Tethered (20 page)

“It’s hot, right?” Stella asked me from my left. She was holding a cold beer to her face and smiling at me.

“Summer time in New Jersey is usually pretty warm,” I informed her in case she didn’t know it.

She laughed pleasantly. “I’m complaining about the heat now, but in a couple of months, I’ll be freezing my ass off in harsh New England winter.”

I tilted my head, but thought better of that move when it felt like my brain sloshed in my head.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused. “I thought you’re going to school in Oklahoma or some other landlocked, tornado state?”

That sweet laugh again. She really was a nice girl. It wasn’t her fault that I disliked her just a little bit. If it was anyone’s fault, it was Emmet’s. So, I tried to smile back at her.

“I was going to go to Oklahoma,” she said and then took a sip of her beer. “But I changed my mind. I like the idea of being a train ride away from home. So, I’m going to go to Brown.”

I wasn’t positive about the timing and mileage, but Brown was uncomfortably close to Cambridge by my estimate.

I didn’t bother forcing any more smiles for Stella’s benefit. Even though she didn’t say it, I felt like she was impeding on my territory, stepping on my toes. Damn it, she was going for my man.

“Emmet and I figured it out,” she said casually lacing her arm with mine. I allowed her to lead me to a far corner of the large deck as she spoke. “It is only forty minutes or so for each of us if we meet halfway.”

“Meet halfway for what?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulder. “For whatever.Lunch, dinner, a night out.”

Okay
, I told myself.
At least she didn’t say for sex.

She leaned in conspiringly and said “Maybe more.” She sighed as I felt my shoulders slump a little. “Emmet can be wild sometimes, but he has a good heart. You’re lucky to have him as a brother.”

“Yes, he’s a good brother,” I said absently.

I wanted to get away from Stella. I didn’t want to have distrustful thoughts of Emmet in my head, and she was pounding them in there with a giant mallet.

I started to move away, mumbling something about finding Emmy, but Stella didn’t hear me, because she continued to speak as if we were best buds.

“We’re forever bonded,” Stella said, looking off into empty space.

I raised an eyebrow. No one could be bonded with Emmet the way I was. We shared a link, a tether, an invisible line that kept us together even when we were apart. I took some satisfaction in this, until Stella pushed a small pin into my bubble. Only one little pin prick is all it takes to deflate a bubble.

“I know I don’t really know you, Donya, but I never hear you gossiping with the other girls, and Emmet always said good things about you. I can’t even trust my own friends with this,” she said with a sad laugh. Then she leaned in close to me so that she wouldn’t be overheard. “We got pregnant. I lost the baby after a few weeks, but we both said that the experience would keep us tied together, even if we weren’t
together
. But now that we’ll be older and living kind of close together, maybe we
can
be together, you know?”

I couldn’t process her words or the hopeful gleam in her teary eyes. I spun around, held onto the railing and hurled into the grass below.

*~*~*

“We were looking all over for you!” Emmy cried when she found me sitting on the hood of Emmet’s cherry red Audi.

Mayson, Tabitha, and Leo trailed behind her.

“I’ll go tell Emmet we found her,” Tabitha said and started walking back the way she had come.

Without a word, Leo turned around and caught up to Tabitha.

“What are you doing out here?” Emmy asked and it was then I noticed how much she struggled to stand still. She was pretty drunk, and her eyes looked dilated. She had most likely been smoking something.

Mayson didn’t look any better. In fact, she looked like she was flying in space, not even in the same galaxy. She gave up on standing and dropped slowly to the ground and stretched out on her back.

“You guys really need to lay off the weed,” I said.

“She didn’t smoke,” Emmy said, leaning against the car for support.

I wondered what she had inhaled or injected. Long before Emmy and I ever had our first drink, Mayson had been doing a variety of drugs. She seemed to have a grip on it, I had only seen her really messed up only a couple of times and it was always at a party. Otherwise, she seemed to be okay with weed like Emmy.

“Hey, I totally kissed Leo,” Emmy snickered.

“Leo has a girlfriend,” I said in Leslie’s defense. I didn’t really know her well at all, but when I thought of Stella trying to pursue
my
boyfriend, I felt like I had a secret camaraderie with Leslie.

“No, no, they broke up,” Emmy said.

My relief was small. In our age group, relationships broke apart and reformed quicker than others could realize there had been a change. My relationship with Emmet, apparently, was no different, because I didn’t know how we were going to last the night, let alone nine months of his schooling.

After I puked, Stella didn’t try to stop me from leaving. I went inside, looking for Emmet, but I didn’t see him. I mentally pulled on the tether, searching for him, but it was stretched and tangled around the horny, high, and hot and sweaty teenage bodies between us.

Stella found him first, or maybe he found her. I don’t know. I only saw their backs as they descended the deck steps into the large yard. He was so wrapped up in conversation with her that he did not feel me. They continued to walk towards the edge of the yard where it was darker and more private. I stopped doubting Stella’s claim of a bond.

Dejected, I turned around, pushed my way through the bodies to the front door and left the party behind.

By the time Tabitha and Leo returned with Emmet and Tack, Emmy had joined her cousin in the grass. Tack didn’t look too much better than they did.

“He’s not driving is he?” I asked no one in particular.

Leo held up a set of keys and said “I’m driving.”

“Do you have a license?” I asked.

“Practically,” he said.

I remained quiet as he and Tabitha helped Mayson off of the ground.
Practically
having a license while sober was better than having a license being drunk and high.

Emmet unlocked the car with his key fob before picking Emmy up off of the ground. I jumped off of the car and opened the back passenger’s side door and stepped aside so he could help her get in.

“See ya,” Tabitha said with a sigh as she helped Mayson walk.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think we’re just going to all go to my house and crash. My parents are gone a couple of days.”

“Okay.”

When I turned around, Emmet was holding my door open for me. I got into the car without looking at him or saying a word. Before he closed the door, he dragged his knuckles over my bare arm, making goose bumps race to the surface on my skin. I gently, but obviously, pulled my arm away from his hand and looked straight ahead. He stood there silently for a moment.

“What?” he finally said with a trace of frustration in his tone.

I didn’t answer. I reached for my seatbelt and pulled it across my chest and lap and clicked it into place while Emmet stood there in the open door watching me.

Finally, he slammed the door. When he got into the car, I could feel his aggravation. He put his seatbelt on, turned the engine and then slammed on the gas. We went unnecessarily fast down the long driveway towards the main road. He barely paused to check for cars before racing onto the pavement and rocketing down the road. I ignored his careless driving and looked into the backseat to check on Emmy. Her head was resting against the window as she slept with her mouth wide open. Very attractive, especially with the drool pooled at one corner of her mouth.

“Unless you need help getting Emmy into the house, you can drop me off at my mom’s,” I said quietly.

“No,” Emmet said. He sounded appalled that I even said it.

“It wasn’t really an option or a question,” I said evenly.

“I’m driving and I’m not
giving
you the option.”

“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms. “I’ll walk.”

“That also is not an option,” he said, gripping the gear shift harder than necessary as he made the car go even faster.

“You’re going too fast,” I snapped.

“Yeah, I hear that a lot from you,” he snapped back. “But when I go slow, it’s not fast enough for you.”

I looked at him with murder in my eyes. There was plenty I wanted to say, but I didn’t know how much Emmy could really hear. If she had been listening at all, our conversation would seem innocent enough. I decided to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the ride home, choosing to ignore the ridiculous speed we were going and Emmet’s eyes often burning a hole into the side of my face.

When we got to the Grayne’s, Emmet got out and slammed his door before walking around to help Emmy. She couldn’t walk on her own. Hell, she could barely walk at all. Emmet picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, making her laugh.

“I love my brother,” she said, her voice echoing into the night.

“Quiet,” Emmet commanded as he kicked her door closed.

I knew he could take care of her, that he would be able to get her into the house and into her room, hopefully without getting caught. I turned away from them and hurried across the grass, towards the sidewalk.

“Donya!” Emmet tried to yell-whisper my name.

Knowing he wouldn’t just leave Emmy, I walked faster, ignoring Emmet’s commands to return. I figured I had only about five minutes before he would come after me.

I knew I was doing it again. I was running away instead of facing the problem, but I really needed some time to think. I wasn’t going to ignore the problem. I just wanted to ponder on the problem. Sitting on the hood of Emmet’s car for an hour watching other drunken people walk by and listening to the music blasting from the house party wasn’t really a great environment for thinking. I was only able to replay my conversation with Stella over and over in my mind.

Emmet had knocked Stella up and never said anything to me. I would think that would be information I would need to know. I started to wonder if he had feelings for her. I wondered what they were talking so intently about when he didn’t even know I was standing behind him. I wondered if there was a chance they were going to get back together while they were away at school. They were bonded, after all.

I groaned in misery. They were
bonded
alright. He had put his bare dick in her. No condom. No sense. What had he been thinking? What if she had some kind of disease and he could have potentially given it to me?

“Careless, selfish, horny son of a bitch,” I muttered as I neared my street.

I didn’t make it home. I heard the powerful engine and the squeal of his tires as he flew around the corner. Before he even screeched to a stop beside me, I knew it was him. I
felt
it was him. I kept walking, but Emmet was on the sidewalk before I could even get past his front bumper. He roughly grabbed my upper arm.

“Get in the car, Donya,” he said with a clenched jaw.

“I need to go home and think,” I said, irritably as I tried to wrench free of his hand.

Emmet’s eyes glowed a serious, stormy green as he engulfed my personal space. His grip on my arm increased to the point of pain. As an automatic reflex, I tried to step back, but he held me firmly and I couldn’t move anywhere he didn’t want me to move. Emmet had never scared me before, but I felt danger from him on that sidewalk. The tether between us twisted painfully, twisting my insides with it.

“I said to get in the fucking car,” Emmet said so close to my face that I could almost see the words in the air as they came out of his mouth and landed softly, yet threatening on my face.

He pushed and pulled me to the car. He opened the door and pushed me inside and slammed the door so hard the car rattled. When he walked around the front of the car, the headlights illuminated his face. I didn’t recognize him and that scared me.

“Put your seatbelt on,” he commanded, but I just stared blankly at him. Angrily, he reached across me and put it on for me. After he was latched in, he worked the gears and clutch and we sped off into the dark night.

Chapter
Sixteen

The parking lot where Emmet first kissed me hadn’t changed. He parked in the furthest corner where very little light reached. He got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked around to my side. He opened my door and waved for me to get out of the car. He was still terribly angry and I wasn’t sure that I wanted him grabbing my arm again. I could already feel it bruising.

I got out of the car and quickly tried to step away from him, but he put his hand on the car, blocking me with his arm. He shut my door and then used his other arm to trap me against the car.

“Talk.”

“I don’t want to yet,” I managed to say.

“Not an option. Talk.”

I scowled. “You can’t make me talk.”

“If I have to put a hand up your ass and make your mouth move like a fucking dummy I will. Talk!”

“I need some time and space to think!”

“I leave in less than two days!” he yelled in my face. “There is no time! Why do you keep doing this to me?”

He slammed a hand on the hood of the car behind me, startling me and making me gasp. I had never, ever seen this level of anger from Emmet. I was sure that if I reached out and touched him my hand would burn in his fury.

“I talked to Stella tonight,” I started in a whisper. “She told me she’s going to Brown.”

“Is that what you’re mad about?” he asked incredulously. “Like I have some control over where she goes to school?”

“She said you guys plan to get together, and often.”

Emmet rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Donya? That’s what you’re fucking mad about? Did she tell you that we would also be meeting up with a few other people who will be in school in the area?”