Breaking Him

  Just my luck it was the nice one that had died.

  Everyone has a little voice in their head, holding them back from showing enthusiasm, forcing them into pessimism.

  Oftentimes that voice takes the shape of someone we know. Sometimes it’s a snarky friend, a cynical parent.

  In my case, especially back when I was a kid, it was my grandma. Every happy urge I ever had she tried to talk me out of and a lot of the time she succeeded.

  When she’d kicked me out at seventeen, I’d left and never looked back. In fact, it’d been a relief because after that I got to live with Gram.

  Though I shared no blood with Gram, in a lot of ways, most ways, she’d always felt more like family to me than my own grandma, and unlike my complete adoration for Gram, my feelings for my own grandmother could only be described as complicated.

  She resented me because I was a burden she’d been forced to shoulder but never felt she’d owned.

  And I resented her because I was really, really good at it.

  Also, she was mean. Deep down to her core mean. She was cold, stubborn as a mule, and vindictive to a terrible degree and with very little provocation. There was no give in her, and if you caught her in the wrong mood, she would absolutely cut off her nose to spite her face. She could self-destruct like nobody’s business if it meant taking someone else out with her.

  Her entire wretched life was pretty much a testament to that.

  Obviously, I’d taken after her with at least a few of those undesirable traits. The irony was not lost on me. But in my defense, I do believe that many of the toxins that resided inside of me had been set into motion quite early on and a good number of them had been planted by her.

  But then again, sometimes it just feels better to have someone to blame, and my grandmother had always made herself into a very convenient target. It was one of the few nice things I could say about her.

  I opened my mouth to give my obligatory scathing retort, but Dante beat me to it.

  “Have a little respect,” Dante told her, voice low and mean. “What would my grandmother think about you talking like that at her funeral? For shame. And the red shoes are perfect. You of all people should remember how much Gram loved red.”

  I lowered my head and started wringing my hands. The day had gone from bad to worse.

  Dante defending me was perhaps the most cruel thing he could do. More than anything else, it made me remember why I’d been so devoted to him for most of my life. Reminded me of a time when I had absolute faith in him.

  Made me almost forgot that all of that had only set me up for a more brutal fall.

  “Oh, well,” Grandma derisively bit back, “you’re carrying on with this one again? Didn’t he dump you?” she asked me. “Like trash,” she added. “Didn’t you marry Leann’s girl?” she asked Dante. “I always told you he’d break your heart,” she told me.

  This was typical. She lobbed out hurtful things like steady grenades until one hit its mark, and she never stopped before something vital was damaged.

  Story of my childhood.

  I began to walk away as Dante answered. “No and no. And I know what you’re doing, Glenda. You’re lashing out because she cut off all contact with you. Maybe if you’d try to be less awful to her, she’d give you a ring every once in a while.”

  I didn’t hear my grandmother’s response because I’d picked up my pace.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  PAST

  “I hate my name,” I complained one day to Gram when I was over for tea. My name was just one thing on a very long list that the kids at school teased me about, but I’d decided to take particular exception to it because that day I’d overheard some girls chanting Scarlett harlot when they thought I couldn’t hear.

  So I’d come to rant about it to Gram. She was the only grownup I knew that I could say anything to, tell anything to, and she took it all in stride.

  This though for some reason seemed to take her aback.

  Her hand went to her chest and she blinked at me several times before responding, “You do?”

  I looked away. I couldn’t maintain eye contact with her when she appeared so . . . wounded.

  I shrugged, not so sure about my outburst now. “I guess so,” I muttered.

  “Want to know something absolutely fascinating about your name?”

  My eyes went back to her as I nodded.

  “A very famous woman named you that. She named you that because scarlet is a brilliant, brave, and daring color. You see, she knew you’d have an interesting life where those qualities would serve you well.”

  “You named me?” I breathed.

  She smiled and nodded. “I did. Glenda was . . . overwhelmed when she first got you and so I took over for a while. I named you because I felt strongly about it, and she didn’t mind. I always had a talent for naming, if I do say so myself. Do you want to know who else I named?” she glanced over at Dante as she asked the question, and I found my eyes following hers.

  He was in his usual spot on the sofa across the room, just lying there listening to us, occasionally piping in to add to or argue with what we were saying. He sat up now and looked at Gram.

  “Who?” I asked, though I saw what she was hinting at.

  “Dante. Don’t those names sound just wonderful together? Scarlett and Dante. They have a romantic ring when you combine them, don’t they?”

  Dante and I were just looking at each other.

  “Did you know that she named us?” I asked him.

  He smiled and laid back down. “I did, but I thought you’d enjoy the story more coming from her.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  “A man’s kiss is his signature.”

  ~May West

  PRESENT

  I was striding across the cemetery, had nearly made it to the car when Dante caught up to me.

  “Don’t,” I told him when he fell in beside me. “Don’t involve yourself in my issues. Just. Don’t. It’s not your job to defend me.”

  “Since when?”

  I shuddered. Hello, temper. “Since you dumped me.”

  “I didn’t dump you.” He sounded upset, which upset me.

  “I didn’t dump you,” he repeated when I didn’t respond.

  “Are you trying to pick a fight?” I asked him pointedly. He had, after all, been the one to declare this a day of peace between the two of us.

  He set his jaw and fell quiet. Good.

  I thought and hoped that he’d just stay quiet, but about halfway back to the house he pulled the car over onto the shoulder suddenly, putting the car in park.

  He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and lay his forehead against it.

  “God, I don’t want to do this,” he spoke quietly, not turning his head. “I don’t want to deal with those people being in her home, talking about her, pretending to care, most of them just waiting to see what she left them in the will.”

  What he’d said didn’t need a response. He knew how I felt about those people.

  “And if one of them says an insulting word to you, so help me, God—“

  “Let’s just get home and get it over with,” I cut in, speaking to the window. “And besides, the sooner we get there the sooner I can have a drink.”

  One plus for the day—liquor. It would be flowing freely for this ill-fated gathering, I had no doubt.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said dejectedly. “Just give me a minute. I need to get a grip.”

  I was fine with that, because I thought he meant to just leave him to his thoughts for a minute.

  He didn’t mean that, it was quickly clear.

  He started tugging on my arm, and I looked at him. He wasn’t leaning on the steering wheel anymore. Now he was leaning toward me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him warily.

  His answer was to keep tugging me to him, not stopping until my resistant head was pressed to his faithless chest.

  Still without spe
aking, he started stroking my hair.

  “Stop it,” I demanded.

  He kissed the top of my head and kept stroking, a soothing, familiar motion, his heavy hand moving with just the perfect amount of pressure from my temple to the ends of my long hair.

  Perfect because he’d done it a thousand times. More. This used to be how he’d soothe me down from a temper.

  “Stop it,” I repeated faintly.

  Just like the bastard to declare a truce and then launch an attack.

  And somehow it was working. I was leaning into him, relaxing into his familiar embrace.

  I caught myself and tried to push away.

  He wouldn’t let me. And he was stronger than me, the bastard.

  I struggled harder, then harder. It did me not one bit of good. He held me to him easily, both of my wrists captured in one of his hands.

  He knew me, knew how I fought. The first thing he’d done was restrain my hands, or more specifically, my vicious nails.

  “Why are you doing this?” I panted at him. I was still struggling, but not as hard now. I’d quickly worn myself out.

  “Why won’t you let me comfort you?” he said, the words mumbled into the top of my head.

  I don’t know how, I thought. Even if I wanted that, wanted to pretend with you long enough to feel better, I don’t know how.

  But I said none of it. Instead I kept on struggling in his hold.

  Finally he let me go, and I turned away from him to stare back out the window.

  “You were always like this.” His tone was fond, damn him. “Even when you were just a scrappy little kid. Always so extreme. You take things either with a stoic face or you lose your mind. Never any middle ground. I miss that, you know. You always challenged me.”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  “But today,” he continued, voice going softer with a tender emotion that he had no right to, “give me some middle ground. Let me comfort you, or at least, comfort me.”

  “Please,” he said, closer now. “Comfort me.”

  I blame the please. Hearing that word coming from those lips was hopelessly disarming to me, so when he pulled me to him again, I didn’t fight him. I laid my head over his black, traitorous heart, and let the tears fall.

  I was weary of trying to suppress them, and they came out freely for a time as I quietly sobbed against my enemy’s chest.

  How could you find comfort in the soul that had shattered you?

  I didn’t know, but perversely, I found it anyway.

  Eventually I pulled back, not looking up at him, eyes trained on the wet spot I’d left on his beautiful suit jacket.

  My hands went to my face, feeling at my cheeks as I realized that my makeup was in ruins.

  “I’ll need to go upstairs and redo my makeup when we get back,” I said blankly. My mind was worrying about something small in an effort to avoid thinking about something big.

  “Well, there’s no hurry. The bloodsuckers will be there all day I’m sure,” he murmured, and not so much the words but his proximity had me stiffening.

  His face was moving closer to mine, then closer. His hands cupped my face, angling it up to his.

  I kept my gaze pointed down, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t concerned with my eyes. He wanted my lips.

  He took them unrepentantly, passionately, devouring me like he always did, as though he’d never have enough.

  And I let him have them, the fight gone out of me. I’d always had a weakness for his kiss. That’s why I hated them so vehemently.

  I started shifting, falling against my seat back, though there wasn’t far to go.

  It was the damnedest thing. Every time he kissed me, all I wanted to do was lie down flat on my back. That urge was quickly followed by one to open my arms, and then my legs.

  It was a natural inclination. Instinctual and all the more powerful for it.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  “I have to remind myself to breathe—almost remind my heart to beat!”

  Emily Brontë

  PAST

  “Let’s ditch school,” I told Dante.

  “And do what?”

  “Go watch movies at my grandma’s house.” She wouldn’t be there. She was gone from seven a.m. to seven p.m. every single working day like clockwork.

  And Dante never said no to movies at my house. It had become our thing lately.

  In fact, it had become my favorite thing in the world.

  He shrugged. “Fine. Whatever. I’m not in the mood for school anyway.”

  We walked back toward my place leisurely, side by side as we strolled, so close that our arms and hands kept brushing against each other.

  The third time it happened, he took my hand and laced our fingers together.

  A thrill ran through my entire body, and I couldn’t hold back a smile.

  Neither of us said a word about it. He’d been doing it more and more lately when we were alone, but we never talked about it.

  We’d been doing lots of things when we were alone together that we never talked about.

  Nothing like what his mom had suggested, in fact all of it could be called more or less innocent, just physical contact that kept progressing, lingering until we couldn’t seem to stop.

  But he’d never even kissed me. I was starting to worry about it. From what I heard other girls talking about concerning boys, it seemed like if he wanted to he should have tried to by now.

  It didn’t take us long to walk to my grandma’s house. Okay, house was a generous term. It was a rundown two-bedroom trailer on a plot of land that belonged to Dante’s family.

  Still, it was the only place we had where we could be alone.

  I let him pick out the movie.

  He chose Gladiator even though we’d already seen it like five times. But neither of us actually cared what we watched. The movie was not why we’d started spending all of our free time doing this.

  I turned it on and Dante sprawled out on the couch, his big body taking up most of it.

  As much as I complained about how fast I was growing, he was growing much faster. He towered over me, and his lean body had started to develop muscles I couldn’t help but notice.

  And as fast as he was growing, he was still as graceful, as comfortable in his own skin as he’d always been. I hadn’t seen him suffer through one awkward faze yet.

  It was infuriating.

  I shot him a pointed look at his spot on the couch and moved to sit on my grandma’s ancient recliner.

  This was another game we played. I wouldn’t sit with him until he asked me.

  No. Cajoled me into it. I resisted every time. I knew I couldn’t make anything too easy for him. Grandma had slapped that bit of wisdom deep into my skull.

  “Psst,” he called to me.

  I ignored him, eyes glued to the screen.

  “Scarlett,” he tried. “You don’t have to sit on your grandma’s nasty old chair.”

  “That couch is just as nasty,” I pointed out. Everything in the place was nasty. Old and cheap and dirty. I lived here and even I thought so.

  “Well, you don’t have to sit alone over there.”

  “You’ve taken up the whole couch. Where would I sit?” As I said it, I shot him an arch look.

  He grinned at me. He was sprawled out, long arms perched at the top corner of the sofa. He kicked one knee up, throwing the other on the ground, and patted his thighs. “You can sit right here.”

  I eyed him warily. This was new and a little intimidating. “I’m hungry. Do you want a snack?”

  “Do you have snacks?”

  Of course not. We never did. It was a wonder I grew so much with the lack of food available when I was at home. Then again, I got free lunch at school and had dinner at Gram’s more often than not.

  “No,” I said, sorry I’d asked. But I was hungry.

  “You should let me give you money for food,” he added, his tone careful and blank.

  This was a
very old and very sore subject. And he knew it.

  I glared at him. “I won’t take any more of your charity. It’s bad enough your Gram buys me clothes for school and feeds me dinner almost every night.”

  His jaw set stubbornly, and I was pissed and bummed. If we got into a fight, it would ruin the rest of the day.

  But then he sighed and looked away, breaking the tension.

  Sometimes when we locked eyes, it was like predators having a standoff. One wrong move and—blood.

  On the flip side, if one backed down then—peace.

  He’d backed down for this one, thank God, because I never could have.

  He paused the movie.

  “Well, I need food,” he said. “Is it all right if I order myself a pizza?”

  “All right.”

  “I can’t eat a whole one myself. I’ll only order it if you promise to eat some, too.”

  That was a compromise I could live with, and he knew it. It didn’t feel so much like charity if he was feeding himself and I was just sharing.

  I grabbed the phone and brought it to him. While he dialed, I sat down carefully between his thighs.

  We’d never done this before. Usually he just put his arm around me and we’d progress through varying degrees of touching each other tentatively. I’d lay my head on his chest, sometimes, if he was extra bold, he’d rub my knee with his hand.

  Once we’d even spooned, my back to his front both of us turned to the TV. That had happened two weeks ago and it’d been the most exciting moment of my life.

  But sitting between his thighs felt like a decidedly bigger step.

  Tentatively I leaned back into his chest while he dialed up the pizza place.

  “Any toppings you prefer?” he asked me

  I was having a hard time finding my breath. “Whatever. You pick. You’re paying.”

  I always said this and never meant it. We got the same thing every time. It was my favorite. I couldn’t even have said if Dante particularly liked it, but he always got it.