Rock Bottom (30 page)

***

Dinner consists of pot roast, twice baked potatoes, carrots, celery, and a lot of laughter.

For months I believed I had nothing. No one. Now, I look around the table at everything I
do
have. My friends. My family. My Prince. And I realize something . . .

The thing about hitting rock bottom is . . . it leaves you nowhere to go but up. 

SNEAK PEEK

Coming from Author Jamie Canosa in 2015:

Sins of the Father

“Get your ass in gear or I’m going to kick it!”

Ack!
That girl was going to drive me off the deep end faster than my current wardrobe predicament. I’d only known Lisa about a month and a half. Ever since I’d moved into the dorm to find half the room painted orange—we were not allowed to paint the walls—and covered in large posters of indie rock bands I’d never heard of and still kinda wished I hadn’t. In those six weeks, she’d managed to drag me out more times than I’d frequented the land of the living after dark in the previous eighteen years combined, and I was running dangerously low on anything that could even be considered acceptable attire for a night out.

“Hold on.”

The jeans, baggy sweaters, and graphic tees hanging in front of me were never going to meet with her approval. For the past few years I hadn’t needed much in the way of party clothes. I was more of a stay-home-with-a-good-book-and-a-cozy-blanket kind of girl. Life was easier that way. It was safer.

“Seriously, Jess, move it or we’re gonna be late. If they run out of jello shots . . .”

Safety wasn’t something Lisa was overly concerned with. Neither was the word ‘no’ the first thousand times I’d tried to tell her it. In fact, it didn’t even seem to be part of her vocabulary.

“I’m coming!” I grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of jeans and threw them on my bed.

Her relentless persistence was probably just about the only thing that could have dragged me out of that room for anything besides classes, despite my promise to myself before coming to campus that I would have more of a life over the next four years.

Lisa’s pouty red lips puckered as she stuck her head out of the bathroom and frowned at me.

“What are you wearing?” I recited Lisa’s words in my head along with her. It was one of two phrases she threw at me on a near daily basis. That and . . . “Oh, girl.”

***

Music pounded from the small two-story white house loudly enough that I could feel the beat of the bass in my bones as we made our way up the drive. The front door stood open and people milled around, smoking and chatting with classic red Solo cups in their hands or precariously balanced along the porch railing.

One guy whooped and stumbled backward. Clearly the party had
already
started for some. His eyes made a lazy perusal of Lisa’s long legs before colliding with mine. “You brought a friend.”

“Yeah. That’s Jess. Now point me toward the shots. Thanks to her desperate need to go shopping I’m in need of a little catching up.”

The guy’s slightly glassy gaze slid over the tight LBD Lisa had shoved me into from her own closet as I fidgeted with the too short hem. I wasn’t tall by any stretch of the imagination at five-foot-five, but Lisa was a good three inches shorter than me and the dress bordered on indecent. I never should have let her—

“I don’t know what she’s talking about. You look
hot
.” He sidled closer and I cast around for backup, but Lisa had already gone. Headed toward the kitchen and presumably some shots. “My name’s Scott. What’s yours?”

“I’m Jess.” I was pretty sure Lisa had already told him that, but, then again, he wasn’t really listening to my answer, either.

Eyes glued to my chest, he asked, “You wanna dance?”

“Not really. I don’t—” I went to take a step back, but before I could move Scott snatched my wrist and tugged me into the living room where a mass of sweaty bodies writhed to the pumping beat. Maybe that wild orgy assessment hadn’t been so far off base, after all.

“Sure you do.”

“Have a drink.” Lisa shoved a plastic cup into my hand and I relaxed marginally.

Cutting in on Scott without a word of apology she took up position in front of me and the two of us swayed to the music. Songs rolled seamlessly into one another and a fine sheen of sweat broke out over my body with the rising temperature in the room. Hosts floated through the house and Lisa would occasionally pluck a couple cups from one of their trays. Dance floor service, that’s high class right there. Of course it meant I hadn’t had a break in over an hour. Or an empty cup, and now I really needed to pee.

“Where are you going?” Lisa had to shout to be heard over the combination of music and voices blaring through the room.

“Bathroom!”

“Okay. I’m gonna go grab another drink. You want one?”

I shook my head—I was already having trouble walking a straight line—and was only mildly annoyed by Lisa’s scowl. The girl was a party machine. How in the world was I supposed to keep up with that?

Upstairs, the line for what was apparently the only toilet in the house—and extremely poor planning on the part of the hosts—stretched down the hall. Silently chastising myself for waiting so long, I leaned up against the wall, resigned to holding it. Lisa had convinced my drunk ass to pee in a backyard bush once before at one of these things and it was not an experience I ever planned to repeat.

“Hey. There you are.”
Crap
. Scott staggered his way up the stairs leaning heavily against the railing. “You ditched me earlier.”

“Sorry about that.” I turned my back on him, hoping he’d take the hint and willed the line to move faster.

The thing about drunk frat guys . . . they don’t take hints. “S’ok. You can make it up to me now.”

My chest ached with the force of the scream building in my lungs. There were people around—lots of people—if I just screamed . . . But his hard grip on my wrist felt like a clamp around my throat, silencing all but the quietest of whispered protests.

“No. Please. Let go of me.”

“No way. You bailed on me before. You’re not doing it again.”

My entire body started to tremble as tears sprang to my eyes.

Help me! Please, someone, help me!

My mind cried out for help, but years of conditioning took over.
Don’t cause a scene. Don’t draw negative attention. What will everyone think? What will they
say
?

I struggled to free myself discreetly as he dragged me along behind him and threw open a door at the end of the hall. A large unmade bed sat in the middle of the room. Oh God, this was really happening. That saying about lightening never striking twice ran through my head as bile crept up the back of my throat.

Please. Please, no. Not again.

“Hey!” A large hand grabbed Scott’s shoulder, spinning him around and planting him against the wall. A matching hand took my arm and gently removed me from Scott’s grasp.

I caught a blurry glimpse of a black tee shirt stretched over broad shoulders, and the hint of some kind of tribal tattoo peeking out from under a sleeve along the muscled arm holding Scott in place.

“What the fuck, man?”

“The girl doesn’t really look like she wants to be here.” A deep voice, nearly as powerful as the body it belonged to, rumbled. “Or am I wrong?”

His head swiveled to look back at me over his shoulder and I was struck dumb by the brightest green eyes I’d ever seen in my life. Light colored stubble coated a strong jaw, matching the locks shaved close to his head, in perfect contrast to the deep pink of his tight lips. My gaze traveled back up to those eyes and I realized he was still waiting for my answer.

The best I could manage was a brief shake of my head.

“That’s what I thought.” He tightened his grasp on Scott’s shirt collar and slammed him into the wall again. Scott’s head bounced lazily off the doorframe. “A girl says no, she means
no,
shithead.”

A gasp drew me back from the edge of a panic attack and I realized we had an audience. The entire bathroom line had crowded closer and a few of Scott’s frat brothers waited around to see if he’d need backup. Odds were pointing to yes when tall, light, and handsome balled his fist. He was cocked and ready to plant it in Scott’s face when I grabbed ahold of his elbow. 

“No. Don’t. Please?”

His muscles bunched under my touch and those emerald greens swung my way. “You don’t want me to hit him?”

I shook my head, biting down on my lip to keep from begging. We were drawing attention. I didn’t want attention.

“Even after what he was about to do to you?”

I shook my head again, pleading without words for him to let it go.

A moment passed while he hesitated, before he released his hold on Scott. “You should really thank her. She just saved your ass.”

Scott’s eyes had cleared considerably and he peered at me with as much confusion as Emerald. “Uh . . . th-thanks.”

The instant the word had passed his lips, he turned tail and disappeared into the room, slamming the door behind him. With nothing more to see, the quiet hush that had fallen over the entire second story erupted into chatter and drunken laughter. Everyone returned to their party festivities and I slumped against the wall.

“You alright?” Emerald was still there, watching me from across the hall.

“Mhmm.” I tried to stand, to show him I was fine, and failed miserably. The weight of everything that had happened—everything that had
almost
happened—crashed down on me, making my knees weak. I barely caught myself before hitting the floor.

“Sure you are.” Emerald didn’t look impressed. He stepped closer and wrapped an arm around my waist, deliberately avoiding anything too high or too low. My breath caught, but his careful positioning erased the urge to push him away. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

I was so fascinated by the fact that his touch didn’t send ice water gushing through my veins that we were halfway down the stairs before I remembered where I was and who I was with. “Lisa.”

“What?”

“My friend. I came with my friend Lisa.”

“Where was
she
five minutes ago?”

I didn’t like his insinuation. I was a big girl. I didn’t need a damn chaperone.

Then again . . . maybe I did.

“Dancing probably.”

Emerald steered me into the living room, stopping at the edge of the crowd while I scanned faces. I spotted Lisa grinding with some guy I’d never laid eyes on before in front of the DJ booth and waved her over.

By the time she’d pressed her way through the dance floor and made it to us, she was grinning widely. “Hey, girl, who did you find?”

“Umm . . .” I still didn’t actually know his name.

“Jessica needs to go home.” But apparently he knew mine.

“Oh, Jess . . .” Lisa groaned. “I can’t leave now. The party’s just getting good.”

She flashed a smiled and wiggled her fingers at the guy with the backward cap and tank top still waiting for her by the DJ.

Emerald’s jaw tightened and he shook his head. “You’re in no condition to drive anyway. I’ll take her home.”

“What about Lisa?” Getting in a car with some guy whose name I didn’t even know, alone, while drunk didn’t sound like a brilliant idea. Made worse by the evening I was already having.

“Don’t worry about me.” A sly grin curved her bright red lips as she slipped into the crush of bodies and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing her again until at least tomorrow.

I was stuck. It was either trust Emerald, the guy who had already come to my rescue once, to take me home to my fuzzy pajamas and warm blankets or a stick around in a house full of drunken idiots to wait for a better option to present itself. Unlikely.

“You sure you don’t mind?” The nip in the air helped clear my head as we walked along the car-lined street to where a black, two-door, something-or-other was parked. “I don’t live far.”

“No. Get in.” He opened the door for me and I thought, ‘what a gentleman’ as he lowered me into the bucket seat.

The radio hummed, filling the dead air between us as he pulled onto the road. Social interactions were not my strong suit. I considered asking his name, but thought I’d already waited too long for that. Saving my thanks for when he dropped me off, I chewed quietly on my nail, watching streetlights blur by. It wasn’t until we missed my turn that I realized I hadn’t given him any directions.

“Oh, hey. Sorry. That was my street back—”

I shifted to point him back in the opposite direction and that’s when I noticed the white cloth in his hand. And the look in his eye.

Oh, God.

His hand flew up, covering my nose and mouth with the cloth.  A sickly-sweet scent invaded my airway. With each panicked gasp I grew woozier and my struggles died off before they even got started.

In the last moments before consciousness slipped away, my gaze connected with his and I swear I heard him say, “I’m sorry.”