Up in Smoke Read online

  “What do I owe you?” I ask, leaning back on my hand and taking another hit.

  “Oh, I can think of things. Actually, I can think of many many things.” Duke drags his gaze over my body. He lifts his hand to his mouth and playfully bites down on his knuckles, making a growling sound I can’t help but laugh at.

  With a wink, he moves over to the bags and begins to take things out and put them away. Having been my grocery delivery boy for months now, he knows his way around the kitchen as well as I do. “The weed is on the house, of course,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say, and I mean it.

  Duke’s always nice to me. I mean, he’s nice to a lot of girls, but he’s genuine and that’s why I’ve broken my rules and allowed him into my life.

  Duke’s the popular kid at school and a total man-whore. He’s stuck his dick in most of the cheerleaders on the varsity and junior varsity cheerleading teams, but he doesn’t lie about it, doesn’t make them any false promises. Honesty, for me, is the greatest quality a person can possess. I value it above all else. Maybe, it’s because I’ve been forced into dishonesty for most of my life. Maybe, it’s because my father’s entire life was a lie.

  Duke must be reading my mind because he flashes me his Hollywood smile. “Have you heard?” He folds the paper bags and shoves them into the recycling bin. He then launches into an animated retelling of the ‘most hilarious’—his words, not mine— dick and fart joke he heard in the weight room from some jock on the football team.

  I take another hit from the joint and drop my shoulders. I tilt my head back and exhale toward the ceiling. The front of my brain feels fuzzy. A soft buzz travels to the rest of my body, continuing to dull the sharp edges surrounding me.

  “You know, you don’t act the same here with me, when we’re alone, as you do in school,” Duke mentions out of the blue. I’m blinking rapidly as I try to take in what he’s saying. “Why is that? You walk around with your hair in your face, staring at the floor all day. You don’t talk to anyone. You don’t look at anyone. I bet you most of the kids in school couldn’t point you out of a line up.”

  Bingo.

  “Not even me,” he continues. “You ignore me like you don’t even know me. But we’re…friends, right? Because here, with me, you’re…”

  “Normal?” I suggest. “At least, normal-ish?”

  Duke shakes his head. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  Maybe, he wasn’t going to use that exact word, but I sensed him searching his mental thesaurus for something comparable.

  “Why? Why are you so different here than you are there?” He asks, with what sounds like genuine concern in his voice.

  I crook my finger at him like I’m about to tell him all my secrets.

  Duke leans in close. My lips are at his ear. “I’m Batman,” I whisper.

  Duke rolls his eyes and groans at my horrible joke. “Seriously, Sarah. You never come to the games. You don’t hang out with anyone else but me outside of school, well, not that I know of anyway.”

  “Maybe, I’m giving you space,” I suggest. It’s a lie of course. One of a million I’ve told Duke over the last several months. “I don’t think Missy or Misty or…Maci?” I grimace. “Would like it very much if they saw us together.”

  “Well, I happen to not give a shit what Melanie or anyone else thinks. I like you, Sarah.” Duke pushes my knees apart and stands between them. “I like you a lot.”

  “Melanie,” I nod and snap my fingers. “That’s it. Melanie. I’ll have to remember that one.”

  I pass him the joint. He takes a long hit, grabs the back of my neck with the hand holding the joint, using the other to press on my cheeks, parting my lips. He blows the smoke into my mouth, our lips only a breath apart. I inhale deeply.

  Duke pulls back as I exhale. He presses the glowing end of the joint between his fingers, extinguishing the cherry, tucking it behind his ear.

  “I think you like me, too.” Duke says softly. He’s kneading his fingers gently into my thighs, inching his hands further and further up my legs with each rotation of his skilled fingers.

  “I do like you,” I tell him. And in another life—no, if I were another person, I might give Duke a real shot.

  But not in this life.

  “So then, why do you pretend you don’t know me?” Duke presses, pursing his lips.

  So no one sees us together. So you don’t become collateral damage if the shit hits the fan.

  “I guess I don’t like high school all that much. Plus, I like to keep to myself. That’s all,” I assure him.

  Duke gives me a knowing look. He’s not buying it. Not one bit.

  I try again. “Or maybe,” I sigh dramatically and let my shoulders fall. “I just don’t want to be considered one of the many in the Duke Weathersby Harem.”

  “The what?” he asks with a laugh.

  “The harem. The bevy of beauties that run after you, leaving puddles of drool in your wake. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Duke Weathersby. I’ve heard that term a million times so I know you have, too.”

  “I might have heard it a time or two,” Duke admits. A sly smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me to the edge of the counter. “I mean I guess it’s good you don’t talk to anyone else. That way, I get to keep you all to myself.”

  Duke leans in and presses his lips against mine. Our mouths meld and move together. It’s an enjoyable kiss, it always is. I liken it to finishing a great book. A nice hot shower. Or finding a killer pair of jeans on the 50% off rack.

  There’s fireworks, but not the exploding colors, loud booms, fourth of July finale, kind. No, what we have is more of the waving-a-sparkler-around-in-the-front-yard kind. I like sparklers.

  Sparklers are nice.

  Plus, the chances of getting hurt or burned are low. And just like Duke—they’re safe.

  I return his kiss. My mouth opens to his when he parts my lips with his tongue. My nipples harden when he presses closer, and I can feel the heat of his skin through our shirts. I relax and push myself up against him, needing to feel his hard body against mine. Needing to be reminded that I’m human and that I’m alive and that someone else in this world knows it, too.

  Duke Weathersby is the closest I’ve ever come to having a boyfriend, even though he isn’t my boyfriend and never will be. Our pseudo-relationship consists of small talk, getting high, and making out. Which is basically a lot of over-the-clothes petting followed by me sending Duke home with a raging case of blue-balls.

  Duke pulls back slightly, fingering the neckline of my shirt, brushing along my skin toward my exposed shoulder. His forehead is pressed against mine. “I think we should take this upstairs to your room. All these clothes are getting in the way,” he whispers against my lips, tugging at the frayed end of my sweat-shorts. He rocks his erection between my legs.

  I smile against his lips and lift my ass off the counter, shamelessly grinding myself against him.

  Duke groans into my mouth and grabs my hips, rotating them, grinding me against the hardness jutting up against the zipper of his khakis.

  I’m turned on. I am. I am female, after all, and Duke’s stunningly attractive. As much as I know I’m not like other girls in school, I’m not immune to the charm, smile, or muscles of Duke Weathersby. I blame nature and pheromones. Birds and bees. You know, science-ey stuff and all that jazz.

  A part of me would like nothing more than to let him drag me upstairs so he can have his wicked way with me.

  A much bigger part of me just can’t go there.

  I’m a damn tease. I know it. Duke has got to know it, too. But he keeps coming back, and the truth is that’s what I want. Him to come back. Company. Human contact.

  My friendship with him was already breaking one of my rules. Sex would be obliterating it and I’m not willing to take it that far. Not yet, anyway. Not while there’s so much on the line.

  I pull back. “I…I can
’t. My dad,” I whisper, dragging my teeth along the skin of his neck— just below his ear— rejecting him while promising him the possibilities the future might hold.

  “He never comes out of the basement,” Duke reminds me, peppering kisses along my neck, trying to convince me with his lips. He moves to my clavicle, adding light biting and licking to the mix. I feel my muscles tensing. My desire building. My determination to keep this relationship PG-13 crumbles as he sucks my bottom lip into his mouth and traces it with his skilled tongue.

  I must admit that the boy is gooooood. There’s a reason why he has a harem. A well-deserved one at that.

  “Let me make you come,” Duke whispers, squeezing the tops of my thighs sending a jolt of happy pleasure between my legs.

  I’m desperate. I’m needy. I’m high. I’m lonely.

  So very fucking lonely.

  I don’t want to be. I just want to feel…something else. Something at all. Something that doesn’t come with worry or hurt or panic.

  “Okay,” I hear myself say.

  Duke makes a sound low in his throat. A little bit growl. A little bit groan. He snakes his hand up my shorts. The heat from his fingers alone is driving me to the edge. I’ve never let him touch me there before. I’ve never let ANYONE touch me there before. I’m both excited and nervous and totally reckless, wrapping my legs around his waist, urging him closer.

  The tips of Duke’s fingers brush across my throbbing folds and achingly neglected flesh just as a loud crash echoes through the room.

  “Where did that come from?” Duke whispers.

  The basement.

  It came from the basement.

  Chapter Three

  “Shit! Your dad!”Duke leaps away from me as if he’s been stung by a bee.

  I’m off the counter, ushering him to the door, while white hot fear burns inside my chest.

  “Sorry, maybe some other time. I’m gonna go check on my dad.”

  “I…I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at school,” Duke says with obvious disappointment in his voice.

  “Yeah. Tomorrow. School.” I mumble, unbolting and unlatching the series of locks.

  I get the door open in record time. Duke steps out onto the concrete porch, tapping away at his phone. I’m sure he’s sending a text to the next—more willing—girl on his grocery delivery route. I honestly wish I could bring myself to care, but I’ve either pushed that part of me so far down I can’t find it anymore, or I never had it to begin with.

  I smile and try to remember to look disappointed when all I really want to do is scream at him to run for his life.

  But I don’t. I wait. I have to wait.

  And it’s killingme.

  Duke shoves his phone into his pocket. He gives me one more killer smile before pecking me on the lips and reaching around to smack me on the ass. His gaze lingers on my body for a few seconds.

  Just get in your fucking car already.

  I wait patiently with what I hope looks like a smile on my face for him to walk backward down the steps with his eyes never leaving mine until he reaches the curb where his Prius is parked. It’s wrapped in the same bright green GrubTrain logo as his hat and shirt. He turns his baseball cap back around before he gets in and starts the engine. He rolls the window down. “Bye, Sarah,” he says with a wave.

  The way Sarah rolls lazily off his perfect lips makes me almost wish it were my real name.

  Before Duke’s car turns the corner, I’ve got the security camera app on my phone up, and I’m looking at the black and white video feed from the basement. I notice immediately that one of my computer monitors is on the floor, the screen smashed. My chair is tipped over.

  I’m trying to figure out if I should grab the emergency bag I’ve buried in the lot across the street, or just leave it and take the next bus out of Banyan Cay, when I see Izzy on my screen. The fat cat is taking a leisurely stroll across my keyboard in all her black and white fluffy glory.

  She must have gotten in through the basement window somehow. I remind myself to check the lock and the alarm wiring.

  I bend at the waist and rest my hands on my knees feeling a few years closer to that heart attack than ever before.

  My ass hits concrete. I rest my head on my knees.

  How much longer can I live like this?

  Probably not much longer.

  Several minutes pass before I feel steady enough to try standing. I get to my feet, and suddenly, I feel the same hot awareness I felt earlier. I snap my head up, and this time, I do spot someone who looks out of place.

  There’s a man across the street, partially concealed as he crouches on the other side of a big matte-black motorcycle. His sculpted and tattooed biceps flex as he works on something on the other side of the wide back tire.

  As if he knows I’m looking at him, the man peers out from behind the tire. I’m caught. I don’t run, but I can’t look away either.

  Everything about him is dark. From his shoulder length hair to his black clothes. His facial hair falls somewhere between scruff and beard, longer, shorter on the sides.

  His eyebrows are knitted together in a sharp scowl. I realize it’s not me he’s looking at, it’s his bike.

  He’s just a guy working on his bike.He’s not here for you. Sleep, Frankie. You need some fucking sleep.

  The stranger tosses down a wrench, it bounces around on the concrete. I can hear his growl of frustration all the way across the street. He pushes off his knees and stands.

  Whoa.

  He’s large. Not just his body, but his presence. A soaring skyscraper casting an endless shadow. His stride is long and sure as he makes his way from his bike into the service station. Each step of his boots is a claim of ownership upon every crack in the asphalt. His tight black t-shirt hugs the rippling muscles of his chest and arms. His jeans hang low on his waist and show off the perfect high curve of his rounded ass. An unlit cigarette dangles carelessly from his lower lip.

  I’ve never seen anyone like him before. Raw. Powerful. I can’t stop watching him. Maybe it’s because I’m still high, or maybe it’s because Duke and I were just making out and I’m still primed with lust. Or because I just freaked out for the third time today. But this man is a walking billboard for both terror and lust. A human thunderstorm.

  He’s beautiful.

  My father’s words from years before ring in my ear. Men are meant to hide from, Frankie. To fear. At best they are meant to manipulate. Be the manipulator, Frankie, not the manipulated. Run before you have to ask yourself if you should. Know what they want from the look in their eyes, not from the words coming out of their mouths.

  The man comes back out of the service station. He lifts one long leg and straddles his bike with ease. It thunders to life. I’m all the way across the street, but the vibrations reach out under the asphalt and touch me. I feel the rumble in my chest. Dirt is suspended in the air a good inch above the pavement as the ground underneath shakes.

  He rolls his bike out of the parking lot and then turns down the road in the opposite direction without so much as a glance my way.

  I’m disappointed

  What did I expect from this momentary one-sided infatuation?

  I rub my eyes and decide I’m one sleepless night away from creating false relationships with celebrities in my head. I can hear the news anchor now.

  A young woman was arrested today at the home of Sam Hunt for breaking and entering. The woman was delusional, insisting that she was Sam’s wife. She repeatedly shouted ‘what about the babies’ until police were finally able to apprehend the woman. Mr. Hunt, who has no children, confirmed for the record that he’d never met the woman, although he sincerely hopes she finds and receives the help she so obviously needs.

  The roar of the motorcycle is an echo in the distance. I go back inside, engage all the locks, and now that I know it’s safe, I head to the kitchen first to scarf down a protein bar.

  When I’m finally fed I head to the basement to assess the damage
. Luckily the monitor that fell is banged up but still works. I clean up the rest of the mess then locate Izzy who I shoo back out the window. I attempt to lock it, but the latch won’t click shut. The glass above it is smashed.

  But the alarm still didn’t go off?