by Karen Renee
I leaned to the right and saw the fiancée-to-be standing behind Bradley with tears in her eyes. It had happened to me so many times, I was able to save the tears for when I got home. Nevertheless, I tried to soften the blow for her. “At least he’s putting a ring on your finger.”
Her brown eyes narrowed to give me a harsh look. “You think I believe any of that shit now? He always told me he was working late. Never dropped by to see me until after nine at night. Working 'til eight or eight-thirty he’d say. Only time I’d see him in the daytime was Saturdays or Sundays.”
Sucks to be us, I thought, but didn’t say. My cousin came out of the store and sidled up to me to whisper, “Honey, gotta have the ring back or I’ll lose my job.”
I handed her back the bag with the ring. Bradley had turned around and was standing in front of the fiancée-to-be, pleading his case. As Diana left the awkward huddle, she looked at them and said, “Not my circus; not my monkeys. However, woman-to-woman, talk is cheap while actions speak.”
The other woman smiled at Diana. Then she gave Bradley a scathing look and bitch-slapped him across the face. Turning on her heel, she stalked off to a car and left.
Bradley turned on me. “What the fuck? Did you have to do that? Shit. You’re a real fucking cunt. What am I supposed to do now? I got no ride.”
This guy could not be believed. “You got no right to use that language with me. I was the one who was cheated on. You dug your own grave, jackass. I don’t care how you get home. Call a fuckin’ cab. You can walk as far as I’m concerned. Whatever you do, quit yer bitchin’.”
I went back into the jewelry store, and Diana rang me up for the “Believe” charm. Cal and Vamp came back into the store, and Cal nudged my shoulder when I was done signing the credit card slip.
“Lorraine Ingram. You’re a sight for sore eyes, woman. You need us to take care of that douchebag out there?”
I sighed and looked into Cal’s friendly hazel eyes. He was a stunner, but too old for me. I had girlfriends who married men eight, even twelve, years older than them, but I could never seem to even maintain a conversation with a man that much older without feeling weird and having fleeting thoughts of Freud and Daddy issues. Immature of me, maybe, but true nevertheless. So, I thought the world of Cal, but he would always be in the friend-zone.
“You don’t need to bother. He’s a pissant anyway. I was just happy to save another woman the hassle of getting married to a cheater. And for what it’s worth, I go by ‘Frankie’ now, not ‘Lorraine’.”
Cal arched a dark blond eyebrow at me and said, “Well, you change your mind about the pissant, you let us know. Riot’s always happy to take your back if you need it.” Cal chucked me under the chin like I was a little sister to him and added, “Mean it. You take care.”
A burly black man in a suit bee-lined for my cousin behind the counter where Cal, Vamp, and I were standing. He glanced at me, and then gave my cousin an infuriated look.
“What was all of that, Di? Did I just lose a hefty commission because of your little cousin here?” he grumbled.
Diana gave him a resigned smile, but before she could say anything I said, “One of these two men here are after some jewelry. I have no idea what they’re looking for, so the commission might not be as big, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about the drama, too, but consider it an attempt to lower the divorce rate, okay? That poor woman didn’t need to tie herself to a cheater. No woman does.”
I noticed Cal gave the man a chin-lift and tilted his head to the necklace section on the opposite side of the store. The two of them sauntered off to examine necklaces or watches. I felt eyes on me and turned to see Vamp was still leaning into the glass counter, with his vibrant blue eyes boring into me. It was something I used to love about him, the way he could look at someone like he had a sixth sense and was peering right into their soul. Plenty of people would squirm with discomfort because of the intensity of it. He’d do that to me before sex and it made me feel like the most important woman in the world. Now, though, I could really do without the intimidation tactic.
He blinked and asked, “You go by ‘Frankie’ now?”
I nodded. My full name was Lorraine Frances Ingram. When I left the Riot MC compound that night six years ago, I needed an immediate change. Cary calling me ‘Rainey’ was ringing in my head, and I decided to go by my middle name, but what woman wants to be called ‘Frances’? ‘Franny’ wasn’t a viable option either, but ‘Frankie’ seemed fitting.
“Since when?”
I turned my head slightly to the side and then back to him. “What does it matter? This is the first time I’ve seen you in six years. Hope life is treating you well, but I’ve got to go.”
I hauled myself up into my Mazda CX-3 and pulled out of the Jared’s parking lot. Jared’s was located at the St. John’s Town Center in Jacksonville. The Town Center was an outdoor mall in the latest trendy area in town, and was sprawling with shops and eateries galore. The digital clock on my console read 11:45, so I decided a crappy morning deserved cheesecake. I turned right and motored over to the Cheesecake Factory. Seeing as it was lunchtime on a Saturday and there was only one location of the Cheesecake Factory in all of Jacksonville, there was a small crowd milling about outside the restaurant. I decided to forego the wait, and just eat at the bar.
I was alternately looking down at my phone and stabbing at my chicken-avocado salad when the barstool next to mine slid out quickly. Just as quickly, I noticed jeans-covered male legs perch atop it. I tilted my gaze upward, to see Vamp’s eyes shooting a non-verbal challenge my way.
With a shake of my head, I asked, “How’d you know where I was?”
His eyebrow arched, and his eyebrow ring shifted with it. “Watched you drive out of the parking lot. In your own world, as always. Slung a leg over my bike and followed. I’ve been outside pacing, and generally scarin’ the piss outta the other patrons, while I decided if I should let it go or not. Didn’t wanna scare any more little kids, so I decided to come in here and get the answer to my earlier question.”
I put my fork down on my salad plate with a clatter, crossed my arms over my chest, and leaned back in my seat to give him a disbelieving glare.
“What question would that be?”
His lips quirked slightly at my show of attitude. I forgot about that. He loved it when I would “throw ’tude his way.” I mentally noted to dial back my attitude, so as to get rid of him quicker.
“How long you been goin’ by ‘Frankie’, baby?”
I closed my eyes to keep my temper in check. Vamp had always been a flirt. He’d call any female ‘babe’ but it was only the pretty ones he’d call ‘baby’. During our nuclear break-up, he kept calling me ‘baby’ and I had shrieked at him to never call me that again. He had to know saying it now would set my temper off, and I suspected he did that on purpose.
Blowing out a sigh, I said, “Six years. Okay? The day you became Vamp, I became Frankie. Happy now?”
He looked away from me, and then back to me. “I’m sorry.”
I held my silence and gave him a look. He was looking at me like I should understand something, so I asked, “For what?”
“I really fucked it up that time. I knew it was your heart on the line, like that song from Mumford and Sons?”
“So you’re telling me it took an alternative-rock song to give you a conscience?”
Vamp didn’t exactly nod, but the look in his eyes was agreement, nevertheless.
I chuckled. “Unbelievably classy. Thanks for that. At least something made me chuckle today. I’ll have to send Mumford and Sons a thank you note.”
Vamp let my smart-aleck response slide, but he put a hand behind my neck, and I looked at him. I had deeply buried my feelings about his inherent male allure. The concept that bald is beautiful‒ Vamp was walking, talking proof of that. He had early-onset male pattern baldness, but he embraced it and routinely shaved his head. His eyes, angular nose, and high cheekbones were accent
uated in a delicious way by his absence of hair. It was just him. Completely Cary Sullivan.
“I’m sorry. Really. I mean it. And what Cal said, about that fuckhead who did you wrong? Seriously, you give the nod, he’ll learn a lesson he won’t ever forget. Ever. Got me?”
I got him all right. I had spent over a year of my life with Cary while he was prospecting with the Riot MC. Those brothers liked trouble in a big way. If someone wasn’t raising hell with them, they’d raise hell for themselves. I had bandaged and iced many of Cary’s wounds during that time. He’d always come home and say, “Baby, don’t worry. Besides, you should see the other guy.” Every time, I’d dismiss it as typical post-fight guy banter. Until I went to a club party at their clubhouse and it was found out a hang-about was also hanging-about with another MC in town. The brothers rained down blows on that guy mercilessly. As a prospect, Vamp only got a few punches in, but his hands still needed ice and one of his knuckles needed wrapping. He spouted off his tried-and-true line, but because I actually had ‒seen‒ the other guy, I knew he was telling me the truth. Remembering that party night, I decided that Bradley was certainly a royal dick, but he didn’t need that kind of beat-down because of it.
I gave a weak smile. “Thanks for that, but it really isn’t necessary. With any luck, he’ll learn his lesson for next time. And thanks for the apology. I…”
I trailed off because I was stupidly thinking of telling him that I thought about him a lot over the past six years. He didn’t need to know that, and I didn’t need the humiliation of admitting that to him.
So, I lamely finished, “I appreciate it.”
Now, Vamp gave me a weak smile. He pulled my head toward him and he kissed my forehead. I felt the contradictory nature of his soft supple lips and the hard metal of his lip ring. Just like six years ago, that lip ring was something else.
He stood up and whispered, “Take care, Ra -, I mean, Frankie.”
*** ***
Four weeks after the blow-up with Bradley, I went out to Ragtime Tavern, since I live at the beach. I was eating at the bar. It was late on a Monday night; month-end was closing in on me, and I work for New Star Credit Union as a home-loan officer. My paycheck depended on me being certain my pending loans were on target to close by the end of the month. I had been working until seven at headquarters, which was on the Westside, so by the time I got to the Jacksonville Beach restaurant, it was close to eight o’clock. A man wearing a light-blue plaid long-sleeve button-down shirt and navy blue trousers sat down next to me. When the bartender asked him what he’d have, he ordered a vodka tonic and “another glass of wine for the pretty lady here”.
I looked at the bartender and said, “The lady respectfully declines.” Then I turned to the well-dressed business man. He had a well-trimmed beard and mustache surrounding his thin lips. Straight brown hair hung slightly over his forehead as though the hair gel he used had stopped working. It was an attractive look, and a tiny part of me wanted to run my fingers through it in order to put it back in place. I looked into his brown eyes; his eyebrow was arched and before he could say anything to me, I said, “I appreciate it, but I’m not available.”
He said to the bartender, “Bring the glass of wine anyway.” Turning back to me, he said, “It’s just a glass of wine.”
So, over ‘just a glass of wine’, I met Mark Stillman. Apparently, he worked as an engineer for a local company known as RS&H. He talked me into dinner three nights later, and we had a decent time at River City Brewing Company on the St. John’s River downtown. He walked me to my car and gave me a fierce goodnight kiss. When we broke, he asked me to meet him for dinner on Sunday.
“I don’t think so.”
He traced my jaw with his finger. “Why not, Frankie?”
I pressed my lips together and then said, “Sunday’s my day to do nothing. Zero, zilch, nada.”
He tipped my chin up toward him. “C’mon. Make an exception to the rule. You’ll have all day to do nothing, and then you can have dinner with me.”
I really wanted to decline. He was pushy, but in a gentle way. I didn’t know why, but I relented and agreed to dinner with him Sunday. “Where should I meet you?”
“How about I pick you up at six-thirty?”
Sunday evening, Mark came by, but he did not actually pick me up. He brought over PF Chang’s to-go and a high-end pre-chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. Dinner was good, and we had a make-out session on my living room couch. Things were escalating when my home phone rang. Mark let me up to get the phone, and I was in such a state from making out that I didn’t even check the caller ID. I should have checked, because my mother was calling. My mother could talk and talk and talk. I knew a couple of ladies with moms who had similar dispositions, and they just put their phones down and went on about their business. My mom would not stand for such a thing. She constantly had questions to ask to make sure I was paying attention to her. After about ten minutes, I finally got her to hold on, and I apologized to Mark.
“My mom is relentless on the phone. I shouldn’t have answered and I’m sorry. Rain check?”
His thin lips pressed together to the point his face looked like nothing but facial hair, but he finally said, “Yeah. Rain check. Definitely.”
He pecked me on the cheek and I locked the door behind him.
The third date was completely unplanned. He called me at 7:45 the following Tuesday night. He asked if I was home, and I said I was. He knocked on my door about twenty minutes later. We had both already eaten dinner. He had a six-pack of light beer. He came on strong that night, but since I had offered a rain check, I let the pushiness slide. He was a decent kisser, and making out quickly turned into removing of clothes. We moved to my bedroom, and I came to find out that Mark was a semi-decent lover. I wasn’t entirely disappointed. I always had to keep my expectations in check. My time with Cary, now Vamp, genuinely had ruined sex for me with most men.
After sex, we had dozed off, but with two beers in my system I woke up around midnight needing the bathroom. When I came out of the bathroom, I found Mark gathering his clothes from the living room.
I put on a short satin robe and watched from the doorway to my bedroom. When he was putting his second leg into his dress pants, I said, “Leaving so soon?”
He looked over to me and said, “I’d love another go, Frankie, but I have a seven a.m. meeting. Shouldn’t have let myself doze off, but you wore me out. You free Thursday?”
“I might be. Can’t say for sure. Just have to wait and see.”
Come Friday morning, I was feeling like nothing more than a booty-call to Mark. No dinner date, no ‘Let’s watch some TV,’ none of that for me. He came by Thursday night around eight. No sooner did he have the door closed than he had his hands all over me and was kissing me with reckless abandon. We had sex twice, and by the time I woke up Friday, he was long gone. And he left my front door unlocked. I lived in a sleepy neighborhood in Neptune Beach, but still, I was accustomed to a man being more concerned about my welfare.
Saturday afternoon, I was working an open house at a 1920’s remodel in Riverside. My best friend, Reggie, is a realtor with Watson and every so often I work an open house with him. The thing about open houses is that an open house rarely centers on selling the house that was open. It was about garnering more leads for buyers who were looking for homes, and possibly potential sellers who also needed to buy another home. It was very quid pro quo for the two us. I was able to get more applicants into my pipeline to keep my boss happy, and Reggie was able to get his new customers pre-approval financing for whatever dream property he would finally show them.
The asking price of the property was over $400,000. Needless to say, there were not many people walking through the doors who were of the means to buy the property. However, the curiosity factor of such a huge house on prime real estate meant Reggie and I both had burgeoning lists of potential customers. We were almost an hour from shutting down the open house when a very pregnant blonde woman
walked into the kitchen where I had my loan information laid out at the ready. She was followed by a man wearing a forest-green polo shirt and khaki pants with brown wing-tip dress shoes. His hand was placed possessively on the small of her back. I looked up to the man’s face, to see he was Mark Stillman.
I was debating whether or not to dig a grave for him to trip right into. The look I got from Mark was a cross between surprise and dismay. I smiled at the woman, who was clearly his wife, even though Mark never wore a wedding band. Believe me, as many times as I had been cheated upon, I knew to look for wedding bands and indentations in ring fingers from a suddenly absent band. Obviously, Mark habitually did not wear his hardware on his ring finger.
I gave a cheery smile to the wife and asked, “So, your first child? I take it you’re looking for more room with a little one on the way?”
She gave me a weary smile and said, “Technically, it’s our first, though it’s the fifth time I’ve been pregnant. We’re so grateful I’ve been able to carry our child for eight months.”
Four lost pregnancies. I didn’t have the heart to lay it on this woman that her husband was a scum-sucking cheater. I asked if they had financing in place already for their next home. The wife indicated that her husband was an engineer, and they were well-known for having all their ducks in a row.
Mark and his wife left, and I mentally dubbed him Number Eleven.
I packed up my New Star folders and loan applications about twenty minutes after Reggie had closed the open house, while he was pulling all his signage from the neighborhood. When Reggie returned, I went to my vehicle to load up my stuff. I had shut the back door on my SUV, when I felt a presence to my right. I looked up to see Mark giving me a stern look.
I walked up the grassy strip between the road and the sidewalk. Looking into Stillman’s beady, brown eyes, I said, “Your secret is safe with me, asshole. But we’re done.”
Mark grabbed me by the arm and jerked me slightly forward. “I’d thank you for not saying shit to my wife, but we’re not done. Before I found you, I hadn’t had sex in close to six fucking months. She’s so fucked-up about this baby, I don’t know when I’ll get any regularly. You and I are good together, so you’re gonna keep seeing me, or I’m gonna report you to your boss for having an affair with a customer.”