TROUBLE, A New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) by Elle Casey
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
I PULL INTO CHARLIE’S DRIVEWAY in the throes of what feels like a heart-attack. I’m pretty sure this event will rank up there as one of the most terrible ideas ever conceived. I cannot believe I am showing up at Charlie’s house with his face pulverized not forty-eight hours after he was served with court papers. I must be insane. Why did I let Teagan talk me into this? I tap my fingers on the steering as I reflect on the last thirty minutes or so. Did she talk me into it, or did I jump at the chance of humiliating Charlie? I don’t even remember at this point. I just want it to be over.
Shutting off the powerful engine, I hurry to undo my seatbelt. Before I’m even out of the low-slung driver’s seat, the front door to Charlie’s house is opening and a younger kid is coming out. He looks way too much like Charlie to be anything but a brother.
Oh, crud. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.
“Mom!” the boy yells as he sees his bother’s face through Teagan’s windshield. “Charlie’s home! And he looks beat up!” The kid stares at all of us and then runs back into the house, his basketball forgotten in the front yard.
I feel terrible. The kid looked scared. I didn’t want this to turn into a family drama. Leaving him lying on the front lawn would have been perfectly fine with me.
Mick is standing by the door of the car, waiting as Charlie gets out. He’s not helping him, but he’s not hindering either. Charlie looks stiff.
I walk up behind Teagan’s Beetle and hold the Porsche keys out. “Here,” I say.
Mick holds up his hand and I toss them to him gratefully. I don’t want to get any closer to Charlie than I have to.
“Charlie?” a woman’s voice comes out of the house, followed shortly thereafter by its owner, Charlie’s mother. She’s of medium height and thin, dressed in cream-colored linen. “Oh, my word, Charlie, what happened to your face?!” She goes down the two front steps with her feet at an angle and rushes over, hands held out.
“Back off,” Charlie says, angrily. “Nothing happened to my face.”
She stops short, her arms slowly lowering to her sides. She turns her head to the side. “Hal! Hal, would you come out here please?!”
“Mom, Jesus Christ!” Charlie yells. “Do you mind not doing this out here?!”
Charlie’s younger brother appears in the doorway again, his eyes huge. He turns around and shouts, “Dad! Mom wants you.”
“Shut the hell up, you little faggot!” Charlie growls.
“Charles Bentley Curtis don’t you dare speak to your brother like that,” his mother says, sounding shocked. “What’s come over you? I don’t understand where you’re getting this stuff from lately.”
“Save it, Linda.” Charlie walks right past her like she’s not even there.
A tall, broad-shouldered man appears in the doorway, and this is the first time I see Charlie’s swagger adjust itself. Suddenly Charlie’s not coming off as mister tough-guy anymore; his shoulders sag and his head drops just a little. It’s like watching a dog lower on the food chain approaching the alpha male. It makes me feel just a tiny bit happy to see him cowed like this.
The man looks at his son, the cars, and then last, at me. He steps down from the house out onto this front sidewalk. “What’s going on out here?” he asks no one in particular.
His wife walks back to stand next to her husband. Charlie stops in front of them both, turning sideways so he’s looking out into some bushes on the edge of the property.
I can see that Teagan is about to answer, so I quickly walk over and step in front of her. “We were just bringing Charlie and his car back,” I say. “He got into a fight and he hurt his nose, I think.”
“Charlie, you got in a fight?” his mother asks. She seems genuinely surprised.
“I was attacked, Mom, okay? It wasn’t a fight. It was an attack.” He swings around to glare at Mick and then me.
“He’s a fucking liar, is what he is,” says Teagan.
I turn around a shush her. “Stop!” I say in a low voice. “Don’t make it worse.”
She lifts her eyebrows at me but says nothing more. Instead, she walks around her car and gets in the driver’s seat.
I look back at his parents. “He was not attacked. He came to find me and maybe speak to me, but he was acting threatening so my friends stepped in to defend me. That’s all it was. We’re not going to press charges or anything, and we just wanted to be sure he got home okay.” I’m not going to tell them the truth, that we wanted to be sure he wasn’t going to go over and burn our house down.
His mother’s expression turns to shear disappointment. “Oh, Charlie … why?”
“Shut up, Mom, you don’t understand.”
His father takes three steps towards his son and grabs him by the back of the neck, shoving his son’s shoulders down even farther than they already were. “Get in the house. But before you do that, apologize to your mother.” He shakes him hard once. “And don’t you ever let me hear you tell her to shut up again, you understand?” He jerks his son over to stand in front of his mother. “Say it,” he demands.
“Sorry,” Charlie mumbles.
She looks at him, tears in her eyes and her fingers playing with a necklace near the opening of her shirt collar. She doesn’t say anything in response.
His father pushes him towards the house as he releases him. “Get inside. I’ll deal with you later.”
The atmosphere is darker than dark. I’ve never seen a parent treat a grown child like that before, and even though Charlie deserves that and worse, it’s still disturbing. I’m wondering who’s next to get a broken nose, and pray it’s not going to be me or one of my friends. This guy is ten time scarier than Charlie ever was.
“Are you Alissa?” Charlie’s dad is looking right at me, a storm in his eyes.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to deny it, but at the last minute I don’t. Time to stop hiding. You’ve done nothing wrong. Stand up for yourself. “Yes. I’m Alissa.” I lift my chin just a little. I’m not going to let him intimidate me.
“And you’re the one who filed a lawsuit against my son, is that right?”
Charlie’s mom moves closer to her husband, taking him by the arm. “Honey, I’m not sure this is the best time or place for this…”
He pats her hand, disregarding her at the same time. All his focus is on me.
I feel Mick move in closer and it gives me a boost of confidence.
Hal speaks again. “Alissa, you have nothing to fear from me …” His eyes narrow. “… So long as you’re telling the truth about your … liaisons with my son.” He nods once.
I don’t know why, but his choice of words sets me off, as does his supercilious tone. As if he can candy-coat what happened to me. Nice try, butthead, but I’m not playing. “I always tell the truth, first of all, and they weren’t liaisons, for your information. What he did is called rape.”
His voice softens. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
He gets only a polite smile from me. I wait to see if he has anything else to say, even though I should probably just leave.
“Would you like to come inside. Talk for a minute or two?” He gestures towards their house.
I’m struck with fear. A vision of them throwing a bag over my body and conking me over the head with a shovel flashes across my mind. Maybe they have a grave in their backyard too. “Um … no. Thank you. But … I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t pressure her, Hal,” says Charlie’s mother. “Let her be on her way.”
“I’m merely asking if she’d like an opportunity to speak with us, face-to-face, without the lawyers getting in the way.” He smiles at me, and it’s almost believable. Almost. “Sometimes it’s better when people come to their own agreements outside of the courts. It’s friendlier. Less stressful. Everyone can walk away happy.”
I shake my head at him, while Mick pulls on my arm. I’m not ready to go yet, so I stand firm.
“Listen, Mr. Curtis, I know you’re a lawyer. I know you know how this works. I’m not supposed to be talking to you, I’m pretty sure, and I don’t think you’re supposed to be talking to me either. I didn’t come here to discuss this with any of you. I just came here to bring Charlie and his car back, even though he showed up at my work to harass me, even though he destroyed my boyfriend’s car to the tune of several thousands of dollars of damage, even though he thinks it’s okay to drug a girl, rape her, video tape it, and then call her a whore.” I look down at my belly meaningfully and then back up at Charlie’s parents. Tears sting my eyes, but I keep going. “Before your son did all this to me, I had plans. Big plans. College, a career, a family when I was married. I was a virgin.” I cock my head, lost in the sarcasm and the pain. “Was that in the court papers? It should have been. He took that from me. He took my pride too. And my sense of self-worth. Is that in the papers? Probably not. But I’m not going to keep it to myself if I’m ever in front of a jury, I can tell you that much. And don’t think for one second that you’re going to buy me off or threaten me or do anything else that will get me to forget what he did and not go after him to make him pay for it. Because you know what? I have a responsibility. I have a responsibility to my child and I have to make sure he’s never in a position to do this to another girl. Another stupid girl who believes his lies and his … his … bullshit.” I walk over to the car and gesture to the back seat. “Get in, Mick. I can’t fit back there.”
I’m waiting for him to move my seat back into position from his spot in the back seat when I feel something touch my arm. I look up to see Charlie’s mom there. She’s crying.
“I’m so sorry,” she says in a soft voice. “I want you to know, we didn’t raise him to be this way.”
I’m angry at her for apologizing, for not taking responsibility. Her apology actually hurts me, as if simple words can erase what happened. “Well, you didn’t raise him not to, did you?” I jerk my arm away from her and get into the car. “Drive,” I say to Teagan.
She’s already gotten the car started and has the gear shift in reverse. “Yes, ma’am,” she says, glee in her voice. As she backs down the driveway looking over her shoulder, she mumbles, “Do not fuck with the pregnant lady, people. She is fit to be tied and she’s on a roll.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT MY weekend couldn’t get any crappier, Mick comes home with a newspaper. Apparently, when you sue the son of a wealthy power-couple in our town, it makes headlines. He leaves me to my misery, disappearing into the backyard to finish some yard work Teagan conned him into doing.
I groan as Teagan reads the story aloud to me and Quin.
“Please, enough, already,” I say, halting her after the opening paragraph. “I’ve heard enough.”
“Hey, this stuff is great,” she says, grinning from ear to ear, scanning the rest of the article. “He’s coming off as a real douche canoe.”
“That’s because he is the captain of the douche canoe fleet,” says Quin.
“Douche canoe, douche canoe, I’m going in a douche canoe. Down a river, down a river, down a lake, down a ocean…” Jersey, Quin’s little brother, is playing with action figures on the living room floor near her feet while he sings his made-up song.
Quin rolls her eyes. “Stop saying that word.” She gestures to something on the floor. “Go pull Han Solo’s head off, would ya? He’s looking at me funny. I don’t like it.”
Jersey grabs the action figure and complies, ripping the poor guy’s head off like he’s done it a thousand times. Then he launches the tiny bit of plastic across the room. It bounces off the wall and into a pile of magazines on the floor.
“He’s doing pretty well,” I say, trying to get my mind off that stupid article by commenting on Jersey’s bandages. “His arm seems to be moving okay and the bandages are staying clean for a change.” Apparently burn injuries are very … gooey. I’m happy to see he’s out of that phase for my stomach’s sake.
“Yeah, Jersey manages to play pretty much any game he wants, regardless of the fact that he still has to wear these bandages and the sling on his arm.” Quin nudges him with her foot. “Punk is up my parents’ assholes all day, so I thought I’d give them a break.”
He turns around and glares at her. “I’m not up in anybody’s asshole. There’s poop up in there, not people. Not kids, just poop. And sometimes Legos. Some people have legos in their butts.”
Quin frowns at him. “Legos?”
“Or racecars,” Teagan mumbles.
I can’t help but laugh. I try to hide my amusement behind the paper I yank out of Teagan’s hands, but I’m too quickly distracted by the headlines to bother.
Scanning the article, I pick out words and phrases that make my blood start to boil. I have to rub my belly when it goes hard and crampy. Stupid reporters. The journalist doesn’t get very far into her ‘reporting’ before she starts accusing me of being a gold digger looking for a payoff of some sort. I throw the paper down on the coffee table and pick up my phone.
“Who are you calling?” Quin asks. “Colin? Gonna tell him to go beat up the editor of the paper?”
“Shut up,” I say. “I didn’t tell him to beat up anybody.” I wait for Natalie’s voicemail to come on.
“Why not? You should sic his ass on Randy, too. Him and Charlie both need a good whoopin’.” Quin sighs. “I just wish I could have been there to see Colin school that boy. That must have been epic.”
“It was,” says Teagan. She holds out a plate of several dark brown somethings. “Cookie?”
I wave it away, pretending I’m too busy or too pregnant or too anything to indulge.
Quin’s eyes go wide with fear as the plate comes in her direction.
“Cookie?” Teagan asks.
“No, not me. I just ate a buffalo, so I’m full. Totally full.” Quin waves her hands in front of her as if warding off something evil.
“You’re a dick,” Teagan says.
“I want a cookie!” Jersey says.
Quin grins evilly. “Go ahead, dude. Eat ‘em up.”
Teagan gives her the stink-eye as she holds the plate closer to Quin’s little brother.
Jersey takes two, a big smile from ear to ear lighting up his face. “Thanks, Tea-Tea!”
“You’re welcome, J-man.” She frowns at me and Quin. “At least someone around here appreciates my cooking.”
Natalie’s voicemail comes on and I start talking. Jersey lifts the cookie to his mouth and takes a bite.
“Natalie, this is Alissa. Um, have you seen the newspaper? There’s a big article about the lawsuit on the front page. You should read it. And also, Charlie came to see me today and he ended up getting hurt over it and we brought him to his house and … well, call me.”
I hang up the phone and put it on the table, rubbing my stomach. The baby is stretching herself something awful, making me wish she’d just go to sleep. It’s terribly uncomfortable to have her turning my belly into this weird, oblong shape.
Jersey catches my attention doing some exaggerated grimacing. His face twists around in several directions before the cookie starts reversing out of his mouth. “Cack … bleck ..,” he says as his tongue works to move the crumbs past his lips. They dribble with saliva down his chin and onto his shirt. “Caca doodie. Poo poo caca pee pee.” He looks at Quin, angry. “Why did you say that was a cookie, sister?” He slaps her knee, angry.
She’s laughing too hard to answer. She just holds out her hands to protect herself in case Jersey decides to go after her more seriously.
“It is a cookie, you little twerp,” Teagan says. She leans over and yanks the rest of the cookie out of his hand. “It’s made with molasses for your information. It takes a very refined palate to appreciate this kind of food.”
She gets up and goes into the kitchen, but I’m pretty sure she hears Jersey’s response anyway. “How come she puts asses in her cookies? Asses don’t taste that good to me.” He use
I’m laughing so hard I feel a pop in my crotch and then I pee myself. I totally pee myself right there on the couch.
I struggle to stand as Quin points and laughs at me, probably way too entertained by my penguin-like struggles. She doesn’t even know the worst of it yet. She’s probably going to pee her pants too when she finds out what I’ve done.
“Shut up!” I say, snorting and laughing. I’ve lost it. “I just peed on myself. I totally just wet my pants.”
She’s gripping her stomach, gasping for air as Jersey points to my crotch and starts singing.
“You peed your paaaants, you peed your paaaants, you peed your paaaaants…”
I rest my hand on my belly as it goes hard as a rock. My laughter quickly peters out when a rush of warm liquid streams down my inner thighs.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper, looking down.
Quin’s still laughing. “What? You pee again? Or did you shit yourself this time?”
I look up at her, stark fear taking over. “No. I think my water just broke.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
QUIN JUMPS TO HER FEET. “Teeegaaaaan! Call nine one one! Call nine one one!”
I wave at her, annoyed at her spaziness. “No, you dope, don’t tell her to do that.”
More warm stuff runs down my legs. “Tell her to get a towel.” I can’t believe how calm I am. I wasn’t ready for having a baby. I’ve just come to accept the fact that I’m pregnant, for poop’s sake. I haven’t even been to Lamaze yet. I don’t have a birth partner, even.
Even so, I feel like I can do this. Everything is going to be okay, as long as I can get to the hospital on time. The nurses do everything, right? All I have to do is lie there and breathe. People have babies all the time. Some women squat out in a field and then go back to work, right? It’s no big deal. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.