The Debt

by Tyler King

Genres: Coming of Age; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; New Adult Romance

Synopsis

"Raw and intense, The Debt had me enthralled from the first chapter. An impressive and addictive debut!" - Leisa Rayven, author of Bad Romeo and Broken Juliet Hadley saved my life . . . and I ruined hers Hadley's my best friend. We share a house, our friends, a life. She knows all my secrets . . . except one. My desperate need for her is inked on my body, it's the best I can do. But Hadley needs to hear the words . . . Growing up as foster kids, Hadley made me feel whole-sane. And what did I do? I destroyed our chance to be together. I ran out on Hadley when I should have stayed, and something broke between us. Now I'll do anything to fix it. I'll never leave her again. I won't ever let her feel afraid again. But the more I try to protect her from my pain, the more I just make things worse. I'm terrified that if I tell her everything, she'll never forgive me. I'm even more terrified that it may be too late to make her mine. I have to try to give her what she needs . . . it's a debt I'm determined to repay.

Release date: May 10, 2016

Publisher: Forever Yours

Print pages: 354

Sample

Chapter 1

I stood in the shower with the lights off and my forehead pressed to the tiles. My palm lay flat, fingertips gripping the thin grout trench for support. Scalding spray beat against my back, but it could not chase away the frigid, crackling sting of ice pumping through my veins. I held my semi-flaccid dick in my hand, trembling as my lungs ached to push past the boulder lodged in my throat. My body caved in on itself, shrinking. Gravity squeezed me. It pressed and it pushed until the weight was so much, the pain so great, I collapsed to the bottom of the tub, naked and shivering. The room spun forward and back, end over end. I grit my teeth, clenched my fists. Static filled my head and numbed my face. The sick, black poison of nausea seeped its way into my gut. Bubbling. Boiling. I heaved and clenched, vomiting acid and whiskey, leaving me a huddled clump of shaking agony in a soup of sweat and putrid bile swirling around the drain at my feet.

The water ran cold before I could move again. A silent sob cracked through my chest. Coughing, I choked on the air filling my lungs. Exhaustion was a relief.

When the panic attack subsided, I reached for the soap and rubbed it between both hands, then lathered and rinsed my body from face to feet. I hated it. Hated touching my skin with wrinkled fingers while my nerves were still raw.

Withered, I planted my hands on the tiles and climbed up the wall to stand on trembling legs. My muscles were mud. Wobbling out of the shower, I reached for a towel.

In my room, a naked woman lay asleep in my bed. I dropped the towel on the floor and slipped under the covers.

But sleep wouldn’t come.

Hours later, just after 8:00 a.m., I was still awake when the woman next to me stretched and reached for her phone on my nightstand. Propped up against my headboard, I watched the silhouette of a leggy blonde dressing at the foot of my bed. She shoved her tits into a push-up bra and wiggled her way into a tight black dress.

“It was fun,” she said. “See you around, MacKay.”

“Later.”

She tiptoed away with her shoes in her hand and closed the door behind her. I knew I shouldn’t have brought Kate home, but at the time I didn’t have the clarity of mind to do otherwise. Women had always been transient in my life. This one was no different.

I pried myself from the covers, then crossed the room and stood at the floor-length mirror beside my dresser to inspect the new ink peeking around the right side of my rib cage. The skin there was still tender and swollen, a result of six hours under the needles to continue the design that decorated my back. Bear was an artist with an implement of pain.

My eyes fell to the framed photo lying facedown on my dresser: a younger me in a tux, standing onstage with my adoptive parents beside a piano before my first sold-out concert. It was one of the happiest days of my life, and I couldn’t bear to look at it.

I was skinnier then, and lanky. Hadn’t yet grown into my body. Next to my pale, freckled parents, I stood out like one of those exotic adopted children of yuppie celebrity parents. Dark skin. Black hair. Green eyes. People told me I was “interesting” to look at, to gawk at. So little by little I covered all the pretty bare flesh in tattoos.

The first piece I ever had done was of a raven with its wings spread wide across my chest. The tips of each broken wing nailed down. I was seventeen then. After my first sitting, I came to understand why people said tattoos were addictive. I suppose I became a glutton for pain, because when Bear’s wife offered to put a hole in my lip, I let her stick a needle through my face. For shits and giggles. At twenty-one, I had two full sleeves. My dad only asked that I keep the modifications within reason. I was a bit fuzzy on that definition.

From the top dresser drawer, I grabbed a tube of antibacterial ointment and applied two fingers’ worth to the new tattoo. My stomach growled. It was empty and angry from last night. So I sifted through the field of laundry-pile bunkers scattered around my bedroom until I found a black shirt and dark jeans on the passable side of clean.

When I hit the landing at the bottom of the stairs, I felt a pair of knowing brown eyes watching me from the living room. Nothing good ever came from the morning-after ritual. Even so, I couldn’t help but glance at my roommate curled up on the leather couch with her laptop open and earbuds hidden under her long dark hair. She held seven fingers over her head. Hadley averted her gaze back to the computer screen rather than look for my reaction. Like she didn’t give a fuck.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than wait for the walk of shame?”

“Don’t you have an appointment to get your dick swabbed for STDs?”

“Fuck off.”

“Get bent.”

And so everything was par for the course on a Sunday morning. I held out my middle finger as I turned toward the kitchen. That was fun. Let’s do it again next week, shall we? I had yet to decipher her scoring system. Asking for clarification would only validate her participation in my sex life.

Neither of us enjoyed living together. My parents’ house in the middle of nowhere was too big for two people and not big enough for the both of us. Since my dad left to take a job in New York during our freshman year of college, every day was a special kind of torture. But Hadley needed me. And as much as I couldn’t stand being near her, I wouldn’t abandon her again.

Besides, that girl could cook. I walked into the kitchen and pulled the tinfoil off the food Hadley had left for me on the stove. After I poured myself a glass of orange juice and prepared my plate, I took a seat at the granite breakfast bar that framed the gourmet kitchen. Her scrambled eggs, bacon, and cinnamon toast were reason enough to get up in the morning.

Hadley wasn’t so bad. I knew I could be a surly, inconsiderate bastard. Our spats weren’t entirely her fault. For the most part, we were resigned to grin and bear it for the next two years until graduation. Hadley was set on moving to Boston for her master’s degree. I was going to New York the second I fulfilled my promise to my dad and had my bachelor’s in hand. No one was under the misconception that this arrangement would last forever.

“You’re an asshole.” Hadley walked in to lean back against the counter beside the stove. She wore my black Tool sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up and the hem brushing her legs just at the apex of her thighs. And those tiny black shorts that made my dick twitch every time she bent over. Those fucking shorts.

Reaching toward me, she swiped a piece of toast off my plate, never mind the three pieces still sitting on the platter. She did that all the time, and it drove me up the wall. Since she was the one doing all the cooking, I’d given up trying to break her of the habit and teach her to keep her thieving fingers to herself.

Rather than answer, I shrugged one shoulder and shoveled another forkful into my mouth.

“Stephanie Slater has sent me three text messages asking me to ask you to call her.” Her dark eyes looked past me or at the floor, anywhere but my face. “Do your own dirty work. I clean up after you enough as it is.”

“You know how much I dislike confrontation.”

“This is a new low, even for you. If you screw your friend’s sister, you could at least take her calls.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And stop fucking the crazy ones. She’s giving off a stalker vibe.”

“Anything else?”

“If Scott shows up with a hatchet, I’m not covering for you.” One corner of her lips turned up in a wicked smirk.

I gave her a wink. Hadley laughed, rolled her eyes, and sauntered off with my last piece of bacon.

I never went out of my way to piss Hadley off, but I rarely exerted too much effort to stay on her good side, either. That ship had sailed, hit an iceberg, taken on water, snapped in half, and dragged all souls aboard down with it a long time ago.

Half the time I wanted to throttle that girl. The other half I wanted to wrap her in blankets and swear undying allegiance if she’d smile again. I cherished the rare moments when Hadley was relaxed, laughing, and more like her old self. I had a debt to Hadley that I’d spend the rest of my life repaying. I owed her my head on a platter. And if ever given the chance, I’d take a bullet for her.

*  *  *

After breakfast, Hadley sat on her bed with a sketchbook on her lap. The shard of charcoal between her fingers rubbed across the page, making a soft scratching sound in the otherwise silent space. I enjoyed watching her work. The expression of intense concentration she wore. Bobbing her head to the music playing through her earbuds.

I sat on the edge of the bed. Hadley flipped her sketchpad when I tried to steal a peek. Reaching over, I tugged one of her earbuds out. The sound of Fiona Apple’s voice sprang from the tiny speaker.

“I’ve got to take the Les Paul to the shop. You want to come along?”

“How bad is it?”

“The neck is loose. It sounds like shit. Vaughn will have to strip it down and reset it.”

“What an asshole.”

Not Vaughn. The asshole was the drunken bastard at my show last week who jumped onstage to give us his best Slash impression. He grabbed my Gibson Les Paul, so I decked him and tossed the guy to the floor, but he managed to take my guitar to the ground with him.

“We can run by campus to pick up our textbooks and hit the grocery store on the way back.”

“You’re going to class this semester?” She arched a sassy eyebrow.

“I go when it’s necessary.”

“Right. What could an institution of higher learning possibly teach the prolific Josh MacKay?”

“I’m still waiting to find out.”

Hadley rolled her eyes and swatted me with the back of her sketchpad. “Swing us by the art supply store and you’ve got a deal.”

Really, Hadley never asked much of me.

“Sure. You need me to wait outside first?” I got off the bed and shoved my hands in my back pockets.

“Nope.” She stood to put her sketchpad away in her nightstand. Hadley tied her hair up in a ponytail and wrapped the wires of her earbuds around her neck. “I’m good.”

She proceeded mechanically toward her bedroom windows that looked out on the woods behind the house. In the same order, always the exact routine, Hadley unlatched and latched the locks five times, clicking back and forth. Her hand lingered for a few seconds. Fingers squeezed and twitched to repeat the action. Then she took a breath and spun around to continue throughout the house.

To every window and door, I followed behind as Hadley performed her ritual. I never rushed her, was never impatient about her process. I’d done this to her. It was my job to assure her later, when she teetered on the edge of an anxiety attack, that she hadn’t missed a single point of entry.

She had done well today, and I smiled at her when we made it to the alarm keypad in the foyer in less than four minutes. I felt like an arrogant shit for trying to offer her my approval, but Hadley seemed to take some level of pride on the days when we didn’t make two or three trips mid-ritual back to the second floor to start all over again.

She keyed in the code three times, disarmed the alarm three times, and didn’t hesitate to take a step back when she was ready for me to finish up. Definitely a good day.

At the front door, Hadley locked up and only jiggled the handle for seventeen seconds before she sighed and plastered on a calm expression. I held open the passenger door to my black ’65 Mustang, watching as Hadley got in and brought up the security app on her phone to check again that the system was armed.

In the car, she sat with fists clenched and knuckles white as the engine groaned and came to life. One finger pried its way free to tap the stereo to cue Black Keys at an earsplitting decibel. Her attention was aimed straight ahead at the tree-lined dirt driveway that spanned a hundred yards out to the two-lane road.

When the stone-faced house was no longer visible behind us through the thick surrounding forest and my front tires crunched over the last of the uneven dirt and gravel to the flat pavement, I hit the clutch and slammed the stick shift. Hadley rolled down her window as we exceeded the posted speed limit toward the highway. She liked it when I drove fast, so I was more than happy to oblige.

Chapter 2

The downward spiral into this spectacular status of stagnant awful between Punky and I began four years ago. It was the best night of my life, until it wasn’t.

*  *  *

Junior year of high school, the football team had just won the homecoming game. In our tiny town, people gave a whole lot of fucks about such things. It was a daylong circus of pep rallies, parades, and bonfires that culminated in underage drinking and shooting off sparkly small explosives. That night, there had to be nearly a hundred people crammed in every room and pouring out on the lawn of Nick Watson’s house. Almost as many cars parked two and three wide and clogging the cul-de-sac all the way out of the neighborhood.

On the back patio, I shot darts with my friends Corey and Trey while fireworks crackled overhead and half-naked jocks chased cheerleaders with water guns filled with eight-dollar tequila. Stephanie Slater hovered around us, tossing back her weight in smuggled vodka. When she offered me a body shot out of her cleavage, I told her I had to take a piss.

I worked my way into the living room, then past the kitchen. The music got louder the farther I passed through the meat grinder of sweaty bodies. Dozens of incoherent conversations fought to be heard over the bass rattling the floral-print walls. When I found Nick pressing Hadley up against a door, his hands on her, I lost my fucking mind.

My fist cracked bone before I made the conscious decision to hit him. One punch, and I opened up a tap in the center of his face. It poured two thin streams of blood down the lumps of Nick’s lips and over the fall of his chin to drip down his shirt.

“Josh! What the hell? He’s bleeding!” Hadley yanked on my arm, the only thing that kept me from landing a second blow.

“Keep your fucking hands off her, you son of a bitch. I swear I’ll break your fucking jaw if you ever—”

Corey and Trey grabbed me, one of them wrapping their arm around my neck. “Back off, man. Let’s go. Leave it.”

“Try me, asshole.” I struggled against the arms restraining me, reaching for the kid somewhere under the blood-soaked napkins stuck to his face.

“Shut it, Josh! It’s done. We’re leaving.” Corey pushed me toward the front door.

He outweighed me by about thirty pounds, so I didn’t have much of a choice. Once outside, he kept his arm around my neck until we hit the curb by my car.

“Can I let you go, or am I going to have to tackle you to the ground?”

“I’m fine. Get off me.”

“Say it nicely.”

“Damn it, Corey. I’m fine. Okay?”

He released me, smiling like an idiot. “That was badass. You dropped him with one punch.”

“Are you kidding me?” Hadley shoved at my chest, shoulders high and tight around her neck. “What do you think his parents are going to say when they find out? Shit, Josh. What about your parents?”

“What? You’d rather I leave you in there to get groped by that date rapist?”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“He touched you! He grabbed you. I won’t put up with that.”

“And I could have taken care of it myself! You didn’t have to hit him.”

I shrugged. “It felt good.”

The guys laughed. Hadley whipped around, eyes sharp and fierce.

“Boys are so stupid. Seriously. You’re all animals.”

“Aww, come on, Punky. You can’t stay mad at me.” I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her into a hug. “I was just trying to protect you. Me man. Me take care of little girl.”

“Shut up, stupidhead.” She pressed her cheek to my chest and hugged me tighter.

“Come on. This party blows. You ready to head home?”

“Sure.”

By the time we got to Hadley’s house, I had been forgiven for going all caveman on her. I parked in Hadley’s usual spot in the driveway. Her car was in the shop again. Though she had an inheritance from her birth parents, she refused to spend the money to get a new vehicle that didn’t leak oil and stall going uphill.

Hadley’s godfather, Tom, was a truck driver. He worked odd hours hauling up and down the state. When he couldn’t be home at night, Hadley used to stay at my house when we were little. Since we’d gotten older, I’d go to sleep on the couch at her place. It made Tom feel better that Hadley wasn’t left alone all the time, and I had an excuse to see her at night.

“You’re staying, right?” Hadley flopped down on the couch and turned on the TV.

It was only 11:00, still early for a Friday night.

“Yeah.” I went to the DVD shelf and scanned through her collection. We’d seen almost every one of these at least three times. “Funny, scary, explosions, or sappy chick crap?”

“Um…something Stephen King, but not It. Anything but that one.”

Hadley had been terrified of clowns ever since Tom made her watch the movie when she was ten. Not a great parenting move, but it wasn’t like he knew any better. Growing pains. I pulled The Shining off the shelf. Last time we’d watched this was during a wicked storm. Just to pass the time, I’d chased Hadley around the house with my best Jack impression.

After making popcorn and pouring a couple of sodas, Hadley and I settled on the couch. I pulled the throw blanket off the back cushions and tossed it at her. She swatted it down before it landed over her face.

“I’m not cold.”

“That’s for hiding under.”

“Whatever. You’re still afraid of Cujo, so don’t start with me.”

“What? It’s not weird at all that you’re scared of Drew Barrymore. Firestarter is a scary movie, and Never Been Kissed is terrifying.”

“Shut up.” Hadley shoved at my face.

Well, I couldn’t let that stand. I pinned her arms to her sides and dragged her over my lap. She landed with her back against the arm of the couch, her legs draped over my thighs.

“Behave, Punky.”

“Shh. The movie’s starting.”

I took the blanket, draped it over her legs and mine, and settled back to watch.

Throughout the film, Hadley jumped at every scare. She had most of the blanket up to her nose with her fingers gripping the edge for dear life. The more she squirmed, the more my dick noticed how not-terrible it felt to have her legs writhing in my lap. When Scatman Crothers took an ax to the chest, Hadley jumped again, grabbing my arm and burying her face in my shoulder.

“You’re so predictable.” I wrapped my arm around her back and pulled her closer. “You know it’s coming, but you still get scared anyway.”

“It’s the anticipation. I can’t stand the waiting. It makes me nervous.”

“Chicken.”

She smacked my chest. Again with the hitting.

“Really, you never learn.” I grabbed both her wrists and pinned them to her sides. “Be good. There are consequences for bad little girls who can’t keep their hands to themselves.”

Her lips twisted into a dangerous smirk. “You don’t scare me.”

“Wrong move, Punky. Never tease a man who knows where all your ticklish places are.”

Hadley writhed and struggled to get away, laughing and threatening me with all manner of bodily harm as I tormented her.

“I swear. Josh. You are. So dead!”

“Say you’re sorry.” I didn’t let up, following as she fell backward on the couch, my fingers playing against her ribs and stomach. “Just say you’re sorry, and I’ll stop.”

“Never!”

I saw stars. Hadley kneed me right in fucking balls. I groaned and released her, grabbing my battered manhood.

“Shit, Punky. Fuck.”

“Oh no. I’m sorry. Crap. I didn’t mean to.” Her words came out as the staccato breaths of laughter with a big, delighted smile. Evil ball crusher. “I’m sorry. Really.”

Rolling over, I was pinned between Hadley and the back of the couch. “Stop laughing.”

“I can’t help it.”

She tried to turn toward me, and it made me flinch. I was justifiably dick-shy now. That only made her laugh harder.

“What can I do?”

Nothing, you vile woman. Or kiss it and make it better. But I wasn’t stupid enough to say that out loud. “Nothing.”

“Aww.” Hadley ran her hand through my hair and down the side of my face. “I didn’t mean it. It was an accident. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” After a minute or so, I caught my breath. Rather than move, I just closed my eyes and wrapped my arm around Hadley’s back. “You suck, you know that?”

“Bad Hadley.”

“Very bad Punky.” I tightened my grip around her back and tugged her closer. “You should make it up to me.”

I had no idea what she might do. But when Hadley’s soft, tender lips pressed to mine, I knew what I wanted. I kissed her back. Our first. No hesitation. Not even a second of apprehension. I took her bottom lip between mine and kissed her like she deserved, purposefully and with complete devotion. Hadley threw her leg over my hip and dug her fingers into my hair as she rolled over to straddle me. My hands found her hips and latched on, holding her on top of me as if I wouldn’t continue to breathe if she pulled away now.

Hadley wasn’t timid. She held me down like a woman on a mission, kissing me cross-eyed. Since I didn’t know where I was allowed to touch her, I just kept my hands locked to her hips and let her have her happy way with me. Sporting a hard-on that was determined to dig right through my jeans to get into hers, I tried to think about baseball or Corey in a bikini, but nothing was enough to quiet the fuck-fantastic feeling of Hadley on top of me.

“You can touch me,” she whispered against my lips. Hadley ground herself against my cock.

I was so fucking done for.

“It’s okay,” she encouraged.

I worked my hands up her ribs and hesitated a moment, just to make sure and give her time to say stop or slap me. I’d never felt a girl up before, so I gave up trying to concentrate on kissing and let Hadley do as she pleased while I focused all my attention on feeling the pliable weight of her tits in my palms. As I brushed my thumbs over her nipples through her bra, Hadley moaned and pressed down on my dick. Fucking hell.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered.

Because I wasn’t a complete tool and I had a pulse and pocket full of wood, I did as the lady commanded.

Hadley and I lost our virginities that night. We were awkward and clumsy and had no fucking clue what we were doing, but it was perfect. She was perfect. I’d always loved her. That night, I fell in love with her.

But even Hadley couldn’t stop the panic attack that followed. As I climaxed, my body was gripped with tension, not relief. Horrifying memories flooded my mind. A cold tremor shot down my spine. I wasn’t in Hadley’s bed anymore; my head was trapped in the musty master bedroom of our old foster home.

I ran like hell, leaving Hadley naked and crying, screaming after me as I slammed the front door shut.

*  *  *

For a few brief moments, I’d experienced perfection. Making love to Hadley was th. . .