Page 48 of The Summer of ’98

“You were the one that told her?”

There was only a brief pause before Leroy nodded and shouldered the blame. I stood up to protest but without looking back, he raised his hand behind him to stop me.

“You’ve never told her what I get up to,” Noah growled, his fury obvious, but he appeared more suspicious than anything. “Why now?”

I couldn’t handle watching Leroy take the blame for something that I’d done. Not to mention Noah’s cowardice was starting to get on my nerves.

“No, I told her,” I snapped and stepped into place beside Leroy. “She deserves to know. She deserves to know that the loser that she’s in love with is a disgusting pig. I don’t know what she sees in you. But she cares. A lot. And the worst part is, she knows that you don’t feel the same. But she still cares! She’s a great girl and you are a pathetic piece of garbage. She could do so much better and I can’t wait until she realizes it.”

I was seeing stars. Dots of adrenaline danced in my vision. I was sure that I had red cheeks, but I didn’t wait for a response. The corridor, staircase, and upstairs hall were a blur as I took refuge in the spare bedroom. I was proud of the speech that I had delivered. He deserved to hear it and I didn’t regret one word of it.

The bed dipped beside me and I turned to find Leroy watching me. “He needed to hear that,” he said, tipping my chin toward him so that I couldn’t avert my gaze. “You’re an amazing woman, Ellie.”

“Do you think it’ll make a difference?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I doubt it. But he looked like he had just been slapped across the face when I left the room.”

That felt good. I wished I could remember his expression. But it was like a haze when I tried to think about it, as if it was a drunk memory. Adrenaline was a weird thing. I leaned into his hold when he wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

“You seem to care about Cass a lot.”

“She’s sweet,” I said. “I would hate to see her nature get ruined because she wasn’t loved in the way she should have been.”

He pressed a soft kiss against my forehead. “I’m going to love you so much that you don’t know what it’s like to experience heartbreak. I promise.”

His words were so sincere. I could hear it in his tone, I could feel it, as if the sentence had a physical form that wrapped right around me and instilled a faith and trust that I had never felt before.

“I love you, Leroy.”

“I love you too.”

The sheets were too hot. It didn’t seem to matter that the window was cracked, allowing the nighttime breeze to filter through. There was no relief from the summer air. I couldn’t sleep. I felt restless as I tossed and turned in the bed.

I had methods for nights when I couldn’t drift off to sleep. I had read that breathing slowly was effective. I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath for seven seconds, and then let it go, counting to five before I paused and started all over again. On the tenth attempt, it became a real concern that I was going to pass out from a lack of oxygen, and sleep was still nowhere in sight.

The temptation to smother myself with the pillow was about to win when the door handle twisted and I sat up in alarm, watching in a statue-like state as it opened, and Leroy slipped inside.

“You gave me a heart attack,” I whispered, clutching my chest. “What are you doing?”

He shut the door and twisted the lock before he quietly walked toward the bed. The moonlight streamed in through the gap in the curtain and captured his mischievous smile as he slid into the bed. “Lie down,” he ordered. “I can’t sleep.”

“Me either,” I whispered and snuggled down beside him. We had only slept beside each other once since I had arrived, and I was too drunk to remember it. The craving to sleep in his hold was real. But at the same time, the temperature was horrible already, and body heat was making it worse.

“Ellie,” he mumbled and ran his hand across my waist, gliding over my stomach. I was just wearing an oversized T-shirt and underwear and I felt flustered as I thought about his hand dipping lower. “I need you.”

I swallowed. “I need you too.”

“Can I?” He questioned as his hand met the inside of my thigh and began sliding upwards.

“But your mom?” I quietly gasped, already becoming breathless under his touch.

He shifted so that he hovered above me and stared down with an unmistakable hunger. “I saw her pop a sleeping pill before bed. We’re safe.”

He didn’t let me argue as he kissed me. It didn’t begin soft either. It was rough and I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him even closer.

Our tongues moved with desperation as he raised his knee and pushed my legs apart. I was a whimpering mess and it just got worse when his hand slid over my arm. He laced our fingers together and pushed my hand into the pillow above my head as he began grinding his length against me.

Though the fabric served as a barrier between us, I was on fire as he rubbed against me. I moaned into his mouth and he shuddered in response, his hand slipping under the shirt so that he could take my breast in his hand. He kissed my neck, chest, and jaw.

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