use all his savings, he would try and find some quiet time and knock it out.
Over the last couple of nights he’d wondered,How much can one person possibly take before they fucking lose it?He wasn’t sure, but when he first left his father’s, it had spawned some kind of misguided hope inside him—which listening to last night’s shitstorm had dashed.
There’s no hope here,he thought.Just plain old desperation.
He landed his final punch with more force than necessary, imagining his father’s face pinned to the bag, and as he dropped his arms to his sides, his chest heaved with his exertions.
After his breathing had calmed, he walked over to where his gym bag lay on the ground and grabbed his towel to wipe it over his face. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed himself to keep it together. Just go and shower, then head to school. He could decide what to do from there. But as all the decisions and responsibilities started to pile up on top of him, he felt more overwhelmed by the second.
He glanced at the phone sitting inside his bag and picked it up. There’d been so many times he’d thought about calling Finn this past week, but at the last minute he’d stopped himself. The guy still thought he slept several houses down from him, and there was no way he was going to tell his buddy that he’d left home. Finn would make it his mission to coddle him by having him stay at his house, and there was no way he was going to be a burden to the Finleys.
Yeah, not gonna happen.So instead, he’d kept it to himself.
The other person he’d found himself close to calling was Devaney. When he’d entered his number into the guy’s phone last week, he’d also snuck a look at his contact card and stored the number in his own phone under number one. At the time he’d figured it was good to have in case something bad happened. But now the number seemed to mock him every night, just as it was right then.
Staring at his cell, Derek warred with himself for a few seconds, then decided—fuck it.Right now, he needed someone to talk to, someone to listen. He didn’t want pity; he just needed to get shit off his chest, and he knew there was no way Devaney would coddle him. If anything, he’d get pissed he had his number in the first place.
He swiped the towel over his face again and hit number one on his speed dial.
It rang several times before it connected, and when Devaney’s voice came through the line, the words he said took Derek straight out of his bad mood and slid him right into a good one.
JORDAN HAD BARELY steppedoff his elevator when his phone buzzed in his back pocket. He fished his phone out as he walked over to the kitchen area, and when he sawHe-Manon the display, he froze and dropped his canvas grocery bags on the tiled floor.
“No he isn’t…” he said as he stared at the vibrating device in his hand, then he shoved that thought aside because he didn’t want to be thinking about Derek and vibrating things in the same sentence.
Not having any idea what to do, Jordan answered the phone and said the first thing that came to mind: “How did you get my phone number?”
When Derek’s chuckle rumbled through the phone, Jordan found himself grinning despite himself.
“Do you always answer the phone in such a bad mood?”
“I amnotin a bad mood,” he said, instantly defensive. Then he realized that he did actually sound pissed off.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Well, how nice. Except I wasn’t trying to, and you still haven’t answered my question. How did you get my phone number, Derek?”
“Last week at the gym.”
Jordan was momentarily stunned, and that was when he noticed milk was spilling onto the floor. “Fuck.”
He crouched down and rifled through the bags until he found the carton of almond milk, then Derek said, “Look, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have?—”