Social Neighbor (The Social Series Book 1) (24 page)

“Yes, she said as much.”

“Did she tell you how it happened?”

“No,” I said, hoping that Matt would fill me in, at least a little.

“Hmm,” he hummed. “I’ll leave it up to her to disclose what she feels like disclosing about that…
but
she had a rough go at life when she was a kid. We met when she was seventeen. Her stepmother had taken her to the spa for pampering after she’d lashed out, but pampering doesn’t fix broken people or broken relationships. I knew that all too well. I think that’s why we hit it off. Been best friends ever since.”

“Why had she lashed out?”

“She’s semi-estranged from her dad. She blames him for a lot. She was a teenager and you know how that goes. A pissed off, hormonal teenaged girl is no picnic.”

“Why? Why is she estranged from her father?”

“He was a drunk. He ruined her life. That’s what she believes to this day. He’s sober now but it makes no difference to her.”

My heart froze. My eyes slipped shut and I felt like I was ready to fall over.

Fuck!

“Hey, you okay?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine. Just need a drink of water.”

Matt stepped over to the table and brought back my glass of water. I took a gulp, wishing it were alcohol instead of water, and then hating myself for having that very salacious thought.

“Better?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Go on.” I wanted to know more. I wanted to know all he’d tell me and, at the same time, I felt as though I’d been punched in the gut. I probably should have doubled over and stayed down, but my own damned need to know more about her had me standing back up as my opponent drew back and prepared to deliver what I knew had to be another painful blow.

“She says she hates him.” There it was. My troubled soul, the same one that I was so sure was on the mend thanks to Flor, crumbled like a pillar of salt and lost all semblance of what it had been only a moment before. Just like in the Bible when Lot’s wife turned back to face her past even though she’d been warned to move forward, she’d turned to a pillar of salt and crumbled to nothing. I had turned back. I had looked to the past—to Flor’s past—my past and now I was dust.

She hates him. She’ll hate me too.

If Matt hadn’t been working on my hair, I would have run my hands through it and rubbed the fresh throbbing sensation in my temple.

“…so, anyway, they haven’t been on good terms since
forever
. We don’t discuss it much. I know a ticking time bomb when I see one and that subject is like Hiroshima-big.”

“Has she forgiven him?” My voice felt much smaller than normal. I didn’t want to know and yet I did. Hope for the sake of hoping clung stickily somewhere in my heart.

If she had forgiven her father then perhaps there was a chance for me after all. Perhaps she wouldn’t hold it against me that I’d once chosen drink over everything and everyone. Perhaps she wouldn’t hate me for destroying my own family. For what happened with Tommy. For being weak and careless.

“I don’t think so and she says he seems to have forgotten everything. Says he’s always the first one to hurt someone else and the first to forget.” Matt clipped and combed and moved in a half circle around my wheelchair without ever knowing that I was hanging on his every word.

“She wants to punish him, I think. I think…maybe she wants to forgive him and then she doesn’t. She blames herself for what happened but she was a kid, so the rational part of her brain blames him while the irrational part holds herself accountable. Dr. Phil would need at least a week to get to the bottom of it. I’ve been around for nine years now, and I’m still playing catch up. Not even
I
have all the details and have never pushed her to tell me all of it.”

Little snips of my hair rained down around me as Matt chattered and trimmed. I was glad that he was behind me and there was no large mirror in front of us. If there were, he would have seen the look on my face, and that look was one that was reserved for perpetrators whose constant companion was guilt.

Once she found out that I was the same breed of man as the one who she believed ruined her life, she’d wash her hands of me as fast as she could. I couldn’t exactly say I’d blame her either.

I felt ugly, unworthy, unlovable…and guilty. Guilty that I had become the monster that I was. Guilty that I had to fight daily to keep that monster in the closet where it belonged. Guilty that I’d let my family down. Guilty that I’d been like destruction embodied for a while.

I felt condemnable and a sense of responsibility for the actions another alcoholic took that resulted in a beautiful woman being hurt.
My
beautiful woman was hurt. I felt dismayed that she’d never be mine, not truly. Not once she knew that I had a very big secret stuffed in my closet. One that banged and clawed against the thin wood veneer of my resolve to remain sober.

“You gotta level with me here. Are you interested in her? I mean, more than the obvious physical part?”

“I am.” The words felt like razors slicing across my tongue as I said them, because I knew that my desire and interest in her would never produce results and I’d be king of assholes if I sought a relationship with her knowing that small portion of her history. Even if she’d have me, she’d never have me. Not all of me. I was already in a long term relationship and that bitch’s name was alcoholism. She monopolized my time, my mind and my energy. It would be wrong of me to offer only a portion of myself up to Flor expecting her to give me all of herself. I’d be the worst kind of hypocrite and Flor’s broken heart wasn’t something that I wanted on my resume.

She’d been wounded by my type, and the last thing I wanted to do was make things worse for her. If anything, I wanted to tie myself up to the post and be the whipping boy if that’s what she needed. Matt said she wanted to punish the man she blamed for her pain.

Punishment.

I could do punishment. I punished myself daily. If that would make her feel better, I’d do it. A sour, sickly taste had spread through my mouth knowing that my beautiful, kind, stunning Flor had her own demons stuffed in a closet. Demons that caused her pain. How I wished I could battle them for her. I couldn’t fight her demons; I couldn’t even fight my own. I stayed in a constant tango with self-destruction and his comrades, fear and failure. How could I possibly help her? I couldn’t.

I
could
be her whipping boy though. If she needed someone to punish, she could punish me. She could kick and scream and slap and thrash and obliterate all of me if she felt so inclined to. I’d take my position at the whipping post, bare my scarred flesh and wait for the bite of the whip, and then I’d do it again and again until the hurt had been leached out of her and into me.

“She deserves the world. She deserves so much more than she realizes. She has a big heart and if she finds you deserving of it, you guard that big heart with your life.”

“I will.” I sounded sincere but the words felt hollow in my mouth.

“If you don’t, I’ll chop your balls off with dull sheers.” Matt scissored his sheers in the air making me laugh humorlessly and shiver at the same time.

“Got it.”

I pretended to be asleep when she’d returned. I cracked my eyes open and barely saw through my lashes as she came in with a couple of plastic bags and duffle.

“Has his fever come back?” she whispered to Matt.

“He doesn’t seem feverish,” he whispered back. “He has really great hair. If you two have babies, they’d be guaranteed to have awesome hair that Uncle Matt would be sure to maintain.”

“Shut up!”

“What?”

“Shush,” she scolded him then rested the back of her soft hand against my forehead. “We aren’t even together, Matt. It’s not like that.”

And we never will be. Not truly.

“No fever,” she breathed sounding relieved, and it should have bolstered my desire for her but it made me sick to my stomach.

God, her touch…the smell of her…

“Are you staying here tonight?” Matt whispered.

“Yeah. I probably should until his nurse is sure the antibiotics are working.”

“Okay, well, I’m outta here. Cal and me are going to a late dinner. Text if you need anything, babe.”

“I will. Thanks, Matt.”

“No problem.” I listened as the front door clicked shut. Flor began moving like a mouse around Tommy’s apartment as I played possum.

A plastic bag rustled slightly. The lid of the trash can lifted. A zipper. Something plugged into the wall. Flor yawned and sighed. The volume of the television rose slightly.

She remained silent and still and minute after minute ticked by. I cracked my eyes open again to find her curled up on the couch across from me, a pillow under her head, her eyes closed, her breathing even and deep.

“Beautiful,” I whispered past the dismay that I had been choking on all evening. I watched her shamelessly until my own eyes grew heavy and finally slipped shut.

Flor

Painted In Gray

“G
raham, wake up!” I brushed my hands against his face, doing my best not to startle him from the nightmare he’d been having. It was late. Or early, depending on perspective. “It’s just a dream. Hey.” I smiled reassuringly when his wild chocolate eyes found mine. “It’s okay,” I repeated.

He swallowed hard, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he said in a raspy voice that broke my heart. I knew what nightmares could do to a person. I knew what mine did to me. They tore old wounds open, brought buried hurt to the surface, and painted the world in gray. Something inside me ached to imagine that perhaps Graham’s world had turned gray.

“Are you okay?”

“I am now,” he said, reaching somewhat hesitantly up to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. He looked so relieved to see me and it melted me. Right then, I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him until his nightmare was nothing more than a distant memory. My tongue darted across my lips. Graham’s eyes looked from my eyes to my mouth then back up to my eyes. A glint of pleading and anguish shone in his brown depths.

As though my decision had been made for me, I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his. Slow at first, and full of hunger, he kissed me back, his full lips moving against mine as though I were the very thing holding him to the ground and the air that gave him enough lift to fly. I knew the feeling.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d been missing his kiss until I had it again. I leaned in closer against him and did my best to kiss away the nightmare that haunted him. I kissed him the way I wished someone would kiss me after waking up from a bad dream. I laced my fingers through his freshly cut hair and tugged gently. The vibrating groan he let out made it clear that he liked what I was doing. I broke away from him to kiss along his jaw, to the lobe of his ear and down his neck.

“Flor,” he pleaded.

“Hmm?”

He gripped my hips and pulled me across his lap then nudged the inside of my knee, prompting me to straddle him. I carefully settled on top of him and brought my lips back to his mouth.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured against my lips. Thick arms snaked around my waist and pulled me firmly down as his hips rose.

Oh!

My face burned red-hot. I wanted him so badly. The same need and attraction that had driven me insane for him in the elevator at Four-19 came rushing back in, except there was no one else here to ruin things.

“You’re killing me, Goliath,” I breathed between kisses. I ground my hips across his arousal and hated that fabric was the barrier between us.

“I need you. I need you so bad, baby.” His voice had a desperate edge to it and it drove me mad with desire to please him.

“Me too,” I panted. “But you can’t. Can you?” I leaned back and looked him squarely in those chocolate depths. They didn’t twinkle, though. I wished they did. I loved that twinkle.

“Of course I can,” he murmured, his breath feathering across my lips.

“You aren’t feeling well. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said shaking my head slightly.

“Flor, I’m okay, and I need you. Please don’t make me change my mind.” He was firm and adamant, and it was enough for me. He needed me and I needed him too. It had been weeks since we first met and the lack of gratification was killing both of us.