Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

I didn’t see Nick for the next three days. We were in contact, we talked at night, and he sent me messages while I was in class that made me blush, but we never found an opening to hang out.

I did go out with Jenna, though. Not to the clubs, not to dance, just to a couple of bars near campus. You had to go before happy hour hit, otherwise they were all packed. One day, Jenna brought Amber, her roommate, to Ray’s, one of the popular spots. We had a good table and were watching a group of guys shooting pool a few feet away, very obviously trying to get our attention. Three hot girls with no guys around—that was enough for them to come over and talk.

Amber told us repeatedly how hot she found one of them, a skinny redhead. He looked kind of raggedy but also sweet. In just five seconds, she had a whole movie going in her head.

“I think we’ll call our firstborn Fred, you know, like from the Harry Potter books. I’ve always been a fan. Our children will probably inherit his red hair…”

“Why don’t you go over there and tell him you already know the name of your first child? I’m sure that’ll be enough to make him fall in love with you,” Jenna encouraged her. She was sloshed already and seemed disgusted every time someone of the opposite sex looked over at us.

“Hey, Noah,” Amber said, ignoring Jenna, “one of those guys won’t take his eyes off you.” I looked back, hoping it was Nick.

But what I found was a totally different pair of eyes. He was the furthest thing from Nick, but Amber was right: he wouldn’t take his eyes off me. He was tall and blond and wielded his pool cue like an extension of his own body. Something about him seemed weirdly familiar. But I looked away from him to concentrate on my friends.

“Maybe he’s from one of my classes, but I don’t know, honestly,” I said with a shrug.

Jenna looked over at him, uninterested in being subtle. “I’ve seen that dude. I think he was coming out of the biology building. He’s no freshman, I’ll tell you that. He might even be a professor… Maybe he can teach you a thing or two…!”

I knew what she was insinuating. To hell with that.

He was bent over the table, his hair in his face, concentrated on the game, his eye on the ball, and that allowed me to look at him closer. No, he wasn’t a teacher; he was too young for that, although he definitely wasn’t a freshman either. I racked my brain trying to figure out who he was, but it was impossible. A few minutes later, we’d changed the subject and were talking about other nonsense.

“Hey, can you get me another drink?” Jenna asked Amber.

While she went to the bar, I decided to wait for the bathroom. To get there, I had to walk past the pool table. I had forgotten about the guy there already, and so, when he got in front of me, making me stop in my tracks, I was surprised.

“Hey,” he said simply, with a curious expression.

“Hi,” I responded, looking at his face and remembering right then where I’d seen him: at that party I’d gone to with Jenna the night Nick had come back from San Francisco and taken me home with him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I just… You were with my brother at a party a few days ago, right?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a class together,” I said.

He nodded. I didn’t remember his name, but I did remember his bad attitude when he’d confronted us.

“I’d love to ask you a favor. My brother is an expert in disappearing acts, and I haven’t seen a sign of life from him in a while. If you run into him in class, can you tell him to call me? It’s important.”

I said yes. He pulled out his wallet, looking for something.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but I don’t know anyone he hangs out with… If you see him acting weird or he looks like something’s wrong, could you call me at this number?”

I grabbed his card. “Of course, don’t worry,” I said, seeing genuine worry on his face. “Nothing’s wrong with him, is it?”

Charlie was too cool to lose as a friend. Thanks to him, I’d laughed more in those past few days than I had in ages. He seemed to always be in a good mood. I loved that. And he was capable of laughing at everyone, even himself, without the least trace of cruelty.

His brother smiled tight-lipped, hinting that he preferred not to talk about it. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

His response struck me as curt, but his voice was so sincere and friendly that I couldn’t help but smile back as he turned to his game.

I looked down, read the card, and shivered.

MICHAEL O’NEIL

PSYCHOLOGIST

(323) 634-7721

I went back to my dorm soon after. I was tired, and I kept thinking about what Charlie’s brother had said. Getting a psychologist: that was on my list of things to do. Nick had asked me to do it, for him, and I’d agreed, but I hated having to open up to a stranger and tell him all my fears and secrets. It wasn’t easy for me to talk about my problems, especially with someone I didn’t even know. Still, my nightmares hadn’t gone away, I was still scared of the dark, and I knew I couldn’t keep putting it off forever. But what if they analyzed me, judged me, told me I was crazy? My mother had tried to take me to see a therapist before, I’d even gone when I was little, but all I did was cry so much in the office that she’d finally let it go, buying me nightlights for my room and calling it a day. The nightmares, though, those were new, something that had only come about after my father’s death.

I got into bed and looked at the card again. Was this a sign? This Michael seemed like a good guy, and more importantly, he wasn’t too old. I felt better about that because our therapy sessions could be more like simple conversations between friends. I wanted to talk with Charlie first, though, plus I wanted to ask why his brother was worried about him, even if I wasn’t sure I was ready for us to share our problems with each other.

I knew if I ended up opening up to him, I’d just look for some excuse why his brother wouldn’t be a good therapist for me, so finally I decided to call Michael directly and ask his thoughts. I did so the next day, after my morning classes, when I had a bit of free time. I told him my problem in a rough outline, without going into details. He told me he’d been working for the university as a campus psychologist for two years now. He encouraged me to stop by his office. I didn’t know what to tell him about Charlie. He hadn’t been to class, but I knew he wasn’t much of a morning person.

I was jittery but also relieved that I had taken that step, small as it might have been. Now I just had to go and see how it was, if I felt comfortable talking with him about my issues.

I spent the rest of the morning in a café close to the English department. I was nauseated, just shy of frantic, as I ordered a coffee and took out one of my required books. It wasn’t the most pleasant place, so I picked one of the more isolated tables.

After a while, I got a strange feeling. I looked up, and there he was: Nick, with a to-go cup of coffee in his hand and his Mac under his arm. It was as if my body were capable of sensing him. Worse, I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. There were five girls at the table next to me who had been chatting the whole time but who now lowered their voices to whispers as they gawked at him. And they were far from the only ones, as I could tell with my full view of the café. Nick wove his way between the tables and sat down with a group of guys who gave him the usual friendly claps on the back.

“Jesus, he’s incredible! Just seeing him is giving me the shivers,” one of the girls next to me said, making me immediately tense.

“That’s my future husband,” another said, “so you can go ahead and take your eyes off him.” Everyone laughed. It had never occurred to me that, obviously, Nick wasn’t invisible. In fact he was the very opposite, especially in those pants that hung off his hips, that shirt that clung to his body, showing off his muscular arms…and to top it off, he was wearing his glasses, those glasses I found so incredibly sexy, the ones I’d thought he only ever wore at the apartment, when he was with me.

I wanted to run over to him and shout that he was mine, but I couldn’t give up the opportunity to observe him and see how he acted when I wasn’t around.

He looked like he couldn’t care less about the guys with him. They went on making a racket while he focused on whatever was on his computer screen. Two girls went to sit at the same table and looked at him provocatively. One of them said something, and he smiled. I felt an intense heat gathering inside me.

“There’s got to be something wrong with him,” the girl next to me said.

“There’s something wrong with him, all right: he’ll fuck anything that moves. I’d never want to be his girlfriend. Anyway, I couldn’t be around a guy like that. I’d freeze up and act like a complete idiot every time I laid eyes on him. I’m being serious.”

As if he had heard them, Nick looked up from his computer, and his eyes connected with mine across the distance. I thought about playing dumb, but I wanted him to see me, wanted him to know I was on his territory, at his school, where everyone knew him and talked about him.

A smile crossed his lips. I held him in my stare.

“He’s looking at us,” one of the girls next to me said, and they all started laughing like idiots.

Nick got up, grabbed his things, and walked over, never taking his eyes off me. I looked back down at my book, waiting to see what he would do. I clearly heard the chair next to me being pulled out, and then he sat down.

“Hi,” he said, and without waiting for a response, he pulled my chair around so we were face-to-face, my knees almost touching his.

The girls next to us watched us, speechless.

I had butterflies in my stomach. I couldn’t help it. His presence made my hormones go into overdrive, the same as happened to every woman in his presence.

“Hey,” I said, a bit rigidly. I was used to women looking at him. But I’d never heard what they said about him, had never been on the other side. When he was with me, I knew girls looked at him, but I was free from the torment of listening to them. Now I realized there was a whole line of women waiting anxiously for me to screw up so they could take my place.

I’d never want to be his girlfriend. He’ll fuck anything that moves.

I looked back at my book, too nervous knowing that everyone was watching us. I hated hearing what they’d said; they seemed to trivialize him, make him into something superficial, like he was just handsome and nothing else. Nick was far more than a pretty face.

“Well, this is what I’d call a warm welcome,” Nick joked.

My brow furrowed. “I didn’t know you had class today. I assumed you wouldn’t be here. You could have told me.”

I was starting to get pissed hearing those girls, who wouldn’t stop whispering and giggling.

“It wasn’t my plan, but I had to turn something in. Now that we don’t live together, I’ve got lots of free time.” I looked in his eyes, and they hinted at all I was missing by not living under the same roof.

“I didn’t know you had so many fans around here,” I said, changing the subject. I didn’t want to get into an argument about my living situation again.

Nick looked at the girls at the next table over. Even that got under my skin.

“You jealous?” he asked.

I didn’t want to respond. Instead, I bent over the table and grabbed his shirt, pulling him in close.

“I feel like there are too many people here who have no idea who I am,” I admitted, while his eyes roved my face and a seductive smile appeared on his lips.

“Nothing wrong with you claiming what’s yours, my love.”

Those words were enough for me. Our lips came together in an exquisite kiss. The silence at the next table over was enough to make me grin. I’d meant to just give him a quick one, but Nick had other plans in mind. He pulled me over onto his lap, opened my lips with his tongue, and explored my mouth.

My back was turned to the rest of the people in the café. People must have known what we were doing, but they couldn’t exactly see. Nick bit my lower lip, sucked, and nibbled, as though placing a seal on our love. He was enjoying himself, and pleasure was darkening his eyes.

“I love me some PDA,” he confessed, tracing little circles on my lower back with his finger, making me shiver.

Then I felt something strange. I made him move his arm so I could look. He had a bandage on his wrist.

“What happened?” I asked, scared.

He hesitated for a few seconds. That only made it worse. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

I imagined him getting in another fight, and I looked him over for more signs of damage, but he didn’t have a scratch on him. Nor were there any bruises on his knuckles.

“Why do you have that bandage, then, Nicholas?” I asked.

He leaned back, with a hard-to-interpret expression on his face. “Don’t freak out or anything, okay?”

Lifting his wrist, I asked him again what had happened, with an alarm sounding faintly inside me.

“Take a look,” he said.

I lifted the bandage and saw a tattoo, the skin around it slightly swollen. “What the…?”

Nick pulled the bandage off the rest of the way and laid it on the table. “I think it’s time for it to breathe, no?”

There, on his smooth skin, in black, in my handwriting, was the thing I had scrawled down there three days before: You’re mine.

“Tell me that’s not a real tattoo,” I said.

“You honestly think I was just going to let that fade away?” he asked, looking at it proudly.

“You’re crazy, Nicholas Leister!” I shouted, feeling all kinds of contrary emotions. A tattoo, that was forever, a mark on his skin that would mean he’d always remember me…two words declaring he was mine.

“You were already a part of me long before I got this tattoo. This is simply a reminder of something I always have inside me, Freckles. No need for you to overthink it.”

I got scared. I realized how much that meant, and despite his gentle words, a pressure in my chest made it hard for me to breathe.

“I gotta go,” I said, starting to stand, but he reached up and held me there, narrowing his eyes, looking serious.

“You’re freaking out. That wasn’t my intention.” He definitely didn’t like where this was going.

I shook my head. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I needed to be outside. I could feel everyone in the place watching my every move.

“A tattoo, Nicholas…that’s for life,” I said with a knot in my throat. “You’re going to regret getting it. I know you are. What if one day it turns into a bad memory, a ghost that’s chasing you down? You’ll regret it, and you’ll hate me because it will remind you of me even when you don’t want it to—”

His lips silenced me with a quick kiss. It felt tender, but I could feel the tension in his body.

“Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you, Noah. I really don’t.”

He picked up his laptop and walked back to where he’d been before.

Shit… Had I hurt his feelings?

I couldn’t sleep that night. Nick’s hurt, bitter expression was the reason. I felt guilty for how I’d acted, for reacting that way. And I understood then that I needed to talk to someone about it. I needed someone to help me—to help me be what Nick expected of me.

The next morning, I had my first session with Michael O’Neil.

“Tell me about yourself, Noah. Why do you think you need my help?”

His office wasn’t the way I’d imagined it. There wasn’t a couch to lie down on or a bunch of weird objects or anything like that. It was just a normal office with a desk in the corner, two black couches, a coffee table, some puffy white cushions. The curtains were open on the big windows, letting a warm light in. Michael offered me tea and cookies, and I felt like a five-year-old girl.

I told him more or less what my childhood had been like, my relationship with my father, the problems with Mom. I hadn’t intended to reveal all my secrets in the first session, but Michael was good at getting information out of me without my even realizing it. I told him about falling out the window, my trauma related to the darkness; I told him that just over a year ago, I’d had to leave home and move to LA. I told him about Nick. After all, that was why I was there.

“You mentioned you have a boyfriend,” he said, taking a break from his notes.

I squirmed a little on the sofa.

“Tell me about that relationship.”

The session flew by long before I’d finished.

“Look, Noah,” he said, “this first session has been good to get to know you, but we haven’t managed to dive into much… I’d like to have you come in twice a week. The nyctophobia—fear of the dark—is what’s bothering you the most; with therapy, we can get through that. You’d be surprised how many people have the same problem. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

I wanted to tell him I wasn’t ashamed, I just hated that feeling I got when the lights went out. I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten anything out of that hour, but I felt comfortable, and that was what mattered.

Michael got up and walked me to the door.

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Noah, and I’m looking forward to helping you.”

I smiled back at him. His way of talking, so calm, his way of looking at me, all of it transmitted serenity. He must have been pretty good at his job.