Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

My trip had come to an end. I had seen magnificent sights, had swum at the best beaches, had eaten traditional cuisine… Still, when the plane from New York touched down in LA, all I could feel was glee, glee and an anxiety that made me nauseous.

I stood up as soon as we heard the ding that said we could unbuckle our seat belts. My mother seemed to think my anticipation was a bit much, but I was overjoyed that we were in first class and could leave before everyone else. I hurried out the door as soon as it opened and onto the jet bridge that led into the terminal. My mother was driving me crazy, dragging her feet. What the hell was keeping her?

Fortunately, since we’d had a layover in New York, I didn’t have to wait and show my passport. We just walked down a long passageway, caught an escalator, and we were outside. It was 7:00 p.m. in Los Angeles, and the first thing I saw was the blinding light of the setting sun, which I struggled for a few seconds to peer through. William was there. But where was Nick?

I looked all over as the hum of the escalator droned on, and finally I had no other option but to walk over to my boyfriend’s father. He smiled and opened his arms to hug me, but I could tell from his eyes that something was bothering him. I didn’t want to be rude, but I wasn’t especially in the mood to hug him either.

“How’s my weary world traveler?” he asked during our brief embrace.

“Where’s Nicholas?”

He looked down at me for a moment, but before he would answer, he saw my mother. She ran toward him with open arms, and he pulled her in tight. I didn’t understand what was happening. She stood back long enough to kiss him on the lips. I turned away to avoid watching.

“Where’s Nicholas?” my mother asked, just as I had before.

Will looked back at me and shrugged as though to say, What did you expect? “He sent a text saying he couldn’t pick you up. He’ll be in touch as soon as he can be.”

That didn’t make sense.

“That’s all?” I asked incredulously. My joy deflated like a balloon, and disillusion took its place.

William shook his head, and I turned around as he and Steve took our suitcases. I grabbed my phone and called Nick. It went straight to voice mail. I hung up before he could hear my deafening silence.

Why hadn’t he come to pick me up? Was he working? If so, he could have come anyway; he did for my birthday. He’d said he’d been happy to leave everything to come see me…

Had those weeks apart made him stop caring about me as much as he used to?

Jesus, what the hell was I thinking? Of course he cared about me! We’d talked—he was dying to see me, he’d told me so…

I dialed again.

“Nicholas, I’m at the airport and you’re not here. What’s going on?”

After leaving the message, I slipped my phone back into my jeans pocket. I turned to look at my mother, who couldn’t keep her hands off William, and then walked alongside Steve as we left the airport and headed for the car. Steve always knew where Nick was—he always knew where everyone was—that was his job as head of security for the Leister family.

“Do you know what’s up, Steve?” I asked, staring straight at him. I knew Nicholas trusted him. Anytime something happened, Nick called him, and he’d even sent Steve before when he couldn’t pick me up or he wanted to make sure I got home safe from somewhere.

Steve looked away, and I knew then that something had happened that no one wanted to tell me about. I grabbed his arm and forced him to look at me.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Don’t get upset, Noah. Nicholas is okay. He’ll be in touch once you get home.”

I hadn’t even been back a half hour, and I wanted to strangle him. What was he playing at?

The trip home seemed eternal, especially because what I wanted most was to go to Nick’s apartment. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn’t like it one bit. I knew why Steve didn’t want to tell me anything. It was getting late, and I was sure Nicholas wanted to me to stay at home that night… All sorts of images flashed through my head. Most of them bad.

It was dark by the time we got home. I wished I could see him there, imagined him there waiting for me, as if all this were just some sick joke. He hadn’t answered my calls. It was starting to worry me…or maybe piss me off; I still wasn’t sure.

“Noah, please, try to look happy. You’re coming back from a European vacation, not from an insane asylum.”

I was sure my mother was happy about all this. A part of her wanted to see how many times Nicholas could disappoint me because she wanted me to leave him. She had this idea that there was something that would be the last straw. She was wrong.

I went up to my room without answering. It wasn’t just Nicholas who hadn’t picked up. I’d tried Lion and Jenna as well. Finally, Nick picked up after letting it ring five times.

“Noah,” he said dryly.

“Where are you?”

I listened closely, but all I could hear was his breathing, deep breaths, as if he weren’t sure what to tell me. My heart was full of fear…an irrational fear, driven by the fact I had no idea what was going on.

“It’s okay, I apologize, it’s just that something came up, and I couldn’t leave.” His voice sounded sad—sad but also steely.

“Is everyone okay? Are you okay? Lion and Jenna wouldn’t pick up either,” I said, sitting down on the bed. The sound of his voice had calmed me slightly.

“I’m great.” I didn’t believe that. Something had happened, and he didn’t want to tell me what.

“I’m going to your apartment,” I said, getting up with determination.

“No.”

His voice was so cutting that I froze with my hand on the doorknob.

“Nicholas Leister, you will tell me right now what’s happening, or I swear to God I’ll pull out every hair on your head one by one.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood for this,” he said, taking a long time to reply. I didn’t care for that tone. “Stay home, and wait for me to call you.”

He hung up.

I looked at the phone as if it were the thing that had mistreated me. I dialed him again, hitting the screen so hard, I almost cracked it. Straight to voice mail.

Was he talking to someone? Who the hell could it be? Was he not picking up on purpose?

I reached into my nightstand, where I kept the keys to the Audi. But they were gone.

Was this some kind of joke?

I left my room and headed straight for the kitchen, opening the drawer where we kept the spares. None were there. My mother and William were nowhere in sight, and I didn’t even want to think about what they might be doing.

Was my car outside? I hadn’t even bothered to look. I walked toward the door, but just then Steve emerged from his office holding his phone, with an intimidating look on his face.

“Were you talking to him?” I asked, pointing a finger at him.

“Noah, he asked me not to let you go out. He’ll explain everything tomorrow.”

I laughed. It sounded strange. I could sense Steve was embarrassed, but I knew he’d do as Nick said.

“It’s late. Get some rest, and you’ll see him tomorrow.”

Bullshit.

“Fine, you’re right.”

Steve seemed relieved and watched me closely as I turned around and climbed the stairs. He was out of his mind if he thought he would prevent me from leaving my own home. I entered my room, ready to wait as long as I had to. Pacing nervously, I took out my phone again.

There is no justification for what you’re doing, and when I see you, you’re going to get it.

He answered me right away.

Don’t be nasty. I love you. Get some rest and I’ll see you soon.

See you soon? For real?

I went to the bathroom to wash up. I felt gross after all those hours in the airplane. I looked at the clock: it was 9:00 p.m., and I couldn’t even think about breaking out before eleven. I laughed at that thought: breaking out, like I was in jail.

I was going to kill him…

Once I was halfway presentable, admittedly with my hair still wet, I peeked into the hallway. I couldn’t hear anyone. But then, you never did hear anyone in that enormous house. My plan was to go to the garage and take my old car. The same one that had broken down a thousand times but that I couldn’t stand to think of selling—or junking, since that was more likely. I’d known that heap of trash would end up coming in handy one day.

The garage door was at the back of the house, so I didn’t need to go near the front door or Steve’s office. I walked downstairs, making as little noise as possible, and grinned when I saw my precious car next to Mom’s BMW. There was a motorcycle there, too. I’d never asked whose it was, and honestly, I was tempted to take it, but I didn’t know where the keys were, and I was sure Nicholas would kill me if he saw me show up late at night with a motorcycle, especially since I’d never driven one in my life.

I got in and pressed the button on the garage door opener, thanking God one more time that the house was huge and no one heard me leave.

I had nearly an hour’s drive ahead of me, so I cranked up the music and opened the windows to try to stay awake. I wished I were in my convertible and not in this car that had a top speed of around forty-five.

I knew I shouldn’t take the interstate at that hour. I hadn’t even slept in twenty hours, but I didn’t care; the need to see Nicholas and the feeling that something wasn’t right were stronger than anything else.

The drive took forever, and when I finally reached his building, I felt more nervous than ever. Not just because I was finally seeing him after a month but because I knew he’d get mad at me for going all the way there alone at that time of night.

As I got into the elevator, I realized I didn’t have my keys. Shit… Now I was going to have to ring the doorbell at one in the morning. My heart was galloping when I saw the door in front of me. I knocked instead of ringing. I don’t know why, but it seemed more reasonable. I did so softly, not dramatically. I was already trying to calm things down before I had even seen him.

No one opened.

I knocked again, and then I saw a faint light under the door. Had he been sleeping? I heard a curse, then an insult. Finally the door opened. There he was.

I don’t think anything could have prepared me for what I saw. I had to hold my breath. My hands came straight to my mouth to muffle a scream. He hadn’t expected me there, and now I knew why.

“Goddammit, Noah,” he said, leaning his forehead on the doorframe. “Can’t you just do what I ask of you one fucking time?”

“What happened to you?” I whispered. His entire face was one big bruise, his left eye was greenish and leaking pus, and his lip looked cracked all the way through.

“I told you to stay home!”

Now that I was there, now that I saw him, I understood why he hadn’t come to pick me up. He was destroyed; he’d been beaten to a pulp… The terror at the sight of him in that state mingled with my joy at seeing him, but whatever fantasy I’d had of seeing him again after weeks vanished terribly before my eyes.

I looked at his bare chest, with a bandage wrapped around his ribs…

Someone had hurt him. They’d hurt him badly. They’d hurt Nick. My Nick.

“Don’t look at me like that, Noah,” he said, turning around and bringing his hand to his head.

I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless. That was the last thing I needed, the last thing I wanted to see. That wasn’t just a beating. For me it was something worse: it brought back memories I wished would be gone forever.

“Don’t cry, dammit!” he shouted, turning around again and wiping away the tears on my cheeks.

“I don’t understand,” I said, and it was true: I didn’t know what had happened, why he was hurt. I was shocked. Nothing was the way I had hoped it would be.

Nicholas pulled me close and squeezed me tight. I was scared to touch him, I didn’t want to hurt him, but instinctively, I wrapped my arms around him, and I felt his lips on the top of my head.

“I missed you so much,” he said and stroked my hair, smelling my shampoo… When he pushed me away a bit, I opened my eyes to look at him. His left eye could barely open, and that blue I fell in love with was almost gone, replaced by pain and suffering… He bent over to kiss me, but I pulled away.

“No,” I said, frightened.

I shut my eyes. Memories, memories, so many damned memories… My mom beaten up, my father dead, me bleeding on the ground waiting for her to come home…

I moved away from him and hid my face in my hands.

“Why do you do these things, Nicholas?” I asked in a muffled tone.

I hated to cry, especially in front of people, and especially because of something that could have been avoided. He stood there staring at me. I think he was hurt I had rejected him.

“Can’t you just be a normal boyfriend?” I chastised him. My tone was harsh. I was hurting, everything was hurting me—the sight of him, the loss of that dream I’d had of us reuniting.

But when I said that, I could see I’d wounded him, and that made me feel guilty, even if I still refused to take my words back. He must have gone back to fighting for money, or else he’d gotten drunk and mouthed off to the wrong person. Lion was probably involved—Jenna, too. That’s why neither of them had picked up when I’d called.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said with restraint. So now he could control himself? Now, when it was too late. “I didn’t want you to see me like this, but you never fucking listen!”

“You don’t get to order me around, and you can give up expecting me to do whatever you want when you won’t even give me a fucking explanation. I was worried about you, Nick!”

“Dammit, Noah, I had my reasons!”

“Your reasons are why someone beat the shit out of you!”

His chest was rising and falling as he looked at me. I didn’t know what to do. I was furious at him for returning to that world I hated so much, but I also wanted to hold him and never let him go again. I was about to break down, seriously, and I didn’t want to do it in front of him. He grabbed me as I turned and headed for the elevator, but I jerked my arm away.

“Don’t touch me, Nicholas! Not now! I mean it!”

“Are you serious? We haven’t seen each other in a month…”

“I don’t care! I don’t even recognize you right now. I thought you’d be waiting for me at the airport with a smile because I’m an idiot, a fool who expects a person to do the things they promise me when it’s obvious they won’t.”

“You haven’t even let me explain myself!”

“What explanation are you going to give me? That you ran into a wall?”

He glared at me, and I crossed my arms waiting for his so-called explanation. You could hear a pin drop. Nick tried to hug me again.

“Do not touch me,” I repeated, dead serious.

And so we stood there, neither of us knowing what to say.

“It’s not what you think,” he said. “I had to help Lion. He was in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” As I asked, I saw how raw his knuckles were.

He came close to me again, and when I didn’t stop him, he continued. “It was about money. Look, Noah, I didn’t want this to happen, I swear to you.” He knelt so he could look me directly in the eyes. “I’ve been waiting for this day ever since you left. I bought food, I cleaned up the apartment, I even bathed the cat. Please, believe me, all I wanted was to see you. You’re the one thing I care about.”

The fragrance of his body invaded my senses. The warmth of his fingers on my cheeks made the ache in my heart diminish slightly because even if what I was feeling was his fault, he was also the only one who could make it disappear.

I took a deep breath and, hesitantly, held him back.

“Loving you is the most complicated thing I’ve ever done,” I said.

But it was impossible to stay mad at him.

“I’m dying to kiss you,” he said, as though asking for permission.

I waited for a few seconds before replying. “Do it, then.”

And I could tell he was still smiling a second later, when his lips touched mine.