Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (12 page)

“Well,
that’s the difference between you and me.”

“What? A
heart?” I scoffed. Thinking strangely, about
Zeph
and
his poor head and how little his life meant to me. How little most lives meant
to me. Oddly, Mike was on the small list of lives I’d think twice about. Lives
I’d miss. Lives I’d fight for if it came right down to it.

“A
conscience.”
Yeah, that.

I have a
conscience. It’s just muffled by the screams of sarcasm and cynicism.

“Look, I
don’t want to talk about this. I’m here. I’m safe.” I was safe. Safer than I
was an hour ago that was for damn sure.

“Are you
sure about that?” he asked, skeptical of my confidence.

Is he in my head?

I fingered
the charm that hung at my neck. “As sure as I can be. What else am I supposed
to do?”

“How am I
supposed to know? I don’t even know what the hell is happening.”

“And you
won’t. Like I said, even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I’d believe
anything you told me.” His voice was calm and reassuring. His hands kneaded
along my chunky arms and pulled me closer to him. “I just need you to be safe.”
He always had a way of reminding me of my humanity, even if only in fleeting
moments.

His head
dipped to my level and he brushed his lips across my forehead. It was rare I
let him get so close to me, not since the big break up, but it was so familiar
and comforting I let him do it for a second.

“Okay,
that’s enough.” I pushed him away gently, but he didn’t budge.

“Why?” he
breathed and pulled me closer.

“Because we
are not
us
anymore. I am not yours
anymore.”
And I just made out with
someone else, like six hours ago.

“Not by my
choice.” He spouted the truth like it might change something.

“It changes
nothing.” Someone else’s tongue had been in my mouth. And if I was honest, I
hadn’t exactly had the most opportunity for hygiene as of late, closeness was
out of necessity only.

“I need you
to see things my way for once.” He pushed my limits and nuzzled his face into
my ear.

“Why do you
fucking love me so much?” I pushed at him harder and pulled my head away from
his.

“I’m nothing
without you.” He sounded so pathetic.

“You’re
better off, trust me.” I said those words a thousand times and not once did he
believe me.

He squeezed
my arms. “Stop punishing yourself, dammit.” Okay, maybe not so pathetic.

“Of all the people
in this world that has every right to hate me, I can’t even get you to stop
loving
me. Please, just hate me already.
Realize I’m selfish and awful, and you’ll be better off.”

He moved his
body away from mine but didn’t release his grip. “It sucks, don’t get me wrong.
Knowing…knowing everything. Knowing I could have stopped it. I could have been
more
for you.”

“Jesus,
Mike, do you hear yourself?
I
fucked
someone else and you are blaming
yourself
?
I am the reason we aren’t on our way to a white-picket-fence happy family
future and you want me back? What’s wrong with you?” Usually when one party
cheats on the other, the relationship ends and neither attempt to rekindle, let
alone the wronged party.

“You. You
are what’s wrong with me. You’re a bitch. You’re a huge bitch.” He let out a
breath. “And you’re hilarious. You’re beautiful. You can drink me under the
table. You take no bullshit. You can suck a mean dick. When you love, when you
actually admit it anyway, you love with every ounce of your soul. And you were
mine. I wanted you to be mine for the rest of my lifetime.”

“Well, we
both know how that ended up.” Uncalled for, yes, but it was true.

“Yeah, we
do. Most girls squeal, cry, and fan their face with their hand when their
live-in boyfriend presents them with a ring. A fucking expensive ring by the
way. But not my Dylan. No. My Dylan laughed at me. You fucking laughed.” His
voice cracked. It was minor, and anyone else might not have caught it, but I
wasn’t just anyone else.

Okay, I was
an asshole. I’d accepted it. I didn’t know any other way to be.

“And you
proceeded to destroy our home,” I rebutted. It was true so it was fair.

“Can you
blame me? Really? Thirty-years-old and I’m crying over some girl because she
doesn’t love me. What else is a boy to do? I’d have rather you broken every
item we owned instead of what
you
chose to do. It would have hurt a lot less.”

“It wasn’t
my intention. You know this. We’ve talked about this, more than once, and I
would rather not talk about it anymore. I fucked up. I know it; you know it.
Nothing I can do can change that fact. Why dwell on it?”

“Dwell? More
like pine. Does it make you feel good to know that regardless of how hard you
try, I will never stop loving you?” He swallowed. “I will never hate you no
matter what you do.” I tried to rebut but he stopped me. “I’m not an idiot.
You’re chicken shit. You were too scared to be straight with me, so you went
out, got yourself shitfaced and fucked around with some stranger from a bar. I
don’t know for sure if you were looking for it or if it just fell in you…in
your lap, but I’ve decided it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care. I feel like
these last few months you’re hanging on to life by a thread, and it’s killing
me. I’ve figured out I will never stop being in love with you, and I don’t want
to. You might not be mine, but I’m sure as hell yours and there is not a damn
thing you can do about that.”

“I could
kill you,” I said plainly.

“Could you
really?” he asked as though he thought I might actually be serious.

He closed
the distance between us again. I answered his question in my head – no. No. I
couldn’t snuff him out and I couldn’t let someone else do it either. Or hurt
him even. My hatred had never been in the cards for this man. All in all, he
was a fucking amazing human being and my life would be shit without him in it.
Good, bad, and indifferent.

 
I felt his chest rise and fall against me.
When it all went down, nearly two years ago, I thought I knew what I was doing.
I was wrecking my life. I felt young, too young to be married. He talked about
kids and buying a house, and white dresses and a life stuck together forever. I
didn’t do romance, let alone that forever talk. Sex was great, and Lord, having
a man close by could be handy, but I wasn’t ready for permanent. Living
together was still new even, but in my head, it was reversible.

I took a
deep breath, stuck in my memories, and pulled in a whiff of his body. Sweat,
cologne, soap, gum – Mike. Scent was the sense most tied to memory, and
memories came flooding in with the smell of him. Some real, some dreams,
collected over the last year or so apart. He’d loved me so completely for
years, but he didn’t know what he did. His overbearing and protective ‘cop’
nature kept me stuck under his thumb, and I couldn’t imagine my life like that.
Forever.

“I love
you,” he stated simply.

“Stop saying
that…please,” I said through a shaky breath.

We hadn’t
been this close in a very long time. Kissing Cyrus was lovely and definitely
not terrible, but it was new and uncharted. I’d had every opportunity to
explore everything Mike had tucked in his Dockers, and I knew it was all worth
my time. There was a comfort in knowing someone had already seen you naked and
chose to come back for seconds. Or thirds.

“Never.” He
resumed his nuzzling, but this time I didn’t protest.

“Mike, we
set boundaries.”

“And?” He
kissed along my jaw. “Since when are you a rule follower?” He had my number.

I let out a
breath. “These rules are important. It keeps the confusion to a minimum.”

“Yeah, sure
it does.” He didn’t stop his kissing, making his way over my ear.

“We broke
up. I fucked up and we ended.”

He pulled
his head back from mine, leaving only a few inches between us. “We stopped
having sex, nothing else changed. You sleep somewhere else and mostly pay your
own bills, but otherwise, we are still us. I love you and I know you love me. I
need to be close to you. I can’t lose you, not for real. Those people…” He
referred to Cyrus and his band of vampires and things. “I don’t trust them not
to destroy you.” His hands moved up my arms and hooked at the crook of my neck.
“You have become so reckless, it scares me to think something could happen to
you when you’re out there…with them. With…him.” I felt his breath on my lips,
so close.

I couldn’t
take it anymore. My hands found a familiar place on either side of his wide
jaw. My mouth found his easily, as it always had. He didn’t hesitate. We were
kissing for the first time in nearly two years, and it all happened in less
time than it took to smell a fart. Watching his mouth move as he lectured me
for being so reckless, should have elicited violence not lust. I’d missed him
more than I ever would have allowed myself to understand. If this were a movie
I was watching, I’d be mumbling about inappropriately timed sex in times of
peril. But it wasn’t, and appropriateness be damned. I was done being this
fucking rigid. And fucking someone you’ve fucked before didn’t count as being a
slut – it didn’t rack your numbers up. Besides, he’d already seen my chassis
and he was still trying to get it. He wasn’t Cyrus, not new, not anything I
hadn’t happily done before. Nothing to lose but my self-respect.

Fuck it. I’m practically dead anyway.
Carpe…whatever.

I was giving
in on a fight that had lasted a year and counting. One of the many faces of
Dylan was screaming in my head to not give in. To pull away and kick him out,
like I’d done to him many times before. Literally, every other face was
completely focused on the task at hand. Or hands.

His made
their way under the back of my shirt. I felt sweaty and sticky. I’d been in a
car for hours; it wasn’t good for the butt sweat. He squeezed me like he always
did, pulling my thick body close to his. Hands trailed, rubbed along my back,
lifting my shirt enough to allow cooling air to dry my wet back. He was making
his way to my bra, ever so sneakily. The difference between him and Cyrus was
vast in the grand scheme of things. Kissing two guys in one day wasn’t really
my style, but then again, neither was utilizing a piece of metal to ward off
evil spirits. Shit happened. It was life.
Knowing
my luck lately, I probably don’t have much of it to live, so I might as well
roll with the uppercuts.

 
Fuck it, eh? Yeah, I was kind of planning on
it.

I hadn’t
asked where my mom was. I hadn’t really thought about her honestly. You’d
think, since I was in her living room, she’d cross my mind before too long.
Sure enough. Mike’s hands worked under my shirt; they’ve always been rough and
manly, so it was nothing new to feel fumbling and scratching against my skin.
It dawned on me that I was standing in my mom’s living room, making out with
her favorite person in the whole wide world.

A piece of
me thought it was best to just stop things while we were ahead. Granted, life
was different and would always be different after this incident, but that
didn’t change the fact that, if and I mean
if
,
Mike and I were to mend things, sex off the bat was not likely the best way to
go about to it. The other piece figured we should move to the bedroom. Either
way, a break was in order. It was best to stop him before he actually worked my
bra off. It might be awkward otherwise. And a bit floppy.

“Okay, sugar
tits.” I pulled away from his lips and used my hands to gently push his chest
away from me.

“What?” His
eyes looked dreamy like he’d just woken up.

“Not here
and not now.” My disgustingly responsible words nearly mimicked those I’d
spoken to Cyrus hours ago. Tried and true.

He smiled
widely. “But soon?”

Sure! I
didn’t actually say that of course. I hated to make promises I couldn’t, or
wouldn’t come through on. Instead, I said, “I promise you as soon as life calms
down a bit, you and I will have a beer.” There, good enough.

My head was
cheering for my honest attempt at being an adult, but my nether regions were
screaming at me to strip down and let him have it all. Twice in one day I’d
been an adult, and twice it left me with the lady-parts equivalent to blue
balls.

Damn you, adulthood!

“I can live
with that.” He was still smiling when he squeezed the life out of me with a
huge hug. He buried his face in my neck and made happy little noises.

I hated to
see him so happy about something that might never come to anything, but it was
nice just standing there being hugged by someone I knew loved me for all that I
was and all that I wasn’t.

“Dylan,” he
said softly into my neck.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you
smell like a
Porta
-Potty?”

I laughed
out loud. I laughed so fucking hard my cheeks hurt. He let go eventually to watch
the spectacle I was creating, standing there laughing hysterically at nothing.