Love Me Not (24 page)

While I sat in the parking lot, I realized what my problem was.

Guilt.

That pissed me off.

She had decided to leave—and had made it incredibly clear how she felt about me. I was free to do what I wanted, to fuck as many women as I could. I couldn’t be expected to abide by my decision to commit to her when she didn’t want me.

Dammit, Heath, get in there and go home with the first woman who rubs up against you.

This was the only way I was going to get over her. I had to make the dreams stop. I couldn’t live like this forever.

I didn’t have the strength to love her anymore.

I got out of my car and walked toward the club. It was eleven thirty, and the place was crawling with people. It was newer, so I’d never been here. I used to go to clubs all the time after Cassie—great places to meet horny women.

The lobby was a small round space with black-painted walls. A young woman, accompanied by a huge bouncer in a black T-shirt, was collecting the cover charge.

“Good evening,” I said as I handed her a twenty.

“Hi, sugar.” She opened her cash drawer to get my change.

“Keep it,” I said with my charming smile, the slight upturn of my lips combined with intense eye contact. She was my test subject, to make sure I was on my game.

She giggled—actually giggled, like a thirteen-year-old.

I walked past the bouncer into the club. Damn, I was good. Whatever I had that worked so well on women I still had. I supposed I was handsome, but looks alone didn’t pull reactions like that. Whatever. As long as my charms still worked, I didn’t need to know exactly why it worked.

The club was like all the others, dark with an open area for dancing. The DJ stood on a platform on the left, and beyond that stretched the bar, all the way to the back wall. Scantily clad women manned the bar, including Marie. She was my ace in the hole, though I didn’t think I needed an insurance plan.

Music blared. The rhythm was heavy and sexy, something Latin. I’d picked a good night. Dancing to Latin music was like having sex with clothes on.

Bumping and grinding bodies crowded the dance floor. Several women looked over at me. One of them moved toward me. The strobe lights made her movement looked halted and flashed across her silvery sequined shirt.

She said nothing, not that I’d be able to hear her. She took hold of both sides of my collar and led me onto the dance floor.

I’d worried I would be too rusty. I hadn’t danced in forever. But my partner draped her arms over my shoulders and moved with me. Then another woman, prettier than the first, kind of shimmied her way in to take the first girl’s spot in front of me. The first girl stayed close, though, next to me and then behind. It was like they were battling.

The three of us moved together, mostly through the hips, but nothing too raunchy, not yet. I kept dancing while deciding which one I’d take home, only one my first night back. The second one was prettier, but the first one moved better. Eventually, a third girl joined us, younger than either of the others.

Decisions.

Then someone appeared from the crowd and took my hand. Marie stood on her toes and spoke in my ear, loudly over the music. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

She kept my hand, and I let her lead. I still hadn’t decided which girl. I wasn’t sure if I should screw Marie, though. She’d eventually get pissed off when I didn’t submit to a relationship, and she knew where I lived. But then, if she was pissed at me, she might leave me alone.

I stood at the end of the bar, and she walked around behind it.

“What do you like?” she half yelled.

“Whatever.”

She grabbed a bottle, popped off the top, and handed it to me.

“I’m glad you finally came,” she said with a smile.

I downed some of the beer.

“I’m on break,” she said. “Do you want to dance?”

“Sure.”

This was what I liked about clubs—conversation wasn’t very feasible.

In the middle of the dance floor, Marie pressed herself against me and wrapped her arms around my neck. My hands on her waist, I held her to me, her hips against mine. The friction was nice.

She glanced down.

I slid my hand down, half on her ass, and pressed her more firmly to me.

She smiled a little and moved with me to the rhythm. Yeah, she was the one I’d screw tonight—simply because she was the most available, would take the least amount energy to convince.

Damn, it felt good to have a woman against me like this again, moving together. It felt familiar and comfortable.

Her breath was hot against my neck, and her lips brushed my skin. Her hands pulled through my hair and then rubbed along my shoulders. Her ass was firm under my hand. I tried to imagine what she’d feel like naked, our bodies even more entwined.

My body warmed. My breathing increased, not from the energy used for dancing. My muscles strained. I pressed her even more firmly to me. She had to feel how excited I was.

I wasn’t hard for her necessarily. My body had been denied sex for so long—it almost didn’t matter who was in my arms.

Our hips swayed to the music, and I ground against her. I bent my knees slightly and pulled her so my thigh was between her legs, rubbing her. She looked up at me with parted lips, obviously barely breathing, as if she was already close to orgasm. I pulled my hand through her hair and held her gaze. I focused on the pleasure I was gaining from her and all the pleasure I planned to cause and receive tonight. I didn’t need love. I just needed sex.

I leaned closer. The warmth of our breath mingled.

Someone pushed through the crowd. “Hey, Marie,” he yelled over the music, “your break’s over.”

She disentangled herself. “I’m coming.”

The man’s expression was hard. He walked away.

“I’m sorry,” she said to me. “Don’t leave, okay?” She followed the man’s path back through the crowd.

Fucking great. As if I was going to stand around and wait for her. I looked around for another available woman, anyone who was reasonably attractive. There were several candidates. I turned to survey the rest of the room.

Then she was there, right in front of me…

Kimber.

Chapter 43

Estelle

No, she couldn’t be real. It wasn’t possible.

But there she was, standing in the middle of the rhythmic chaos of dancing, looking up at me.

I only stared.

Kimber would never come to a place like this—especially if she knew I was here.

She looked exactly the same, only her freckles didn’t make her look like she was about to smile. There was no life in her eyes. They looked like mine when I looked at myself in the mirror, kind of filtered. She was wearing the same modest clothes she always wore, nothing like the other girls in the crowd. And yet her beauty outshone all of them.

The music seemed to quiet, as if muffled, but everyone else kept dancing.

I wanted to touch her, see if she was real.

But I didn’t. I didn’t have the right. She deserved for me to keep my distance, let her hate me in peace.

Then she spoke. I heard her quiet voice clearly. “You can’t do this again.”

I paused, trying to figure what to do, how to make her stand here just a few seconds longer.

“Do what?” I said.

“The same thing you did to me.”

I opened my mouth but didn’t speak. I didn’t even have the right to apologize, to ask forgiveness.

The people around us were moving closer. They were about to run into Kimber. I lifted my hand to pull her out of the way. Before I touched her and just as someone stepped into her spot, she was gone. As if she’d never been there.

The music blared in my ears.

My hand, in midair, was shaking.

I pushed my way through the crowd and got the hell out of there. My hands kept shaking, and sweat rolled down my back. The cold night air hit me like a wall. My lungs didn’t seem to want to process it.

I bumped into someone.

“Hey, man, you all right?”

“Leave him,” someone else said. “He looks like he’s about to hurl.”

I kept moving.

My car. Where the fuck was my car?

I stuffed my hand into my pocket and pulled out my keys. They rattled against each other, and then they fell.

I picked them up and held them in both hands. I pressed the button on the remote.

Lights flashed. I followed them.

My hand fumbled with the door handle. I managed to open the door and then sat and closed it. I tried to get the key in the ignition, but they fell again.

I gripped the wheel to try to get my hands to stop.

It wasn’t real. She wasn’t there. It was all in your head.

Deep breaths, gulping the air. Son of a bitch. What in the hell was wrong with me?

I felt around on the floor until I found the keys, forced my hands to work, started the car, and ripped out of the space.

My engine roared as I sped down Baymeadows.

I didn’t know where I was going, just that it was away from that club, away from Kimber.

The goddam bitch. She couldn’t just leave me the hell alone already?
What in the hell was I supposed to do? It was like she was trying to torture me.

I shook my head.
She wasn’t real. She’s not trying to do anything to you.

I looked up and realized where I was—the church. I cut the wheel and barely made it into the lot without hitting the sign.

The church was dark, but I knew the doors would be open like always. I walked up, while focusing on not looking psychotic. I didn’t want to scare Estelle. Maybe she wouldn’t hear me tonight. That would be better. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t think I was capable. I just needed to drain some of the calm out of this building. Hopefully, it wasn’t something that would run out.

I sat in the back corner and leaned forward with my hands clasped together, trying to get them to stop fucking shaking. I sat there for a long time. I didn’t know how to pray, and I didn’t think God would want to hear from me, so I sat very quietly and tried to remember what it was like to have a calm mind, and not just the illusion of calm. It’d happened only a few times in my life. When I was very young and Penny took care of me. I remembered finally feeling like I had a family and a home, like I could depend on someone. Then with Cassie. The day she told me for the first time she loved me my attachment to her solidified. She wanted me, so I could let myself want her, no holding back, no more being careful. And then that one night with Kimber. I let myself stop holding back with her. I should’ve kept fighting.

“You all right, Heath?”

I jerked upright and looked around.

Estelle was sitting next to me.

I pulled my expression together. “Sorry, Estelle.” I stood.

“That article was awful nice,” she said. “Didn’t think I could be that interesting.”

“The ones who say they aren’t are usually the most interesting.”

She smiled gently. “Like you.”

“Good-night.” I turned to walk down the next row.

“You look nice tonight.”

I paused and looked back. “Thanks.” Then I turned to keep walking.

“You know the best way to feel better,” she said.

My steps paused.

“You do something nice for someone you love.”

I didn’t turn. “The people I love deserve for me to keep my distance.”

“They don’t have to know it was you,” she said. “As long as you know. Sometimes it works even better that way.”

Chapter 44

Gifts

Something nice for someone I love. I thought about that for a few hours while I went for a run, while I showered, and while I listened to Marie knocking at my door. She knocked several times and asked if I was all right. I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t sleep with her. I couldn’t sleep with anyone, which meant I was never going to have sex again. The realization and acceptance wasn’t as hard as I would’ve thought. I had it right months ago—I’d committed myself, no matter if she wanted me, no matter if she hated me for the rest of her life. I was hers.

Everything was different now. I had changes to make.

Kimber was right. I couldn’t hurt anyone else, and the more I tried to fight the reality of my life, the more people I was going to hurt. I had to figure how to do for the people I loved without their realizing it was from me, and in some circumstances, they may not realize what was happening was good for them. A lot of people were going to hate me, but maybe I didn’t have to hate myself.

Marie was quiet for a while—I assumed she finally went to sleep. I chose then to get out of my apartment. I went to a couple stores—shopping on Christmas Eve yet again—and bought some gifts. Then I found someplace to have everything wrapped.

I still had a key for Elizabeth’s house—she’d insisted I have one just in case. I left her and Rachel’s presents on the stairs just off the entry. I gave Estelle’s small gift to the pastor at the church, the first time I ever met him.

Then it was time for the trickier deliveries. Hopefully, Penny hadn’t changed the locks at the shop, and hopefully, she closed at the usual time tonight. I drove by the front of the shop. It looked empty, and her car wasn’t in the back lot. I parked.

My key still worked the back door. I slipped in, past the room that was mine for all those years, to her office. I set the little box, holding a pendant that matched her ring, on the desk and ripped the corner off a piece of paper to write a note.

“Stop trying to contact me.”

She’d wasted her youth raising me. I owed it to her to do whatever I could to set her free. Maybe she could finally have a life of her own. And I would not put her through watching me live through hell again.

Within a couple minutes, I was out of the shop and driving away. I would never be back.

It was dark by the time I made the last stop. Hopefully, Kimber hadn’t moved.

I wasn’t sure if I should deliver this gift or if it would be better for her if I didn’t. I sat in the lot of her apartment complex for a while, pondering.

She’d know who the gift was from. It might weaken her hate for me. But then a tiny amount of kindness on my part might make her feel a little less used. I wanted her to hate me for what I did, for the kind of person I was, not for how I made her feel.