Nuclear Heat (Firework Girls #4) (18 page)

His body eases off mine just enough for him to turn me to face him. I keep my eyes closed and tuck my face into his chest, trying to catch my breath.
I love you, I love you, I love you.

Which reminds me. We really do need to talk.

After locking the front door to prevent unexpected interruptions, and noting that we should probably make a habit of that from now on, we move to the bedroom and rest under the covers.

The moment is now. I know it is. We’re on our sides, facing one another, limbs entangled and hands lightly caressing faces, shoulders, arms. My heart is pounding out of my chest, and not from anything physical we’re doing. It’s from the knowledge that if I want to not fuck this up, I have to be willing to do it right. I have to be willing to talk to him.

That knowledge is doing nothing to keep me from feeling terrified.

I spit it out before I can stop myself. “What are we doing, Jack?”

He waggles his eyebrows at me.

God, he’s such a dork. “I mean, I know what we’re
doing.
” He grins, but I’m serious. “But what are we doing? What is this?”

Jack’s brown eyes soften and he grows serious, too. He comes up on his elbow, looking down at me, making my heart all fluttery. He’s considering me. Part of me thinks he might not want to say what this is. What if it’s so much more for me than it is for him? I mean, I know enough to know this isn’t a casual fling. I get it. But I also know us humans of the female persuasion tend to fall for guys long before they fall for us. Maybe it’s the way we’re wired, I don’t know, but I’ve seen it happen over and over again. So, yeah, the thought that I’m the only one losing control here makes me more than a little nervous.

But... that’s not why I’ve been avoiding this conversation. Not at all. There’s something far more terrifying Jack could say.

“I’ll answer that question for you,” he says, “if you’ll answer one for me.”

“Okay,” I agree, trying to be grown up about this and not sound as scared as I feel.

“Is it a deal?”

I nod.

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “You want to know exactly how I feel about you, is that it?”

I nod again, even more nervous now.
Here we go.

“That’s fair enough. But... I don’t want to freak you out. All right?”

Too late for that, dude.
I nod, barely.

He looks at me, his eyes softening. I fall into them. Just like that, I’m surrounded by Jack. He takes another breath, then says softly, “I’m in love with you, Sam.”

My breath hitches in my chest and my eyes widen. My heart’s beating soundly. Oh my god, here it is. Another line we can’t ever uncross and Jack just went galloping right over it. Why did I make him do that?

I know I should say something. I should. I should tell him I love him, too. I should. But I’m freaking the hell out, just like he knew I would.

What in the hell is wrong with me?

Still holding me with those soft eyes, he caresses my cheek and says, “I’m so crazy, hopelessly in love with you.”

God, he said it again. How can he just come out and say it like that?

“So,” he says, holding my eye. “Time for you to answer my question.”

I can only blink at him.
Uh-oh.

“Why did you say you were sorry?” he asks.

Huh?

That’s not the question I was expecting. Sorry about what? What’s he talking about?

I relax for a second, thinking he gave me a safe, easy question. Then suddenly, I know what he’s talking about. I know
exactly
what he’s talking about.

It was that night, when he found me crying on the coffee table. It all started because he said if he didn’t know better he’d think I was crying over a boy, and my reaction made it so obvious that I was.

I remember the moment he’s asking about so clearly: me on the coffee table, Jack lying on the floor under me, me looking at him and realizing I couldn’t hide the fact that I was one more girl he made fall in love with him.

Fall in love with him.

That’s when I said, “Sorry.” I said it because I was sorry I fell in love with him.

Goddammit, he knows it too.

“No lying,” he says softly, because of course my realization about the sneaky-ass question he just asked is all over my face.

I scowl at him and he starts to grin.

Oh, hell.

“Because...” I start.

His grin gets slowly wider. “Yes?”

Oh, hell, hell, hell.

I take a deep breath. “Because I kind of, you know...” I purse my lips and pinch my eyes shut, “love you, too.”

I peek one eye at him. He’s wearing the biggest Jack grin I’ve ever seen. “Ah, Sammy,” he says in his teasing voice, pulling me in, “That’s so sweet. So tender.”

“Shut up.”

He kisses me then. And kisses me. And I’m kissing him back because I am officially hopeless. In a matter of seconds, I’m sinking into the mattress and he’s washing me away. That’s when it hits me what he said.
He loves me.
My heart swells so high and so fast it feels like it’s going to burst.
He loves me.
Thank God, thank God.

He pulls away, still smiling. I’m just trying to breathe. Man alive. Being in love is so fucking
intense.
I give him a smile too, though. I’m starting to see why people risk everything for this.

“I love making you melt,” he says.

“I did not melt,” I protest, but I’m smiling because I’ve never seen that boy look so happy. Did I do that?

“Making you melt is almost better than making you come,” he says, still grinning.

“Well, that’s debatable,” I say.

“I said almost,” he says, drawing me in closer and hitching my leg over his hip, his eyes getting that heated look that lights me up all over. “But we could try it again if you’re not sure.”

Then this happens.

It’s a Saturday afternoon, a week later, and I’m enjoying a perfectly lazy day, watching
French Kiss,
and waiting for Jack to get out of the local one-day conference he’s attending. I’m getting a little more comfortable with the idea that love is wild and slightly out of control, but also incredible and fucking worth it and maybe, just maybe, something I can handle.

Perhaps those are the thoughts that are distracting me as I get up to answer the hard knock at the door. I don’t even peek through the window to see who it is.

When I open the door to see my dad standing there, my blood drops clear to the floor.

I suddenly remember that text mom sent me almost three months ago, clear at the beginning of summer when Jack and I were at the beach. That was the first and last I heard and I eventually forgot all about it. I let my guard down. I swear, he knows. I swear to god, it’s like he does it on purpose, just to fuck with me and pretend he’s not.

He almost looks the same as the last time I saw him. Same hard gray blue eyes, same thick arms knotted with muscle, same half-moon scar over his left eyebrow that he got in the accident all those years ago. But he looks more rough and hollowed out—most likely the result of four more years of hard drinking since I saw him last—and his two-day stubble is flecked with more gray.

How did you find me?

“Ah, there’s my Samantha,” he says, in that harsh jovial tone I think he thinks is supposed to be fatherly. My parents are the only ones who call me Samantha and my dad is the reason I hate it.

“Dad,” I manage to spit out, as he steps across the threshold. My skin is crawling with dread as he throws a hard arm around my neck and gives me a gruff, half hug. He reeks of body odor and whiskey. I wonder if he’s homeless again. I wonder how much he’s had to drink already today.

He lets himself in the rest of the way and I see a motorcycle parked by the curb. I hadn’t even heard him coming. I never, ever see this guy coming.

I think about bolting and running barefoot down the sidewalk and down the street and just going and going. Instead, I slowly close the door.

He’s walking right into the kitchen. I follow him in silence, feeling a strange mixture of pulsing fear and numbness. Maybe he’ll just talk to me for a while and then leave. I just need to not do anything to upset him so he’ll go.

He’s heading for the refrigerator, but instead of opening it, he cranes his neck to see what’s on top.

There’s nothing there, but I instinctively know what he’s looking for.

“Got anything for your old dad to drink?” he asks. “I’m parched.”

“There’s juice in the fridge.”

He grunts and gives me one of his looks. On the outside, he tries to make it look like he’s joking, but on the inside he’s saying,
Don’t fuck with me, girl.
“I’m thinking something a little stronger.”

I don’t want to tell him, but he’ll only find it anyway, and then be mad at me for hiding it. “The cupboard next to the stove,” I say, pointing.

“Ah,” he says, and sidles on over. When I see my dad open that cupboard and appraise my stock—half a bottle of whiskey, rum for daiquiris, and the makings for margaritas—I feel dirty for even having it. “That’s more like it,” he says. “I guess you are related to me.” He laughs harshly, always so amused at himself.

A sick, crawling sensation slips down my legs.

Okay, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t do this. Why is he here? I can’t do this.

I sidestep behind the island, so he can’t see me pull out my phone. With fumbling fingers, I send Jack a text:
My dad is here.

“Hey!” my dad barks, and I jolt my eyes up to see him watching me. Even though I know he doesn’t know what I’m doing and is just irritated I’m not paying full attention to him, I hit the button on the side of my phone to blacken the screen so he can’t see what’s on it.

“You got a glass?” he asks, holding up the bottle of whiskey he’s pulled down as if to say, “Why do I even have to ask, dumb ass?”

I quickly tuck my phone into my back pocket and get a glass from the cupboard. “You kids these days are always on your fucking phones,” he mutters. I don’t reply to this. I don’t say a word as I watch him fill the glass half full of whiskey. He doesn’t look at me as he pours. He never looks at anyone when he pours. He takes a swig then heads into the living room, starting to really look around for the first time. “So you own this place, huh?”

Again, I’m wondering how he knows that and how he found me. Did he call mom when she was having a weak moment and make her break down and tell him? I’d love to be able to say she’d never do that, but he still has power over her too, and her weak moments are plentiful when she’s in the middle of a divorce.

“Yeah,” I say, as he sinks down onto my couch.

He looks around with a dismissive expression. “It’s not much to look at, is it? But it’s more than I’ve ever been able to do.” He says that as if it’s my fault. “There’s no catching a break with luck like mine.”

He takes another swig of the stuff that’s created the shitty ass “luck” he’s got. Meanwhile, I perch on the other end of the couch and look at my house with fresh eyes. I see all the things I’ve grown used to. The old lighting fixtures. The cheap blinds I’ve yet to replace. The little cracks in the wood at the base of the door. I’ve even grown used to the pink shag carpet, because this isn’t just a little house I bought, it’s home and a place I’ve felt safe and comfortable. But now I see it all through his eyes and it feels dirty and dark.

Like I do.

I wish I were wearing something different. I’m in shorts and a tank, and suddenly feel way too exposed. I hope he doesn’t comment on it. I hope he doesn’t say that word I hate.

My heartrate suddenly increases because I’ve just realized Jack can’t come because he’s at a conference and probably has his phone off anyway. My dad starts telling me about the bike out front—I’ve no idea why. I take his self-absorption as an opportunity to covertly pull out my phone. I’m trying to think quick—if I contact one of the girls I don’t want anyone to come alone—but before I can even start a message my dad looks at me and says, “Girl, put that fucking phone away.”

I freeze, assessing the look on his face, hunting for the slightest sign of danger. I’m instantly regretting that I’ve put him between me and the door.

My flashbacks are so vivid, they’re squeezing the breath out of my lungs...

...my mother on the floor, in her black shirt with the gold dots, curling away from him and making that high-pitched scream no human should ever have to make

...him straddling her body and punching her so hard in the side the sound of it reverberates through the house

...me huddling on the cold tile floor, under the kitchen table, hands pressing so hard over my ears and still hearing it all anyway

...the ceramic shards of the plate on the floor next to me, smears of spaghetti sauce on the white and blue ceramic pieces

It had all happened so fast too. Five minutes earlier, you never would’ve guessed.

“I didn’t raise you to be so fucking rude,” he says now.

“Sorry,” I say, and slide my phone back into my pocket.

He eyes me hard, as if trying to decide if I’m sorry enough. I don’t move a muscle. He snorts and drinks down the rest of his whiskey in one shot. “Here,” he says, shoving the glass in my direction. “Get me a refill.”

I take it and go into the kitchen for more, obedient daughter that I am.

Throughout my life, I’ve sort of against my will ended up in conversations with people who, for some reason I can’t comprehend, start telling me about an alcoholic parent they have. I’m always kind of stunned by what they tell me. One girl’s father never beat anybody or had rages or got pulled over for drunk driving or passed out in the hallway or anything. He was what she called a “functioning alcoholic,” but apparently it was still enough to fuck her up, because her boyfriends were all emotionally-distant addicts of one variety or another anyway.

Another guy said his dad would get fun and loopy when he drank, but couldn’t hold down a job, and of course wouldn’t stop drinking, and so that’s why his mother divorced him. He said he had a “decent” relationship with his dad. They even do holidays and get-togethers.

Fucking
Christmas.

I never say what my dad’s like. That’s locked up tight.

Because apparently even in the world of alcoholic parents, I got the kind that makes people look at you with shock and horror and pity. There’s a very short list of people in my life I trust enough to know the truth without looking at me like that.

And right now one of them, thank god, is walking through my front door.