My Sweet Escape

  I grinned and kissed him back, and I heard her making protesting noises.

  “You said you’d be nice.” I pulled away from Dusty long enough to say that, and then went back to his lips.

  “I can be nice,” Renee muttered under her breath.

  “Can we come down now? The suspense is killing us,” Taylor called from upstairs, and Dusty broke the kiss.

  “Come down and meet my boyfriend,” I called, and I heard a little exclamation of glee that was probably from Taylor.

  She and Darah came down the stairs with Napoleon, who was meowing because of all the excitement. Paul came after them and went right for Renee, putting his hands on her shoulders and rubbing them.

  “Yay, everyone is alive,” Taylor said. “Dare and I were getting worried.” She held Napoleon up like Simba in The Lion King and he didn’t seem too happy about it.

  “Oh, buddy, it’s okay.” Dusty reached for him and Taylor passed the kitten over. The second Dusty had him, Napoleon started purring.

  “Nice job with the kitten,” Renee said. “Well played.”

  “Thank you,” Dusty said, giving Napoleon a kiss on his tiny head. Dead, I was dead. “He’s irresistible. Just like you, Red.”

  Renee groaned, and Darah and Taylor said, “aww,” simultaneously. Well, you couldn’t win them all.

  “Straighten up and fly right, Ne,” I said as I kissed my boyfriend.

  Chapter 23

  Having sex with Dusty put our relationship in some sort of relationship time machine. Where I was with Matt after years of being with him, I got beyond after only a few days with Dusty. Mostly because we spent every moment of time we could, together.

  I was a little reluctant to fool around at Yellowfield House after the first time, so I started staying over at his place. It wasn’t as nice, of course, but it didn’t matter, as long as we were together. Plus, Napoleon slept with us, and the first time I woke up and found Dusty curled around the sleeping kitten, I swore my heart was going to explode from the sweetness of it.

  I got my bucket of candy back from Hannah when I went to see her to give her the good news about Dusty and also to apologize for throwing her out and for general craziness.

  “Dude, it’s okay. I’ve been there. In fact, your crazy wasn’t as good as mine. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

  I also had to give her nearly every detail of my sexual exploits, and it was like she was reading Cosmopolitan and taking notes for later use.

  “Humming,” I said.

  “Humming?” She looked puzzled.

  “Humming,” I said with a wink. “Just trust me on this one.”

  Tuesday I attended my first meeting at the paper, and Brett gave me my first assignment, a battle of the bands on campus featuring groups like Zoom Zoom Bang, Lader Vader and Sterling Silver Lining. I got to know some of the other writers, and they all seemed both cool and unintimidating, which was good.

  “So what are you doing on Saturday night?” I said to Dusty that night as we lay in bed at Yellowfield House after a hushed naked session. I’d hinted to Hunter that it might be a good idea for everyone if they soundproofed the basement, but it hadn’t happened yet.

  “Um, hopefully doing more of this with you.” He stroked my thigh and then kissed where his hand had been. “I still haven’t counted all these freckles.”

  “Not for lack of trying,” I said, tracing his tattoo with my finger. “But I have to cover the battle of the bands, and I wanted to know if you’d come with me. It’ll probably be awful, but it will suck less if you’re there.”

  “Sure, Red.” He kissed his way up my leg, and I had the feeling I was going to be incoherent again very soon.

  I’d been so scared of him finding out about my role in Nathan’s death, and just like that, it didn’t matter. I’d spent nearly a year hating myself and hating the world and just hating everything, and it had been the ultimate waste of time.

  This was what Nathan had meant when he said, “Live the day.” He didn’t mean getting drunk, or completely abandoning who I was, or isolating myself. I knew that this, these moments with Dusty, and the moments with Renee and Hannah and the rest of the people who loved me, those were what life was about. And music, of course. Life wasn’t worth living without it.

  “What do you want for your birthday?” Dusty said a little while later after we’d gotten tangled up again.

  “You’ll think of something,” I said, still panting a little. He knew how to wear a girl out.

  “How about a truckload of candy?” He set his chin on my stomach and I stroked his head.

  “I’m still working through the bucket you got me before.” It was in the corner of my room, and barely a third was gone. There was a shit ton of candy in there.

  “Or oral-sex coupons?”

  “I need coupons to get that now?”

  He smiled.

  “No, just kidding. You’re right—I’ll think of something.”

  “I love you,” I said. If there was one thing I loved more than actually loving Dusty, it was getting to say it out loud.

  “Love you, too, Red.”

  “Do you think he’s in heaven? Nathan?” I said. Dusty and I hadn’t talked much about him, since it was still such a fresh wound for both of us, but we needed to. We couldn’t move on together until we had dealt with our shared past.

  “I never used to believe in something like an afterlife, but I feel like...now, that I kind of have to. That I have to believe he went somewhere beautiful and happy and safe, because if anyone deserved to go there, it would be Nate.”

  I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.

  “He’d tried to get me clean so many times, and it was him dying that finally did it. That night when you met me at the hospital, I was at my support group meeting for addicts.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be anonymous?” Dusty crawled up my body until we were face-to-face again.

  “You won’t tell anyone, right?”

  “Cross my heart,” I said, crossing my hand over my chest, which drew Dusty’s attention to that area.

  “Do that again.” I did. “I love watching you touch yourself. Do you know how much of a turn-on that is?”

  Men. They had a one-track mind.

  “Eyes up here, buddy,” I said, putting my hand under his chin and raising it so I could meet those glorious green eyes.

  “Right. Support group.” He tried to get himself focused again.

  “When did you start going?” I moved my hand to the top of his head and started moving it in circles, and he closed his eyes.

  “Right after Nate’s funeral. I was high for it, because I thought that was the only way I could get through it. That was the only way I got through life back then. I don’t know how much he told you about our dad, but he’s nothing to brag about. He bailed on Nate’s mom and mine as soon as he could and skipped town to find his next woman. I have these dreams sometimes that I have all these other half siblings out there that I don’t know about and someday I’ll run into one of them.

  “I was sitting there, at the funeral, and all I could think was how it was my fault and how ashamed Nate must have been to have me as a brother. And it clicked that I didn’t have to let him down anymore. I could try and live my life in a better way. So I went home and got rid of all the drugs and the booze and went to my first group meeting the next day. It was hard, at first. I had a lot of people in my life that had fed my habit, but I got rid of them all, and then I met Hunter and he was my first sober friend in a long time. He made it look so easy.”

  He opened his eyes and sighed.

  “It took a lot of work, but I did it because it’s what Nate would have wanted.”

  “He called you Buzz, when he talked about you. I always thought it was because you had
a buzz cut or you were, like, Buzz Lightyear or something.”

  Dusty laughed a little.

  “No, it’s because when I was little, I was obsessed with making noises and I used to make a buzzing noise that drove my mother crazy. She and Nate’s mom used to get us together sometimes so we could bond, and I was always doing that, so Mom and Nate and everyone else called me Buzz. I miss him so much it physically hurts.” Dusty rolled onto his back, pulling me so I was resting against his shoulder. I wrapped our legs together, and he danced his fingers up and down my back.

  “I know. I miss him, too. When we first met, I thought he was trying to pick me up. I’d gone to this stupid frat party with my friends, and they were all wasted and going home with other guys, so I didn’t have a ride, and he just came up to me and said he’d take me anywhere I wanted to go.”

  Dusty kissed the top of my head.

  “He used to do that. Go to parties and rescue girls. He told me about it, and I accused him of trying to pick them up, or take advantage, because that’s what I would have done. I told you, I was kind of a dick back then.”

  “Well, he did rescue me, and in a way, him offering me a ride at that party led me to you. So he kind of picked me up for you, in a twisted way.” I looked up at him.

  “He always did have good taste.”

  We both smiled and shared a soft kiss that might have led to more, again, but I stopped it.

  “It feels wrong, still, to be this happy with you.”

  “I know, Red, but it’s going to take time. I have these moments in the middle of the night when I have this horrible fear that everything with you was a dream and I wake up and then you’re right there beside me. I never thought something as good as you could happen to someone like me. I don’t deserve this, but I’m going to take it,” he said with a kiss on my nose, “and savor it—” he moved down to the corner of my lips “—and savor it, and savor it...” The kisses went lower and lower until I was the one doing the, um, savoring.

  Chapter 24

  “Brett asked about you,” I said to Hannah on Friday as we had lunch after our class. Pam was ramping up the intensity in preparation for our first test, and everyone was on edge. If any class had driven me to drink, it was that one.

  Hannah choked a little on her frozen caramel Starbucks thing, and I banged her on the back.

  “You okay there?”

  “What do you mean, he asked about me?”

  Wednesday night had been my first production night, and I’d finally had to fess up to everyone at Yellowfield and tell them what I was doing. The reaction had been stunned at first, but then ecstatic when someone—named Dusty—had given them my blog address. Renee was mad at me for the second time that week for not telling her. Apparently, she’d thought I was doing something nefarious and had been trying to figure it out for a while.

  It had been fun to hang out with the other people who made the paper happen, and Brett had casually asked, while we were struggling to get the layout right for our section, if I knew if Hannah was seeing anyone. Well, it was more like he asked if Hannah and I hung out with a lot of guys, and I sort of got the gist reading between the lines.

  “And?” Hannah said, grabbing my hand and gripping it so hard it cut off my circulation.

  “Ouch, let go, crazy girl. I told him that you weren’t seeing anyone, but that we hung out with a lot of guys.”

  “Great, now I sound like a slut.”

  I shook my head.

  “No, it makes it sound like you have a lot of interest. I played it that you were hanging out with, but not dating, these guys. Which is true. You hang out with Hunter and Mase and Paul and Dusty all the time.”

  “Yeah, except every single one of them is taken.”

  I grinned.

  “Brett doesn’t know that.”

  “Yeah, well, just...” she sputtered.

  “Easy there. He’s really cute, by the way.” Brett was even more adorable than Hannah had let on. I mean, he had a bow tie on and glasses and everything. Plus, he’d made a Star Wars joke, a Breakfast Club reference, and he loved Muse. So he was good in my book. He’d also been so nice to me and had gone out of his way to help me figure out what the hell I was doing when it came to the paper.

  “I think he’s coming to battle of the bands, just to watch. Dusty’s coming with me, but if you wanted to happen to show up, that would probably be a good idea.” I wasn’t going to tell Hannah that Brett had asked if she was going. That would just make her nervous and not want to go.

  “I guess I can go. I’ll have to check my schedule.” She pretended to open an imaginary date book and flip through some pages while muttering to herself.

  “Uh-huh, if I move that to Sunday and that to next Tuesday, but then I’d have to—”

  I smacked my hand down on the table.

  “Hannah.”

  “I’m looking!” She closed the pretend book. “Okay, I can do it.”

  “Good, because I was about ready to smack you.”

  * * *

  Saturday night turned out to be fabulous. The bands were much better than I’d anticipated, and with my shiny press pass around my neck, I got to chat with them before and after and rushed home to write my article in the wee hours of the morning while Dusty tried to distract me with his tongue.

  It was also a good night for Hannah, who rocked the red dress from the frat party, and Brett definitely noticed. Poor guy. He got so nervous around her that he dropped the can of soda he’d been holding, narrowly missing the dress. I thought she was going to blow up, but she just laughed it off. No, more like she giggled it off. It was a giggle I hadn’t heard her emit before, and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she liked him, too.

  “Congrats on your matchmaking success. Maybe you should write a column about that,” Dusty said while we were making breakfast at Yellowfield on Sunday morning so everyone else could sleep in.

  “Yeah, since I’ve had so much relationship experience to draw from,” I said, dumping a panful of bacon onto a plate covered in paper towels.

  “You can do anything you set your mind to, Red.” I looked at him suspiciously.

  “You’re not buttering me up for more oral sex, are you?”

  “I should hope we aren’t at the point in our relationship where I have to give you empty compliments to get something out of you.”

  “Do you smell that?” I said, sniffing. “That is your pants burning, you liar.” I smacked him with the spatula and he dived at me and we slid to the floor and rolled until he was on top of me.

  Someone cleared their throat and we both looked up to find Renee’s grumpy face staring down at us.

  “No sex in the kitchen. I’m adding that to the rules.”

  Dusty climbed off me and helped me up.

  “Bacon?” He held the plate out to her like a peace offering. She snatched a few pieces and started munching them.

  “I’m watching you,” she said, going to the coffeepot.

  “So,” I said, grabbing a piece of bacon for myself, splitting it in half and giving one piece to Dusty, “I hear they have this thing now, where on the day you were born people have celebrations and they give you presents and stuff. I’ve also heard rumors of cake, but those are still unconfirmed as of this time.”

  My birthday was the following Friday and I was getting antsy, because I knew they were planning things behind my back.

  Renee looked at me with an almost-believable innocent face.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I definitely didn’t miss the look she shared with Dusty, so I went for him next.

  “What?” he said, his face a similar mask of innocence. “I, too, have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I glared at both of them and grabbed the plate of bacon and ran
away with it, and they both chased me until Dusty caught me and got it away from me.

  “No fair,” I said as Renee held the plate out to Darah and Mase as they came down the stairs.

  “No bacon hoarding. That’s another rule,” Renee said.

  “We should really write these down,” Darah said. “Yellowfield House Rules.”

  We spent the next hour writing down the rules, some of which were good, like putting down the toilet seat, and some of which were ridiculous, like no bacon hoarding.

  I looked around at all of them and I realized that, like it or not, this was my family now. I couldn’t even imagine living alone anymore. When I’d been with my parents, I’d been surrounded by siblings and noise and chaos, but I’d always felt completely alone.

  But here, in this house, I’d found people who had taken me in, no questions asked. They liked me and wanted me around, and I wanted the same thing. And it was in those moments that I heard Nathan’s voice the loudest.

  Chapter 25

  Friday night I was kidnapped from Yellowfield House by Dusty. Big surprise. He’d tied a blindfold around my head and had made me use his iPod blind, which is harder than it sounds. He drove and drove, and I was wondering where the hell we were going, but he wasn’t giving me anything.

  “Come on, Dusty.”

  “I swear, if you take that thing off, you will receive zero birthday sex.” I sighed and left the damn thing on, and he laughed.

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to remember this when it comes time for your birthday, so just keep that in mind.”

  “And we’re here,” he said, slowing the car down and then parking it.

  “Can I take this thing off yet?”

  “Nope. Stay there.” He got out and opened the door for me, and I took his hand as he led me to whatever he was leading me to.

  Someone opened a door for us, and we stepped inside some type of building. The smell was familiar, and the second Dusty’s hand was on the back of my head removing the blindfold, I knew where we were.

  “Surprise!” Everyone yelled as the blindfold dropped, revealing that we were indeed at Bull Moose.