Chapter 9

Nikolai

My fist clenched on the steering wheel as I pulled into Becker’s driveway. I frequently stopped by Jack’s house before I went home, and I needed to distract myself from my interaction with Hannah. I was frustrated that she had guilted me into helping her, but I was more frustrated with myself for how I was acting around her. Since when did I tell people my personal business? Never, that’s when. Why had I told her all that shit? I didn’t think Jack even knew that story.

I didn’t have friendships with girls, outside of Katya, so maybe being around with Hannah with no intention of fucking her was messing with my head.

This morning the thought of fucking Hannah was laughable, ridiculous. But earlier, when she removed her glasses, I was startled. Not only by the vivid, violet-colored eyes that contrasted so dramatically with her dark lashes and pale skin, but by the softness of her expression. The compassion and concern on her face. Compassion and concern for me. That expression made my chest tighten with anger and discomfort. This girl had wrung more emotions out of me in a single day than anyone else had in years.

Eager to distract myself, I popped out of my car and headed to the back of the house. Becker usually stayed in the pool house, which would have been strange given the amount of square footage in his family’s massive home, but once you met the Beckers, you understood Jack’s need for space.

I was almost to the door when Shelby walked out. I was surprised that Jack had been hooking up with her so much. It definitely wasn’t his style.

“How’s it going, Nikolai?” Shelby flirted.

“Hey.”

“So, you’re the reason I had to leave so suddenly?” she said somewhat teasingly, but there was a bite of resentment that seeped into her words.

I cocked my head at her. I very much doubted I was the reason Jack was kicking her out.

“Shelby.” Becker stood shirtless in the doorway behind her, his arms folded and a look of displeasure on his face. “He’s not the reason it’s time to go, and you know it.”

Shelby pasted a thin smile on her face and turned to him, putting her hand on his bare chest. “I know you need your space, Jack. I’m happy to give you what you need, that’s why our relationship works.”

Relationship? That was a huge red flag. I gave Becker an incredulous stare, but he was glaring down at Shelby.

“We’re not in a relationship, Shelby. In fact, I just told you ten minutes ago that this was the last time I was going to fuck around with you. You need to get it—we’re done. No more sex, no more texts, no more phone calls, nothing. I don’t want a girlfriend. We had sex; it was fine. Now it’s over.”

Jesus, why did I have to be here for this shit show?

Shelby sighed, as though Jack was trying her patience with this information. She reached up and rubbed his chest. “You’ve said this before Jack, and we always end up back together.”

“We were never together,” Jack gritted out. “I just happened to fuck you a few more times than other girls. That doesn’t mean shit.”

I saw Shelby’s nails start to dig into Jack’s chest in anger, so Jack reached up, grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away. Shelby used her other hand to punch Jack in the chest, so he grabbed that wrist as well.

“Fuck you, Jack! You know you want to be with me! Stop playing games!” Shelby screamed in his face.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Jack pulled Shelby’s wrists together and leaned in to where their faces were only inches apart. “Shelby, you need to get the fuck out of here now. We are done with this shit. Find yourself another guy to fuck.”

With that, Jack let Shelby go so abruptly she stumbled back slightly. She looked back at me, as if suddenly remembering I was there.

“You’ll regret this, Jack. You’ll call me,” Shelby asserted, then spun around and ran off.

“Jesus Christ, dude, did you have to do that shit with me standing right here?” I complained as I walked through the door and fell back on the sectional sofa.

Becker slammed the door and grabbed a t-shirt off the dining room table. “Sorry, that turned into kind of a mess. Technically, I told her before you got here, but she was not really interested in absorbing the new reality.”

“Obviously.”

Becker flipped me off as he walked to fridge and pulled out two beers. He handed me one and sat down on the perpendicular part of the L-shaped sofa.

I took a deep pull on the cold beer and used my bottle to gesture towards him. “I told you that you were hooking up with her too much and she was going to get the wrong idea.”

“I know, I know, she was just convenient. She supposedly understood our arrangement, so it was just easier to keep hitting her up.” Jack chugged half his beer in one sip, evidently trying to drown out the memory of Shelby’s dramatic scene with Budweiser. “You should talk, by the way. I saw your new ‘girlfriend’ in the hall today.” He said, making finger quotes even with the half empty bottle in his hands.

“Shut the fuck up, you know that’s not what’s going on.”

Jack took another sip and shot me a puzzled look. “Why the fuck are you doing this again?”

I sighed and tipped my head back on the coach cushion. Jack had every right to ask me that question. To say my random act of chivalry was out of character was an understatement. However, I didn’t know how to explain why I felt compelled to help Hannah, how her pleading eyes made me feel. I also didn’t want to explain how powerful it had felt to watch her walk freely through school knowing I had given her that, and I definitely didn’t want to explain how interesting and attractive her previously unnoticed features had become when they were softened with empathetic curiosity about me and my life.

I took a long, slow sip of my beer, giving myself the time to create an explanation that would pacify Jack.

“I don’t know,” I finally answered.

Brilliant.

Jack’s eyebrows about jumped into his hairline and he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as his hands cradled his beer. “You don’t know?”

I frowned at him. “Have you ever had some girl being stalked and harassed by some crazy bastard approach you and ask for help?”

Jack looked at me as if trying to figure out some secret agenda. “That’s really it? She asked for help and you felt bad for her?”

“Why the hell else would I do it? Certainly not to fuck her,” I said caustically, but felt a little dart of discomfort because all of a sudden fucking Hannah didn’t seem all that unappealing.

Jack shot me a leering grin. “I don’t know, you take off those ridiculous glasses, brush her hair, she might not be too bad. She looked like she might have a banging little body under those baggy clothes.”

I absolutely hated this conversation. Jack talking about fucking Hannah was making my blood pressure climb, and the fact that I cared at all was making sweat gather at the base of my spine.

I couldn’t help leveling him with a stare. “Leave her alone, Jack. She’s dealt with enough shit.”

Jack shot me a surprised look. “You think I’d go after an unwilling girl?”

“No, no, she just doesn’t have any experience with someone like you.”

Jack looked at me in mock offense. “Like me?”

“Yes. You’re a whore.”

Jack laughed and put his hands up in mock surrender. “Message received.”

I breathed an internal sigh of relief but covered it up by drinking my beer. “You may have to help me with Connors later in the week if he recovers too quickly from that basketball to the face he got today.”

“Fine, fine,” Jack responded, but he was distracted by some yelling coming from the house. He got up and walked to the window to see what was going on.

“What’s up?”

“What the fuck else? My parents’ shitty marriage.”

“Why are they yelling this time?” I didn’t know why I asked, it was always the same thing.

Jack walked back to the couch and sat back, staring at his beer broodingly. “The usual. My dad got caught cheating, my mom got mad because he brought one of his girls here and the neighbors might have seen.” Jack smiled mirthlessly. “Then they’d know the Beckers aren’t the perfect all-American family.”

“How did she find out?” Although dealing with his parents’ marriage had damaged Jack, we sometimes found a dark humor in all the ways his stupid father got caught.

“Frank brought her to the house when they were both drunk. He forgot to disable the alarm, so it sent a signal to my mom’s phone. She can access all the security cameras remotely, so when she did, she saw my dad doing…Stephanie? Samantha? I don’t know, whoever the hell his secretary is right now. Or was.”

I shook my head. I didn’t understand why Jack’s mother put up with it, and I’d consider her a martyred saint if she wasn’t such a complete bitch.

“Yeah, so, good times.” Jack raised his almost empty beer in a fake salute and finished it off.

“Alright, I’m out of here.” I got up, put my empty bottle on the coffee table and headed to the door. Becker got up and headed to the fridge for another beer. He opened and raised it in another salute to me as I was about to walk out.

“Say hi to Hannah for me.”

I flipped him off and walked out.