by R. K. Lilley
He was making fun of me, of course.
“Fuck you,” I drawled.
His brows lowered, bright eyes squinting at me. “I wasn’t being sarcastic. You were good. Beautiful. Charming. Charismatic. I’d bet a lot of money that the exposure from that is going to get you some offers.”
“Offers for what? Go on. Let’s hear it. Stripping? Prostitution?”
He sighed. “For an acting job. God, you don’t make anything easy. I was trying to say something nice to you.” He sounded sincere.
“Why?” My tone was outright hostile.
His mouth twisted, his eyes imploring me as he answered with a soft, “Because, insane as it is, I miss you.”
He sounded like he genuinely meant it.
It made me feel violent, so unhinged that I couldn’t keep it in, couldn’t hold back a quiet and vehement, “Go fuck yourself.”
I turned on my heel and stormed off.
Add another point for The Bastard.
Make no mistake. He can be a charmer but Dante is every bit as difficult as I am. This is not some scenario where I’ve tormented a sweet man in love.
I have tormented some sweet men. Broken hearts and shattered dreams.
Men are punching bags, and I have a hell of a right hook.
But (unfortunately) none of those broken hearts belonged to Dante. His heart is black and cold and made of sterner stuff than most.
I’d tried once. Given it my all when righteous rage had driven me to do some awful things in the name of revenge, things done for the sole but futile purpose of stomping his lying black heart under my heel, but in the end I’d done more harm to myself than to him.
That wasn’t to say I wasn’t capable of hurting him. I could and had many times.
But it was never enough.
Breaking him until he was as broken as me was the only thing that would ever be enough.
I tried to ignore him as much as I could for the duration of the flight, but it was impossible to snub him completely.
Still, he was served everything last and with insolence.
I sneered as I handed him his food. It was burnt. I’d left it in the oven for an extra ten minutes. On purpose.
“Thanks,” he told me cheerfully. I could feel his eyes searching my face, but I refused to look at his. “Would a gin and tonic be too much trouble?”
“Yes,” I said curtly and stormed off.
But back in the galley, as I was refreshing another passenger’s champagne, I remembered how much I liked to get him stinking drunk.
I made him a triple in the biggest glass I could find, and put a laughable splash of tonic on top.
I didn’t add ice, stir it, or give him a straw.
We had limes, but I didn’t add one.
I wanted it to be a bitter drink. Let him taste how he made me feel.
Just the thought of getting him good and drunk had me in high spirits, recovered from the debilitating round earlier and determined again to play this game.
I handed him his glass of bitter with a bright smile.
He eyed it warily. “What’s this?”
“Your gin and tonic. Drink up.”
He tipped it at me in a toast and took a drink. His eyes stayed on me while he did it, so I got to watch them scrunch up as he got a proper taste.
“Not to your liking?” I asked him archly. “Too strong for you? Need something weaker?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll drink it. Almost forgot how much you loved to get me drunk for no good reason.”
“If you’re determined to have that talk about God knows what that you mentioned, then yes, I’d rather deal with you drunk. You’re more pleasant.”
“Fair enough.”
“And clever.”
“Really?”
No. It was an insult, you ass.
I hated it when he didn’t play along.
“Absolutely. You’re actually funny when you’re drunk. Hell, inebriated you is almost human.”
He winced. That one had gotten to him.
Hit scored. Point for me.
I made another sweep through first class, and a quicker one through coach.
Dinner flights were nonstop busy, and I’d never been more happy about it than I was on that one.
I passed him again on my way up to the front galley. He was nursing his glass of gin and nothing.
That wouldn’t do.
I made him another, delivering it to him with a smile that was all teeth.
I set the second drink next to the first.
He glanced at them, then at me.
“Oh I’m sorry. Did you need me to put a nipple on that?”
He laughed.
“You used to drink like a man,” I told him, undeterred.
He finished off the first one, eyes on me all the while.
That was another thing about him. He rarely backed down from a challenge.
I wish I could say it was one of the many things about him that I hated, but frustratingly it wasn’t. It had saved me when we were kids. Who knows what added hell I’d have gone through without his cursed stubbornness.
I took the empty glass away, intending to refill it immediately.
When I returned, the second drink was nearly finished.
I set down a third without a word.
I kept an eye on him, delivering a fourth as he was finishing up the third. And then a fifth. And so on.
“You did this on purpose,” Dante said to me. Even when he was blitzed, his speech was barely slurred. But I knew the signs. He was trashed in the extreme.
Hit scored. Another point for me.
I stayed busy for the duration of the flight, and Dante stayed drunk.
We were deplaning when I realized he might not even be able to make it off unassisted.
Everyone had deplaned and he was still swaying in his chair.
“What should we do with him?” Demi, the youngest of our crew, asked. She was a sweet little thing, and somehow on her, sweet didn’t annoy me.
The cabin crew was up near the door, ready to go, the pilots waiting for us in the jet bridge.
All that was keeping us was The Bastard.
“He’s hot,” Farrah, who worked the back galley, added. “Like, fuckhot hot.”
“He’s too drunk,” Demi pointed out. “That’d be rape.”
“I wasn’t being literal,” Farrah said wryly.
“Should we call a paramedic?” Leona asked, eyeing him. “That’s the protocol for this level of inebriation on the ground.”
I rolled my eyes. “No. I’ll handle the fucker.”
With an annoyed sigh I headed toward him. “Flight’s over,” I told him, voice stern. “You need to get your drunk ass off this plane.”
At that he staggered to his feet.
“We still need to talk,” he pronounced slowly.
“If you can’t get yourself off this plane unassisted, we’re calling a paramedic for you,” I told him coldly.
Yes, I had done this to him. Didn’t mean I’d help him.
He nodded jerkily and started to move past me.
I stiffened as he squeezed by me in the aisle.
He put his drunk face into my hair and inhaled.
My hands clenched into fists, but he moved away before I could do anything productive, like, say, punch him in the face.
I grabbed his things out of the overhead bin. At least he hadn’t brought much. One small carryon that didn’t weigh a thing.
“We divided up your bags,” Leona called out to me. “You get that, and we’ve got your stuff covered.”
The girls were starting to file off the plane directly behind Dante the Drunk.
I was the last out of the jet way. Dante was already parked in a chair by the time I caught up to the rest of them.
“What should we do with him?” the captain asked me. As the lead flight attendant, he was my responsibility.
I rolled Dante’s bag over to him, perching it beside him. H
e was staring at me, but I never even glanced at him directly.
I turned back to my expectant crew. “We leave him. He’s a big boy. He can fend for himself.”
I got some strange looks, but everyone was ready to be done for the day, so no one argued.
“You won this round!” Dante called to my retreating back. “But I’ll find you again!”
I was at the back of our crew, and I didn’t break stride as I held up my hand, waving goodbye to him with one expressive finger.
CHAPTER
THREE
“He’s more myself than I am.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
~Emily Brontë
PAST
The first time we ever really talked to each other was right outside of the vice principal’s office in fourth grade.
We’d both just been busted for fighting.
It wasn’t the first time we’d met, or even the first time we’d been forced to spend time together, but I remembered very clearly that it was the first time I realized we were alike. That there was another kid like me, someone who could relate to all of the rage, all of the insecurity and anger I carried around with me every second of the day.
On the outside, we were opposites in almost every way.
I was skinny. He was strapping.
My clothes were too small and threadbare; his fit him perfect, and looked so expensive to my young, untrained eye that I’d have been afraid to touch them with my grubby hands.
Even his hair was perfect. Not short like the other boys, but not long either. Styled with gel and parted on the side. No other boys had hair like him, like a grownup tended to it every single day before school.
Mine was a long, tangled mess that I hadn’t brushed in days.
He smelled like soap, fancy soap, something spicy and pleasant.
I just smelled.
He was filthy rich.
I was dirt poor.
But we did have a few, crucial things that matched: Bad attitudes and worse tempers.
I swear I was born with a chip on my shoulder. Full of more hard things than soft ones. And so when there was a soft thing I was doubly defensive of it. Willing to fight for it. Hard and often.
Willing to pull that stupid girl’s hair until I ripped great big hunks of it out to make her sorry for pointing it out.
I looked down at my hands. I was still holding some of the long blonde strands, and I hadn’t even known it.
Glancing around, I gathered it all into a ball and slipped it behind my chair.
Like it mattered, at this point. I’d already been busted.
And I wasn’t sorry. The little brat had deserved it.
But boy was I in for it this time. My grandma would make me sorry I’d lost my temper again, there was no doubt.
“Were you fightin’ again, too?” I asked Dante.
We rarely spoke to each other. I had mixed feelings about him. My grandma worked for his mom and he’d always been standoffish to me and, well, everyone.
His family had more money than anyone else around. I figured maybe he thought we were all beneath him.
I was pretty sure he was probably a snob.
He grunted in answer.
“Why?” I continued. I felt a rare burst of friendliness towards him. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him get busted for fighting.
It made me like him, maybe even respect him a little bit. I got caught fighting a lot too. So much so I was almost positive I’d get kicked out of school for it this time.
He shrugged, not looking at me.
“Were they makin’ fun of you for bein’ rich again?” I asked him, watching his face.
He shrugged.
“Were they makin’ fun of your nice hair again?” I tried, making my voice soft so he knew I wasn’t trying to knock him.
He finally looked at me. The rage in his bright eyes made something swell in my chest.
I was pretty sure he was mad at me for saying that, but that look, those eyes, the way it made me feel, was thrilling. Magical. Like I’d just discovered something to do. Some bright new adventure. Some task that gave me purpose.
I smiled at him. “I like your hair. I think it looks really nice. Those little shits,” I was proud of myself for pulling out a good curse word for him, “just wish they had your hair. Wish they had anything of yours.”
His jaw clenched, and I thought how handsome he was. No one else looked like him. His solemn face was without flaw.
“Nothin’ they say should get to you,” I continued. “You’re better than them.”
“Same to you,” he finally spoke back. “Nothing they say should get to you, either.”
I was straight up beaming at him. I’d never felt my face move like that, like it couldn’t smile big enough.
“I like your gram,” I said, and it was true. She always gave me candy and told me I was pretty. She was the nicest grownup I’d ever met.
“Gram likes you, too,” he returned. His voice wasn’t how I’d heard it before. Usually he was yelling at people. Now, when he was talking softly, it was really nice. I decided I liked it. A lot.
“Wanna know why I was fightin’?” I asked him. I wanted to tell him the story. I wanted it to impress him.
But the fact was, it didn’t take much to get me fighting.
Grandma always said I was a prickly little thing. She was not one for kind words, but even I knew that was the nicest way you could put it.
I was a mean little ball of hate.
He shook his head. “I know why you were. As far as I’m concerned,” he said, speaking in that way he had, like he only knew how to talk to grownups, “you had every right to do that.”
My heart swelled with pride. Not once, in my entire wretched life, had anyone ever offered me encouragement like that, let alone for doing something that even I knew was naughty.
I really, really liked him when he talked to me like that.
I opened my mouth to tell him something, I don’t know what, but it would have been something good, something encouraging, to try to make him feel how he’d just made me feel.
That was when his mom showed up.
I instantly closed my mouth and looked away. She intimidated me, and I didn’t want to call attention to myself.
I needn’t have worried. She didn’t even see me, her disapproving glare was all for her troublemaking son.
“Don’t start with me; I don’t wanna hear it,” he muttered at her before she could even speak.
I gaped. In my world, grownups were scary and you didn’t talk back unless you wanted to get slapped so hard your ears would ring. Other kids were the only ones you could stand up to.
But she didn’t slap him. She just kept staring at him for a few beats, then her lip started to tremble and she turned away.
I gaped harder. I hadn’t thought I could like him anymore today, but he’d gone and done it.
He was a bona fide badass, and I loved it.
He shot me one quick glance as the vice principal ushered him and his mom into her office.
His mouth had shaped into a small, conspiratorial smile.
I was hooked. I really couldn’t think of anyone that impressed me more in that moment. I wanted to follow him around, learn his secrets.
How had he not gotten slapped for talking to his mom like that? How had he instead made her cry?
Badass.
The vice principal, Ms. Colby, didn’t bother to shut the door, I guess because it was just unimportant me out there, but whatever the reason, I got to eavesdrop unabashedly as his mother and our mean as a snake vice principal attempted to reprimand him.
“Ms. Colby,” his mother began the conversation with a stern voice. The tears were gone, in their place disdain. “I’m not sure you want to do this. Why is my child in this office for fighting? He’s in trouble and this other boy, this miscreant suffers no consequences at all? Do you have any inkling how much our family contributes to this scho
ol?”
“The other boy, Arnold, did not fight back.” Mean Ms. Colby could barely choke out the words, she was so close to losing her temper. I knew the tone well. I caused her to use it often. “Dante started it,” she continued, “he hurt Arnold badly, and did you know that your son refuses to apologize? How am I supposed to work with that? He was violent, and he won’t even promise not to do it again!”
Dante’s mom made a big show of reassuring Ms. Colby that no, of course it wouldn’t happen again, and yes, of course Dante was sorry.
She sounded very convincing right up until the part where she asked her son, “Right, Dante? Promise Ms. Colby that this won’t happen again. It’s simple. Say you’re sorry and we can put this behind us.”
I was in a full-on bratty pout by then. It sucked. He’d apologize and get off scot-free, but not me. My punishment would begin soon and end never. Also, Dante was losing all of his badass cred in my eyes the more I listened to his overprotective mother.
“No!” Dante snarled back. “That little shit deserved it, and I’d do it again!”
I grinned, ear to ear, all of my doubts in him put to rest.
“What did that boy do to you, son?” his mother asked, sounding riled. She was grasping at any reason to put less blame on her child.
“It’s the way he talks. It’s the way all of them talk. The teachers hear and don’t care, and they get away with it, with being total shitbags, and I’m sick of it! I’m not sorry, and I’ll do it again!”
“Darling, what did he say to you?” his mother asked him in a pathetic, baby talk voice.
That same voice turned hard as nails, and I knew she was addressing Ms. Colby. “Words can be assault too, you know! I won’t have my son bullied. He has a right to stand up for himself!”
Ms. Colby’s voice was beyond disgusted when she asked, “What are you implying was said to you, Dante?”
“Not to me. I just overheard. And so did two teachers. And instead of calling the little shits out, they laughed! You all suck! What kind of a school is this? The teachers are as bad as the bullies!”
Ms. Colby’s sigh was loud enough to be heard two rooms away. “And what did you overhear?”
“You know,” Dante shouted back at her. “You’re as bad as them. You know how the other kids treat her, and you look the other way. Well, I don’t. I’ll do it again. You mark my words.”