Dark Application: ONE (The Dark Application Series Book 1) (7 page)

“Gingers!
Oh my God, Luke, I went here once with my
dad! This is so great!” she said, hooking her arm through his and leaning
into him. He was all hot and tingly everywhere she touched him.

When
the hostess took them to their table, there was already a bottle of wine opened
to breathe. There was a thin glass vase with a rose inside, and a ribbon
tying a tiny card to it that said “Amy.”

She
took off her jacket and the hostess retrieved it and hung it on a nearby rack,
doing the same for Luke’s. Amy looked him up and down with an expression
of surprise and open admiration. He tried to take her in without drooling
or gaping. Her dress was dazzling. It was tight and shimmery
purple. His eyes flicked up and down over her frame, careful where they
paused for too long. She looked down, smoothing the dress over her hips.
“You said you liked purple on me, right?”

Luke
snapped his mouth open and shut,
then
shrugged.
“You would look awesome in anything, Amy. That’s actually a gross
understatement. You look unbearably amazing.”

She
giggled, tickled by the compliment. During dinner they drank wine out of
crystal glasses, wiped their mouths on fine linen, and nibbled on an assortment
of exquisite foods that Luke certainly had never tried, but that Amy insisted
they order. There were blue cheeses with raspberry sauce, goat cheese
soaked in brandy and lit on fire, raw oysters, caviar on crispy white crackers,
crème
brulee
and mousse, and lots and lots of wine.
They drank more than two bottles by the time they finally were done.

“Don’t
forget your rose,” he said.

She
picked it up delicately and held it between her fingers while he placed money
in the booklet without even looking at the bill.

She
was gazing at him, and he suddenly became very self-conscious. The
waitress came and took the check. Amy was tipsy, and so was he.

His
phone vibrated.

“Excuse
me for a second, I have to look at my phone,” he said.

“That’s
alright,” she said.

He
looked down and saw that
Dark Application
had opened.

Invite
her over.

Luke
actually laughed out loud this time. He had never done anything like this
before. He couldn’t lose his nerve now though.

“What?”
said Amy with a broad
smile.

“Do
you want to come hang out for a little while before I take you home?” he asked.
“I just rented some movies, and we could hang out in front of the fire,
except that my roommates might be there.”

“Oh, I
have roommates too, it’s all good. It’s the weekend, let’s kick it!”

They
gathered themselves up and headed toward the door. The wine had made them
both flushed and loose, and Luke’s legs were still sore from his incredible run
the other day. They waltzed to the truck and pulled out of the slushy
parking lot with a loud screech of the tires.

Everything
Luke said and did thrilled Amy it seemed. The way he drove, even tipsy
and reckless, sent her into a fit of giggles and squeals. Everything he
did, she looked on with admiration. Had he really become so charming?

They
arrived at his house and Chris and Amit were there, watching a movie.

“Hey,
man, what’s going on?” said Chris, trying to act nonchalant, with a half-smile
and a beer in his hand.

“Not
much, what’s up
lil
' brother?” said Amy, rubbing her
knuckles playfully on the top of Chris’s head.

Chris
just put an arm around her, a little surprised at her sudden friendliness
toward him. That might be one of the first times she’d ever talked directly to
Chris, let alone called him an endearing name. But he played it off well,
acting normal, acting cool. Chris played off everything well. He
thought that perhaps the horrific accident had changed her attitude, because
Chris himself had certainly been affected by the incident. He was
drinking more heavily than usual, and occasionally went off into his room and
stared at the wall for long periods of time.

Luke
followed Amy as she clicked up the stairs to his room and stepped inside,
sitting on the corner of his bed, almost the same place she had sat that night
at his party. But this time…. This time….

Luke
had intended to talk to her, to ask her questions and catch up with her life.
But instead he bent forward and kissed her gently. He was standing
in front of her, his hands loosely rubbing her sides, her back arching up
toward him. He ran a hand down her back, feeling the musculature of the
curve. He sank to his knees on the floor in front of her, and she parted
her legs so he could hold her close and kiss her.

Then
his phone vibrated in his pocket.

He
jerked up in surprise, and he and Amy both laughed loudly at the realization
that his phone was ringing.

“You
got another date tonight I should know about?” asked Amy sarcastically, raising
one eyebrow in mock suspicion.

“Oh hell no.
Don’t you know how long I’ve been trying
to get with you?” Their lips met again. “Sorry, let me just see real quick.
It might be my mom.”

He
looked at the screen, blank except for the blue capital D in the corner.

Fuck
her.

Blushing
hard, he turned the phone off. He shook his head and said, “I’m so sorry,
I shouldn’t have bothered. Come here.” He pulled her close again, pushing
her legs apart on the bed. He threw the phone behind him and it landed in the
corner, face down. He kissed her fiercely, sensuously, and in the back of
his mind, knew that this was his one chance to get his dream girl
. If
I screw this up, I will lose her forever.
He felt the tension
mounting, the anxiety, and at the same time, his temperature.

The
feeling had come back to him. The hot, bubbling, heart-rapping energy
that had overtaken him the day that he’d found the money. His heart began
to pound out of his chest, but he just ignored it as he ripped Amy’s dress off
over her head. He was alarmed by his own actions, but he couldn’t stop.
He pressed his hips against her, pushing her back, and she gasped in
shock. He looked down at her and there was no doubt that she
was loving
it.

She
gasped and moaned, and his blood raced hotter and faster. He took her
there on his bed, rubbing her body, squeezing her until she screamed, rolling
her over on top of him. They went on like this for some time, Luke
impressing the hell out of himself with his sudden, incomprehensible
confidence. And the energy, the fierce unexplainable electricity in his
muscles… Amy was all his.

*****

Luke
woke up to a brighter than usual window. He rubbed his eyes, stretched,
and in shock, realized that Amy was still lying next to him. He studied
her for a long time; dark brown cinnamon skin, high brows, tangled silk
ringlets. Her lips were full and delicate. He couldn’t believe his
eyes. Everything he had dreamed of and more, right here in front of him.
Slowly, her eyes opened and her deep brown irises constricted in the
light.

“Is
the sun out or
somethin
’?” she asked, stretching her
arms over her head.

“Looks that way.
Maybe we better get outside and stand
in it a minute before it goes away,” he said.

They
stood and watched each other dress. Then, holding hands, they walked
downstairs. Chris was asleep on the couch, the fire barely a flicker of warm
coals. Amit was gone, most likely at
Mi’s
house. Amy and Luke walked out and shut the door quietly.

Sure
enough, the clouds had moved over just enough to let the sun peek through, and
they walked hand-in-hand for several minutes in silence, feeling the brisk wind
and the warm sun. Banks of snow piled up the sides of the road and
spilled over onto the sidewalks. Luke helped her as she delicately navigated
the icy path.

“I
want some coffee. You want some coffee?”

She
nodded. “I definitely want some coffee,” she said.

They
stopped in a nearby café close to campus and ordered peppermint mochas, which
they drank sitting outside in the sunlight. They sat, touching hands,
looking at each other. There was not much to say. They just sat,
enjoying the feeling of being together, enjoying the feeling of puppy love.
Though there was one thing that Luke ventured to tell her.

“Amy,
that was my first time,” he said.

Amy
looked at him expressionless for a long moment, staring him straight in the
eyes. Then a wide grin came over her face, her pretty teeth showing, her high
cheeks rising, and she laughed a long, chiming laugh. She didn’t say
anything, just squeezed his hand and giggled in delight, and what he imagined
to be, disbelief.

“Are
you ready for round two?” she asked.

They
walked, more urgently this time, back to Luke’s house, where they made love for
an hour.

When
they came out of the room, Chris was making breakfast and the sky had clouded
over again, shutting off the sun.

L
uke
stood in the lobby of the financial aid office on campus, staring at the flyer
on the cork board. It looked like her, he supposed, or mostly like her.
The long black hair was the same, as were the thick eyelashes and
eyebrows.

He
remembered driving her home, her knees pulled up to her chest, her neck
stretched to the side so her head didn’t roll around on the seat of Chris’s
car…

And he
remembered her thick legs, her juicy hips and butt…

Shaking
his head, he snapped out of his daydream as the next teller called him forward.

“Can I
help you?” she asked.

“I
just need to make a student loan payment, please,” he said.

He
handed her his school ID card and she looked him up on her computer monitor.
“Alright Mr. Jeffers, it says here that you are on a deferred payment plan and
that your current minimum payment is zero dollars.”

“I
know, but I have some extra cash right now and I want to go ahead and pay some
of that off. I can do that, right?”

“Of
course,” she said.

“So
how much do I owe?”

“You
have one loan from last semester, and one loan from the summer session,
totaling two thousand,
five
hundred and thirty-six
dollars.”

Luke
reached into his wallet and started counting out hundred dollar bills. He
placed a wad of money on the counter, and the teller looked at him with her
dark brown eyes. She seemed a bit concerned about him, which he didn’t
blame her for; he was breathing heavily and sweating profusely, plus his
stomach was twisted into knots of anxiety, which more than likely showed on his
face. She took the bills from the counter and began to check them for
legitimacy, marking them with a counterfeit marker and writing him a receipt
for the total payment. She entered the information and then put the cash
into an envelope. He signed some paperwork and then the envelope was
dropped into a safe deposit box.

By the
time the transaction was over, the lady was all smiles, and with bright eyes
she thanked and congratulated him for paying his loans.

He
left and headed to his truck, feeling more troubled than anything.

He
couldn’t forget those eyebrows, high and arched, or that smile, with the teeth
white and the lips pulled back in an innocent smirk. He thought back hard
to that night. He remembered her voice, thanking him for taking her home.
He remembered her ass in the dress she was wearing when she went up and
opened the front door. And then she had gone inside. Was that really her
house? Was she so drunk that she’d had him drop her off somewhere else?

No,
that’s not possible
, he thought. Jade Circle, he remembered how to
get there and everything. On a whim, he jumped in his truck and headed to
the freeway. He was going to swing by the neighborhood and get it right in his
head.

He
pulled into the neighborhood, creeping along very slowly, and then pulled into
Jade Circle on the left. The road veered to the right, the houses lining
the street all had mailboxes clearly marking each address. He crept by,
observing each house and yard, studying the cars and the doors, looking for the
one. Then he recognized it. 331 Jade Circle.

This
was definitely the place he had dropped Tiffany off that night. It was a
very architecturally decorative house, like a miniature Victorian-style house,
complete with a wrap-around porch and columns holding up a master deck above
the front door. The yard was filled with rose bushes and climbing
vines,
and the fence was covered with jasmine. He
slowed way down to a crawl, peering closely at the place, remembering that
night in perfect detail. She had taken his hand and let him pull her to
her feet, and then he’d remembered that he didn’t know her name. Then
she’d gone to the door and opened it without unlocking it…

Across
the street he heard a very soft engine start. A black car with darkly
tinted windows fired up its engine and then sat idling for a moment. It
was across the street and up a few houses. Luke turned his attention toward the
vehicle, trying to see into the driver’s window, but the car gunned it and sped
away.

Without
thinking, Luke jumped into his truck, fired the engine, and punched it into
gear. He accelerated and followed the car.
The car sped
up, and then quickly braked, taking a hard right and cutting back onto the main
road.
Sensing the urgency in the driver’s movements, Luke began to
pursue.

The
car sped up, and it was clear they knew Luke was following them; they were
trying to escape unseen. He followed them onto the freeway, but they kept
a fierce pace ahead of Luke, forcing him to smash the gas, which he did.

He
barreled ahead, and without warning, the car braked and swerved to the right,
quickly taking an exit he hadn’t even noticed.

And
then his phone vibrated.
God damn it,
he thought.
Not you
again.

He slowed
and took the next exit, pulling off the road to look at the screen. The
logo was there, the screen black with dim blue text across it.

Gold Commerce Way.

He
stared, incomprehensibly.
Gold Commerce Way?
That was where he’d found the money.

He sat
there stunned for a long minute. “Screw this,” he said out loud to no
one. “No, you can have this one,” and with that, he threw it into drive
and slowly returned home, doing the speed limit and ignoring the vibrations
coming from his pocket.

He ignored
his phone all the way to Amy’s house, where he knocked on the door and her
roommate Rachel answered. She let him in, and he came into the dining
room. There at a table, with candles and wine, sat Savannah Byrne.

She
perched in the chair with a large wine glass and sipped, looking indifferently
at Luke. She appeared smug, as usual. He put his hands behind his
back and quietly waited for her to say something, to scream an obscenity or to
call him a name, but she didn’t. She just sat at the table with her
wine,
her eyebrows pressed together, her tits exploding out
the top of her shirt, and watched him.

Amy
bounced down the stairs and stopped in front of him. “Hey,” she said
coolly, and looked into his eyes. She was about the same height as him, and
her breasts would rest right on his chest when he hugged her. But she
didn’t hug him. She just nodded her head toward the stairs, and he
followed.

At the
top of the stairs she tugged him by the collar into her room where she laid
into him with a kiss that got his blood really pumping and his legs tingling.
“What, you can’t kiss me in front of your girlfriend?” he said.

Amy
slapped him, a sexy hot slap that echoed off the walls of the room. He
reached a hand into her thick curls, twisting them between his fingers, and
together they fell back onto her bed. They writhed there kissing, her
lips like the softest butter and her muscular legs wrapped around his waist.
He reached down and loosened his pants. She swung one leg over his head
so her knees were together, then she peeled off her jeans. Holding her
legs that way, he sat up on his knees and they made love quickly and quietly,
while her friends whispered and gossiped downstairs.

Later,
when Luke and Amy strolled nonchalantly down the stairs to the kitchen,
Savannah said, “Is that your truck Luke?”

Silently
he nodded, not looking at her, but looking at Amy.

“Wow,
Ames. Never believed you’d sell yourself out to some white trash for a
nice truck,” she said, and laughed bitterly.

Amy’s
brows creased, but she paid no mind. She poured herself a glass of wine
and one for Luke.

He
took the wine and sauntered into the kitchen in an attempt to be in a different
room from Savannah. Amy followed him, and put a hand on his arm.
“You just
gotta
get used to her…” she tried to
explain, but at that moment, she realized that the group of them had grown up
together, and they were about as used to each other’s shit as they could be.
“She’s a bitch but she’s my best friend,” she explained.

“I
know Ames, I’ve always known that,” he said, pulling her hair back from her
forehead. They kissed a long tender kiss. “I got some friends coming over
tonight, you down?”

She
shook her head. “I’m sorry Luke, but I can’t hang out tonight. I
have a psychology presentation on Tuesday and I need to get ready for it,” she
said.

“Tuesday?
Well that gives you four days,” he said,
pestering her.

“No,
Luke, I really can’t.”

He
straightened up. “Alright,” he said, but inwardly, he was inexplicably,
undeniably angry. His heart began to burn, and a dark anger lurked just
behind his eyes. Amy studied him, a look of worry crossing her face.
She looked at him expectantly, but he just drank down his wine and set
the glass on the counter.

“Okay,
so… I’ll see you tomorrow?” she said.

“Yeah sure.
I’ll call you,” he said. He went to
the door and grabbed his jacket, throwing it on and snapping the collar with a
jerk.

Savannah
was still perched in her chair. Amy hesitantly followed him, and then he
leaned over to kiss her, pulling her by her lower back and kissing her lips
more gently than he wanted to. When he let her go, he was looking at
Savannah with a cold, black expression of hate that made her momentarily lose
her composed, statuesque demeanor. She looked surprised for a moment,
maybe even scared. He smirked and left, closing the door behind him.

Back
at the house, a group of guys sat around the television watching an action
movie with a pizza box open on the coffee table. Luke went to the
kitchen, grabbed a beer and joined them, but he couldn’t concentrate on the
movie. He was still reflecting on his actions at Amy’s
house, especially on the way that strange anger had come over him out of
the blue.
That wasn’t me,
he thought.
I’ve never felt
angry at anyone like before, especially for no good reason.

The
image of the black car also played itself out over and over in his mind.
Idling there in front of Tiffany’s house, the windows blackened.
And then it had sped off, avoiding him.

His
cell phone began to vibrate, and his back stiffened. He ignored it.

He
chugged the beer and pretended to watch the movie. He turned down the
pizza Chris offered him, but accepted a mixed vodka cranberry drink when his
beer was empty. On the television screen, a car crash and explosion was
followed by men shooting at each other over loud music, which helped to mask
the sound of the vibrating phone in his pocket. But every time the phone
vibrated, his leg burned, and the urge to look grew harder to resist.

“Why
don’t you turn it off if you’re not going to answer it?” asked Amit who sat
closest to him on the couch.

“It
won’t turn off,” said Luke.

“So,
take the battery out,” said Amit.

“Good
idea,” said Luke, and he stood and retreated up the stairs to his room.
He grabbed the phone, which sat vibrating in his hand, the movement
tingling his fingers and arm. He flipped it over and ripped the battery
out, throwing it in the top drawer of his desk then tossing the phone
carelessly on the bed.

When
he came back downstairs, he was still introspective, but without the burning
vibration in his pocket, he felt much more relaxed.

“There’s
my man!” said Chris, and he patted Luke’s shoulder as he sat on the couch.
Slowly the anger and bewilderment began to lift. The fire was
crackling, and his friends were laughing, welcoming him into the circle.
All
is well, Luke
, he told himself. He sipped his drink and enjoyed the
warm vodka feeling in his stomach. When the movie ended, he drifted to
his room and fell on the bed, exhausted. It was two in the morning.

Not
bothering to take off his jeans, he curled the blanket around him.
Suddenly the phone began to buzz.

He sat
bolt upright, disbelief on his face. Not breathing, he leaned forward over
the phone and held his face close to it.

It
vibrated. On the screen, the dim blue lettering flashed again.

Gold Commerce Way.

Luke
picked up the phone and flipped it over, putting his fingers into the empty
battery compartment. He shook the phone and, with his temper mounting,
looked for a place to throw it, torn between smashing it to smithereens on the
floor, and jumping into his truck to obey.

He
couldn’t stand it any longer. He skipped into his water-proof boots and
tied them tightly. He pulled on and zipped his jacket, then put on a
black knit cap over his head and ears.

“Where
you off to?” asked Amit, as Luke stepped out the door.

Luke
turned and looked at Amit, hesitating for a long moment. He considered
telling Amit where he was going, because a tight twisting in the pit of his gut
told him that something was seriously wrong. On the other hand, there was
no way he could explain it all to Amit right then. It would take a long
time, especially trying to explain the parts that Luke still hadn’t figured out
himself.

“I’m
going to see a man about a dog,” Luke said, and shut the door behind him.

The
streets were empty and icy as Luke sped along. In his pocket sat the
phone, still with no battery. It had been silent since vibrating on his
bed. He drove in a trance, still a little tipsy, and the ringing buzz of
sleeplessness in his ears.

He
could still smell Amy on his face, and feel her on his lips. She was
probably at home in bed right now, and he wished he was there with her. What had
gotten into him back there? He still felt perplexed over it.