Decker's Wood (23 page)

“Fabian, it’s Andi. How’s Friday night for dinner?” I had to admit, Decker’s furious expression was a little intimidating. “No, we have an understanding. If he’s allowed to fuck other women while we are dating, then I am too. Men though, I don’t do the whole girl on girl thing,” I added quickly. Fabian didn’t hesitate to take me up on my offer, which surprised me. His genuine concern when he had told me about Decker’s upcoming film made me wonder why Decker disliked him so much. Fabian had been nothing but cordial to me since the first time we met. I half expected him to decline my dinner suggestion merely out of respect for the situation at hand. Instead, he seemed open and receptive to the idea, which had me seriously doubting my current bravado in front of Decker. After Fabian arranged to pick me up at seven
,  I hung up the phone.

“Done,” I said, trying to muster the anger and hurt I had embraced only moments before. Now I felt sick, hurt, and a little nervous about whatever I had just initiated with Fabian.

“Beautiful. Nothing like a girl who can so easily lower herself to whore status.” He couldn’t have hurt me more if he had slapped me.

“Get out.” My voice was low and commanding. It brokered no argument. I wanted him gone, like yesterday. Decker didn’t disappoint. He stormed out of the store. In a huff of wounded fury, I grabbed the books sitting on the end of the counter yet to be shelved and stalked to the bookshelf at the back of the store. I stopped in my tracks when I realized where the books
belonged—right in front of our spot, the place he had marked as our naughty corner. The one place in the store where I would fondly remember that erotic and impulsive moment we had shared. I crumpled under the weight of that moment. I leaned against the wall behind me and allowed it to cushion my descent as I slid down into a dark well of pain. My heart broke, it split clear in two, and hurt spilled through my body. God it was painful. Big, ugly sobs wracked my body and I prayed to feel numb from the agony that coursed through me. I had never assumed that mine and Decker’s relationship would be perfect, but I believed it would always be true, and that’s all I needed. That truth was gone, snatched from me with lies and ugly words. I longed for Casey and Lionel to find me, pouring my heart and soul out in the form of tears. They didn’t come though, and when I found a small pause in the feverish crying that had claimed my body, I locked the front door, set the alarm, and climbed the stairs to my apartment. New York had officially sucked me in, chewed me up, and spat me back out again. This little duck was drowning.

DECKER

I’m not quite sure how I ended up sprawled on a black leather couch at The Sugar Shack, a hip, urban club that was accommodating the cast and crew party for the upcoming film with The Bishop. I had kept myself pleasantly tanked for the last forty-eight hours. It was the only thing that drew away thoughts of Andi. My heart squeezed at the thought of her. Well, obviously I was sobering up, and I needed more Turkey. Fabian, fucking Fabian. I wanted to beat the fucker within an inch of his life, but he was out with Andi, having dinner with my girl. But she wasn’t my girl anymore, and this wasn’t entirely Fabian’s fault, which really pissed me off. I was the piece of shit who kept my upcoming film a secret from Andi. I had ample opportunity to tell her, and perhaps I should have. Or maybe I shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. To be honest, the thought of fucking Melody, or anyone for that matter, had lost its appeal long before Andi came alone. I was deluding myself with thoughts of Prince of Porn grandeur. I wanted to maintain the name and reputation I had come to crave and rely on. Then came Andi, and I had wanted her instantly. At first I had just thought it was a physical reaction to a pretty girl. I quickly came to realize though, it was more. Andi was
my
it
, the one thing I needed to make my life make sense, to bring clarity into my veins and heart. And I blew it. My first real relationship with a woman, and I fucked it up harder than any scene I had ever performed in. I shook my head, hoping to dislodge all thoughts of Andi. It hurt too much to think about her. Bradley was going to kill me, and I would welcomed it.

My arms were stretched wide across the back of the sofa I was sitting on, my knees were parted and between them stood Melody who was wearing nothing more than a black lacy thong. Her fake tits barely moved as she leaned forward and placed her hands on my shoulders, putting her nipples right in front of my lips. I could have easily slipped one of those brown tipped delights into my mouth, but I didn’t want to because they didn’t belong to Andi. Andi’s breasts were much smaller, made to fit neatly into my palm, and they moved and swayed with a natural delight Melody most certainly did not have. My jeans were tenting with an erection
that rivaled Mount Vesuvius, all courtesy of my thoughts of Andi. Right now Melody’s hand rubbed hard against my groin, her tits still sitting perfectly hard and false before my mouth. The instant I was brought back to here and now, my erection began to deflate.

“You’re so tense,” Melody whispered, leaning forward to take my ear lobe between her teeth. Her voice wasn’t anything special. Not like Andi’s ear-fuck-worthy, smooth Texas drawl. Damn, I was definitely too sober. Melody bit down just slightly, enough to sting but quickly followed it up with the gentle lapping of her tongue. “Let me relieve some of this tension.” Ever so slowly she dropped to her knees. We were in a back room, a private room set aside for VIP guests like famous porn stars. Melody carefully slipped my zipper down. My drunken gaze took her in, and I wondered why in the hell my thick rimmed beer goggles were not working. Wasn’t alcohol supposed to make everything look better? Oh, that’s right, I was too fucking sober! Melody looked like a two-bit hooker, her lipstick smeared, her hair a little disheveled. I knew for a fact that she had nailed Jimmy on this very couch not more than an hour ago. Now she was ready to go again, with me. But I didn’t want her, even my dick was shying away from her. My
equipment  had its sights set on Andi from the moment she strolled through the damn airport over a month ago. I watched Melody remove my almost flaccid member from my jeans. In my semi drunken state, I could almost picture the horrified look on his raging red circumcised head. I snorted at the idiotic visual that I had just created.

“What’s so funny?” Melody purred, her hands wrapping around my dick.

Not Andi’s hands. Andi’s hands could very well be wrapped around Fabian’s member right now. Her date had begun two hours ago, giving Fabian plenty of time to work his shoulder-to-cry-on act. This was all kinds of wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be here, and Andi wasn’t supposed to be with Fabian. What the hell had I done? Why wasn’t I fighting for her? She was worth fighting for. As the drunken haze slowly began to lift, I realized this was all kinds of fucked up and wrong. I was acting like a pathetic bitch when I should have been working on a plan to get Andi back.

“Ask me to suck your cock,” Melody said, dragging me from my epiphany.

Ask her to suck it? I don’t think so; I wanted her to take her damn hands off it so I could wipe the fucking thing clean. Before I had a chance to answer, the door to my right burst open, and Andi came stumbling through it. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, I just stared at her while she stood, staring back at me with a horrified look on her face. Me, with Melody on her knees between my legs, my cock in her hands. Andi was first to react, backing away from the door. Fabian’s smirking grin over her shoulder caught my attention, and a red haze descended over my eyes. Andi turned and fled the room with Fabian hot on her tail. I jumped up, causing Melody to fall on her ass. I zipped up and stormed out of the private room.

“Andi!” I called. What the fuck was she doing here? The club was so packed and the only way I was able to follow her was by following Fabian’s blonde head of hair. By the time I reached them, Andi was charging out the front door of The Sugar Shack. “Fucking hell, Andi, stop right there!” I demanded.

Andi swung around to face me. The happy-go-lucky country sweetheart was currently unavailable. Pissed off Andi was front and center. More than angry, she was livid, the fury burning through her eyes made my steps actually falter.

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” she snarled.

“Like what?” I said indignantly, the lingering alcohol in my system obviously warping my better sense.

“Like you own me.”

I shook my head. “What are you talking about?” I wondered, mystified.

“You waltzed into my life and took this,” she pressed her fist against her chest, “you just took it. You saw something you wanted and you just took it, like you owned it. You don’t own it, and you don’t own me.”

“Andi…” I sighed, the pain in her eyes and her words were hurting me just as much as they were hurting her. She slapped me, hard. My cheek burned with the fury of that slap and my ears rang. As the ringing disappeared, I was left with staggering disbelief and muffled laughter from behind me. I swung around to see Melody, her barely there dress back in place, and Fabian smirking at her side.

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. “You planned that little scene didn’t you?” I asked them. I laughed, but it was one of those evil villain type laughs saved for Disney movies. “I can’t believe
the two of you were that desperately miserable with your own pathetic lives that you would actually go and fuck with mine.”

“The Bishop wants you, and Andi deserved to see what you’re really like. You’re just a porn star, Decker, you are not made from spun gold nor are you a prince. You fuck, for money, and that makes you nothing but a whore.” Fabian looked like the cocky, worthless asshole I always knew he was. My fist clenched and I took a step towards him, but a pint sized rocket at my side beat me to it. Andi punched him. No slap and no pussy footing around, no loose wristed wallop either. She punched him hard and blood burst from Fabian’s nose. The sickening crack and Andi’s cry of pain broke my bewildered state. Holy shit, that had to have broken something. I took a step towards her, but she held up the hand that wasn’t nestled protectively into her chest.

“No,” she managed to say through her tears.

“Let me help you. It’s probably broken, and you need x-rays. I’ll take you to Bellevue, my mom’s working tonight.” I could see indecision war on her face. She glanced at Fabian who was being nursed by Melody. They really did make a perfectly sinister couple.

“You’re fired. I’ll find another accountant,” Andi snapped. I opened the door of a waiting cab and allowed Andi to slide in. I turned to face Fabian and Melody.

“I quit,” I said in a voice far more controlled than I thought possible. Fabian and Melody’s eyes snapped up to meet mine. “I gave my agent notice a week ago. Ryder has probably known longer. I called The Bishop two days ago, and he’s already found a replacement. I don’t want to see either of you ever again. If you see me coming, walk the fuck away.” I climbed in the back seat of the cab and directed the driver to Bellevue Hospital. Andi was holding her broken hand carefully, hunched over on herself, silent tears falling down her cheeks. I wanted to reach out to her and hold her, but I knew she didn’t want that right now.

“I’m sorry.” The whispered avowal came from deep in my heart. I was so…fucking…sorry. Andi didn’t reply; she didn’t acknowledge me at all. When we arrived at the hospital, I had them page my mom who came running down the corridor like an Olympic sprinter.

“What’s wrong?” she said in a panicked voice. I gave the nurse behind the counter a pissed off glare. They could have told her it wasn’t an emergency.

“It’s okay, Mom. Andi just hurt her hand. I think she may have broken it.” Relief and the natural instinct of a woman born to heal took over.

“Come on then, let’s get you down to X-ray.” Mom began to lead Andi down the corridor and I automatically followed. Andi stopped and turned to face me. Her face was pale, more than likely from the pain in her hand, or heart.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “I’m okay from here. I’ll call Casey or Lionel to come pick me up.”

I shook my head, irritated. “I’m here now, I might as well hang around rather than you get them out of bed in the middle of the night.”

Again Andi seemed uncertain and my mom looked completely confused.

“Fine, but you can wait out there.” She nodded to the waiting room behind us, and once again, my mom gave me a confused look. With a small tug on her arm, she pulled Andi down the corridor. With one last what-the-hell-did-you-do look from my mom, they disappeared around a corner. I didn’t feel drunk anymore. I felt completely and utterly sober, and it hurt. The colossal mess I had made was nobody’s fault but my own, and at this moment, it seemed unfixable. All those wants and desires I had never dared to consider felt a million miles away, untouchable. If I had never allowed myself the chance to want them, it wouldn’t hurt so much. But I had allowed myself that small moment to hope; those images of me and Andi, together, forever, were shattered like a broken mirror. Under the stark lights of the hospital waiting room, I realized I had lost Andi, and it took every ounce of strength I possessed not to break down.

Andi did indeed have a fractured hand which required setting in a cast. Three hours after we had arrived, Mom handed the tired and defeated looking country bumpkin back into my care. Back into my callous and blundering hands. With the promise she would call me later and a gentle hug for Andi, she left us in an awkward silence. With her right hand unavailable, I helped Andi complete the paperwork. We wandered out into the crisp, still dark early hours of morning. I easily hailed a cab and Andi didn’t stop me when I climbed in beside her. She didn’t acknowledge me either. The drive to SoHo was painfully quiet, and she didn’t spare me a backwards glance when she climbed from the cab in front of her shop. I noticed the lights in Casey and Lionel’s were on, and saw the door quickly open. Casey looked frantic as he raced towards Andi with Lionel hot on his heels. At least I knew they would be there to take care of Andi, she was in good hands, better hands. Mine had done nothing but hurt her. I was standing at the door of the cab, unable to look away as Casey ushered Andi inside. Lionel paused and meandered back to the opposite side of the cab, his shrewd gray eyes examining me from across the rooftop of the car between us.

“I tried to persuade her not to get involved with you. She said your past didn’t matter, it was now that counted. I didn’t agree. Your past makes you what you are today.” Well, that damn well cut deep. “When I saw you two together, I thought maybe I was wrong. You just…fit. As crazy as it was, you really did seem to make each other happy. I don’t know what went wrong, Andi won’t say, but she’s broken, Decker. You broke her. She was a ray of light that you switched off.”

I rubbed the ache in my chest and swallowed away the pain that was creeping up my throat. “I’m gonna fix this,” I whispered with a husky voice. Lionel gave me a surprisingly tender smile that bolstered my confidence. “She’s worth fighting for and I’m gonna make sure she shines again. I’m gonna put her back together again.”

He gave me an affirmative nod. “Then go home and get some sleep, you look like shit. You’re going to need to pull something special out of that damn hat, rather than your pants this time.” He was smiling which somehow pulled a reluctant smile from me. I slid back into the cab and pulled away from the curb. For some reason,
my avow to fix this situation seemed to feel more hopeless the further I got from Andi. How could she ever forgive the lies and betrayal? I had dug a hole so damn big I didn't really see any way to climb out of it. I had only had her in my arms, in my life, for a moment, but the little piece of country had wormed her way into my heart and that is where she would stay forever, regardless of what happened next.