Destined to Succeed (9 page)

Suzanna~

I didn’t go to school the rest of the week. I just couldn’t and since I never missed school, nobody questioned the fact that I was sick. Cade came to my house everyday and he called ten times a day. I couldn’t talk to him. I told my mom to tell him I didn’t have anything to say to him. She never asked me what happened, but she knew it was bad. She kept telling me, “Ya’ll are best friends, you’ll work it out soon or you won’t. Life won’t stop if you move on from one another. You might even realize you’re better off.” My mom was so loving. I wondered all the time how I got so lucky in the mom department.

She informed me that she had put up with my crap for a week and she was done. She let me know that I would be going back to school on Monday no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

On Monday morning when I walked down the long hallway of lockers, I saw Cade waiting by my locker for me.

“What the hell, Suzy Q? What happened to you? What’s wrong? You okay?”

“I’m fine. I just realized what a huge mistake we made. We shouldn’t have done
that,
Cade. We can’t ever do it again. Friends don’t do that, and that’s what we are, friends.”

“That’s really what you want? To be friends?” He asked with a questioning look on his face.

“Yes, Cade. That’s really what I want.” It wasn’t, but I knew how he felt about me. It was over.

“I don’t understand what happened. I thought…”

“You thought what, Cade? That we would have sex and miraculously be in love and get married and have babies? No, you never thought that. It was just sex. We aren’t virgins anymore. We did it. We were a solution to each other’s problem, that’s it.”

“That’s all it was, sex?” He asked. I couldn’t read the look on his face. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. I nodded and he continued, “Uh, okay. Sex. One time and it’s over. Our cherries are popped and now we can go screw whoever we want, whenever we want, right?” He looked really pissed. His face was turning a dark shade of red and his lip was twitching. I turned and started messing with stuff in my locker.

“That’s our choice, I guess. It’s really for the best, Cade. We both know that,” I answered, trying really hard to hold back the tears. I succeeded. I didn’t cry a tear until I got home that night and was all alone in my bedroom. Then I cried myself to sleep over the love I had lost.

Cade~

What the hell just happened? Why was she doin’ this? I thought we were gonna be a couple now. I could see us growin’ old together like my mom and dad. All she saw was a solution to a problem? I didn’t know what was goin’ on, but I was ‘bout to be sick. I couldn’t lose my best friend over this, but I didn’t know how I was gonna just be her friend when every time I closed my eyes, I saw her under me and heard her screamin’ out my name.

“Cuz, what’s goin’ on?” Cord asked when we got in my truck to go home after school. He was havin’ some truck issues so I was givin’ him a ride. “You’ve been actin’ weird all day. I couldn’t even find ya at lunch. I asked Suzanna where you were and she said she didn’t know. So, I’m gonna assume ya’ll talked this mornin’ and it didn’t go the way you wanted it to.”

“You got that right. I don’t know what the hell happened. When she left me the mornin’ after we, ya know, she was fine. She kissed me bye and everything felt right. Then she misses school for a week and when I finally seen her this mornin’ she told me it was a mistake.”

“Shit. She said that?”

“Yeah, she said that. A mistake, Cord. I thought she felt somethin’ for me. I was seein’ all kinds of things, future things. Crazy things I shouldn’t have been seein’ yet, but it was my Suzy Q and I couldn’t keep from it. Goddamn, I screwed this up, cuz. I must’ve really fucked up.”

“I don’t know what happened. Is that all she said? She didn’t give ya any other reason?”

“She said we were friends and friends didn’t do
that
. But I thought
that
changed everything. I thought she would come runnin’ up to me on Monday mornin’ and I would wrap my arms around her and we’d walk down the hall hand-in-hand to class.”

“Damn, you sound like a sappy girl, cuz.” Cord laughed and I punched him in the shoulder.

“Ya know what I mean. I thought we were gonna be together now, but to her it was just sex. I knew it was gonna be that way with Anna, but never in a million years did I think it would be like that with Suzy Q.”

“She doesn’t seem like the type to treat it as just sex, Cade. You sure ya didn’t do somethin’ else?” Cord wasn’t the only one who was pretty sure I’d done something else to screw this up, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was.

We pulled into Cord’s drive and he started to get out of the truck. “If it’s meant to be, ya’ll will figure it out. That’s what your momma would tell ya, right?”

He was right. That was exactly what my momma would say.

“I ain’t gonna lose her. If she wants to be friends, we’ll be friends. I’ll just pretend like what we did never happened.” I could do that, right? I wasn’t real sure I could, but I guess we were fixin’ to find out.

~Chapter 6~

Seventeen Years Old

Suzanna~

The night had started off like a normal Dexter Saturday night. Everyone had piled into Cade, Branch, and Chris’s trucks and headed out to the creek. The creek had always been known as the place to bring your date to make out or to sneak some alcohol that we were all too young to legally obtain.  Branch and I had been out here several times. We had been to parties with our friends and we had parked here too.

It was getting dark out. The sky was a beautiful mix of oranges, purples, and reds. It was so beautiful, but I couldn’t concentrate on the beauty in the Missouri sky because Branch practically had his hand in my panties.

He had slowly worked his hand up from my knee, to rubbing just under the hem of my denim skirt, to all the way up my inner thigh. We weren’t alone in the truck and it was still light enough for people to see us. He was making me very uncomfortable, but like always, he didn’t care.

Branch and I had been seeing each other for a while, almost a year actually. The last year would’ve been unbearable without Branch. He had helped to take my mind off a certain cowboy and the way he hurt me. Cade and I played nice. We pretended to be friends again, but our relationship was really strained. I hated that what we did hurt our friendship, but I couldn’t say that I would take it back. That night was perfect. I couldn’t have imagined a better first time and I thanked my lucky stars that it was Cade and not someone else who I experienced it with.

Branch was obsessed with sex. I say obsessed, but really, he wasn’t any different than any other seventeen year old boy. Cade had a different girl every time I saw him and Branch would’ve too if we weren’t together. I had absolutely no plans to have sex with Branch. None…none, whatsoever. He of course talked about it all the time, but I always had the same response for him: “I’m saving myself for marriage.”

Yeah, right.

That was a bold faced lie, but it was the only thing I could think of to tell him. Well, it wasn’t really a full lie, because I didn’t plan to have sex again until I was married. So that part was true, just the virgin part was a lie. But that really wasn’t anyone’s business but my own.

When we got to the creek, Branch hopped out of the truck.

“Come on, baby. I’ll catch ya.” He had that damn half smile half “I’m gonna eat you alive” look on his face. I scooted over to the door and he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me out into his arms. “I love ya, baby. God, I fuckin’ love ya.” He started kissing my neck and nibbling on my ear.

I had never responded when he told me he loved me. He had been saying it for a while, but I didn’t feel that way about him. He was fun to be around, most of the time. Branch always acted like I was the prettiest girl in the world. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that, until he started doing it. As much as I wanted to feel love for him, I just couldn’t. He wasn’t the man of my dreams. No, that man was currently standing down by the creek with his green eyes blazing at me.

Cade usually had a different girl with him every week, or day, or damn, sometimes a couple times a day. So why was he here by himself tonight? That was pretty strange behavior for Cade or any Walker man for that matter.

“Baby, ya wanna help me with this, or stare at
him
all night?” Branch hissed at me from the bed of his truck. He had climbed up in the back and was standing there staring down at me. His blue eyes had lost their sparkle. He was pissed. I didn’t like the way he looked at me when he got mad. Mad probably wasn’t really the right word for this. Jealous was a more appropriate word. He didn’t like the fact that Cade and I were friends.

After Cade and I had sex, we hit a rough patch. We didn’t talk much for a while. But then one day, it was like a switch flipped and we were back to our best friend ways - on the outside. It made me a little sad, but really happy at the same time. The thought of losing Cade had killed me. He didn’t want me as anything more than a friend, so that’s the way it had to be.

“Why don’t you let me help ya out with that, stud?” Cade’s arm brushed mine as he took the cooler from Branch. He shot me that cocky grin and whispered, “Sorry,
baby.
” That bastard. How dare he mock my boyfriend, who was standing right in front of him!

“Kiss my ass, cowboy,” I hissed at him and Branch laughed so hard, he about fell out of the back of the truck.

“Guess she told you,
cowboy.
” Branch was really enjoying this. Cade pursed his lips and I’m pretty sure I heard a pissed off growl as he walked away carrying the cooler.

“Help me down, baby?” Branch asked as he put his hand out for me. He jumped out of the back of the truck and was standing right in front of me. His breath was hot on my face as he leaned in and placed a soft kiss on my lips. “Mine, baby...all mine,” he whispered as he ran his hands up and down my arms and then kissed me again. This time wasn’t soft. He was kissing me hard and his tongue was about to meet my tonsils real up close and personal. I put my hands on his chest and pushed him away. He was panting and his eyes were all glazed over with lust. He whispered, “I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be able to wait, baby. I want you so fuckin’ bad. I’ll make you feel so damn good.” He kissed my cheek, “I promise.”

I took his hand in mine. “Let’s go see what kinda trouble our friends are getting into.” I didn’t want to have this conversation with him again. Tonight, I just wanted to have a good time and not think about anything serious, and to me, sex was pretty damn serious.

We walked over and found Chris and Cade working on building a bonfire. Cade had a beer in his hand and when he saw me, he nodded and slammed it back. “Another, Chris. Keep ‘em comin’. I wanna get completely shit faced tonight. Let’s all get shit faced! Who’s with me?” Everyone started cheering and laughing. Someone started yelling, “CHUG, CHUG, CHUG.” I had a bad feeling about how this night was gonna end up.

A couple hours passed and the country tunes were blaring from the stereo that someone had hooked up to some speakers in the back of Chris’s old truck. We were all drinking and it was getting to that point. The point where nobody was feeling any pain - we were all just having a good time acting silly and being teenagers. Teenagers who were drunk and horny out by the creek - just a normal small town Saturday night.

Branch and I had been dancing for a while. We were sweaty and I was starting to feel a little…well I was feeling like when Branch kissed me, it might not be so bad to let him do a lot more. I realized in my drunken stupor, it was obviously time for me to stop drinking.

As
Boot Scootin’ Boogie
started playing we all lined up and started pretending we were coordinated and actually line dancing. We were not either of those things. I fell over Branch more than once and just as the song stopped and a slow sexy song started, he caught me by the waist and slammed my back into his front. I instinctively lifted my arms up and wrapped them around his neck. I laid my head on his shoulder and we swayed seductively to the music. He was rubbing his crotch along my backside and it was feeling damn good.

He whispered, “Can’t you tell how crazy you make me, baby? Don’t you fuckin’ know how much I want you?” He kissed my neck and started sucking. I was going to have one hell of a hickey tomorrow, but there was no way I was going to stop him. It really felt good. My eyes were closed and my body was humming with anticipation of what Branch was going to do next.

One hand stayed on my waist, while the other slid up under my shirt and squeezed my breast. I moaned a little louder than I thought and then heard a loud commotion. Branch dropped his hands to his sides and twisted us around toward the noise. Someone turned the music off and that’s when we all saw what had happened. Cade had thrown one of the coolers up against a tree. When it hit the tree, the lid busted off and the loud sound had been the ice crashing to the ground. It sounded like glass shattering.

“Fuckin’ thing was empty,” Cade growled, never taking his eyes off of me. His eyes were glazed over. He was wasted. I thought I saw something else in his face too, but I was too buzzed to really tell.

“Man, there’s another cooler over here. We gots plenty left to drink.” Chris was trying to help Cade with the cooler and calm him down. “I got a story I just gotta share. So everybody chill the fuck out and have a seat,” Chris said as he motioned for everyone to head back toward the fire.

Chris started telling a tale of one of his many conquests. Apparently, he had had wild, crazy insane sex with her. He went on and on, “She had her legs wrapped around me, her feet diggin’ into my ass, and she just wouldn’t stop comin’. It was fuckin’ crazy. That chick is psycho in the sack.” I seriously doubted his story, but whatever. That’s what guys do, right? Talk about the girls they screw.

Guys did do that. That made me wonder about Cade and how many times he had recounted our night to together to his friends. I didn’t really believe that he would talk about it, but it was Cade and he wasn’t shy by any means. Nah, he didn’t. If he had, I would’ve heard about it by now. Something like that wouldn’t have stayed a secret for long. Not in our school…or town for that matter.