Connected (Connections, #1)(115)

I shoved at his shoulders to release the hold he had on me. He stumbled back into the room and fell on his ass; his head hitting the metal bed frame as he went unconscious.

I fixed my sweatshirt and made my way towards the front door. I couldn’t stay another damn minute with that jackass; he was a loser. I locked up the apartment and went back down the crappy stairs. I banged on the manager's door and waited for him to answer. Bouncing with rage, I felt like I was going to explode. When he finally answered, he looked at my bloodied hoodie and shook his head.

“Skinner is causing problems again,” I said through gritted teeth. Then I started explaining what had happened.

He shook his head some more. “Your problem, Tuck,” he told me, then slammed the door in my face.

Shit!

I raked my hands through my long brown hair. Normally, he would call the cops to get Skinner to leave the building; I guess Sam was done helping my deadbeat drug addict mother and me.

Finally leaving the dirty building, I decided to take the subway and two buses to get to Central Park to a little hide out I always hung around. Some of my friends, that I’m not proud of, hung out there with me. I’ll admit, they’re not good people, but it’s where I belong. They felt more like brothers to me. They came from the same out-skirts as I did and always understood my problems with Skinner. Pulling out a fresh pack of cigarettes from my back pocket, I grabbed one and lit it up. Smoking is a bad habit, something I wish I could break, but never could. I sucked the tobacco down in record time and flicked my butt in the street.

Of course, in the main part of the city, close to Central Park, cabbies honked their horns non-stop. So when I crossed the street and a cab honked at me, it was a chain reaction to flip him off. I kept my head down as I walked down the street, the cold air turned warmer with each passing hour, but out of habit, I pulled my hood up and decided to take shortcut through an alleyway and that’s when I saw her.

A car was parked up against the curb, with the darkest tinted windows, and a girl like no other. Suddenly, an urge came over me to watch her, to stay still. Everything about her looks screamed innocence as she stepped away from the black Bentley Mulsanne.

My eyes took in her pale skin. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight bun thing that girls do. She wore jeans that clung to her body, with black boots that made her legs look twice as long and a black leather jacket. I was too far away to know what color her eyes were, but whatever color they were, I’m sure they were perfect. I could clearly see her smile from the alleyway. It was simple, yet, wonderful. It brightened up her pale face.

When she walked toward the moving truck, I felt like I could hear every step her black boots made against the asphalt. One of the moving men met her at the back, while the rest opened up the big lift and handed each other pieces of furniture.

Everything screamed out to me in a rush of words, spoiled, rich, snob, brat, daddy's girl, but I brushed it off. She was the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen.

What’s a guy like me doing checking out a high class rich girl on the Upper East Side of town? Central Park West no less… I had no idea.

She moved back to the Bentley as a window was rolling down. She was speaking to whoever was inside, and for some reason this bothered me. Whoever was in the car didn’t show much respect to the vision of this beautiful girl I was looking at. They should have walked her to the door of her new place in New York, or at least made sure she had a key or something.

As she stepped away from the car, it sped off. She was alone now with a big purple bag in one hand, just staring at the back of the Bentley’s taillights. She walked over to the three movers and pointed up to an apartment in the building. The man spoke to her and nodded. She looked back up the street to where the Bentley was disappearing around the corner.

Looking up towards the sky in the morning street, she inhaled a deep breath, and began smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world at that very moment. She was too breath takingly beautiful, even for her own good. I couldn’t help but stare.

Turning, she lowered her head; the beauty of her neck stretched gloriously around as she looked down the alleyway. I couldn’t tell if she saw me. Most of my body was behind a dumpster and my gray sweatshirt hood covered my head, but I swear I saw her little innocent smile curve up on the corner of her mouth before she turned back to the movers starting up the stairs to her new apartment.





So Much It Hurts





Each thundering crash of the ocean waves in the distance administered a dose of therapy to my soul. With my towel draped across my lounge chair, I reclined by the water’s edge sipping a Pi?a Colada from a hurricane glass adorned by a tiny pink umbrella. My life had all but suffocated me the past few months, and I desperately needed a change of scenery.

Lisa’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Come on, Kaitlyn, let’s go inside and get ready to par-tay,” she called from the edge of the pool, overemphasizing her last word.

I suppressed a laugh. Only late twentysomethings remember when it was cool to pronounce it ‘par-tay’. No need to point out the fact that we were nearly too old to hit the clubs.

Two guys standing at the tiki bar turned to stare at Lisa as she stepped out of the water. She reminded me of a super model as she brushed her long brown hair away from her eyes. I met Lisa soon after she found out she was pregnant with her second son. I thought she was the most beautiful pregnant woman I had ever seen. However, Lisa’s sweet disposition far outweighed her attractiveness. Like the fair-complexioned cartoon princess, I could almost picture the birds singing to her while they helped her fold the laundry at home. Unaware of the caliber of her beauty, she never seemed to notice when other men were checking her out. She had been happily married to her high school sweetheart for almost seven years.