Unforgettable You (22 page)

“That’s it, boys. Just cut it the hell out. I know she deserves it, but I’ve got some kind of reputation to maintain. Go home.” He turns to the woman with the giant rubber cock up her kootch. “And that goes for you too, you miserable bitch. Get the hell out of my club and don’t come back.”

To my amazement, when they’ve drawn the machine away and removed Adele’s restraints, she stands and leers at Dave. And the first thing out of her mouth?

“Where’s my aftercare?”

He laughs right in her face and points toward the front door. “You don’t get any. You get out of my club. Don’t you ever show your face here again. Oh, wait – I won’t have to worry about that. You won’t be around anymore anyway.” He smirks and starts walking away.

She’s furious as she yells back, “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Hey! Get back here! I wanna know what the hell that’s supposed to mean!” When he keeps walking, she looks around at the crowd, which has started to dwindle. She just stalks away to the locker room. I watch her with a measure of respect, because she’s not even walking funny. Anybody who can take that kind of fucking is either a saint or numb from the waist down. About that time, she catches me watching her. “What the hell is your problem?”

“I don’t have one.” I drain my drink and stand. “Not anymore. I don’t ever want to see you again. You’re history.” There’s a smug look on her face that tells me she has no idea what kind of hell is about to rain down on her. Good. Maybe she’ll get some idea what it felt like to me to find her standing at my door after all those years.

The purr of my car’s engine is music to me and I sit there, as smug and satisfied as a guy with a broken heart can be. Another text pings in on my phone, and I pull it up: Clint.

Riley says 4 days on DNA. We get to visit in the meantime. Everybody agrees he looks just like me. Thanks, Steffen. I hear you were treated to a great show tonight.

I text back:
Never better.

There’s a pounding on my door. I look at the clock and it’s fucking three eighteen in the morning. Of course, I know who it is, but I go to the door anyway and look through the peephole. “Adele, get the fuck off my porch. I mean it. Go away.”

“Get out here, Cothran, you goddamn bastard! Where’s my kid? Where is he? WHERE IS HE?” she’s screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Where he needs to be. With his dad.”

“You’re his dad!”

That’s it – I’ve just officially had enough. One of the lights in the door shatters as I sling it open and it hits the wall behind it. Before she can even gasp, my hand is around Adele’s neck and I press her backward until she’s teetering on the edge of the porch, held only by the pressure of my hand on the underside of her chin and jaw. She looks terrified. Good.

My teeth are clenched so tightly I can barely speak, but I manage. “You listen to me, you skanky, worn out, sluttified piece of trash, you know damn good and well I’m not that kid’s father.” In my peripheral vision I can see that the lights have come on at several of the houses around mine, and at least one neighbor is out on their porch, but I’m way past the point of caring about any of that shit. This is it – The End. And I’m going to end it all right here, right now. “You know
exactly
who his father is – we all do. That’s where he is, with his father. And if you go over there and bother them, so help me, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. You’ve
ruined
the best thing I ever had in my life and I have no pity for you, nor will I show you any mercy. If you ever,
ever
, come back here, god help you for what I’m going to do to you.” I hear sirens and I’m beyond grateful because they just might save me from doing something that would put me in jail for a long time, and I certainly don’t want any more of my life to go down the drain because of this miserable bitch. “Just tell me one thing, Adele, just one thing before the cops get here and sort out this whole fucked up mess. Why? Why did you do this to me? I never did
anything
to you, never. I treated you good; hell, I gave you way more respect than you deserved. I gave you anything you wanted, including other men. Why? Why are you hell bent on fucking up my life? What did I
EVER
do to you?” I see red and blue lights coming up the street and I know I only have a minute or two, so I tighten my hold around her throat to encourage her to get it in gear. “Why Adele? I want to know!”

“Because,” she stammers out, her voice reedy from the chokehold I’ve got on it, “because you wouldn’t tell me that you loved me.”

Her words hit me like a runaway train. There’s a whirring sound as I speed flip through the pages in my mind, searching back over the years and thinking about our relationship. I
did
love her, had grown to love her despite the rocky start, loved her for years. How could I never have told her that? But I know in that instant that it’s true: In all the years Adele and I were together, not once did I ever say those three words. And that’s when I realize something tragically important.

I haven’t said them to Sheila. And now it may be too late.

The cops stop at the bottom of the steps. “Sir, turn loose of the lady and step away or we’ll have to Taser you, and we don’t want to have to do that.” But they needn’t have even said it. I’ve already pulled her forward so her feet are solidly on the porch. I turn loose and put my hands up in the air, and I’m on my face on the porch floor in an instant.

“She’s no lady. Her name is Adele Cothran. You guys need to check your information. There’s a warrant out for her arrest.”

“What? There is not!” I hear her shriek. “No one’s looking for me! That’s just nuts, Steffen. You’re crazy, you know that?”

Then I hear the other officer say, “Adele Cothran?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Ms. Cothran, turn with your back to me and put your hands behind you, please.” I hear the click of handcuffs locking. “You have the right to remain silent . . .”

“What the hell?” Adele is so loud now that the entire neighborhood can hear her, and every light that wasn’t already on is suddenly ablaze. “Why am I being arrested? He’s the one hurting
ME
! You should take
him
away!” she yells as the officer shoves her in the back of the cruiser and finishes his Miranda speech.

“Sir, I’m going to let you up slowly. Please don’t make me take any action against you,” the police officer says as he starts to release the pressure on my hands and back.

“No worries, officer. I’m not going to do anything but sit up. What I wanted most is done now. So everything’s good.” He turns loose of me and I push myself up to my hands and feet, then stand. “I’m sorry for the racket and that you guys had to come over here like this.”

“We started getting calls about a disturbance. I don’t know if she’ll want to file charges against you or not, but I’m betting what happened here is going to be the least of her problems.” He takes out his little pad and starts asking me questions. When he’s finished, he just says, “Glad we could be of assistance, sir. We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.”

“Yes, please, officer, anytime. I’d be happy to help.” I watch as the first car drives away, and the officer who’s dealt with me climbs in his car and drives away too.

When the front door closes behind me, I sag against it and think back. Adele was right. I never once, in all those years, told her that I loved her. It was like I was waiting for that moment when she’d earned it, and she never did. But, in reality, she’d earned it over and over and over again, and I’d been too selfish and self-serving to give her that. Honestly, she’d done everything I’d ever asked her to do, almost eagerly, and I now know why.

That was all she wanted from me, and I’d withheld it. I’ve been doing the same with Sheila, dancing all around it but never really coming right out and saying it. It’s time for that to stop. It’s the only chance I have to salvage the relationship, if there’s even a chance that it can be salvaged. But I have to try.

“Thirty-four times, Trish, thirty-four goddamn times.” I’m pacing in their living room, running my hands through my hair and feeling more frantic with every passing moment. “Thirty-four times I’ve called, and she’s hung up every one of them. Answers them, mind you, so I know she’s there, but hangs up without even letting me say a word. I don’t know what else to do, I really don’t.”

“Sit down. You’re making me a nervous wreck,” Clint barks at me. I plop down on the sofa and drop my face into my hands.

“Steffen, there’s a distinct possibility that this can’t be fixed. I think you need to move on.”

“NO!” I wish I could explain how I feel right now. I left the hospital with the doctors telling me that my mother has terminal cancer. She’s not going to be around much longer. She’s the last person I have. Yeah, there’s my sister, but we really don’t talk much and we’ve never been close. Once Mom is gone, it’s just Trish and Clint, and Dave and the people at the club. I have no one else. No one. “I can’t just move on. She loves me, I know it. If she’d just talk to me . . .” I stop for a minute, then ask, “She knows all about Morris and how he came to be, and all of that stuff. What does she think about that?”

“She thinks Adele is a reprehensible human being. She feels sorry for Morris, and for us. And for you too, in that respect. But she doesn’t trust you anymore. You withheld a very important piece of information from her, and I don’t blame her for not trusting you. If I were her, I wouldn’t trust you either.”

My stomach turns. “Oh, great. Thanks for that validation.”

“Well, it’s true! Clint didn’t tell me about scening with Adele, but at the same time, he was never married to her. He’s scened with a lot of subs over the years. I can’t ask for the names of every one of them.”

Clint sounds apologetic when he says, “Wouldn’t matter. I couldn’t remember them all anyway.”

“Wow, don’t you sound like a manwhore?” I sneer.

He growls back, “Just because you’re in emotional pain doesn’t mean you can be a huge dickwad.”

“Boys, boys! Cut it out!” Trish moves over to where I’m sitting and takes my hand. “Steffen, let it go. You can find someone else. There are dozens of subs who come in and out of the club and want to scene with you. Start over. Take stock of them, see if one of them appeals to you. I’m sure you’ll find that there’s
someone
out there.”

“Nope.”

“Yes! There’s bound to be someone.”

“Nope.” I know I’m exasperating, but I can’t help it. I feel like I’m losing my mind, and everything is crashing down on me all at once. “There’s only Sheila. No one else.”

“Well, then, my friend, life is going to be very, very hard for you for a long, long time.” Clint slaps me on the shoulder, then looks to Trish. “I’ve got a meeting at the board of education in about an hour and it takes forty-five minutes to get there. I’ve got to go. You can handle him, right?”

She wraps an arm around my shoulders. “We’ll be fine. Just go. Call when you’re on your way back to let me know you’re coming so I can start dinner.”

“Sure thing, baby.” He leans down and gives her a peck on the cheek. “Bye.”

“Bye. Love you, babe.”

He grins and calls back, “Love you too, Vänaan,” as the door closes behind him.

I just drop back into the sofa and sigh. “I hate you both. You’re so lucky.”

“No you don’t. You love us. And we love you.”

“Why do I have such a hard time saying that word?”

Trish shrugs. “I don’t know. Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

She looks thoughtful. “Did everyone in your family say it?”

“Yeah. My mom told me all the time that she loved me. My dad didn’t, but she did.”

“Your dad didn’t?”

“No. Never. I never heard him say it to my mom either. It was just assumed that he loved us because he worked hard to provide for us.”

“Did you ever tell him that you loved him?”

I shake my head. “Once, but he told me not to ever say that to him. He made it clear early on that men didn’t . . .” I stop.

“What, Steffen? Men didn’t what?”

“Go. Around. Saying. I. Love. You. Oh my god.” The pain I feel with the realization is almost unbearable. “My dad pretty much said that if you told someone you loved them, you weren’t a real man. You were weak and feminine.” I turn to look into her face, and there’s love and sadness there. “Shelia would say things like, ‘I love you, Steffen. I’m so glad to be here with you.’ And I’d say back, ‘I’m glad to be here with you too. There’s no place I’d rather be.’ But I just couldn’t say those three little words.” The tears come to my eyes and I can’t stop them. “I couldn’t bring myself to say them. And now look. Look at my life. It’s broken. What do I do?”