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  I hated him.

  “Don’t you have a job to do? Why the fuck are you even here?” I spewed back.

  He grabbed my arm, just above the elbow, and held me still as I tried to get around him.

  “Watch your language, young lady.” His voice was deep and harsh. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. I didn’t know much about uncles, but I had assumed they were supposed to be fun. He wasn’t.

  “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, old man?” I hoped I sounded braver than I felt. I didn’t feel very brave. It took a lot to scare me, but this guy did it for me every single time I was around him.

  His hold on my arm tightened and it made me wince in pain.

  “Listen to me, and listen good. I will not sit back and let you disrespect her, or me, any longer. We get it—you don’t want to be here. Everyone gets it. But there’s nothing you can do about that now. Maybe next time you’ll learn to check your tag lights before going out on a joyride at nighttime. You’re here. Suck it up. At least pretend to not hate it so much for her. She has gone through enough hell without you adding more.”

  I didn’t respond. I just twisted my tingling arm out of his grasp and left.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Link said after I told him my plan.

  “It’s only an hour away. That’s one hour there, one hour back, and maybe an hour or two in between. Four hours max. Nobody will know where we went. I promise, you won’t get in any trouble,” I begged. Yes, I resorted to begging; it’s what Billy did to me.

  “And what am I supposed to do while you’re there? Hang out in the living room while you two are fucking in the other room? No thank you.”

  “You can join in,” I teased.

  He raised an eyebrow, as if contemplating it, before shaking his head and laughing.

  “I don’t do dudes.”

  “Who said you had to do him? I have enough room for at least three people.”

  Link’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. Oh yeah, he was taking me to see my man. And if I had to entertain him as well just to get my hands on Billy, I would do just that. But he knew I was only teasing, so I didn’t have to worry about it.

  “Liar.” If that’s what he wanted to believe, I wasn’t going to argue. “Fine, let’s go.”

  We got into his fancy black car, some car I didn’t know how to pronounce. It was sleek with soft black leather inside. The dashboard talked and lit up in cool colors. The only car I ever drove was one Billy let me use when I needed to. And it was an old station wagon with wood paneling on the doors—nothing compared to what I was sitting in now.

  “This thing looks like it probably cost a lot of money,” I said out loud, not really expecting a reply. It was more or less just an observation I made—mostly to myself.

  “That’s what happens when Mommy and Daddy are gone all the time. They feel guilty for my abandonment issues, so they buy me things.”

  My head was reeling with questions. “You call your parents Mommy and Daddy?”

  He laughed. “No. It’s a figure of speech.”

  I felt stupid, but the questions kept coming. “You have abandonment issues?”

  “Not really, but they think so. I allow them to think I do so I get things from them.”

  I liked Link more and more every time I hung out with him. Sounded like something I would have done. Well, I guess it was something I was already doing with Jeri.

  “So, where are we going?” he asked as we backed out of his driveway.

  “Do you know how to get to Jacobsville?”

  He nodded.

  “Just get to Main Street and I’ll tell you where to go. I know my way around there; just not how to get there from here.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered as he turned up the radio.

  It was playing some horrible music I’ve never heard before, so I tuned it out. I couldn’t get my dream out of my head, no matter what I did. I started to think about what happened after the point I awoke from. A devious smile played on my lips as I thought about it.

  “FUCK!”

  I watched from my back as he gripped his hair in both hands and looked down at me. I kept quiet, continuing to rub his come on me, gently teasing my sensitive spot.

  “What the fuck, Kendall?” He panted in shallow breaths, but he never moved away.

  “Why are you so freaked out? You didn’t seem so worried a few minutes ago.”

  “You’re sixteen. That’s the problem.” He started to back away.

  I sat up and moved to him, grabbing at his bare hips. He gripped my shoulders and pushed me back. The thought of rejection never even crossed my mind before then. Not that I was sure of myself, but the look in his eyes as I moved between the slut’s legs told me I didn’t have to worry. I guess those eyes were clouded by lust and not rationale.

  “And I wasn’t even wearing a condom. Fuck!” he yelled again.

  “I’m on birth control. Don’t sweat it.” I had taken enough of him pushing me away. I decided to just leave before he physically removed me from his room. I didn’t think I could handle that, too.

  He didn’t move as I walked away, and that stung a little. But once I had my clothes in hand and made it across the hall to my room, he was on my heels.

  “When did you get on birth control? How did you get it? Why are you on it?”

  His questions seemed to all rush out at once. It was almost as if the thought of me protecting myself angered him even more than what we had just done with each other.

  “It doesn’t matter. I found a way to get it and I did.”

  “But why?” he pressed.

  “Isn’t that what people do when they have sex?”

  The small lamp next to my bed was on, casting a soft glow onto our naked bodies as we stood, facing each other in the small room. His eyes were so dark they almost looked black as they widened on his face. The light hit his body just right, spreading shadows around his well-defined muscles. The dark edges of the tattoo just on the underside of his right arm looked eerie, yet sexy at the same time. He had this bad boy look to him that no girl could resist—I just fell in line with the rest.

  “What the hell are you doing having sex?”

  “Really, Billy? You just got done fucking me until my body was numb, and now you decide to question my sex life? A little hypocritical, don’t you think?” I couldn’t believe the gall he had to be pissed at me for having sex. Who was he? Oh yeah, Mr. Fuck Anything that Walks. Again, hypocritical.

  “Well, you clearly weren’t a virgin. How long have you been having sex for?”

  “Why does it matter to you?”

  “YOU’RE SIXTEEN!” he shouted in my face. I’m sure the neighbors loved that.

  “So, tell me, Billy the Saint, were you having sex at sixteen?”

  That shut him up, not really. It only made him pause long enough to come up with something else to say. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. You shouldn’t be having sex yet. You’re young and innocent. You don’t need to be ruined like I am.” His words became soft and desperate. I leaned closer to him, both of us still just as naked as the day we were born.

  “I’m not that young. And I’m not that innocent.”

  “I just have a really hard time picturing you as anything but that little girl with red pigtails.”

  I moved in even closer, taking his hand in mine and moving it to my breast. I waited until I could feel his fingers begin to flex around it, and then gently pushing it lower, down my abdomen and to the hot space between my legs. I stared at him, and he stared at my body beneath his rough and warm hand.

  “You should replace that image with the one of me beneath you with my legs spread.”

  My breath hitched as his fingers found the right spot.

  “Kendall, we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  I felt his erection pressing against my hip. “I think your cock begs to differ.”

  “Where did y
ou even learn to talk like that?”

  “The walls are quite thin around here. Your friends use very colorful language. You might have heard them if your headboard wasn’t pounding against the wall so loudly.”

  “I should wash your mouth out for talking like that.”

  His eyes closed with his forehead against mine. I reached between us and grabbed his hardened dick roughly in my hand. “Do you think you have enough left in there to wash it out with?”

  “Rule number one—I’m not your chauffeur. If you’re in the car with me and I’m driving you somewhere, you must engage in conversation.” Link’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.

  “I would have no problem with talking to you if you’d turn off this shitty-ass music.”

  Lincoln hit the button and the music went off. It was silent for a moment before he chose to speak again. I felt my face turn red, knowing I was caught daydreaming, and I’m sure he knew what I was dreaming about. He wasn’t dumb. I’m sure it was written all over my face.

  “Does he know you’re coming?” he asked.

  “No. I want to surprise him.”

  “That sounds like an incredibly stupid idea. What if he’s not home?”

  “He’ll be home. It’s Sunday. Sundays are his hangover days.”

  “Sounds like a winner,” he scoffed.

  I whipped my head in his direction. I knew I had to have heard him wrong. “And you’re one to talk? We have gotten high together every day since the day we met.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have a designated day to recover from it. In fact, I don’t need any time to recover from it. What does he do, party every Saturday?”

  “He works during the week. So the weekends are his to do with as he chooses. And if he chooses to party one night on the weekend, what’s it to you?” I knew I was becoming defensive, but I didn’t care. Link didn’t know Billy. But I guess I could use that logic to see his point, too.

  “Did you party with him, too?”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t answer with more. I wasn’t sure how much more I wanted to share.

  “Let’s play a game. We each get ten questions to ask the other person and we have to answer them honestly. No judging, no lying, and no repeating to anyone.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  He laughed. I knew he only came up with this game because he could tell I didn’t want to divulge about the parties. It was a lame way for him to get answers, and I didn’t want to play.

  “We don’t have to ask all ten questions now. And you can ask me anything.”

  I could tell by the smile on his face he wouldn’t give up until I relented. So I did.

  “Okay, first question,” he started. “Tell me about these parties. I want full disclosure. You have to tell me all about them down to the music that was played.”

  “That’s ridiculous. It wasn’t just one party, I can’t go into the details of every Saturday for the last year of my life,” I argued. He was insane if he thought I was going to do that.

  “I’m sure they were all very similar. I’m just curious how someone that was kept as a secret managed to party all the time.”

  Here went nothing. Or everything, depending on how you looked at it.

  “Billy had this one friend—still does—Grayson. He lived on a lake and we partied there sometimes. If we weren’t there, then we were at a clearing in the woods off State Road 491. Sometimes we just hung out at the shop Billy works at or had a small gathering at one of the guys’ houses. It just depended on who was going to be there and what everyone planned on doing.”

  “What do you mean by what you planned to do?” he cut me off to ask his question.

  I didn’t want to answer, but I figured it wasn’t going to do any harm by telling him the truth. So I continued. “Well, if we were drinking, we obviously weren’t going out to the clearing. Too many cops patrol that road for any of us to chance driving drunk on it. If we were planning on rolling, we usually went to Grayson’s house. But sometimes we were there when we didn’t take ecstasy.”

  “Whoa, hold on,” he cut me off again. “So when you say party, you mean party.” It was kind of a question, but spoken more like a statement. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to answer that.

  “Yeah, we partied.”

  “Was there like sex and stuff at these parties?” It seemed as though I had intrigued him.

  “Yes, people had sex. Just like I assume they did at the parties you went to as well.”

  “No. I mean, like group sex.”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know if I should’ve been offended or laugh at him. The smirk on his face told me he was incredibly interested in what I said next. I wouldn’t let him down.

  “You can’t ask one question and get my whole life story. You asked about the parties, I’m telling you about the parties. If you’d like to know about my sex life, because let’s face it, that’s what you’re really trying to get at here, then you’ll have to use another one of your precious questions for that.” I really hoped he chose not to waste one. I wasn’t in the mood to tell him all about it. “Would you like for me to get back to the parties? Or am I done with this particular question?”

  “What kind of drugs did you do–and no paraphrasing.”

  “Is this question number two?”

  “Nope, still the same question. I asked about the details of these parties. You said there were drugs. I’m just curious as to the drugs you did while at these parties.” He was good. He was real good. Little shit stain would end up getting all the details of my entire life before ever getting to question number six. That’s fine; I hadn’t asked any questions yet.

  “Alcohol, pot, ex, blow, Special K, and shrooms. Oh, and speed once.”

  Link was quiet for a few moments. I didn’t know how to take his silence, so I, too, kept quiet. He didn’t even look at me. He kept his eyes on the road with a stoic face.

  “Holy shit, Kendall. No wonder everyone was so worried about you. I’m surprised you’re still alive after all that shit. I was no saint, but I wouldn’t touch half that shit with a ten foot pole.” He was judging me, and that pissed me off. I hated to be judged. It’s why I loved Billy’s friends so much; there was no judgment there, only acceptance.

  “You act like I did it all at the same time. The speed was only once, and I only did Special K a few times. You act like you’re so much better than me. But yet you’ve never done any of it, so how would you know? You don’t know me. You don’t know Billy, and you don’t know his friends. Keep your holier-than-thou attitude to yourself.”

  I turned to look away; I couldn’t stand to look at him any longer. But then I felt his hand on my thigh, applying enough pressure to make me turn back. I was wearing a skirt, so his fingertips actually touched my bare skin. Tingles spread all through me like a wildfire. I chanced a look at him and he was staring right at me, only glancing back at the empty road a few times.

  “That wasn’t what I meant. I never meant to offend you.”

  “Then what did you mean by it?” I challenged.

  “I was only trying to say that’s some bad-ass shit you’ve done. Maybe one day you can tell me all about it, let me live vicariously through your memories–if you have any of them.” He laughed at his own joke. I didn’t. I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, and it would’ve worked, if his hand wasn’t still on my leg. I couldn’t seem to think of anything else, other than the feel of his fingers on my skin. I needed to get laid; it had been too long.

  “What about you? Ever done anything other than pot?”

  He finally pulled his hand back away and placed it on the steering wheel, looking back to the road and away from me. “I tried coke once, but I liked it too much. I knew I could never do it again; otherwise, I’d be fucked. I do like prescription pills, though. Ever done any of those?”

  “I have before, yes. But you asked about the parties. I only told you what I took at the parties.” I saw a smile form on his lips and felt my own on mine. “I guess
I feel the same way about those as you do coke. I like them too much.”

  “What have you taken?”

  “The usuals–Oxy, Percocet, Tylox. I didn’t really care much for those. Now, my favorites are Adderall and Lunesta, for different reasons obviously. I tried Valium and Xanax before, but I wasn’t a fan of those. Which ones do you take?”

  He laughed to himself and shook his head. “Shit, girl, you got me beat. I usually eat Oxys. I can’t say I’ve done too many others.” He turned to look at me. “Did you say Lunesta?”

  “Yes, I love me some sleep-easies.”

  “Do you have a hard time sleeping?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at him. “How does the son of two doctors not know about Lunesta? Here’s what it is, other than the best high ever—” I turned in my seat and faced him completely with my leg tucked under me “—once you fight the sleep, you get Fucked. Up. You have delayed speech, movements, hallucinations, and you get this fuzzy feeling. It’s like a benzo.”

  “Sounds like fun. Maybe you can show me sometime.”

  The thought of doing any of those with him scared me. I hadn’t done anything with anyone but Billy, and I didn’t know if it’d be the same with someone else. Billy just added to the experiences. I wasn’t sure how it’d be with Link.

  “Yeah, maybe.” It was all I could say.

  “We’re on Main Street in Jacobsville, now where do we go?”

  I gave him the directions and watched as all the familiar scenery passed by. It had only been a little over a month since I was last riding down those streets, yet it felt like forever. It made me feel horrible knowing it would only be a couple hours at most before I’d watch it all disappear from the rearview mirror again. Only this time, I wouldn’t be in the back of a squad car.

  We pulled into the driveway of the house I had called mine for over two and a half years. It looked more run down than it had when I occupied it. Billy must not have been taking care of the yard like I had.

  I used to go out in the flower beds every Monday morning and pull weeds or trim the bushes, just to keep it looking nice for him. It was for nobody else since hardly anyone that came by even cared what they looked like. But I knew Billy appreciated it.