Page 13 of No More Secrets

They’re loud, they’re rough, and at this point, they don’t care who sees them.

Lucas’s fingers dig into her hips, his thighs shaking as Val braces her weight against the pallets, pushing back as he tries to fuck away his guilt and shame. To take off the edge.

It’s over as fast as it started.

And as always, sex just numbs the pain that never leaves.

His forehead drops onto her damp back, and for a moment they’re still except for their heaving lungs as they catch their breath. For a moment Lucas gives himself over to the simple pleasure of touching someone else without shirking away. If he plans it, expects it, is mentally prepared for it, he revels in the contact. Relishes worshiping a woman’s body. Softly, timidly, he kisses her back along the bumpy ridge of her spine, denying he craves the contact past experiences won’t allow him to enjoy.

Val rears up. Lucas steps away, giving her space. She pulls up her pants, zips her fly. “Thanks,” she says, reminding him exactly what this was. A mindless release.

Lucas’s walls shore up. “No prob.” He tucks himself back in, flinging the used condom into the dumpster.

She gives him a sexy grin, her tongue moistening her bottom lip, and returns to the bar.

Hands on his waist, still catching his breath, he looks at the sky. The stars are dim with the light over his shoulder. But he knows they’re there, a constant. Just like the memories in his head, the screams trapped in his chest.

God, he thinks, his chin dropping. If his younger self saw him now—living off one-nighters and bedding married women, starved for affection but incapable of allowing himself anything meaningful...

He shakes his head.

Nothing he can do about it now. He smells of Val, but he needed that. He came out here to purge Faye, and that’s what he did.

Next time he sees Rafe, he might not feel as disgusted with himself. Val’s beautiful in a rough-around-the-edges way, but she’s also single. No one’s breathing down his neck after he screws her. No one will give him trouble.

Lucas rolls his shoulders and returns inside to win the game.

7

The library closes at six o’clock, and Shiloh is forced to leave. She wanders the streets, aimless, cautious not to linger too long in one spot before someone wonders why her clothes are filthy or why she’s out alone when it’s getting dark.NO LOITERINGsigns hover overhead in almost every strip-mall parking lot. They’ll realize she’s homeless. Someone will call the police or CPS. And the possibility of going home to Ellis scares her more than starving to death. She doesn’t want to die, but she’ll choose that over Ellis invading her bedroom again while her mom sleeps off her high in the next room.

As the sun sets, she catches her reflection in a shop window. The felt pen she’d applied earlier has mixed with her sweat and bled over her cheeks, giving her a serious case of raccoon eyes. She looks clownish and sad. How many nights after working a late shift at The Fog had her mom come home with her mascara smeared? She was always tired and had a terrible habit of rubbing her eyes when she grew jittery after her fix wore off. The darkened skin around her eyes added years to her thirty-three. Shiloh hated watching her mom descend into her addiction.

Harmony used to promise life would get better. That they’d move to California after Shiloh graduated high school. There Shiloh would attend a community college or apply for scholarships at surrounding universities. Her mom would find a job, or two. Three, if need be. She’d continue to support Shiloh until she became the successful video animator they both dreamed she’d become.

But the exact opposite happened when Ellis entered their lives. He convinced Shiloh’s mom to stay whenever she talked of finding an apartment to rent near the beach for her baby girl. Shiloh has dreams Harmony wants her to fulfill. But Ellis argued he was just as important, that he had dreams, too. He’d give her a gram of heroin and promise he’d buy her a house with a pool. He’d supply another gram with a promise they’d vacation in Mexico. Harmony wanted to ride horses on the beach. And when she stopped talking of California, when Shiloh’s dreams were no longer part of her own, he provided her with an endless supply.

Whatever Harmony wanted, he’d get for her, so long as she stayed in Rio Rancho and he could stay with her.

Shiloh tried, but she couldn’t convince her mom to leave him. “He’s good for us,” Harmony would murmur, sighing deeply with the initial rush of an injection. She’d been close to her mom before the drugs, before Ellis. But now she hated her because of those drugs. Because of Ellis. It’s going to take more than a promise in an email for Shiloh to forgive her.

Shiloh’s pace quickens just thinking about Ellis, and what he tried to do to her. She shivers as if she can still feel his fingers on her thighs. It wasn’t the first time he’d touched her when she ran away. But it would be the last.

She crosses the road to the park and slips into the public restroom. She washes her face with cold water and foaming pink hand soap. The soap stings her eyes, but she scrubs until the felt pen comes off.

She dries her face with a stiff paper towel and stares at her reflection. Her face is red, especially around her eyes, and she’s back to looking younger than her age. Squeaky clean. Girl-next-door fresh.

Every promise ever made to her has been broken. Finn won’t borrow a car and come get her. He can’t even drive. Her mom gave up on her. She can’t rely on either.

She only has herself.

With a fresh wave of resolve, Shiloh pushes her arms into her hoodie and leaves the bathroom. She comes across a woman and her young son feeding ducks at the edge of the pond, her purse on the ground behind her, the mouth wide open. Shiloh stumbles, apologizing when her shoulder nudges the woman’s hip, surprising her. She helps Shiloh to her feet.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, sorry.” Shiloh timidly backs away.

She turns around and keeps walking, opening the woman’s wallet. She removes three ones, tucking them into her pocket, and tosses the wallet into the first trash bin she passes, before she’s tempted to use the credit cards. She risks getting caught if they’ve been reported lost or stolen.

---