Acting On Temptation (Temptations) (2 page)

             
I whisper back, “It was nice to meet you too.  I hope you decide to come here next year.”

             
She whispers again, “Oh I’m planning on it.”  She gives me an innocent kiss on the cheek and I almost shoot a load in my pants. 
Damn this girl may kill me.

Present

Anna

             
Lying here in bed looking around my room it seems like a dream sometimes.  With the sunlight filtering through the hot pink curtains on my window I’m seriously considering getting darker curtains.  But looking at a room that I finally got to decorate for me, not my Mother, well, it’s just awesome, I feel free.  I went with the typical college girl motif, hot pink, bright ass purple, lime green and black with all my favorite posters and shit all over the walls. I really didn’t think I would get to move here.  After last year, I was sure my Mother would work her voodoo magic on my Dad and he would go with what she said.  To my surprise he didn’t, he put his foot down.  When Gabby called and said they were all moving into a house and I would have a room if I wanted it, I ran straight to Dad.  My Mom fumed for days, but I didn’t care I was so excited to get to move here, I just ignored her.  I’ve only been here a few days, but it’s been awesome.  Having my big sister here and her awesome boyfriend Linc, Cade our life long neighbor/big brother and his girlfriend Daria and Russ, Linc’s cousin, it’s just great.  Russ has been a really great friend to me; I could definitely see myself falling for him.  My hold up, he’s a man-whore, but he’s been nothing but sweet to me and a great friend to my sister.  I don’t know much about Russ but I do know that he’s a loyal friend.

             
I hear a faint tap at my door, I look to make sure I’m covered up, “Come in.”

             
My sister Gabby walks in, “Hey chica are you ready to go do some grocery shopping with Daria and I?  We would send the guys, but we would have twenty different kinds of cereal, no milk, sandwich meat, but no bread… get what I’m saying.”

             
I laugh, “Yeah, just give me a few minutes to get ready.”  I’m waiting for her to leave before I get dressed.

             
She looks at me, “What Anna have you suddenly gotten shy around me?  Do you have a tattoo or something that you’re hiding?”

             
“No, I just want some privacy.”

             
“Oh okay, well I’m going to get the guys to write some stuff down on the list and give me their money, so you’ll have a few minutes.”

             
After she leaves I stand up and look in the mirror lifting my tank top the bruises around my rib cage and back are a nasty green/purplish color now, they are starting to fade.  Thank God.  I don’t know how much longer I can keep them from being seen.  If Gabby saw them she or Cade would kill Jack.  I had done a great job of avoiding him since last fall, never letting myself be alone with him, but he still acted a s if I was his.  Jack was a few years older than me, and people our age feared him, but to parents he looked like
Mr. Wonderful…
No other guys would talk to me or ask me out.  I repeatedly told people we weren’t together, but he would tell everyone we were just taking a break.  I could handle it at least he kinda left me alone, but when he found out I was going away to college rather than staying at home or going to college with his sister, he confronted me.  The night is still like a bad dream:

I was walking out of my last night at the clothing store I worked at when he approached me.
  As I stepped off the curb into the parking lot the Florida summer time humidity hit me in the face. 

             
“Anna” I froze at my car and turned around.

             
“What Jack?”  He stepped closer to me making me feel trapped against my car.

             
“So what? You thought you’d leave town, go to college with that whore sister of yours and me not know?  I told you I let you have your break from me…but no more.  You are mine, now I’ve been patient with you; I’ve had my needs met elsewhere while you’re growing up.  But you going somewhere else to college isn’t an option.”

             
My eyes went wide, “Excuse me…I am going off to college and if you call my sister a whore again, you’ll regret it.  You do not own me and as far as I’m concerned you can keep getting your NEEDS met elsewhere, because I won’t ever help you with them.” 

I had never talked to him like that except on the phone, when there was distance between us.  In that next moment I felt the first punch as we f
ought and tumbled on the ground.  The hot asphalt burnt momentarily, while he said a lot of things trying to pull me up and put me in his car.  I finally got enough ground to kick him in the balls and while he was bent over kick him in the face.  I quickly fumbled with my key and got in my car and sped off.  I left the next day to move here, told my parents and Gabby that the bruise on my face was from hitting the curb outside the store and haven’t brought any of it up again.

I quickly dress and head out to the kitchen.  As I round the corner I can hear the guys
arguing.  I look at them all sitting around the table and the girls around the island in the kitchen.  I raise my eyebrows, “What’s going on?”

Daria laughs, “Oh the boys are having
The Great Cereal Debate
.”

Gabby looks at me, “Now you know why we can’t send them
to do the grocery shopping.”

I look over at them
, “Guys seriously!  Are you all like five years old?  Okay I’m solving this.  What are the options?”

Cade looks at me, “I want Fruit Loops, Linc wants Cocoa Pebbles and Russ wants Capn
’ Crunch.  Then the girls want something else.”  They all start mumbling again about who got what last time.

I slam my hands down on the table,
“Shut Up! Alright are you all stuck on buying name brand cereal?  Because if you are willing to sacrifice that and buy those big bags (that taste the same by the way) you can all get your cereals.  If you don’t like that idea, I pick the flippin cereal and we get Cheerios plain freakin’ Cheerios…wait not even name brand we’ll get like toasty o’s or some random cereal.”

The guys look around like it had never occurred to them
that they could settle for a more inexpensive cereal.  I look over at Daria and Gabby they smile.

I laugh, “See crisis averted, everyone gets their favorite damn cereal.”

Gabby laughs, “Thank you they wouldn’t shut up long enough for us to explain that same thing to them.”

I laugh and walk over to my grab my bag and I feel a ting of pain on my side.  I shrug it off so no one will notice, but Russ does.  “Hey are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m just sore from that fall after work.”

“Oh okay, well did you go get it looked at that night?”

“No, Russ really I’m fine.”

Gabby looks at us with a sly grin and I shake my head.  Don’t get me wrong Russ, makes me want to do all sorts of things to him, but he’s still a man-whore.  Also, I’m just not ready for anything resembling dating or relationships right now.  I’ve literally still getting over the scars from the last one.

Russ

I don’t know what’s going on with
Anna; she’s been acting strange since she got here.  It’s almost like she’s paranoid.  She’s like her sister not good at hiding things from me.  I’m going to figure out what’s going on.  She’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. One day maybe I’ll be good enough for a girl like her or maybe even her but until then I’m at least going to look out for her.

I’ve stopped all the whoring around.  I’ve been with a few girls in the past year, but the line of typical bimbos really doesn’t do anything for me anymore.  I
just don’t want to do the random hook up anymore. If anything Anna made me realize that there can be happiness in
more
. 

Cade and Linc look at me and laugh.  I glare back at them, “What?”

Linc looks at me, “You remember that advice you were giving me last year about this same time?  I think maybe you should look at taking it yourself.”

I knew what he was saying, but it wasn’t like that with Anna and me.  She didn’t want me or look at me like Gabby always did him.  She had actually been kind of cold and distant since she moved in here.  The first day she got here she was so excited, so happy to be here it was like how we talked last year, but after a few days she was very closed off.

“Earth to Russ!”  Cade is waving his hand in front of my face.

“What dickhead?”

“Just wondering if you could stop daydreaming about Anna long enough to come to football practice with us.”

“Shut up man, I wasn’t daydreaming about Anna.  I was thinking about my class load.”

We started walking out of the kitchen and I heard Linc mumble something about my class load not being the load I was thinking about.

*****

Football practice had been a great distraction.  Getting the shit knocked out of me was the perfect distraction.  Once we were back home and had raided the freshly stocked kitchen, I took my time in the shower, letting the warm water soothe my aching body.  I finally step out of the shower and wrap my towel around me wiping off the mirror so I can shave; the bathroom is still so steamy I open the bathroom door to let some of the steam out.  I start shaving and at that same time the bathroom door opens the rest of the way and a light scream comes out of Anna’s mouth startling me.

“Fuck!” I drop the razor in the sink.

She looks at me, “Damn I’m so sorry Russ, I didn’t mean to bust in here on you.  I thought since the door was open you were out.  Are you okay?  You cut yourself.”

I put some tissue on my face, “its okay just a little cut.”

She walks over and places her soft hand on my face and the fact that I’m only in a towel hasn’t escaped my mind.  If I don’t get her hand off of me, she is going to know quickly how she affects me.  “Its okay, give me a minute and I’ll be finished and you can have the bathroom.”

She looks wounded; “Um sorry…”She ducked her head and went to step out.  I reached and grabbed her arm.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be short with you.  I just didn’t figure you were comfortable with me standing here in just a towel.”

She
gives an almost rehearsed laughed, “Oh okay.”

I finished up in the bathroom and made sure the door was open so that Anna would know she was in the clear to go in.  I went to my bedroom and got dressed, looked over some plays, got on Facebook, listened to some music and all together tried to avoid going out into the rest of the house and running into Anna.  Why does she have this effect on my?  I have never had a girl in my head like this?  Well I did one time but that was a long time ago and after that time I knew I wasn’t good enough for a girl like Anna.  Girls like Anna deserved someone more like Linc, they normally always picked Linc.   Screw all of this I’m going to sleep.

*****

I’m startled awake
by the sound of someone crying and what sounds like fighting.  I jump up and step out in the hallway in my boxers to see what’s going on.  The sound is coming from Anna’s room, no one else seems to have heard it…which our rooms are on the opposite end of the hall from the others.  I step closer to the door; I can’t stand to hear her cry.  I tap on the door and whisper,
“Anna.”
  She says nothing.  I gently open the door and I realize she is thrashing around in the middle of a bad dream.  I walk over to her bed and touch her arm, “Anna.”  She jerks and sits straight up.  I switch on the bedside lamp, “You were having a nightmare.”

She adjusts herself in the bed, “Oh sorry I woke you.”

“Its okay, is something bothering you Anna?  I mean you’ve been so jumpy and now you’re having bad dreams.”

She stood up to go the bathroom, “No I’m fine.”

As she was walking out of the room he stopped her, “Anna, what happened here?”  She hadn’t thought about her upper back showing.

She t
ried to walk around me, “Nothing, move I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Anna stop or I will wake up this entire house.”

“Why?  Because I have some bruises from where I fell on the curb at work.”

“Anna, those damn bruises are not from a little fall on the curb…that is why you’re lip was busted when you got here.  Who did this Anna?”

She shifted back and forth, “Look Russ don’t worry about it okay…I’m fine.”

I
grabbed her pulling her into me, “Anna you are not fine, you were still in pain earlier today and you were having a nightmare.  Now fucking tell me who did this or I’ll go get Cade and Gabby and we will all get to the bottom of it.”

She sat on the edge of her bed and had tears rolling down her face
, staring off distant, “Jack attacked me in the parking lot of my work the night before I came here.”

I sit down beside her and pull her into my side, “Anna why didn’t you tell someone or call the cops…he could’ve killed you.  It’s been a couple of weeks now and you still have
bruises, which means you took one hell of a beating.  Why didn’t you tell your parents?”