by Michelle Amy
McCoy laughed somewhat awkwardly.
“Don’t let it get to your head,” she said quickly. “It’s just that we have common ground now. You kicked his ass. Just like I wanted. It’s like my own little fairy tale come true.”
McCoy surprised me by laughing. I thought the comment would have unsettled him. I knew he was conflicted about the damage he had inflicted on Jason. Carly’s approval of the total ass-kicking seemed to remind him that Jason had it coming.
He took my hand in his. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I never told him at the hospital that I loved him. I had wanted to. The urge was definitely there. But we were surrounded by sick people or injured people. I didn’t want to create that memory there. So I waited. I waited until I felt like the timing would be perfect.
I had to wake McCoy every two or three hours during the night after we were sent home from the hospital. I felt guilty every time I whispered his name and shook his shoulder. I wanted to ease him awake as gently as I could, because every time he woke he was uncomfortable. His heachache made him squint his eyes and he always wanted to push a hand against the back of his head. I imagined it was a reflex. So I started holding his hand when I woke him, and let him wake gently.
When I woke him in the morning, around seven, his eyes were blurry. He looked over at me and shielded his eyes against the early morning sun that was creeping through my drapes. I apologized, again, for having to wake him up.
“It’s okay,” he assured me, “plenty of time to sleep later.”
I rested my chin on his chest and stared up at him. “True.” I wasn’t convinced. I wanted him to be able to rest until he felt like his normal self again. It didn’t feel fair that he had to lay here like this. He stretched beneath me and gave way to a yawn. “Go back to sleep, I’ll wake you again around ten.”
He rubbed my shoulder. Soon the movements of his fingers on my skin slowed, and he fell again into a calm and steady sleep. I stayed with him the whole time. Laying on my side and just staring at him. I had to talk to him when he woke. I had questions. I didn’t want to ask them- I feared my asking would be the breaking point for him. It would be when he realized I wasn’t the right girl, and he’d take off.
But I had to ask.
When I woke him for the last time I was prepared. He knew something was bothering me right away, and as he propped himself up against my headboard his eyes flicked back and forth between mine. He was assessing the situation. “What’s wrong?” He finally asked, his hands resting lightly on top of the blankets in his lap.
I chewed the inside of my cheek. There was no point in hiding from it now. There would be no other time to have this conversation, and it was a conversation I knew I needed to have in order to move forward with him. “I wanted to talk to you about what Jason told me last night.”
“What did he tell you?”
That was a fair question. I realized McCoy didn’t even know any of the conversation I had with Jason in the kitchen. He had been lying unconscious on my floor. I took a deep breath to ease my anxiously beating heart. “He told me who the man was that you tried to kill with the bat. That it was your dad.”
McCoy didn’t react. He remained impossibly calm as he lay in my bed. He didn’t shy away from my steady stare, either. Finally he answered me. “What do you need to know?”
That was a fair question. Did I need to know anything? Was it important? I hardened my resolve. “I just want to know why you did it.”
He nodded. “He struck my mother.” His eyes settled on his hands in his lap. “It was something he had never done. Usually, when he was drunk, he’d come after me. I was a smart ass, I provoked it sometimes. One night, I pushed too hard, and he wailed on me like he never had before. Broke my nose. Cracked two ribs.
Then my mom tried to stop him. She came in with the bat. She begged him to leave me be. He went after her. Took the bat from her. He knocked her down and kicked her. She was screaming. And I lost it. I don’t even remember it happening. I just remember, at the end of it all, my mom screaming my name. That’s when I stopped.”
I had nothing to say. I simply watched him relive it all. He continued. “When it was done I was covered in his blood. The bat was covered. The carpet. He was a mess. My mom called an ambulance and the cops took me away that night. My sentence was a lot lighter than it could have been. The judge took pity on me. On my mom.” His expression softened and he mustered the courage to look up at me. “And from that day I didn’t think I would ever be able to feel something good again. I still can’t believe…” he started to chuckle.
I put my hands on his and squeezed them lightly. “Me neither.”
I thought to ask him about what Jason had said the other night. About why they called him “McCoy”, but decided otherwise; he had gone through a lot.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It took some time, but McCoy returned to his normal self within a few days. His quick wit and clever banter had been lacking while he suffered from headaches and dizziness for three days. But by the fourth day he was his normal self. I had taken the week off work. We were snuggled up on my couch together and feeding each other popcorn. There was no movie on. McCoy was my movie.
I lay tucked into his side. He had himself propped up on one elbow and he was playfully dropping pieces of popcorn down into my mouth. He laughed when one piece bounced off my nose and disappeared between the couch cushions. He kissed the tip of my nose, and I pulled him down to kiss his lips.
When he pulled away we stared at each other in quiet comfort for a while. I felt so secure, so loved, and so special lying beside him. When he started to play with the top of my shorts, I scowled at him. “No physical activity for a week. Doctors orders.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Wow, you are a goody good, aren’t you?” He rested his hand on my hip and his fingers still grazed the bare skin of my stomach. He was doing as I asked, but walking a fine line.
“I just want you to heal as fast as possible.” I corrected. “If you want to call it being a goody good, then so be it.”
“So sensitive,” he chuckled. “You don’t need to worry about me. I promise. I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
“I am.” He pressed his lips to mine again. They were warm and reassuring. He kissed my neck. My collarbone. “I feel good as new.”
I smiled. He grabbed another piece of popcorn and popped it into his mouth. Then he gave me one. When he kissed me again it was a salty and buttery kiss. I could have stayed there all night with him sharing those sweet kisses.
“McCoy?”
“Yeah?” He twisted himself so that he was facing me more directly. One hand rested on my stomach, the other still held his head up. He searched my eyes. “What is it?”
There was no better time than now to tell him. The words were on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to say it. A small panicky voice in my head taunted me with the thought that he might not love me back. I felt like he did. Surely he did. The way he was looking at me now.
“I love you.”
I waited for him to answer. The way he was looking at me was hard to read. He looked down at his hand on my stomach for the briefest moment. When he looked back up to me his eyes were warm and bright. He was smiling. “I love you too.”
I felt the insane impulse to start crying. As the tears built I was distracted by McCoy’s laughter. The laughter I adored so much. It was contagious. Soon I was smiling up at him, and my tears had been all but chased away. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Not funny. Just… it all feels pretty damn good.” He cracked that devilish smile at me. “I’m a lucky man.”
“You have no idea, McCoy.” I said playfully as I twisted myself upwards and swung one leg over him so I was straddling him. He lay beneath me with one hand resting on each of my thighs. His head rested on the pillow and his hair was splayed out in all directions. He was smiling at me.
“What are you doing up there?” He asked, his hands s
lipping up the inside of my shorts and creeping higher up my legs.
I slapped his hands away. “Clean your ears out. I said no physical activity for a week.”
He laughed and held his hands up beside his head. “Okay, okay, I hear you. You’re so bossy all of a sudden. I take it back. I don’t love you.”
“That’s not how this works,” I giggled, slipping my hands up under his shirt. “All I said is no physical activity for you. I’m free to do whatever I want.” He raised an eyebrow as I followed his treasure trail down his chest and to the top of his pants. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.” I popped the button of his jeans open.
“That’s good, ‘cause I’m not gonna do a damn thing to stop you.”
I straightened above him and flipped my hair over one shoulder. I leaned down slowly and kissed him. His hands wandered all over my body until they buried themselves in my hair. When I pulled away he was breathless. I undid his jeans the rest of the way and teased him with wandering fingers.
“Are you ready for me to show you just how lucky of a man you are?” I asked, giving him my best rendition of his own devious smile.
He couldn’t help himself from drawing me back down on top of him. His hands shimmied my lace tank top off and he dropped it on the floor. He slipped his hands in the front of my shorts. I didn’t stop him until he grazed the top of my panties. I held his wrist and raised an eyebrow at him. “I asked you a question.”
“I’m ready,” he answered, unable to hide the smile on his lips.
“I hope you’re not above begging.”
His smile turned into a laugh. The sound in my ears was better than my favourite song. Better than anything I had ever heard. I released his wrist, and the two of us gave in and cascaded into bliss together.
The Following is a preview of Michelle Amy’s new Bad Boy romance Red Rose. The following preview is intended for mature audiences. Reader discretion is advised.
Chapter One
My great grandmother’s china set was laying in pieces in the middle of the kitchen. There were too many pieces to count. The center of one plate remained intact, sitting in the middle of the shattered remnants, its beautiful pastel pink flower and gold trim screaming for me to pick it up and pull it out of the chaos.
I was too afraid to reach out for it. It lay a mere three feet from the toe of his boot, and the look in his eye dared me to make a move for it. Dared me to try to recover any of it. I took my eyes away from the flower and shimmied backwards, pressing my back against the counter and pulling my knees up to my chest.
Don’t cry, Alice. Keep it together.
His boots crunched more china as he took three steps towards me. I refused to look at the damage he was doing. He knew that set was all I had of my mother; he knew it was all she had left for me. He knew and he relished in it. I could see it in his face, in the way the corner of his mouth curled upwards in a villainous smile that made me wonder how I had ever found it so charming. I could see it in his dark eyes as he watched me do everything I could not to fall to pieces on the kitchen floor beneath his looming shadow.
He crouched down in front of me and rested a hand on my knee, rubbing his thumb over the red plaid flannel of my pyjamas. “I didn’t want to have to scare you like this,” he said, his voice husky and ragged from the exertion of tearing apart my kitchen like a rabies infected mad man.
I waited for the rest of the sentence. I waited for him to tell me why he had done it, what had driven him to such destruction. I knew what it was. Of course I knew. I knew the moment I had walked in through the front door that I was going to have to face him. I hadn’t expected him to go for the one thing in the house I cared about. I thought maybe he would destroy some of my more expensive possessions. Like my perfume collection or my first set of crystal that I had purchased myself. I had entertained the idea that maybe he would even smash the television. I wished he had destroyed all those things. That’s all they were. Things.
He continued his justification as he pushed broken china away from us so he could sit on the floor beside me. “But I had to do this. You didn’t leave me any other options.”
I fought the quiver in my chin and denied him the luxury of seeing me cry.
“I warned you. I warned you that you couldn’t go to work looking like a whore. You are mine. You don’t need to worry about making extra money from tips. I will buy you whatever you need. I will buy you a new china set tomorrow. Whatever one you like. Price isn’t a factor. But you will not leave this house dressed like that anymore. Understood?”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I wanted to scream at him. There were so many words floating around in my head, but they failed to make their way to my mouth, so I sat there on the floor in numb silence while he rested his head back on the cabinets as if he had won some sort of victory. Perhaps my silence was his victory.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk now. We can talk in the morning, alright?” He leaned over and kissed my forehead. Then he stood and surveyed the damage in the kitchen. “I’ll fix this all up in the morning too. Don’t worry about any of it. Come to bed.”
Words. Speak. Say something. “I’ll be there in a minute,” I managed.
He nodded and left me where I was. I listened to him run the sink in the bathroom and brush his teeth. I heard him spit and gurgle our mouth wash. Then he went to the bedroom. The light clicked off after five minutes or so and I sat on the kitchen floor until I was sure he was asleep. Then I went to the flower and lifted it in my trembling hands and clutched it my chest while I sobbed like a six year old with a skinned knee.
I thought of my mother’s apartment in Detroit, full of broken knick knacks and photographs of my father. I thought of her sitting alone and staring at those photographs, missing him, missing me, but being too bitter and too stubborn to ever pick up the phone and return any of my calls.
When she died I was the only family she had left. She had a will, and all it said was that the china was for me, and the rest of her belongings were to be donated to her church. The china was sent to me by one of her friends in her apartment building, and I never had the chance to go through the rest of it.
And now all I had was this broken shard that I was clinging to like it held my mother’s soul in it.
I hated him. I hated that smirk and the way his blonde hair hung over his cruel eyes. I hated his hands that were always on me. The hands that had ruined everything. I hated his voice and his lips and his god damn shoes that were always strewn around my living room.
I had to get out. I had to pack all my shit and get out.
Chapter Two
I cast a glance over at my tip jar. A lot of silver change was floating in it and I knew that I’d be lucky to count out over a hundred dollars by the end of the night. The bar was busy, for sure, but the clientele was cheap. The bar I had worked before this was an upscale place downtown Chicago called The Wallflower. Every night I brought home at least four hundred dollars in cash on top of my hourly rate. It wasn’t a bad living, that was for sure. The customers were friendly and usually business people, stopping for before dinner drinks and not batting an eye at the inflated prices on our menus.
My current place of employment was a far cry from The Wallflower. It was bigger in terms of sheer space, but that space was usually empty. When it was busy it was full of people wanting to get drunk for less than twenty dollars. The Red Rose was a good place for that. A twenty dollar bill could get you two shots and two cocktails if you ordered off the specials menu, and that includes taxes. But, you know what it doesn’t include? Tips. The money I lived on.
The inside of the bar was dimly lit with wrought iron wall sconces and chandeliers with mostly burnt out bulbs. Black curtains hung in front of all the walls which added a sort of gloom and doom feel to the place. At first I thought it was intentional, but I found out from some of the bouncers that the owner had put them up to hide holes in the drywall from some of the more out of hand bar fights. The dance
floor hosted a single disco ball that hung right smack in the middle and cast flickering beams of light down on the stone flooring.
I tried to hide my frown as I handed a curvy blonde with fake lips her martini. I think she smiled at me- it was hard to tell since her lips seemed somewhat frozen- before turning away and joining her friends near the stage to ogle the live band. I couldn’t help but gaze sadly at my tip jar again.
Gone were the days of making enough to cover my rent in two nights. Gone were the days of being able to buy a new pair of pumps every month- and a matching handbag to boot. I was no good at the whole penny pinching game. My last job had afforded me a somewhat luxurious lifestyle which I knew only came to me based on my good looks and charm. And by charm I mean my ability to manipulate a man into putting a decent amount of money into my tip jar. No shame.
Now it looked like I might have to sell some of those pumps and handbags. Responsibilities would be the death of me. I had already sacrificed a lot of my favourite things when I moved out of my old place. I hadn’t had enough time to gather it all. I prioritized as best I could. Everything else was left as a sacrifice. He could do what he wanted with it. Burn it. Sell it. Use it all to build a shrine for me, which he could sit in front of cursing my name from dawn until dusk. I didn’t care. Screw him.
As the night wore on I forced myself to focus and not pay so much attention to how much people were dropping in the mason jar beside my bar mat. I put more effort into my smile and played coy with some of the men who lingered around and made small talk with me. I complimented the women on their makeup and their outfits and impressed everyone with my occasional shaker toss and fancy pours. It didn’t take long before I was enjoying the evening. Friday nights at The Red Rose always picked up later in the evening, when everything else in town closed down and people were looking for a place to dance and maintain their buzz.