Dirty Curve

Thomas stalks forward with quick steps.

His silhouette grows closer, the light behind him hiding his expression, and I try to swallow, but the knot in my throat holds strong.

“Shit,” I breathe.

“Coach,” Tobias calls.

My pulse pounds, knocking against my ribs at a dangerous rate.

“Yeah, son, I’m here.”

Son?

“You don’t want to go in the house, Coach. Team’s not exactly following the no-drinking rule tonight.” I can hear Tobias’s grin, but I can’t bring myself to look at him.

“Don’t worry, I won’t, just came to give your friend a ride, remember?” Thomas says.

My brows pull and I drop my gaze to the grass, but then Thomas’s hand is in front of my face.

I don’t have to look up to know he’s insisting, so I slip mine into his, allowing him to pull me to my feet.

Embarrassed and suddenly ashamed, I can’t look him in the eye, but I do Tobias.

He rubs at the back of his head, looking from me to his coach.

“He, uh, I guess he’s gonna give you a ride home,” he tells me.

All I can do is nod, and then I turn, following the man out of the side gate. I slip inside his car without a word, and I know instantly we’re not going to my dorm.

We’re going to his house.

Outside of it, he fills me in on why he showed up tonight and follows with promises of our future.

Subconsciously, my hand falls to my stomach, and I make one of my own to the little one growing inside me.

Everything is going to be okay now.

It’s as if a weight is lifted in this moment as Thomas sparks hope where I had none left.

We’ll be okay ...

q

Present Time

Tobias

I can’t feel my legs, and I’m not even sure I’m breathing.

I feel dead inside. Sick.

Disgusted.

“Fuck ... Meyer ...” My voice is strained, and I can hardly look at her.

Tears pool in her eyes. “It’s okay.”

“Nothing about that is okay.” I push my palms into my eye sockets. “How could I be such a fuckup?”

“You were drunk, it happens.” Her lips twitch, and she lifts a shoulder. “And I was angry, and anger turned into recklessness, I guess. I wanted to get back at him, stupidly thinking he would care, so I went out and there you were.”

I swallow, grabbing her hand and pulling it to my lips. “I really spotted you right away?”

“From the doorway the second I walked inside.” Her smile is sad. “You really were trashed.” She chuckles, but it soothes out. “I was a hot mess, so we fit that night.”

“We fit period, Tutor Girl.” I swallow, a frustrating sense of satisfaction and sorrow firing through me at the same time. “I can’t believe I was inside you when she was.”

Meyer squeezes my hand. “Thomas, he ...”

Anger builds within me, creating a heated storm in my gut. “He told you I called him to ...” Fuck, I can hardly say it. “To clean up my mess, didn’t he?”

She licks the tears from her lips. “Yeah, he did.”

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t have done that to you. He’s known for popping in randomly. It had to be random.”

“I believe that now,” she rasps, closing her eyes and leaning into my hand when I cup her jaw. “I didn’t then. He told me you’d be too messed up to remember the next day. That that was what you did, got drunk and slept with whoever was in front of you, and then cut them loose. He told me to read the papers, and I’d learn all I needed to know. So, I did, and when you didn’t call like you had said you would,” she shrugs. “I fell for all his lies back then. I married him a week later, and realized a month after that, in doing so, he owned me. I lost my financial aid because he made too much money. Lost my scholarship because I deferred a semester to have Bailey. He only wanted the marriage so he could cover his ass if people found out he fucked a student, and so he could hold my daughter over my head if I ever let it spill who her father was. It was a huge ploy, he even tried to sneak my brother into the contract, tried to force him onto the baseball team as a sub, when he had a starting position on his school’s team.”

“Piece of shit.” I shake my head.

“I lost everything I had worked for, so when he shoved the contract at me, offering me a bit of relief, I took it. That man changed my entire life, in both good and bad ways,” she says with a devastating hint of acceptance.

My forehead falls to hers, and she grips my wrists tightly.

“If he were to follow through with his threats of taking her, I ... she’s my daughter, Tobias,” she cries. “My everything, I can’t even think about—”