Page 64 of Them Bones

He was on her again, so fast she didn’t even see him move, both of her wrists pressed to the mattress with one of his hands, his other fiercely gripping her chin as his mouth branded a searing kiss into hers, shutting her up while his thighs locked her legs in place.

He pulled back an inch, his eyes blazing, fingers flexing against her wrists as she futilely struggled to free her hands.

“Thisisa game, Laney,” he seethed, “only you and Iaren’t the only players!”He released her and stood, wincing a little, like his muscles were just as cramped as hers.

“Oh, I see! I’m good enough to get you off but not good enough to fight for?” she spat, the top blown off the silo that she stored her emotions in, all caution thrown to the wind.

“Fight for?!” he shouted. “You’re living in afantasy!I wouldn’t have to fight for you – I’d have tokillfor you! Do you even know who your brotheris?Do you haveanyclue how careless this was?” He ran both hands over the back of his head, his tension so high she thought he might pop his own skull.

“I don’t think you’re scared of Cary!” she shouted back. “I think you’re scared ofme!I think you’re scared of being with me so you’re being apussyand– ”

Shane laughed, cold and bitter. “If you wanted to remind me ofexactlywhy we shouldn’t be together, you’re doing adamned good job!”He was panting. “Of courseI’m scared of you! I’d bementalnot to be! This isn’tnormal! To feel this way about somebody! I’m not being apussyfor having reservations about a relationship that has the potential to fuckingendme!”

She stopped breathing.

“I’m going to be eighteen this September, Laney. I’m going to be a legal adult, and you’re stillfifteen years old.You’re aminor.With a coked-out brother who sleeps with a gun under his pillow and looks at you like –” Shane cut himself off, chest heaving, fists balled at his sides. “You think he wouldn’t use that? You think he wouldn’t see me charged for statutory rape? You think he wouldn’t see fit to dismantle my face, first, before having me locked up? Tossed on a sex offender registry for the rest of my life?”

Laney felt like she’d just taken a tire iron to the knees.

“Of courseyouwouldn’t have thought about any of this,” he raged, “because you don’t think about anything butwhat feels good!”

His shoulders drooped, the anger bleeding out of his body, his bottomless grey eyes almost black.

“I needed to get out of this room, that smells likesexandyouand is driving me insane.I needed to get out of yourbedbefore yourbrothershowed up.I just needed a minute, Laney.You didn’t have to give me a black eye for it!”

“Like the one you gave me?”

She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. Before they’d even travelled across space and into his ears, she regretted them. Wanted to cram them back inside, shove them down into her gut and bury them where they’d never be found. She clamped a hand over her mouth in horror.

His face crumpled and he let out a low breath, like he’d been winded, his body stooping from the weight of her words.

“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t mean that! I didn’t! I can’t believe I just said that! Shane…”

She was surprised when he stepped towards her and pulled her into a hug. She sobbed into his chest, overflowing with feelings that she couldn’t have named if she tried… He stepped back a few inches, his fingers lightly running over her eyebrow and cheekbone, the ones he’d bruised, before tracing her throat where he’d squeezed while he kissed her, and then brushing his thumbs over her swollen wrists.

“We’re going to ruin each other,” he said into her hair. He sounded wrecked.

No, no, no, no, no… Don’t do this!

But he did. He kissed her one more time, and left her.

She collapsed onto the floor, facing the underside of her bed, body wracked with dry heaves, and that’s when she saw it. The drawing Dustin had made of the two of them. She pulled it out, dust bunnies stuck to the corners, and stared at the two dragons.

Shane was right.

They both looked ruined.

SHANE

Shane went home to Jerry’s and got straight into a cold shower. He’d thought deciding not to date her was bad… Deciding not to see her at all, anymore, was going to kill him.

He didn’t even bother toweling off properly or getting fully dressed. He pulled on a pair of boxers and sat down at the kitchen table, opened a bottle of Jim Beam, and started drinking it like beer.

That was where Jerry found him when he got home that night. Passed out, slumped face-first on the kitchen table in his underwear. And that’s right where Jerry left him.

NICK

Cary was in Windsor for the rest of the summer. Something to do with a ‘hiccup in the Detroit line’. Nick didn’t pay attention as he really didn’t care – border transport wasn’t his job. He was responsible for prepping shipments, not moving them.

---