by Olivia Fox
“You’re lying.” I knew her too well. She had a subtle squirminess about her when she wasn’t telling the truth. I could feel it in my gut …and yet? Could it be true?
It wouldn’t be the first time a guy betrayed me so he could get at my sister. The pretty one. I guess pretty was all that mattered.
I dunked myself underneath the tickling bubbles and scrubbed my face clean.
I popped out from the tub and almost shouted in her direction, “You’re despicable!”
It was an out of body experience. I climbed out of the tub and sensed my friends doing the same around me. Ariana stepped forward, and Roxy actually took a step back, as if knowing better than to mess with her.
“I’m just trying to keep you from being hurt, Chloe, I don’t want you getting involved with a cheater. You know what they say, once a cheater always a cheater,” she looked at her nails. Avoiding my eyes.
“Anyway, he cornered me in one of the public restrooms. I barely made it out of there with my clothes on; I had to fight him off. He was like a man possessed. It must be the reason he’s been paying attention to you, just so he could get at me.”
I wrapped myself in a towel and pushed past her to the changing room.
As I walked past her, I said with firm certainty I had never used with her before, “Don’t call me, don’t come my apartment. I don’t EVER want to see you again.”
My hands shook as I put on my clothing in the changing room and I had a blurred sense of my friends hovering around me in support.
“Don’t listen to her, Chloe,” Sophie said “she’s just trying to get your goat like she has a million times before. She’s jealous of your happiness and can’t stand to see you in a healthy relationship.”
“Then, how on earth did she know we were here? Why would Jax have told her? I can’t believe this is happening again. It’s not good for me!”
“Talk to Jax, Chloe. There has to be an explanation for this,” said Gracie.
“You guys stay here and enjoy the spa for the rest of the day. I just need to be alone for a while.”
I could feel myself sinking and knew I needed to get home quickly so I could be alone. Bed was the best place to be when I felt like this.
No stress from the world or the people in it. The only burden was what I put on myself. The pressure of self-disgust for not being able to handle the world like everyone else did. The difficulty of not being able to get up.
I drove home and started to cry. Disgusted or not, the thought of crawling under my sheets and covers was more seductive then anything I could think of.
I stayed in bed with Boris and turned off my phone after checking all the doors and window locks to make sure no one got in. Well, mainly Jax.
I knew better than to believe he could love me. It was the same thing that happened with Steve. I was dumb enough both times to actually think they were interested in me when I was just a means to an end.
Still, I had wanted to believe so badly with Jax. It had felt real.
I was exhausted. The only good thing about being depressed was I didn’t feel like eating. Not one bit.
It was amazing to think just that morning I had been a happy person.
It seemed so far away now. Even harder was remembering what it felt like to be on the verge of falling head over heels for Jax.
If this was the inevitable outcome of falling in love, I never wanted to have these feelings again.
I curled into a ball with Boris tucked into my belly, and fell prey to the smothering, weighted blanket of sleep.
Jax
She was late, and she wasn’t answering my texts. The earlier encroaching fog covered the valley for real now that it was evening, and a northern wind was stirring cold in the air.
I started at the sound of my phone going off, and my heart sank when I saw it was a call from the police station.
“Charlie?”
“You better get down here right away, Jax.”
“What is it? Is Chloe OK?” I could’ve kicked myself for not going to the spa to find her earlier.
“It’s not Chloe; it’s her sister, and I’m afraid you’re not going to like what you see.”
“Is everyone OK?”
“Everyone but the telephone pole and your Z28, I’m afraid.”
The handle of my Pontiac was freezing cold against my hand, and I yanked it open to climb inside. There was a swirl of broken, black cloud overhead and the sunset shone through to signal the oncoming night. I shuddered and headed to the police station. At least Chloe was OK.
I could handle anything as long as nothing bad happened to her.
Receiving a call from Charlie on his police line was all too familiar.
There were so many times with Jenny when Charlie did me the favor of calling me to come pick her up before she got herself into arrest-worthy trouble. The worst behavior was her tendency to combine alcohol with prescription opioids, which put her at a much higher risk for overdose.
At this thought, my gut clenched with dread, and there was the taste of metal in my mouth. I recognized the familiar feeling of imminent fear. Charlie had told me Chloe wasn’t in trouble, but that didn’t keep my body from panicking at the situation. I guess it’s what Chloe would refer to as a trigger. I just needed her to be safe.
I walked into the station and Charlie met me behind the front desk. “Hey Jax, I’m not sure why she asked for you, but I figured since you’re going out with her sister you probably would want to get notified.”
“What happened, Charlie?”
“Well, she claims you let her take it for a spin. People down at the Saloon report hearing her brag about the fact you gave it to her.”
“I never gave her the keys to this car. It’s not even mine. She had to have stolen them out of the shop.”
“So, are you going to be pressing charges for auto theft?” I shook my head no. “I can’t avoid slapping her with a DUI, and, it’s the third one. She had no business driving, and she’s lucky she didn’t hurt anyone. She’ll do time and serve parole for this.”
“If anyone needs to feel the consequences of her actions, it’s Roxy. She’s been getting away with taking from others for far too long. I’ll go let her sister know.” My business liability insurance covered the Camaro, but the owner was not going to be happy about this. We’d have to find him a comparable vehicle. Roxy was nothing but pure trouble.
“I know you’ve been seeing Chloe and hope you don’t mind me saying you couldn’t find two sisters more unlike each other.”
“You got that right, Charlie.”
“Folks at the Saloon said Roxy was bragging you practically molested her down town and she crashed Chloe’s girl’s day at the spa to tell her so. She’s got a mean streak as wide as the Mississippi, that one does. People heard tell Chloe was completely broken up about it. Just thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks, I’ll go check on her now.”
I grabbed the baseball hat off my head and twisted it like a towel in my hands.
Outside the sky had gone inky black. My mouth watered with nausea when I thought about Chloe being upset because of her sister’s lies. I just hadn’t had enough time with her yet. Enough time to prove what I felt for her was permanent and real.
I hopped into Cash and put the pedal to the metal to get to her apartment as quickly as I could.
There were no lights on in the house, but her crappy Ford Fiesta was parked in the driveway. I leaped out, taking her driveway in two huge strides and hopped up the front steps.
Calm down. You’re not going to make anything better by freaking out. Act normally.
I breathed deeply but any attempt at forced relaxation did nothing to stop the speed of my heart, which was thumping as if it wanted to pop out of my chest.
I rang the doorbell, once. Normal. I counted one, two, three.
And rang it again.
Three pounds on the door with my fist and one ring of the doorbell. I called her name. I took my phone
out and rang her number.
No answer.
She wasn’t Jenny. She knew how to take care of herself. She saw a counselor and managed her diagnosis very well. She was OK.
“Chloe!” OK, that could be considered a roar. I didn’t want to attract attention. I walked to the back of the apartment where her bedroom was and tried to peek in the windows. No light.
Where was she? Why wasn’t she answering? I was out of my mind, pounding on her back door hoping to wake her.
Fuck it; I couldn’t take any chances. I would break the door down myself. Before I got the chance to, Charlie stepped around the corner holding his flashlight/weapon.
“Jax, I can’t let you do this. A neighbor reported you shouting and pounding on the door. Let me try her bedroom window and announce myself as police, but you are going to have to wait in your car. Do I need to cuff you?”
I blew all the air out of my chest and knew I couldn’t handle another brush with the law. “No, I’ll wait. I just want to know she’s OK.”
Charlie used the magic word, “police” tapping on Chloe’s bedroom window and got her to answer the back door where she could see it was him. It took forever.
He walked back to my Pontiac with a sad expression. My core clenched against the internal whisper, “not again. Not Chloe!”
“Jax, she’s OK. Just upset and she doesn’t want you here right now. I’m sorry, but you have to respect that.”
“But she needs me!”
“I know, but I can’t let you stay. She’s going to be fine. She’s not thinking of hurting herself.
I blurted, “Hurting herself! What would make her think of doing that?”
“It’s a question I have to ask. She is clearly sad. Look, maybe when this blows over, you two will get a chance to talk, and she can explain herself. For now, you need to go home. I can’t let you stay here, and if you try to, I’ll have to haul you in.”
I drove home and poured myself a generous scotch on the rocks. I stayed up into the night, unable to sleep and not at all comforted by the amber liquid, which served only to increase my agitated state.
Finally, before falling asleep as the sun was just coming up, the inebriation granted clarity as it sometimes will.
There was no way I could go through this again with another woman.
Chloe wanted to avoid me and, well, she achieved her goal.
Only now it was me who realized this just wouldn’t work. I thought I could swoop in and solve her problems.
I trusted her. I felt like we could talk to each other about real issues.
But she shut me out based on rumor, without even hearing my side. Her emotions were in control, and logic sat on the bench. I couldn’t save her.
I guess this time around I could count my blessings. I’ve always been attracted to crazy women, but at least I didn’t marry one.
Chloe
A week later, it was still hard to drag my ass out of bed, force myself to take a shower and get dressed for work. It felt like there were leaded weights on my shoulders and nothing felt right. Nothing was right without Jax.
Not even the chic appearance of my salon cheered me up, so I knew it was bad.
I had researched photos of French hair salons to put together the decor. I hunted the back forty antique warehouse for months, buying one item at a time. Every chair had its own French table which was custom painted and a gold framed mirror so every styling station was unique. There was a sweet, tufted couch sat directly under the window facing main street, and we even had a shop kitty named Shere Khan.
The shop’s light was cozy yet bright and I had selected a light apricot-colored theme for the upholstery and paint.
But none of that mattered today. Nothing mattered. It was a long time since I felt this way. Hopeless.
The bomb Roxy dropped before her jail sentence shoved me back to the place where I was no longer in charge of my emotions. She would be inside for six months and it would either be her wake up call, or her road to ruin. I wasn’t involved and agreed with my therapist, better to have no contact with her for now.
“Hey, girl,” it was Brittany whom I hired to do lashes back in August. She was working out great. “What’s going on with you today? You are a million miles away.”
I was too tired to pretend. “Boy troubles.”
“Oh no, don’t tell me you broke up with that tall drink of water. He was delish.”
Brittany had seen Jax the day he brought me lunch with gummy bears for dessert. “Well, I have a habit of attracting men who go out with me to get at my older sister.”
“Huh. He was so into you. He couldn’t take his eyes off you!”
She started rearranging the OPI nail polish display in accordance with her own aesthetic. The colors went together great the way she arranged them, but in her efforts, the entire display went cascading to the floor.
A bottle of Malaga Wine polish broke open on the floor and seeped slowly outward making the floor look like a crime scene.
“Oh my God, Chloe I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine, Brittany, it cleans up with acetone no problem.”
The day dragged by; I still wasn’t sure where things stood with Jax at this point. I had a million texts from him, but eventually, he stopped trying.
Did I ruin everything because I believed Roxy over him?
I just wasn’t certain if it were too late to fix my mistakes. Even if it weren’t, at least I had the beautiful memory of what love was like. At least I had him in my life, no matter for how short a time.
I leaned on the broom handle and stared out the glass, nearly jumping when all of a sudden Jax’s huge form stepped into view outside the window. His face wore a stern expression between anguish and passion.
“Brittany, can you lock up, please?”
“What’s the hur…ryyyyyy?” She froze in place seeing Jax’s imposing figure outside. “Yeah, ’course. Go right ahead. I got this.”
She practically shoved me out the front door after pushing my purse into my hands.
Jax
My buddy Luke had Gracie call me to let me know what went down at the spa, and what went down years ago with some dude named Steve. For that I almost owed Roxy. My Chloe could have gotten together with another guy if it weren’t for her.
I snatched my baseball cap off my head and wrung it in my fists.
I could see how this whole sitch would feel like a do-over if the only source of information Chloe had to go on was her lying sister.
I planned to set her straight. “Gracie called me to fill me in on Roxy’s visit to the spa. You know Roxy was lying, right? I never told her you were at the spa that day, and of course I have no interest in her whatsoever. It’s always been you, Chloe, only you.”
She could barely keep up with my pace as I marched her down the sidewalk, so I just picked her up and put her over my shoulder.
“Jax! Put me down, I’m heavy.”
“What did I say about you talking about yourself like that? You are just right,” I swatted her ass three times.
“Where are you taking meeeeee?”
“To my shop. I adiosed everyone out of there. We have the whole place to ourselves.”
We arrived, and I plunked her down on the blue upholstered swivel chair of the lobby.
“What are we doing here?” She crossed her arms in a huff in front of her.
“Look, I know you can handle things on your own, but that’s not what this is about. I want to be your champion, at your side, always when any difficulty comes your way. And I want to help ensure the rest of your life is a lot less difficult. That’s why you have to talk to me. You can’t hide shit away and shut me out. I can’t take it, Chloe!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Sorry, Daddy. I won’t do it again. I’m ready to do whatever you say.”
Her eyes were on the floor, and I didn’t want to see her defeated.
“Kitten, you’ve got me wrapped around your
little finger. It might well be the other way around, I’m ready to fulfill your every need.”
“I bought you a present, little girl. Be a good girl and earn it.”
I unzipped my jeans and squeezed my swelling dick in my hand, stroking myself to hardness was easy while seeing her sitting there helpless, ready to do my bidding.
Chloe touched me with her fingertips and pressed her mouth against the tip. Her lips parted around my huge member, and her tongue darted out over the swollen head, lapping at the slit to lick off the precum.
My girl, for I would never let her go again, traced the edge of my cock head and slid her tongue down the shaft to my balls and sucked them into her mouth. I moaned as she smiled, flicking her tongue across the tightening testicles.
She sucked and licked while staring up into my eyes, drawing a low growl out of me, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to have my baby girl’s wet mouth wrapped around my cock. Her innocence made it even hotter.
Gripping the base of my cock, I grabbed the back of her head. She leaned into it and slid it into her mouth. A swirl of warmth shot through the length of my hard-on, and I held myself there for a moment and trembled.
I pulled back, then fed an inch then two and three and four until the tip of my rod poked against her tonsils.
I reached up and grabbed the sides of her head and pulled her close. “There’s more than one way to discipline you, little girl. Open your throat and take daddy’s dick like a good princess.”
I pulled out again, and she sucked for air. A thin line of drool seeped out of her mouth and down her chin, and she smiled at me.
I gave her another moment to catch her breath and pushed back into her hot, hungry mouth. She devoured me at first sliding my thickness greedily into her mouth.
“Stop. I’m going to cum. I’m not ready yet.”
She moaned around my cock and pulled back slightly only to bury it in her throat again.
“Daddy said stop. You said you were ready to do whatever I said. Now be a good girl and come with me.”