Bottom Feeder (35 page)

“
Can I sleep
here?”

I toss him the extra pillow from my
locker. He curls up on my roommate’s bare mattress and cries
himself to sleep. Some people would judge him for this. I don’t. I
think that’s why he comes to my room after every psych
visit.

I stare at the screen on
my laptop. The cursor teases me with its ominous
blink blink blink.

All right. Nothing else to
lose.

Dear Maddy . . .

Maddy

I bury my aching head in a pillow.
Stiff shoulders and tender-to-the-touch face is a quick reminder
that moving this way is really stupid.

Somehow I ended up in my bed last
night. I’m not sure if I walked, or if Dom carried or dragged me in
here. I finally roll out of bed and search the apartment for
him.

It appears as if he has disappeared
without a trace. His backpack and suitcase aren’t in the bedroom or
living room. He probably caught the first flight back to North
Carolina. I don’t blame him for bailing. He’d be crazy to
stay.

I allow fresh tears to fall, vowing
these will be the last.

You’re stronger than this,
Carrington.
You cannot afford a single
moment of weakness.

Needing to do something other than
break things—which is what I’d prefer—I grab a loose-fitting
t-shirt, even looser sweatpants, the Taser, and I ease my tender
body into the shower. Scalding water stings every surface of my
skin. I allow the hurt. Sadistic. Psychotic.

I step out of the shower feeling
dirty.

I don’t look in the mirror as I dress
and wrap my hair in a messy bun.

With nothing else to do, I
check my email. The first message is dated last night with a “No
Subject” headline and
his
name. My heart sinks.

Does he know what happened? Does he
want to mock me for thinking I had a chance with Dom, like I
thought I had a chance at friendship with him? Or maybe he wants to
scream at me because I’m the reason his best friend is in a
coma.

I’m not ready for this. I deserve it,
but I’m not ready.

After vigorously scrubbing the floors
and refolding laundry—twice—I reluctantly open the
message.

Dear Maddy,

I am a coward for sending this in an
email, but I don’t know if I can handle saying it on the phone. I’m
sorry. Please forgive me.

Jackson

Oh. Well, that is not what I
expec—

My head snaps up as a key turns in one
of the locks. Taser in hand, I wait patiently behind the door for
the intruder to get through two more deadbolts.

The door slowly opens. My finger is on
the trigger, ready to fire at my intruder. I peek the tattoo on the
back of his neck.

“
Oh!”

Dom turns and rushes to my side. “Are
you okay?”

Deep breath. “I thought you left.”
Deep breath. “And someone was breaking in.”

“
Were you going to
Tase
me?” Is that
amusement in his voice?

My temper flares. “It was either you
or me, Hoss, and it sure wasn’t gonna be me.”

He chuckles and kisses my cheek.
Pulling out a sandwich and a bowl of fresh fruit with familiar
packaging, Dom says, “Peggy said you like these.”

“
You met Peggy?” I ask,
unwrapping my portabella and provolone sandwich.

He pushes one of her tea blends across
the counter. Chamomile, spearmint, and lemongrass oolong. I sip the
hot beverage and allow the warmth to soothe my sore
throat.

“
Oh, I met her all right,”
he replies with a sideways glance. “
And
became acquainted with an hour’s
worth of lectures. She says she knows what . . .”

“‘
Those military boys are
like’
,” I finish for him, laughing at his
solemn nod.

We finish eating in silence. There’s
not much to say, and we don’t want to force anything. I finish what
I can of my food and dump the rest in the garbage. I hate being
wasteful, but I cannot stomach much right now.

Dom is behind me when I turn around. I
rest my head against his chest and wrap my arms around his
waist.

“
Do you know how good it
feels to finally be with you?” he breathes, rubbing my shoulders
gently, cautiously.

I glance up at him. “I—“

Dom presses his mouth to mine. The tip
of his tongue brushes gently against my lips, persuading my mouth
to open. A low moan of satisfaction escapes. I’m not sure if it’s
from him or me, but it feels good and I want nothing else in the
world at this moment other than his lips connected to mine. He
begins to kiss me with an urgency I’ve only read about in romance
novels. My breath hitches when he places his hands on the small of
my back, beneath the shirt.

“
Is that okay?” he asks,
kissing the sensitive spot beneath my earlobe.

My body is doing things I don’t feel
in control of. I allow the feeling to happen. My stiff legs wrap
around his body as he lifts and carries me into the bedroom. I
remove his shirt, exposing his beautiful copper-toned
skin.

Dom tenderly raises my
bruised arms to take my shirt off. When the fabric leaves my skin,
my first instinct is to cover myself. Instead, I wait for his
reaction. I allow him to stare, to be up close to all of my
imperfections. I want—
need—
to know he is okay with me not
being the skinniest or the prettiest. He needs to see the bruises
and the scars to realize the danger of my baggage.

He takes in my scars. He runs his
fingers softly across the swollen, multi-colored
contusions.

“
I can’t apologize for
what I look like, Dom.”

“
Hey,” he says softly,
tilting my chain. “You don’t have to be like that with me. I love
you, Maddy. I love everything about you. There is nothing here that
I see flawed.” He caresses my face, my neck, down to my sides and
across the plane of my stomach. “These marks are from battles that
you have fought alone for so long, and as long as you allow me to
do so, from now on I will fight them with you. You do not have to
do this alone anymore. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere until you
tell me to.”

I bite my lip to keep from crying.
Stupid tears.

“
You are beautiful.” He
kisses me softly. “I mean that. It’s not some bullshit line. You
don’t ever have to hide your body, or anything else, from me.” He
kisses me again. “I want to explore every part of you, memorize
every inch of you with my eyes.” He tilts my chin until I meet his
gaze. “My lips.” He kisses both corners of my mouth. “And my
tongue.” Dom trails the tip of his tongue from my neck to the
sensitive spot behind my ear.

“
Maddy,” he whispers, “I
want to learn the architecture of your mind, the curves of your
body, and the very foundation of everything that has ever caused
you heartache. Because I never want to do anything to hurt
you.”

Dom begins an expedition of my body by
tracing slow kisses along my neck, across the swell of my breasts,
and down to my midsection.

I shut out the feeling of panic that
attempts to rise as he drops to his knees.

His hands move to the drawstring on my
sweatpants. “Is that okay?” he asks, looking up at me.

My brain is unable to form a sentence.
I nod. Continuing to kiss just below my belly button, Dom gently
lowers and slips off the bottoms.

He releases a loud sigh as he takes in
my almost-naked form.

I drop to my knees in order to be
face-to-face with him. I glide my fingers down his smooth back,
into the waistband of his jeans and around the front to unbutton
them.

“
Are you sure?” He
whispers and kisses my earlobe. My heart is racing. Am I really
about to do this?
Can
I do this?

Again, I nod. He guides me onto the
bed.

“
I love you, Maddy. Would
it scare you if—” He pauses to look into my eyes. “If I told you I
might be falling so far that I can’t see the bottom or the top
anymore? But I don’t care as long you are with me.”

“
That doesn’t scare me,” I
reply with conviction, then quote a song I heard a long time ago.
“Love is kind of like quicksand; the more you are in, the deeper
you sink. And when it hits you, you've just got to
fall.”

“
You are sure you want
this? With me?” He searches my face, my eyes for any
uncertainty.

“
Positive,” I murmur. “But
. . . I might be bad at it.”

Dom laughs. “Why would you be—” His
eyebrows shoot up, a look of acknowledgement crossing his face.
“You’re a—I mean . . . not with . . .”

“
Look, I don’t know if I’m
a virgin.” Suddenly I can’t look at him. I just can’t. “I don’t
know if consent counts for something like that.”

“
I know technically . . .
I thought . . . Oh.” He shakes his head and then himself. “I don’t
want to hurt you.”

“
I trust you.”

He sighs. “We should stop.”

My heart sinks at his
rejection.

“
You deserve better than
this.” Dom turns on his back and rubs his face. “Better than
me.”

“
I don’t
understand.”

“
Before I joined the Army,
I spent a lot of time getting into trouble. Someday everything is
going to come back and bite me on the ass. I don’t have money. All
the extra money I have goes to my family. I can’t give you the
things you’re used to having.”

“
Stop,” I say, proud my
voice doesn’t crack.

When Dom tries to speak, I ignore the
protests in my sore legs and straddle his waist. The fact that I am
only in my skivvies does not deter me from getting what I have to
say out in the open.

“
I hope you don’t think
that I’m so superficial I need
things
to be happy. I have this,” I
gesture around the apartment, “Because the man who raised me wanted
me out of his life to be with his secret family. In the past I
paraded around in what he wanted me to wear, flaunted the jewelry,
the purses, and anything else he wanted me to do or wear in order
to show everyone his status. Now those state-of-the-art electronics
he always insisted on me showing off are only in use because he is
tracking
everything
I do. I don’t care if your past is bad, Dom. Mine is, too.
I’ve seen things that I don’t tell anyone about. The foundation of
my existence is built on secrets and lies. You had a glimpse of
those secrets last night.”

“
Maddy, I . .
.”

“
I want you to understand
something. I want you. I want all of you. The good, bad, ugly,
poor, rich, and everything in between, up above and down below. As
scared as I am right now, I’m equally sure that I want to take this
wherever it leads. For once I am jumping without looking to see
where I’ll land. Because in the middle of those ridiculously long
conversations and corny lines, I have fallen for you.
I trust you
. I love you,
Dom. You live six hundred miles away, yet you are the center of my
day, every day. You are the best thing that has happened in my life
in a long time, so don’t ever think you’re not good enough for
me.”

The smile on his face shows relief and
surrender.

“
Now that the mood is
killed,” I say and gently slap both hands on his chest. “Let’s get
out of this apartment.”

He chuckles. “Okay.”

“
By the way, where are
your bags?”

“
Since you show signs of a
serious anal retentive, obsessive-compulsive nature,” he says
matter-of-factly. “I put them in the corner of the closet before
you saw them on the floor and had a stroke.”

“
Funny.”

I dress in jeans, a long-sleeved
button-up shirt, and layer on my usual blend of face
makeup.

“
That’s amazing,” Dom
says. “The swelling is there, but I can’t see any
discoloration.”

I’ve had years of
practice,
I want to say.

Instead I ask, “How did you get in the
apartment last night?”

“
Let’s just say that a
credit card has more uses than charging interest.”

Since this is not Dom’s first trip to
New York, he insists we visit the youth center where I volunteer.
With six brothers and sisters, the Center appears to be right in
his comfort zone. He plays basketball with the older kids and
colors or reads with the younger ones. Once, I glanced over to see
him changing a diaper in the daycare area. It was turning out to be
the best non-date date ever. I was introduced, once again, to the
person I had fallen for over the phone. Realizing the feelings have
not been futile feels good. Being in love feels even
better.

Cecilia, my Little Sister, adores him.
At least until he admits to kissing me on the lips.