by Kiki Leach
“Nathan,” she called out to him, her tone hard and unapologetic.
His eyes flickered as he glared at her, then he moved back around to the other side of the counter and took a seat on one of the stools. He unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt and raised the sleeve past his elbow while glancing at her from the corner of his eye.
“I’ll go get the first aid kit.” She moved around him, then headed for the door and stopped as she rested her hand against the center to push it out. “If you’ve got glass in any of those cuts, I won’t be able to get them out unless I use alcohol and tweezers.”
He made a fist again and flipped his hand to the side. “I can’t feel any in there.”
“Damn,” she said, peeking back at him, her lips pinched to the side. “What a pity.”
He narrowed his eyes, keeping them on her as she shoved the door out and barraged through the foyer like a mad woman, desperate as hell to be anywhere else but there with him.
He had made an idiot of himself and he knew it, but the worst part of it was that he didn’t really give much of a damn, at least not in the moment of it all happening. He was so damn angry just remembering back to when he had seen her with Maurice, her skin practically glowing – glistening and soaked in sweat which could be seen beneath the moonlight; her mouth opened wide as another name rolled off her tongue and slammed down hard against her ripe full lips, lips in which she sank her teeth into to keep her screams and moans from waking up her neighbors.
In that moment, seeing how happy they were, how much they didn’t have a care about anyone else in the world but each other, he wanted to kill them both. Or he wanted to kill Maurice first and make her watch. Or vice/versa. He wasn’t sure at the time, but he knew that he didn’t want to continue sharing the same airspace with either one of them much longer.
And now with the memory etched in his brain for the rest of his life, because as much as he wished for it, brain bleach didn’t exist, it didn’t seem as if that feeling was going away anytime soon.
He turned when he heard her coming back into the kitchen, her house shoes sliding across the floor, crackling against the glass and chinaware.
“Here.” V stood to the side, handing him the first aid kit. He placed it on the counter and she took a seat on the stool across from him, hooking her ankles around the legs so as not to tip over into his lap. She flipped open the lid and pulled out a 16oz bottle of vodka.
Nathan peered. “What the hell is that for?”
“For you to drink, dummy. When I douse your hand with the rubbing alcohol, it’s gonna burn like a bitch.” She twisted the cap off of the bottle and handed it to him. “The less you feel, the less noise you’ll make when it hits.”
Hesitantly, he took the bottle with his good hand and stared down at the clear liquid. And then he looked back into her eyes and lifted his brows in question. “Did you put anything in here?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Something that would make me fall asleep and never wake up again.”
She reached into the kit for some gauze and a tiny pair of scissors. “Would it be so bad if I did?” She looked up at him beneath her lashes while using the scissors to trim the frayed edges.
He got a strange feeling in his stomach that he couldn’t quite explain, one that traveled up to the center of his chest, and set the bottle down on the counter, shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t put anything in your drink, Nathan.” Once she finished with the edges, she started cutting the gauze into large strips. “I would just shoot your crazy ass with the gun I keep stashed upstairs and have Sheila come to identify the body out of spite.”
He stared at her, unsure of whether or not to take her as seriously as she sounded.
Silence filled the room while she prepared his hand for the alcohol. Looking over at the bottle of vodka again, Nathan grabbed the neck and took a sip, twisting his face in agony as he sat the bottle back down.
He slammed his good hand across his chest a few times and coughed. “How the hell strong is this shit?”
“100 proof. Finding a bottle that small with that much alcohol in it is rare, so don’t guzzle it back like some drunk off the street.”
“Where’d you manage to find it?”
“Chinatown.” She stopped to look up at him. “From a drunk off the street.”
He nodded.
Though she hadn’t said it again, and despite her halfhearted attempt to lighten the dismal mood, he could tell how enraged she still was just by looking at the hardened expression on her face.
He bent forward a little and she leaned back, suspicious as to what he was trying to do.
They stared at each other for a long time before he finally spoke again.
“I didn’t mean to lose my shit like that with you, V. But let’s be honest, you started tossing plates at my head first, alright?”
“And for a damn good reason,” she replied. “You should’ve gotten the hell out when I first told you to leave.”
She doused a cloth she found at the bottom of the kit with rubbing alcohol and smacked it down hard against the side of his hand. He flinched at the pain, seething and gritting his teeth as she rubbed the cloth up and down against the cuts, but didn’t say a word aloud about how much it actually hurt.
Once the bleeding finally stopped, she lifted his hand to check for any slivers of glass left behind.
“I can’t really tell in this light if there’s anything in there,” she told him.
“Don’t you have better lighting somewhere else in the house?”
Maddened by his challenging tone, she slammed his hand down to his lap as hard as she could and sat back.
He jumped up a little, then fell back down on the stool. “SHIT!” he called out. He made another fist as the pain radiated throughout his entire hand like one thousand knitting needles being shoved into his skin. His fingers began to throb and turn colors. “What the fuck was that?”
“That was you being an ignorant and arrogant dumbass. I’ve got better lighting in every other room in this house, but do you think I’m actually going to take you somewhere else in here alone?”
“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, V.”
“You mean physically,” she said. “But I’m not even sure about that anymore because hell, I don’t think I know you anymore.”
“You weren’t any better fighting with Sheila at the reunion like two wild cats on the floor.”
“She provoked me. Just like you did with Maurice. Unlike the two of you, we don’t go around looking for shit to destroy, like people and their relationships. Somehow, it just manages to find us all on its own.”
A smile inched up the corners of his mouth, but in no way was he thrilled with what she had to say. “Don’t play the victim here, V, alright? Nobody’s an innocent in this mess that we’ve all created for ourselves and each other.”
“I’m not playing a victim of anything,” she snapped. “And I wouldn’t dare say that we all created this mess. I’d say that you and Sheila created it like you do everything else and dragged us right along for the ride which leads straight down to hell.”
“That’s bullshit, Vanessa.” He sighed.
“No actually, it’s not bullshit, Nate. In fact, it’s far from it. My life was a hell of a lot easier, and so much simpler without the two of you back in it, mucking it up as usual. I don’t know how many times I have to say this before it finally sinks into your thick as hell skull, but you two haven’t even been back a year yet and look at all of the destruction you continue to leave behind in your wreckage.” She took his hand and wiped it down again with the cloth. Then grabbed a large, white bandage to tape down over the cuts. “You and Sheila are like two tornadoes who go out of their way colliding into everyone else except for each other.”
He looked into her dark brown eyes, those same dark brown eyes that he would do anything for, even now, even in his rage, and swallowed hard.
“Colliding in
to each other is what got us here, V.”
As he reached up for her face, his fingers twitching as they neared her cheek, she jerked herself away and shoved him back.
“Yeah,” she said, “it got us miserable like always. Maurice was right, I can’t think of a single time you and I were together when you actually made me happy. Even when we were together for the first time, I was in pain. God only knows what the hell I was hanging onto for so many years after that. Maybe part of me thought I’d never actually find anyone else to put up with my shit like you could. But who the hell knew you’d give it right back to me ten-fold for years to come? Even apart, you manage to turn my world upside down, inside out and I always seem to come out the worse for it, like now. You are a human wrecking ball, Nathaniel Taylor, and I’m sick and fucking tired as hell of you always swinging that thing into every wall I’ve built up with my bare hands to keep you out.”
What she said struck him straight in the chest like a dagger. The edge pierced his heart and once again, he was left bleeding all over her kitchen floor.
When she heard the front door creaking open from the foyer, she felt it was a sign that things needed to end right then between them. She quickly finished wrapping Nathan’s hand and grabbed the items from the first aid kit, tossing what was damaged and soiled into the trash and stuffing the rest inside.
“I’m sorry, Vanessa,”
“Save it.”
“No,” he said. “If I knew that everything I had ever done back then would end up destroying you over the years like it did, I never would’ve done it.”
“Yeah, you would’ve,” she told him. “You just might not have done it so often.” She slammed the lid down on the first aid kit and grabbed it from the counter. “Forget what I said before and just keep the rest of the vodka. And since I’m no Florence nightingale, you should probably go and see a real doctor sometime soon to make sure your hand doesn’t get infected and your fingers don’t fall off.”
He didn’t retort this time and instead turned his focus on her kitchen, at the mess they had both made, and pushed the stool back to stand up. He stared down at her and she immediately became alarmed by the sudden ‘less than hateful’ look in his eye.
“Where’s your broom?” he asked her.
She looked around at the mess for herself and shrugged. “I can clean this up, it’s fine.”
“I did this,” he said in a low, remorseful voice. “The least I can do is stick around to clean it up. It’s not like I don’t owe you that much for everything I did to you tonight, and back then.”
“And in the Hamptons and the minute you came back.”
He raised his bandaged hand in the air and bobbed his head. “Alright.”
“Alright.” She nodded and turned her eyes behind him. “The broom’s in the corner behind the cabinet. The dustpan should already be with it.”
“Okay--”
“And once you’re finished with that Nathan, I want you gone.”
“You’ve got my word,” he said.
“That doesn’t really mean much to me anymore, so I’ll take your actions on it instead.”
Part Fourteen
As Vanessa made her way into the foyer, she stopped for a second to listen for anymore movement throughout the house. “Nik?” she called. She went over to the den and craned her neck around the frame, but didn’t see anyone there. “Nik?” she called again.
When she continued not to hear an answer, she became concerned and rushed upstairs, heading straight for Nikki’s room.
“Nik -- ?”
“She’s not here,” a voice interjected as she zoomed past the first door near the end of the hallway.
It was low and deep, a man’s voice; one she instantly recognized as it sent a thrill of desire throughout her entire system.
She took a few steps back and pushed in the door leading to Maurice’s bedroom. As it swung back, she peeked her head inside and saw him sitting on the edge of his bed, or rather his bare mattress as he had just removed the blankets and sheets that were left behind to cover it.
He looked up at her, his intoxicatingly deep root beer colored eyes scanning every part of her body, wondering in that split second if it had been touched by anyone else since he had been gone.
Vanessa clutched the kit tighter to her chest to hide how hard she was breathing while staring at him. It had been weeks since she actually laid eyes on him again, but he was beautiful. In fact, he had somehow managed to become even better looking in the time they spent being apart. Which led her to wonder if it was because he was happy, happy in being away from her, or happy in actually being with someone else who wasn’t her and never would be. The thought made her sick to the point where she had to finally turn her head and swallow back the bile that was starting to build up from inside her chest and gather itself in the back of her throat.
She crossed one leg over the other to keep her balance steady against the frame of the door and lowered her head, avoiding eye contact with him at all cost.
“I seem to remember you leaving your key here the night you decided not to come back,” she said.
“I used Nikki’s key to get in. Told her that I left a few things behind that I needed.”
And that’s when she finally turned back to him. “A few things you needed at almost midnight on a Wednesday? And Nikki just ‘gave you’ her key to get back in here.”
“Things changed between us after the Hamptons, V. Whatever hatred we had toward each other sort of just… disappeared.”
“Is that so?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well I guess if that’s the case, why don’t I just call her up and ask her about the key she lent you.”
Just as she turned from him, stretching her leg and pointing her heel out, Maurice opened his mouth and exhaled.
“I made a duplicate before I left.” He held the key between his fingers and lifted it high to show it to her while lowering his head, only semi shameful of building upon yet another lie.
“What the hell would you do that for?” she asked, puzzled.
He thought a moment before answering. “Just in case you lost yours or if Nikki lost hers--”
“Then we’d still have your original key, Mo. Not to mention, duplicates of our own. Why are you really here this late at night? What do you want?”
“You, V,” he said. “Just like I always have. But you continue to make that difficult as hell.”
Her heart skipped a beat when she heard him say that he still wanted her. She knew it without him even admitting it to her, but actually hearing the words pour from his lips like water down a cool stream pricked her skin and filled her stomach with every butterfly known to mankind.
In spite of it all, she couldn’t let her anger deter how she felt.
“Mo!” she hollered. “If absolutely nothing else, the very LEAST you could have done was tell me the truth long before the shit had so epically hit the fan, if only so that I could somehow prevent everything that happened to us after it all came out.”
He sighed while quickly dragging his hand down his face. “V--”
“And for the record, I never asked you to move out of here! This was supposed to be our home together, remember? Isn’t that what you kept telling me?! You leaving for good was something you decided all on your own.”
He jumped up from the bed and threw his arms up in exasperation. “I never planned to leave for good, Vanessa, but you told me to get the hell out -- !”
“I told you to get the hell out because I was pissed off at what you had done, not because I actually wanted you gone forever! Do you think I like being here by myself? Waking up and not seeing you here too? Not feeling you next to me as I roll over in the middle of the night? I’m lonely as hell and I hate even admitting just how much, but I am. Nikki can’t even fill the void of friendship anymore because she hardly ever comes around these days unless she needs to talk to me about something dire, or about what it’s like having Oscar on one side
with William dangling so high on the other. I actually found myself having a full on conversation out loud yesterday during breakfast and not a single person was sitting across from me at the table.”
His lowered his hands and dropped back down to the edge of the bed, grunting. “So you miss my company.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I miss your company because you’re my best friend. And I miss your hands caressing every part of me because you were my man.”
His entire body twitched as a reassuring sensation overcame him, and he gulped.
Suddenly he was staring at her again, at her stomach and thighs, hands and legs, remembering how they felt wrapped around his waist the first time they were together in her room, just a few feet away. The feeling of her breasts pressing into his chest for the first time, flesh to flesh, is something he’s vowed to never forget.
And then he focused in on her mouth, remembering how it looked, and how ripe it felt against his skin when they showered together after coming back home from the Hamptons. He wanted to feel that way with her again, to have that inner peace she provided for him. But first, he needed to know one thing.
“Have you been with anybody since I’ve been gone?”
“You’ve only been gone for four weeks. Who the hell would I have found to spend time with since then?”
“I know plenty of men who would’ve taken my place beside you, Vanessa, both at parties and in bed, long before they even knew I was there first.”
“I could say the same about the women who still call here casually asking if the rumors about us being together are actually true, while giving a dry ‘congratulations’ when I all but ignore the question altogether and tell them that you just aren’t home. But it’s left me to wonder for myself if--”
“What?”
“If there’ve been others for you since moving out.”
He gnashed his teeth and cut his eyes away from her, shaking his head. “No.”
“What about Melanie? You may think of her as just ‘one of the flock’ but she seems all too determined to shove her way past the rest of those thirsty birds that seem to gather around and bow down to your feet at every turn.”