For A Good Time, Call... (23 page)

A
long time later, I uncurled from myself, scrubbing furiously at my
face with my hands. The urge to cry was still there, but the tears
weren't coming. I felt dry. Like all of the moisture had seeped out
and I was brittle inside.

It
hurt. Oh, god how it hurt. And, what's worse was, I didn't expect it
to. I hadn't realized just how much he had started to mean to me in
such a short amount of time. He shouldn't have. I mean... with how
closed off and distant I am... he shouldn't have been able to mean so
much. But he did.

The
absence of him was like a black hole inside, constantly turning and
pulling everything good into its hollow depths.

Would
I be able to sleep through the nights anymore? Would the lure of
sharp objects come back with the same intensity that it used to?
Would I ever again feel the way I felt around him... fully naked and
completely comfortable?

Or
was security something I buried in him?

Taking
a deep breath, I looked out onto his balcony. He even took his
goddamn ashtray. But he left my cactus. Which, the more I thought
about it, felt like a fucking slap in the face. Was it a pointed
move? What else could it have been?

So...
what? He wanted me to know he wanted literally everything else in the
world except something that was from me?

Well...
fuck him. Fuck him seven ways to Sunday. And then once more for good
measure.

I
stooped down, grabbed the cactus and stormed out of his apartment,
slamming the door and making it rattle in the jamb. I turned and went
down the elevator, outside and down the street. Right back to the
same store I bought the damn thing to begin with. The woman at the
counter watched me storm up to the closest, most girly freaking
planter I could find which was hot pink with purple hearts all over,
turn the skull upside down and swiftly stick the cactus into the new
pot. I handed her a twenty, headed right outside and into the closest
empty alley, taking the skull and hurling it with everything I had at
the wall.

Watching
it splinter all around was the best feeling I had felt in days.

He
didn't want me? No big deal. I don't want someone who doesn't want me
back. I was better than that. I deserved better than that. He could
rot in hell for all I cared.

I
would be fine. Eventually. Once the betrayal dulled. Once the anger
died down. Once I had a few nights under my belt... I would be fine.

I
went back into my apartment, putting the cactus on my coffee table
and sitting down on the couch. I kept trying to breathe deep, to suck
air into the hole inside. I had a sneaking
suspicion
that despite all my convictions, all my intentions to be a good
scorned woman, that there would always be that feeling. And, with it,
the fear to ever let myself open up enough to be put in the position
to feel it again.

I
thought of the tattoo he had done on me. My pretty heart with its
chains. And I swear I could feel them tightening, wrapping around,
keeping it even further out of reach.

Not
all men are bad.

My
mother may not have led a life of greatness. She might not have
broken out of the shackles of her prison and built a life on the
other side. She might not have been an idol.

But
she was all I had. And I owed it to her to take whatever lessons she
had for me and trust in them. Put my faith to rest in them.

So,
no... not all men are bad. But Hunter was a particular kind of
asshole.

How
do you treat a person, so obviously, painfully damaged, like that?
How do you kiss their scars and tell them you want to know
everything? Every sordid detail of their damage?

Maybe
I was just a sucker for a sweet talker after all.

And
maybe that whole scene in my kitchen before I left, about remembering
him and whatnot, maybe that was because he knew something I didn't.
Maybe that was because he was planning all along to leave.

I
ran a hand underneath my breasts, thinking of my scars, thinking
about his plans for them. He had spent hours working on those
sketches, getting them just how I wanted them. The bastard couldn't
at least leave the final product so I could go get it done by someone
else?

Well,
fuck him. Again. He wasn't the only tattoo artist in the city. Hell,
he probably wasn't even one of the best. I got up from the couch and
grabbed a stack of printer paper and a pen. I could try to recreate
it. I could get it as close as possible and bring it to a
professional. It would give me something to focus on.

Because
I knew that if I let myself slip for a second, if I let myself think
of anything other than the bitterness, if I allowed even a drop of
the good that had been between us get in... I would fall face forward
into the grief. I would wrap it around myself like an old favorite
sweater. I would sink into it and settle. I would never get better.

Because
the truth of it all was, I loved the jackass.

So
what other option did I have but to deny, deny, deny?

I
absolutely, positively, did not in any way shape or form love Hunter
from apartment fourteen.

Twenty

I'm
such a fucking asshole. There was really no other way to put it. That
was what I was. I grabbed my last box off the floor and put it on the
kitchen counter. The cactus was sitting on top in its absurd skull
planter.

I
should have left her alone. The first week in this place, I knew she
was trouble. I knew I was in trouble. She wasn't part of my plan.
Which had been simple: get the fuck away, new city, new apartment,
new life. I was supposed to spend my time getting my career on its
feet, tinkering with my home improvement projects, and keeping to my
god damn self. I had no business getting acquainted with my
neighbors. If they knew what I was running from, they would want
nothing to do with me anyway.

But,
damn, that woman.

All
it took was one look at her, drinking her coffee on her balcony,
leaning on the railing with her ass sticking out in those panties.
Then she opened her mouth and spit fire. I was hooked. Men like me
didn't like good girls, and Sixteen was far from a good girl.

Having
loud (what I thought at the time) sex several times a day, going out
drinking to complete oblivion every night dressed in those crazy sexy
outfits.

No,
she wasn't a good girl. But good girls were overrated.

Maybe
if I hadn't been so blindingly attracted to her from the first, I
would have seen the damage sooner. Not that it mattered. Actually,
she was all the more attractive to me when I could see she had demons
of her own. There's nothing in the world like a heart that's been cut
up the same.

I
wasn't lying when I said that nothing, not even her scars, could make
her anything other than beautiful. She was perfect and flawless.

I
reached into the box and took out the cactus, looking at it. She was
right, I did think about her every time I saw it. But not because she
was prickly, but because she had been thoughtful enough to get it for
me for being a bitch. That was what Fiona was like... she would cut
you and then patch you up.

I
walked over to the glass door and put the pot down. I wanted to keep
it, bring it with me. I really did. I wanted a piece of her with me.
I wanted a physical representation that she was a part of my life.
But I couldn't bring any part of bright, perfect Fee into my fucked
up past.

The
door made a hollow sound as I closed it and made my way down the
hall. Which was fitting. It was how I felt inside too. Like I was
leaving an important part of me behind.

I
hadn't meant to be such a fuck. I really meant it when I said I would
call her while she was away and that I would take her to bed when she
got back. I meant that. I couldn't think of spending a day in my
apartment without her there. Preferable naked.

But
that was before I got the knock on my door the morning after she
left.

I
opened the door, half expecting the super or maybe even her, having
decided she didn't want to go after all. Or that she wanted me to
come with her. There might have been a leap of hope as I pulled it
open.

But
it quickly got dashed away as I felt my stomach drop. Because there
in my doorway was one of my own ghosts. All six foot three inches of
unnecessary muscle and ink. “You thought you could just leave?”
he asked as a greeting, his blue eyes so much like my own.

“Shane,”
I nodded, knowing this was the end. I wasn't going to get away from
him. From them. I was going to have to go back.

“Pack
your shit,” he said, looking past me into the apartment. “or
I'll have some of the guys come up and toss it all. You have eight
hours to get this all handled and meet me out front. I'll drive.

And
then he was gone. I closed the door, resting my forehead against the
inside of it. How was that for a family reunion? But given the
reputation of my family, it actually was quite fitting. Shane, my
brother, was a year younger and a hell of a lot more ambitious in the
eyes of our father. It was a constant bone of contrition that I was
still somehow the favorite despite all Shane did for him.

I
made a few calls and walked to the closest U-Haul station to pick up
a truck. Without a fight. Without question. Because it was useless. I
hedged my bets when I ran. There was always a chance of being found.
Of being pulled back.

I
guess a part of me had been holding out hope that my father would let
me go. He had other sons. Four others to be exact. He didn't need me.
He had his oldest and his youngest, he could just let the useless
middle ones go. But, no. That couldn't happen because it wouldn't
look good. It wouldn't send out a good message that he couldn't keep
a handle on one of his own children.

The
door opened just as I adjusted the cactus into place. “It'll
die,” Shane said, completely overtaking the doorway.

“No,”
I said, shaking my head. “someone is going to stop by
eventually and see it.”

“Shit,”
Shane laughed as I turned back to him, shaking his head at me. “You
went and got yourself a girl? Amateur move, bro.” And for a
second, we were brothers again, familiar, teasing. But then his face
settled into hard lines and he walked back into the hall. “Let's
go.”

The
ride back had been long and tense. Shane stared out the window, his
metal blasting from the radio so he wouldn't even have to make an
effort at conversation. I sat there in silent resignation, watching
as my new life became a dot in the rearview. And I would never get
back to it.

To
her.

And
if I thought living in the past was bad, being forced back into it
was going to be a million times worse. Because I had gotten a taste
of freedom, of a life by my own terms. I knew what it was like-
infinitely better than I had imagined. I got to be the person I had
always wanted to be. The man I knew I was underneath it all. I got to
find a woman who didn't know who I used to be. Who liked the me I
really was.

My
fucking family was taking that all away from me. I had been able to
forgive them for what they had done to me in the past, but I could
never forgive this.

“Unclench
those fists, bro,” Shane said, parking the truck. “we're
here.”

From
the outside, the bar looked harmless enough. Just your average
everyday watering hole for bikers. As evidenced by the dozen or so
black and chrome beauties parked out front. It was a long and low red
brick building with a plain wooden sign saying only “Chaz's”.
The windows were small, the front door black. Nothing interesting.

I
climbed out of the truck, taking a long, deep breath. This was it. I
should have been terrified. Shit your pants worried. But I felt
nothing. Just numbness and a vague imprint of misery I tried to snuff
out. Keeping any kind of attachment to the city, to Fee, wasn't going
to do me any good here.

I
swear as I walked, if you listened close enough, you could hear the
wind whispering “dead man walking”. The front door made a
familiar groan as Shane opened it, walking through first so he could
show off the big fat mouse he brought home to his master.

The
inside of the bar was sleek and upscale, not the typical dirty,
disease-ridden joints most bikers frequent. The bar itself was
located to the right of the door, a large blue felt pool table next
to it. The walls were painted a gray that reminded me a lot of Fee's
walls, but here they felt cold and unfriendly. The wood floor was
stained to almost black and the walls were free of any clutter. Just
tables. Small, black with matching chairs. I had spent months making
them all after finally convincing my father the old ones needed to
go.

“Dad,”
Shane called and the voices in the room quieted immediately. Everyone
knew. They knew all the Mallick boys.

I
saw my other brothers, various ages and looks but all tall, dark
haired, and light eyed. No one would mistake our family resemblance.
They moved away from the table where I knew my father was sitting,
where he always sat, facing the door with a gun on the table in front
of him. My oldest brother's face gave nothing away. Silently
intimidating. That was Ryan. The second oldest, Eli, softer, gentler,
but with a fierce temper sent me a sympathetic look for a moment
before dropping his eyes. Then Mark, glancing at me then back at our
father.