Freedom

by S. A. Wolfe

  “You goddamn prick,” she says in a low, steady voice.

  I am stunned and completely confused.

  I move towards her because my first impulse is to embrace her. She flinches and quickly grabs my arm, turns her body and twists my arm at the same time as she throws all her body weight down on it. Excruciating pain shoots through my trapped limb that she’s wrenching.

  “Jesus, Emma!”

  I don’t want to hurt her, but she’s about to dislocate my shoulder, so I turn and roll into her twisting motion and topple backwards, bringing her down with me to the floor.

  “Get off me!” She starts slapping at my arm that now has her pinned against me and kicking her legs.

  I flip over, my face just missing her flailing hands. I grab her wrists and pin them on the floor above her head and use my heavy boots to trap her ankles. She’s deceptively strong, and I’m impressed but apprehensive about how to handle this without accidentally injuring her.

  “Are you going to try to beat me up before telling me why you’re so pissed off?” I shout in her face.

  She pants heavily. “Get off me, now,” she states icily.

  “Do you promise to stop slapping me? Jesus, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I’m the one who’s had to reform and stop getting in brawls. You don’t have a switchblade on you or some other weapon from your buddy, Sean, do you?”

  Emma huffs a breath and stares at me. She isn’t falling for my stupid attempts at defusing this with humor.

  Our faces are a couple of inches apart, and if I thought this misunderstanding could be remedied with a kiss, I wouldn’t hesitate.

  Realizing my crushing weight has subdued her, I roll off her and stand up. She won’t accept my hand to help her stand, so I move back in case she still feels threatened by me or is inspired to use her Vulcan Grip again.

  She folds her arms across her chest and looks incredibly petite and vulnerable with her wild, disheveled hair. I can’t believe she could pull off that arm wrench move on me, however the crazy, mean glare she’s giving me makes me wonder what I am dealing with.

  “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” I ask. I am genuinely concerned that I could have snapped one of her bony, bird-like limbs.

  She looks away, perturbed.

  “Okay, since you’re the only one here that knows why you’re acting like this, you’re going to have to talk. So talk,” I demand.

  She tilts her chin up. “I can’t believe you dated your brother’s wife! You dated Jess before me! She’s one of the women you’ve slept with!”

  “What?” My mind is racing. Lauren has told her about my accident, my hospitalization, and the fact that I slept around. Wasn’t Jess a trivial part of that gossip?

  “They were talking about it in the kitchen. They said you were going out with Jess last summer and isn’t it nice how smitten you are with me now,” she spits out. “What kind of sick relationship have I walked into? Seriously, you were with your brother’s wife?”

  I am getting irritated with the way she keeps saying brother’s wife. “No, I wasn’t!” I yell. She steps back, and I berate myself for scaring her.

  “This ought to be good.”

  “Jess wasn’t his wife. She wasn’t his anything when I went out with her, which was like for five minutes. Really. She’d just moved to town, and… listen, I thought Lauren told you everything about me. I wasn’t intentionally keeping this from you. I assumed you knew. Everyone knows.”

  “Obviously someone forgot to tell me that I’m dating my boss’s wife’s ex-boyfriend.”

  “I’m not her ex-boyfriend. Believe me, Jess doesn’t think of me in that way. She didn’t love me, and I didn’t love her. That was one of my bad episodes. I made it worse because Carson did have feelings for Jess, but she didn’t know that.”

  “God, you’re not making it sound better.”

  “Shit, didn’t you get the Dylan memo when you moved here? Everyone knows this and it’s a non-issue. Carson started dating Jess after she dumped me. It’s a good thing she did, too. I was in bad shape.”

  “You don’t get to play the crazy card now. No way. You said Robert doesn’t get a free pass as an adult, so why should you?”

  “Yeah, okay, but I didn’t commit a crime. I didn’t even commit adultery. It was a fling; short, over and done with.”

  “And then you went into treatment?” she inquires.

  “Yep. I left town and went to Willow Haven where the mentally ill get lessons on how everyone else wants them to behave.”

  Emma isn’t seething, but she doesn’t look convinced that this is a minor hiccup.

  “I never intended to marry Jess. The ring was a mistake.”

  “What ring?” she shouts. “You asked her to marry you?”

  If I could have asked for a perfect time for my brother to come in and clean up my mess, this would be it.

  “Dylan!” she demands.

  “No! I didn’t ask her to marry me. Calm down, please.” If she doesn’t stop yelling, I am going to need a pill, or I’m going to have to bolt out of the house and run ten miles to work off the anxiety attack I’m having over her.

  “This isn’t the kind of thing people are calm about. This is a big deal, Dylan. At least to me.”

  “I dated Jess for a few weeks last summer. That’s it. We weren’t in love and we weren’t even good for each other. You said Robert was your mistake, and I would say Jess was mine, but it’s the defining act that made me get help, so I can’t regret it. I finally got help, Emma.”

  “Because of Jess.”

  “No, she was a symptom to a bigger problem. But she is my friend, and my brother loves her. That’s it.”

  “Do you ever think about her? It’s a fair question with the way you hound me about Robert.”

  “I don’t think about her as anyone other than my sister-in-law. There’s no attraction there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I can’t compete with a brainiac like her. I don’t paint beautiful pictures like her; I knit sloppy blankets. And I suck at math. I can see why you fell in love with her. She’s pretty and smart.”

  I sigh as a headache starts pulsating directly in the middle of my forehead.

  “I didn’t fall in love with her, for fuck’s sake. I stole her from my brother. I was a shit and used her like I used every other woman. When I was with Jess, I did things I shouldn’t have done and said things I shouldn’t have said, and I barely remember most of what happened. I was up and down; depressed on the inside, wild on the outside. My brain was like a blender. One minute I’d be content, the next I’d be moody and down.

  “And I can’t give you a name of a single woman I dated in college because I was never in a relationship. Lauren told you the truth. There were women, but there were no girlfriends. And the only time I think I was ever in love was in seventh grade when I had a crush on a girl named Anya. All I remember about her is her cute, Russian accent and long, blond hair because she sat in front of me in Social Studies.

  “But, I’m telling you the truth—I have no feelings for Jess other than a sisterly affection because she’s married to my brother. If she hadn’t stayed in town, she’d be another fading memory to me, too. Do you get it now?”

  Emma shakes her head dubiously.

  It does sound like a farfetched hillbilly story, an unbelievable tale small towns are famous for. I am infamous for.

  “This is why I have to take meds and see a shrink. This is why I run and exercise so much. It feels like one big balancing act, but I do have hope that it’s helping my brain to recalibrate. My doc says I’m doing well, but a huge part of what I’ve been doing—staying away from women—is something I can’t do forever. I knew that when I met you.”

  “Uh-huh,” she responds. “I’m sure you can’t stay away from women. Am I your first test subject? You know, your post-rehab fling?”

  “Shit—no,” I stammer.

  “No? So you failed
at your self-imposed exile from women? You’re back on the hunt?”

  “No. No, there haven’t been any other women, and no, you’re not a test subject. I’m doing a lousy job of explaining myself.” My voice rises in frustration, trying to figure out how to fix this. “I know I have a horrible reputation with women and my past behavior is why I was afraid to get involved with you.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten my name.”

  Her sarcasm makes me feel even sleazier.

  “Emma, I’m being serious. I’m finally a clear-headed, thinking person, or so people tell me. This is a big deal to me. You’re a big deal to me. It doesn’t matter what Jess is. You are smart and beautiful, and I’m with you.”

  “What happened to cute, little Anya?”

  “No clue. It was a seventh grade crush.”

  “Okay, so maybe I’m a crush and a good lay because, let’s face it, you needed some action, and I’ll admit that I was more than willing.”

  “Except this isn’t just sex.” I am a little pissed off at how cavalier she’s treating this.

  “Sure. Tell yourself that all you want. I’m going to bed.” She turns to go back into her bedroom.

  “Whoa!” I throw myself in front of her doorway and put my foot up on the doorframe to block her. “That’s it? You’re already writing me off?”

  “I think we both acted a little too stupid over the last few weeks. We each have some issues, and we moved fast without really thinking it through. Me and my whole Robert thing; you and your Jess thing.”

  “What?” I snap. “There is no Jess thing.”

  “Dylan, move your leg. I’m tired; I’m going to bed.”

  “So what are you telling me? We’re not going to talk about this? Are we going to bed angry?”

  “I’m going to bed alone. I don’t care what you do. Now move your goddamn leg and let me in my room.”

  “Ah, wait a minute. I thought we were grownups, and for the last couple of weeks, these two grownups have been sharing a bed and everything else. So you don’t get to go storming off like a little girl who didn’t get a pony for her birthday, princess.”

  Fuck. I called her princess. I should have known better.

  Before I can retract the comment, her knee meets my ribs in some type of crazy maneuver. This woman is like a fucking ninja. I bowl over with the breath knocked out of me and try to catch her leg at the same time. She’s too fast, though. She’s already spun herself away and brings her elbow down on my shoulder, dropping me to the floor. I sense her jumping over my back to get into her room, and I instinctively reach a hand back and blindly grab her ankle. As she falls to the floor with me, I block her knee before it can ram into my rock hard dick.

  Yeah, rough housing with her is giving me a major boner. This isn’t how couples fight; this is more like how kids wrestle to get toys away from each other, and her little angry grunts and flailing limbs are turning me on.

  I have more than one hundred pounds on her and am able to quickly heave my crawling body on top of her again, pinning all of her moving parts. I bury my head in her neck and go for that sensitive spot that usually makes her go boneless. I kiss her neck then run my tongue up to her ear and suck on her earlobe. This is all out war.

  I grind my erection into her, getting some friction going with my chest rubbing against her hard nipples. If I can get her back to the pleasure dome, I can get her to come to her senses about me. Yes, I am resorting to stupid-guy philosophy.

  She acquiesces to the ear lobe tactic for about thirty seconds and then the ninja takes over again.

  “Dylan, stop it!” she yells.

  I crash my mouth into hers, forcing my tongue in. She kisses me back and presses into me, and just when I think I have won her over, she pulls her head away.

  “No.” She’s very clear, and I am not going to be the schmuck that ignores that order.

  As I sit back on my knees, she rolls out from underneath me, and when she wipes her mouth, I want back at those pouty lips. I want to wrap my body around her and tell her that not only does her name run through my head all day long like an old-fashioned, stock exchange ticker tape, my insides also ache for her in a way that I have never felt with anyone.

  She is so beautiful, and she fights like a warrior. Who wouldn’t love that? I want to tell her that I am in love with her, that it is more than sex—it is an all-out soul-crushing love. I have doubted myself when it comes to relationships with women because I haven’t ever truly experienced falling in love. I didn’t know what I was looking for until Emma slammed into my heart. Thank God she doesn’t carry brass knuckles.

  “You’re kicking me out of the bedroom? Seconds ago, you were kissing me.” I hear myself—too much arrogance. I hope she will at least let me sleep in the same bed with her. We don’t have to have sex. I just want to be with her.

  “You have your own room.” She stands up and waits for me to leave.

  I am still on my knees like I am about to beg for her to take me back this instant. My pride won’t let me stoop to that level, however. No one should have to beg for love. It is plain wrong to put yourself out there like a hopeless fool.

  I stand up and tower over her, resisting the urge to push her back on the bed and start the wrestling match all over again. Instead, I back out of the room, watching her eyes ignite with a renewed indignation. I am desperate to come up with a new ploy. Plus, now I know not to turn my back on the fiery, little ninja.

  “I’ll go to my room, Emma, if that’s what you really want. But don’t get any ideas that you are moving out of this house. We have two things going on here. Number one, us. Number two, getting rid of your ex.”

  For a split second, I think I see her doe-like eyes soften. Nope. I am wrong. A cold, glassy reserve takes over her dark eyes when I back completely into the hallway.

  “And don’t you get any ideas that us,” she says with air quotes, “is anything more than convenience.”

  With that declaration, she slams the door in my face.

  Unfortunately, there is nothing convenient about this. I still have a major boner for her, so I walk uncomfortably back to my bedroom where I lie in bed and think of how my actions that have happened before I met Emma are screwing up the good thing I’ve got going here.

  ***

  It’s a warm, spring morning, but the deep freeze begins the minute Emma and I meet at the breakfast table. I am ready for our trip into the city, wearing one of my best suits—a designer number Carson made me invest in. I think I clean up pretty good, but she’s not taking the bait.

  When I put toast, orange juice and cereal in front of her, she helps herself to everything without looking at me. At least she looks like she got as much sleep as I did. Zippo.

  I sit down at the little table with her and my knees knock hers under the table. She still won’t look at me.

  “I’m going for a run with Carson when we get to the office, but you’ll have people around, so I won’t worry about Rocky showing up.”

  “His name is Robert,” she retorts.

  Good, she’s talking to me. I’ll take whatever crumbs she will throw my way. I can work with this and figure out how to bring her back from the dark clutches of this twisted ideology where innocent men—being me—get lumped in with pond scum.

  “And then we can go over the Mercer presentation with Carson.”

  No response. She’s eating her buttery toast as if it is the most pleasurable experience she has ever had in this house.

  I am competing with the fucking toast.

  “So, it’ll be you, me and Carson at the office. Then you and me, working with the Mercer group. Staying in the city for a couple of days. Hotel. You. Me.” I am running out of enticing words.

  She shoots me a look. “There are two rooms, Dylan. Daisy booked them weeks ago. We won’t have any boundary issues about beds. And I’m going to drive myself in to work today.”

  “Fine. Then I’l
l follow you on the bike,” I add confidently. “And you and I can go over our own notes on Mercer before we leave for New York. Carson offered us his car to take in to the city later.”

  “I don’t need to go over anything. I already know what I’m presenting to Mercer. Carson has given me carte blanche on this. I can handle my own presentation, you stick to yours.”

  “Christ, Emma. We’re supposed to be a team at work. Don’t carry over your irrational grudge about me and Jess to the office.”

  She looks at me calmly. “I’m not. I’m not about to jeopardize my job or hurt the company. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Right, I forgot your talents in the wholesale world of automotive goods, and that you’re a people person!”

  Never mimic a woman’s own words and throw them back in her face, and never use sarcasm to win an argument. I should just wear a sign that says Punch Me! My plan all morning has been to work up to a kiss to smooth things over. At the rate I’m going, I will be lucky to get a handshake from Miss Keller at our next business meeting.

  Emma doesn’t let my comment ruffle her, though. Even with lack of sleep, she is very composed and poised. Her hair is twisted in some kind of immaculate bun, her black suit and white blouse look perfect on her, and she is wearing tall, black heels. And her perfume makes me want to sink my face in her neck again.

  She puts her laptop in her satchel and rolls out her little suitcase from under the table.

  “I’m sorry I said that. It was rude,” I say, hoping she will give me a forgiving look. Nope.

  “It’s fine.” She rifles through her purse for her keys.

  “No, it isn’t fine, Emma. We had an argument, and you’re still pissed at me. Tell me how to fix it. What do I have to do to make this better?”

  “What’s done is done. Let’s make the best of this meeting. It’s important, so let’s focus on that, okay?”

  “That’s it? We’re business colleagues, and we’re going to erase everything that’s happened between us?”