I Need You (34 page)

New memories to replace those of Jason.

I walked ahead of him. When we got into the hall, I said, “Why don’t you dump your stuff in my room.”

He smiled at me. “Okay. Who’s cooking dinner?”

“Me. You’re the guest.”

“Guest? Is that what I am?” His eyebrows lifted.

I smiled at him. “And my boyfriend! You are that most now.”

“Good. I just wanted to check nothing’s changed since yesterday.”

He dropped his backpack and grinned at me.

“Nothing’s changed, Billy.” I put my arms up around his neck as I said it, and his head lowered, then we kissed.

It felt like I hadn’t kissed him for weeks, I’d been so used to Jason’s kisses that those came to mind more than Billy’s version. It was nothing like Jason’s––full-on. Because he really loved me? Maybe that had always been the difference. Jason had held back on me because he never had.

We kissed for ages, with a mutual need to keep cherishing each other. I could sense how much he felt for me––it had been there back at the beach too and my body had known it.

He broke the kiss, and rested his forehead against mine. “Do you wanna eat now? It must be exhausting trying to keep upbeat around your mom?”

I pressed one last kiss on his lips, than turned away, slipping from his hold. “It is. What do you want?”

“What do you wanna cook?”

“Pasta is the easiest thing. I can whizz up a tomato sauce.”

“Pasta with tomato sauce it is then…”

He followed me into the Kitchen, leaving his backpack on the floor and leaned on the counter, talking to me while I got everything out and started cooking. He was so easy to have around. I mean Jason had been nice and I’d always thought of him as my friend too… But Billy made me laugh twice, and his smile glowed in his eyes when I looked at him. He was glad to be with me.

We sat at the table to eat, still talking.

I’d sat with him and eaten dinner a ton of times in the past. We’d lived in the same apartment after all, but again, it was different, because now I knew behind that easy swagger, the quick smiles and jokes that were said with a sparkle in his eyes, was love.

We carried our empty bowls to the kitchen. “Dad is gonna be out for hours. Did you want to go to bed?”

“Now there’s a blunt offer.”

I left my bowl in the sink and turned. “How would you have had me offer?” I wanted to be worth all that love.

He leaned around me to put his bowl in the sink too, his free hand touching my waist, then straightened up, looking me in the eyes. “Well, you could have just come up and kissed me…”

He kissed me.

My belly and my knees wobbled like Jell-O.

When he broke the kiss, his lips moved to my ear to whisper in a deep pitch. “Will you come to bed with me?” He took a breath, then said in a lighter tone. “That is how you do it.”

I laughed, my arms slipping around his neck as I lifted to my toes, then I whispered in his ear. “Yes.”

It didn’t matter that Mom was sick, excitement and expectation still roared through my senses. This was escape, but not only that––there was a whole ball of emotion being blown around on a hurricane in my chest.

He lifted me off my feet and threw me over one massive shoulder. “Ahhh, Billy! This is not romantic.”

“You won’t be thinking about romantic in a moment.”

I smacked his ass, then squeezed one perfect pert butt cheek, laughing as he walked along the hall to my room. “You’re nuts.”

“Nuts in love…” he said, tumbling me down on the bed. I bounced on the mattress as he straightened to strip off his tee.

“I love your chest.”

“I love you!”

I laughed as he leaned down.

“Come on, let’s get these off.” His fingers undid the button on my jeans. I lifted up, letting him strip them and my panties off, smiling at him.

“Take your top off,” he said, his fingers unbuttoning his jeans, while he toed off his sneakers.

I stripped off my top, then undid my bra as he peeled everything off below the waist in one move. “Sexy.” I breathed.

My bra came off, as one of his knees hit the bed. “Nope, you are the sexy one, get over here.”

I tumbled back on to the bed, laughing as he pulled my knee to drag me down. But how could I laugh when Mom was so ill? Guilt slashed its knife at my face.

“Lind?” He saw the change, leaning over me and stroking my hair away from my face. “Okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just… Mom… I feel like I shouldn’t be happy, but… you make me feel happy.”

“She wants you to feel happy, at least some of the time, you know she does. There is nothing wrong with you being able to keep living and enjoying life. That’s what your Mom wants. She told me. When you went out the room, she said, you’ll get down, but she asked me to help you get over it––”

“I’ll never get over it…”

“Okay, that was the wrong words. I mean you’ll learn to live with it, and she urged me to help you work out the path to that point.”

My fingers stroked through his hair. “Will you?”

“Of course I will, my heart’s stuck by you all these years, Lind. Do you really think it’s gonna desert you now?”

“No…” I believed him.

“Do you still want to have sex or are you not in the mood now?”

“I’m still in the mood.” I pulled his mouth down to mine.

It wasn’t just sex, though, he was making love to me––cherishing and worshipping me, his gentle fingertips skimming over my skin as he kissed me, making me forget everything but him.

“Billy…” My hand gripped the back of his head suddenly, when his fingers slid into me.

We didn’t kiss as his fingers worked, but our gazes held and my fingernails dug into his scalp.

I shut my eyes and my whole body arched when the orgasm ripped through me in a flood tide. Then it was him in me. Working hard, making me think of nothing but him again. His body, his size, his masculinity, his gentleness––his love.

My fingers pressed into the flesh of his buttocks as he worked quickly, fighting to make me come again. I was insane for him when we did this.

“Ahh!” I tumbled over once more and my flesh just became his as he manipulated and maneuvered me into positions to intensify the pleasure.

When he finally came, it was about an hour later and I was boneless and exhausted, my face smashed into the covers, where I had fallen at one point, being on all-fours. I rolled onto my side on the bed, laughing. He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against his chest. I fell into a chasm of sleep. I hadn’t slept for days.

Lindy

Music woke me.
Clarity by Foxes
.

Billy’s cell.

I rolled over and sat up, the comforter slipping to my waist. Billy moved too, his hand searching for his cell on my chest of drawers. It wasn’t there.

He got up and reached for his jeans. His cell was in the pocket.

His palm rubbed his face as he straightened up and answered it. “Yeah.”

I looked at the clock. Eleven.

“What?”

“Okay.”

“Who is it?” I asked. He turned and looked at me.

“It’s Jason. Rachel’s missing.”

His hand lifted to stop me saying more. “Hang on a minute. What, Jason?”

“Where do you think she’s gone?”

“Sure, course I will.”

“I’m at Lindy’s.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll call you when I’m in the SUV.”

Billy dropped the cell on the bed, then immediately started to put his jeans on.

“What is it?”

“Rach had a bad day. She left the house about two hours ago. He doesn’t know where she’s gone. He wants help looking for her.”

Billy picked up his tee.

“I’ll come too.” I slipped out of bed as I said it.

“Are you sure? You don’t have to.”

“She came to the hospital yesterday to support me… I want to.”

“Okay, hurry then. Jason sounded desperate. He’s worried.”

“Why?”

“Saint’s been crying all day and Rach is off her meds because she’s been breastfeeding. He thinks she’s hit a massive low. He’s worried she’ll do something bad…”

Shit.

I dressed really quick, but Billy was ready before me and hovering at my bedroom door with his keys in his hand. “Come on,” he said, as I zipped up my sweater.

I smiled at him, then hurried ahead of him. “So where do we look?”

“I don’t know, everywhere. I told him I’d call when I was driving.”

“Give me your cell, then.”

As we walked out to the SUV, I looked up Jason in Billy’s contacts and called him just as I got into the passenger seat. Billy gunned the engine.

“Jason.”

“Lindy?” His voice rang with doubt and fear, and he was breathless like he’d been running.

“I’m with Billy, we’re in the SUV, are you in your truck?”

“It’s parked at the store. I’ve been looking everywhere around Main Street. I just don’t think she’s here.” I imagined his hand gripping in his hair as he stopped and looked around.

“Where else do you think she might have gone?”

“I don’t fucking know. I can’t think, Lind.”

“Take a breath,” Billy was already driving toward town. “Where do you two go? Where does she take Saint? Where would she feel safer and secure––happy?” Those were the things that had pulled me to the store the night they’d found me.

He let out a sigh, then took a deep breath. “The park maybe! We run there and she takes Saint there loads. She loves the park.”

“Which one?”

“Both.”

“We’re near Lower Park, we’ll go there. You look in Upper Park.”

“Okay.” The cell went dead.

I looked at Billy. “He’s panicking.”

Billy glanced at me. “I know. It must be bad.”

Neither of us said anything as he drove.

When we got there he pulled into the parking lot and as soon as the engine died I leaped out, leaving Billy to lock up.

“Where do we look?” I shouted.

“I don’t know, call Jason again.” I turned to see Billy glance at the cell still in my hand. I called Jason as we started walking, hurrying into the park.

“Hi.” I think he thought it was gonna be Billy this time.

“We’re here. Where should we start looking?”

“Along the river. In the playground.” His breathless voice brimmed with anxiety. He was running as he spoke. “I can’t see her here! Rachel! Rach!”

“Billy, you run along the river path, you’re faster than me. I’ll head to the playground. Jason, do you want to stay on the cell?”

“Yeah.”

His fast breathing sent a rhythm through the cell as he ran.

I started running too, as Billy was absorbed by the dark heading for the river path. I wasn’t fast. The boys were the sporty ones. I’d enjoyed being a cheerleader but that was more about agility than speed. Energy flowed into my muscles––adrenaline, fear. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to Rachel.

Six months ago I’d hated her so much I could have scratched her eyes out, but the emotion in my chest now was compassion and concern. I liked her. Oh my God. Had I just said that? But it was true. When I’d spoken to her at the store and in the hospital, she’d been nice.

I like her.

“Rachel!” I shouted out her name. But there was no answer.

“Is she there!” Jason’s breathless voice roared down the cell.

“No, sorry, I was trying to see if she’d call back.”

“Rachel!” I heard him shout at the other end of the cell. But I took it there was no answer as a few minutes later he shouted again. “Rachel!”

So did I. “Rachel!”

The night was really dark, but there were lamps dotted about, illuminating the park for people who wanted to be out here in the evening.

“Rachel!” I heard Billy shout from the river path, much further into the park than me. What if she was in the water? It might be too late.

“Rachel!” I called again.

“Rach!” Jason’s voice echoed from the cell.

I didn’t understand. She’d been fine yesterday, smiling and talking excitedly. I knew what it was like to want to duck out of life and just get away… But Rachel had Saint and Jason, and she seemed like she had the perfect life… Why would she come down here?

I ran on, with Jason’s breaths a rhythm seeping through the cell into my ear.

“Have you seen her?” The passion and intensity I heard in Billy’s voice for me rang in Jason’s for Rachel. But it didn’t hurt me to hear it anymore. He loved her, and I didn’t even care.

“No, but I’m not at the play park yet.”

I carried on running, starting to get tired and out of breath, but then I came around the corner and the shrubs surrounding the path opened up. “I think I see her!”

“What?” Jason’s desperate breathless response came through the cell.

“There’s someone sitting on a swing. She has long hair, and she’s tall and thin like Rachel.”

“I’m coming.” The call went dead as I ran on toward the figure.

It was just a silhouette cast by the lamp shining down on the play park. Whoever it was sat with their head down, leaning against a chain, gently moving the swing a little with their feet.

“Rachel!” I called as I got closer. The figure had blonde hair, like hers.

She looked up and even though I was yards away, I saw a vacant glint in her eyes. “Rachel.” I said more gently as I stopped running and got closer. She didn’t get up. She didn’t do anything other than look at me.

“Billy!” I yelled into the darkness facing the river. I couldn’t hear him anymore, he was too far away. “Billy!” I yelled again. “I found her!”

I didn’t wait for an answer, but moved closer, my hand out. I felt like I was approaching an animal that might run or bite. I didn’t know how she’d react. “Rachel, Jason called us. He’s worried. Are you okay?”

She didn’t say anything. Just looked at me blankly.

Looking down at Billy’s cell, I called Jason again and lifted it to my ear. She still hadn’t acknowledged that she knew who I was, or that I was even there. “Yeah.” His voice echoed like he had the cell on speaker in the truck.

“She’s here. She’s just sitting. She’s not talking.”

“Call 911, I’ll be there soon.” I ended the call, to let him concentrate on driving.

“Rachel, are you okay? Can I do anything?”

She shook her head, then whispered, “I’m sorry.”