Shattered by You (Tear Asunder 3)

“I know,” he said.

I pulled on the coat while he shut off the light, and we ran through the storm for the house.

Do cucumbers have any usefulness besides tasting like shit and looking like cock? Why the hell do they have to put them in every salad? Tomatoes, okay. Cucumbers are sliced up dicks, fuck no.

These were the texts from Crisis I was supposed to respond to.

The band, along with Emily and Kat, had been gone a month, and Crisis kept his word and texted me daily. I kept mine and responded with mundane one or two word replies, although it was becoming a little more difficult to do when he sent me random texts like this.

Ream called me daily and I think that was Crisis’ doing, so I didn’t have to be the one to call him. After that night in the storm, my brother told me Deck had called him. Told him Olaf was ‘looked after.’ Of course, Ream had no idea about the club, but Olaf being dead was probably the deciding factor on them leaving me while they went on tour.

Deck had called me too, told me they had a lead on the club’s location. Since I’d been blindfolded every time we went there, I had no clue where it was.

I asked him never to call me again.

I didn’t want to know. That part of my life was over.

My conversations with Ream were mostly one-sided as I had nothing to contribute or rather didn’t care to contribute. But after the first few awkward silences, I looked forward to hearing his voice and the way he went on about the concerts and Kat. It cemented my deal with Crisis—I used that term loosely because I still considered it blackmail. My brother also bitched about Crisis’ antics, but I was getting that was more of a habit between brothers.

I ran in the mornings, and the running was with an extra appendage—Luke. The security guy kept his distance, but I had tried to outrun him the first few days. I realized pretty fast that it was impossible. The guy didn’t tire. The saving grace was that he didn’t talk either, so we ignored one another and ended up getting along fine.

I carpooled to school with a girl, Dana, who I found on the internet through the university website. Luke of course checked into her, but he still followed us in his car to campus. I wanted normal and going to school with a bodyguard was not normal, but neither was carrying a gun everywhere I went.

I went to class, said little to anyone except when forced to, came home, repeat and recycle, five days a week. The weekends consisted of running and homework. It was productive. It was what I wanted and I hadn’t done anything I wanted for twelve years.

But Crisis . . . he was something I hadn’t been prepared for. He liked to talk and because of our deal, it was in text. And after a month of texts from him, I found myself thawing to his playfulness.

You’re comparing cucumbers to dicks?

Yeah.

What about carrots?

Since when do cocks have pointy ends?

So, you don’t like cucumbers in your salad because they look like cut up dicks and it gives you nightmares?

Yeah, Ice. That’s what I said. But we’re talking about big cucumbers, not those baby ones. And I don’t fuckin’ like them and they always put them in my salad. I’m here picking them out one by one and I know I’m still going to taste them after all this fuckin’ work.

Picking cucumbers out of your salad is work?

He must be bored because he rambled when he was bored. I leaned over and placed my books in my knapsack then zipped it up and stood, grabbing my phone off my desk.

My fingers have been playing all night, I don’t need this shit.

I was uncertain what he meant by that. It wasn’t a secret that Crisis often fooled around with chicks after the concerts, maybe before them, too. I hadn’t thought about it much—we texted. It was an arrangement. But after a month of talking to him every day, I started to think about it.

And from your silence, your mind is in the gutter again. Jesus, babe. I meant the guitar. We had a gig last night.

I bit my lip to keep from smiling. There was that tiny smile emerging again. It had been happening more often lately when I texted with Crisis. It was odd because he casually talked about stuff like this and I thought I’d be revolted or disgusted, and the first few times he mentioned his cock in text, I’d numbed out, but now I didn’t even think about it. It was Crisis and he was just talking. It had nothing to do with sex or wanting sex with me.

Was it good?

I knew it had gone well. I checked when I got up this morning and the reviews raved about Tear Asunder, just like all the other venues they’d been to. It had become my habit to scroll the internet to keep track of the band.

Of course, Crisis dominated the pictures, the media loved him and, from his ease around the cameras, he did too. Often there were pictures with his arm around a random girl and I knew they were random because it was never the same girl twice. He soaked up the attention with his cocky grin. I found myself rolling my eyes and smiling when I saw a new girl in a picture because it was mildly absurd. I suspected each girl thought they were special to him. That they’d be ‘the one.’

But Prince charming was a fucking fairy tale. No guy was going to save you. You had to save yourself.

It rocked. But Logan was off. Emily did a demo yesterday afternoon and a voter came at her. She got clear, but Logan saw it. It screwed with his head all night.

Voter?

Fuck no, horse.

Oh.

She can handle it. Logan, not so much. You in class?