by Marie James
“I was tired. Decided to take a nap.” I also read up on those symptoms today.
“Must be nice,” he snips as he pulls open the dresser drawer.
I climb off the bed, watching his jerky, trembling hands shift under the clothes, digging, searching for something he’s never going to find.
His eyes dart to mine and he stills. Empty eyes look over me, sweeping from top to bottom, trying to determine whether keeping his secret is worth fighting the urge he has to use, I assume.
“What are you looking for?” I ask with a sneer I can’t even begin to hide.
His lip twitches, and for the first time since meeting him, I’m a little fearful of my husband. The maniacal look in his eyes is nothing I’ve seen before, not even when he was cutting me off at the knees and crushing my heart under his Clark County issued orange flip flops.
“This?” I ask, slipping my arms past him to pull the empty package from under the picture frame.
His eyes dart from the picture to the deflated Ziploc bag.
He reaches out for it slowly, in the same way I pulled it from under the pile of clothes.
“What the fuck have you done?” Rage fills his voice, his eyes never leaving the bag as he takes two stumbling steps back. His knees hit the edge of the bed and his ass follows to the mattress.
I don’t recognize the man in front of me. Dark, hollow eyes have replaced the once vibrant blue, and the menacing way he’s looking at me forces the hairs on my arms to stand on end.
Chapter 28
Blaze
My heart thunders and body shakes as I do my best to resist the urge to reach up and shake my wife until she tells me where she stashed my pills.
I was so high this morning, I left them in the apartment—a mistake I’ve never made before. I was twitchy all day knowing they were here, but knew I couldn’t come back to keep up the ruse of looking for work for ten hours a day.
I wouldn’t have had a choice but to return if I didn’t have twenty dollars I scored off Brittney earlier this week. Thank God for small favors, but the money is gone, and from the looks of the bag only containing residue, it seems the last of my stash is too.
“What the fuck have I done?” she spits out, repeating the only words I was able to manage at the sight of the empty bag. “Please tell me that shit was left over from before.”
Her eyes plead with me, but the acrimony coursing through me won’t let me lie to her again.
“Where are the fucking pills, Fallyn?” I glance again at the open dresser drawer and the disheveled clothes as if they’ll reappear.
“Clark County water treatment plant, I imagine. I flushed them down the damn toilet.” I crush the useless plastic and hold it against my forehead, hands trembling at the loss.
The two pills I scored earlier weren’t enough to take the edge off. I’ve been pacing the street two blocks over waiting until it was acceptable to come home. The only thing I could focus on was the pills I knew were waiting for me inside. Desperation kicks in. Throwing the baggie to the carpet, I jump up from the bed, ignoring how she takes a step back, and pull the handle on the dresser drawer until the entire thing falls free and drops to the floor. I shift the clothes, not finding a single tablet I’m praying fell out. Clothes go flying as the sound of her crying fills my ears.
I can’t take it any longer. This has to be rock bottom, when the sobbing from your wife isn’t even enough to make you take a pause from the fucked up position you’ve put yourself in.
I turn my head to her, reveling in the puffy redness under her eyes and tears racing down her cheeks. She may be hurting, but she can’t imagine what I’m going through—the pain I’m going to feel. I need more pills. The privately owned bodega a few miles away on the east side flashes in my mind. Fuck, how the mighty have fallen.
“You have to choose,” she manages to say through her sorrow.
My eyes narrow as I stand to my full height, looming over her. My size is the only power I have right now.
“A choice?”
She nods her head.
“There’s no choice to make here, Fallyn.” I reach up and cup her cheek, needing to feel her warm skin one last time before I kill us both.
“So, you’ll g-get help?” she stammers, a hint of hope in her voice. I hate it. “You choose us?”
Shaking my head, I watch her face fall. She takes a step back, and the agony inside me takes pride in the pain she’s feeling.
“There’s no choice, Fallyn,” I repeat. “I lived without you for months in jail. I know I can handle that. I know I can’t handle living without the pills.” I refuse to acknowledge the two weeks I was clean before Sanchez threw me right back down the fucking rabbit hole.
Her hand covers her mouth, muffling her cries. The urge to reach up and pull it away is there. I want to hear her sadness, need to wrap it around me, give myself something to hold onto—something to keep me warm on the cold nights I’m going to face without her.
“Please don’t,” she begs. “We can get you help.”
“You can let it go or get out of my way so I can pack my shit.” My eyes search hers, begging her to just let me be who I am and not throw me away.
Her chin quivers, but I know her answer before the words leave her mouth. “You surely don’t expect me to just turn a blind eye to your drug addiction.”
I shake my head. “Not a blind eye,” I answer. “You can give me a hundred dollars since you threw out my stash.”
Rock fucking bottom.
“You promised me things would be different. You made me believe in you—in us.” She clutches my arm. “We can get through this, Blaze.”
I clear my throat, the emotion over what I’m putting her through trying to scratch its way into my subconscious. I can’t allow it, not until I’m high and numb to the pain.
“You did this!” I yell, my hands flying close to her face. She doesn’t even reach up to protect herself. Her hands stay low, as if she doesn’t believe I’d ever strike her. She’s too confident. As shameful as it is to admit to myself, I did almost hit her—and it wouldn’t have been an accident. “If you didn’t go snooping through my shit, things would be just fine right now!”
Stepping past her, I grab a duffle bag out of the closet, not caring that it’s the pink athletic bag she used to carry to the campus gym when we’d workout together, and stuff clothes inside without paying an ounce of attention to what I’m grabbing, just making sure it’s mine. An illogical sense of betrayal fills my mind as my jittery fingers struggle with the zipper.
“If you leave, I won’t take you back.”
I don’t bother looking in her direction as her trivial threat falls unheeded at my feet. “Smartest fucking decision you’ve ever made.”
She’s too puritanical to understand what her actions mean to me. She couldn’t begin to understand the inhumane pain I’m already in from leaving those fucking pills behind.
“You don’t even want to try?” Disappointment is clear as day in her voice.
My fingers manage to finally zip the bag closed and I face her once again. She’s settled on the bed, our bed, clinging to a square throw pillow like it’s going to protect her.
“I don’t need help, Fallyn. You just need to get on board and realize the pain in my shoulder is more than I can handle every damn day. If I don’t have the pain meds, I can’t work.”
“You don’t have a job,” she counters. “Have you even been looking the last three weeks?”
Touché.
“You shouldn’t have an issue with me being gone,” I say, ignoring her question. “You’re better off without me. I’ve said it since day one, but you just keep lying to yourself, expecting me to be a better man. You met my family. You, of all people, should know how I was destined to end up.”
She shakes her head, rejecting my words. “The man I fell in love with had the world at his feet. I didn’t let myself believe in falsities. I made plans and worked toward dreams with a man who was going to
rule the world. You changed the future.”
I grip the strap of the duffle bag tighter. The truth in her words drains me, but there’s no point in hashing out what could’ve been. It’ll get us absolutely nowhere.
“Take care of yourself, baby.”
I turn and walk out, refusing to take one last undeserved look as her screams reverberate off the walls of the small apartment.
“You promised, you promised!” she chants with desperation as the door closes behind me. “We said FOREVER!”
Her words echo in my head all the way to the pawn shop where I relinquish the only remaining proof that I had the chance to love a woman as amazing as Fallyn McIntyre. I blame the tears wetting my face as well as the shakiness in my hands on withdrawal as I accept the cash from the store attendant.
***
“Explain that shit to me one more time,” I insist, rubbing my hands together to keep them from scratching at my arms. “But this time, dumb it the fuck down. I didn’t understand a damn thing you just spit out.”
Charles Gillum takes a deep breath and lets it out on a sigh without trying to hide his frustration. “Like I’ve said three times already, Mr. Porter. Suing the jail is a process. I don’t just write them a letter and ask them to send you a check.”
“So, how long then? I’m broke,” I growl with agitation, leaving out how I’ve been bouncing from house to house sleeping on couches on the days I make it out of the alley I scored pills in. I sure as fuck don’t mention my last score was on credit and I run a serious fucking chance of broken legs, or worse, if I don’t come up with some money by tomorrow.
“It could take years,” the attorney says, running his hands through his hair. “Let’s hope we can settle before the statute of limitation runs out.”
“That doesn’t fucking help me, man!” He doesn’t even flinch when my hands land with a loud thud on his desk.
“You can get another attorney.” My eyes light up at the idea. “Of course, that means starting over just to work through this same process.”
His eyebrows rise in challenge, and even as fucking pissed as I am right now, I know better than to shit where I eat.
“What’s the next step?” I ask with as much calmness as I can manage.
“I’ve sent them my proposed settlement amount. They’ll try to lowball you and we counter. It’s a process.”
“No.” I halt him with a raised hand. “Whatever they offer, I want it.”
“That’s the addiction talking,” he says without emotion or sympathy.
I want to argue, to insist it’s the loss of my wife and my homeless status that has me looking like a fucking vagrant, but I know he’s right.
“We can get them to pay out big, but it takes negotiations.”
“No,” I insist again, standing from the chair. “Whatever they offer, you take.”
“How can I reach you, Mr. Porter?”
“I’ll stop back by next week.”
“There’s a very slim chance there will be any movement in a week.”
“I’ll see you next week,” I repeat, refusing to accept what he’s saying.
Two weeks since walking away from Fallyn and I’d rather be back in jail for a dirty drug test than trying to survive the prison I’ve put myself in.
Chapter 29
Fallyn
I close my eyes, but it doesn’t prevent the tears from escaping down my cheeks at the quick, constant thumping coming from the handheld Doppler against my stomach.
“That’s the heartbeat?” I ask, my voice filled with wonder.
“Sure is,” the nurse answers, pulling the wand from my lower stomach and wiping the gel away. “According to your last period date, you’re fourteen weeks and two days. According to the calculator, you’re due September twenty-fourth, but that’s not written in stone.”
I nod. Everything she has told me so far is information I’ve already researched online, but having it verified by a professional calms my nerves some.
“It’s a little early to tell the sex, but if you ask the doctor, I bet he can co-schedule a sonogram with your next doctor visit.” She types a few more things into the laptop before making her way to the door. “He’ll be in in just a moment.”
Forty-five minutes later, I walk out of the doctor’s office with information overload. Thankfully, warm brown eyes look up at me from the hard plastic chair in the waiting room. Stone immediately gets to his feet, reaches out for my hand, and sweeps his warm lips across my temple.
“You’re pale,” he observes as we walk out of the building. “Did you get bad news?”
I shake my head. “There is just so much to learn. There’s no way I can be a mother.” I look up, finding him grinning down at me.
His chuckle is lighthearted. It’s not the first time I’ve expressed my concerns over the new role I’m taking on later this year—a role I didn’t expect to undertake so young or alone.
“It’s happening whether you want it to or not.” Like butterfly wings, his hand caresses my stomach and disappears just as quick. “But you have time.”
I grin at him. “It’s going so fast and so slow at the same time. Almost every second of everyday this baby is on my brain. I’m hardly showing yet and I’m obsessed with him.”
“One,” he says with a grin, “you have me, so you don’t need to worry. And two, how do you know it’s a boy? It’s too early to find out the sex without a blood test. And those are an ungodly amount of money and have possible complications.”
I raise my eyebrow at his extensive baby knowledge. “Someone’s been doing a little more than recreational reading.”
“It’s you and me in this, together, Cariño.” I lean against his shoulder as we walk to his car.
Julian Stone has been my rock since Blaze walked out and never looked back. Two months he’s been gone. Sixty-three days I’ve spent wondering if he’s safe—wondering what, or who, he’s doing. The thoughts of the drug abuse are the worst. Considering he could be with another woman hurts, but if he’s clean and happy, that’s the most I can ask for. It’s the damage he’s doing to his body and putting himself through that makes it almost impossible to breathe some days.
“Is that a no?” Stone asks as he opens the door to his black BMW.
“I’m sorry. My mind was elsewhere. What did you say?”
“Lunch, Cariño. Are you hungry?”
I grin up at him. He knows my answer already. He shakes his head with a soft chuckle as he rounds the front of the car and climbs inside. “I should know better than to even ask. You’re always hungry.”
“I have class in an hour and a half, so it needs to be something quick.”
Clasping my hand in his, he settles it on his thigh while we drive back toward campus. I peer over at him, hating myself for not being able to give him what he wants. I’m not a fool. I can easily see how great of a catch he is. Any woman would be lucky to tie him down—handsome, well off, and a gentleman through and through. The only problem is he set his sights on me knowing he doesn’t stand a chance. He doesn’t see other women, not even in an I-appreciate-the-way-you-look sort of way. His focus is always on me.
If I were to ever open myself up to him, he’d treat me like a queen. I’d never want for another thing in my life. Hell, he’s offered to help me raise this baby without being in a relationship. I’ve declined his help, offers, and good natured enthusiasm hundreds of times, yet he continues to show up. I’m an idiot, but I can’t help that I’m in love with an addict who couldn’t care less that he unknowingly chose drugs over his pregnant wife.
“What are you doing for spring break?” he asks as he opens my door and leads me toward the front door of the on-campus café with a hand on my back.
“The usual. I was able to pick up a couple extra shifts since most of the girls are going home for break.”
His lips slip into a frown before he catches it and smiles softly. “You work too much, Cariño.”
“I’m saving,” I remind him i
n a whisper. “I haven’t heard back from the marketing agencies I sent my resume to, and I’ll be as big as a house when I graduate, so no one is going to want to hire me. I’m doing what I can now.”
“I’ve told you more than once they can’t not hire you because you’re pregnant. It’s against the law.”
The feel of his hand rubbing small, reassuring circles on my back becomes irritating. I shift my body so his hand falls away. What does he know about struggling to pay bills? His family is wealthy, and even as much as he’s offered to help me, insisting I just relax and focus on the baby and school, I just can’t.
I know he’s not the type, but I hate owing anyone anything. Plus, my pride won’t allow me to accept his help. I’m not struggling now because my scholarship and part-time job pay the bills, but when graduation passes, things will get tighter, and that’s what I’m worried about. Brittney has a new boyfriend, and it seems to be getting pretty serious. She’s at our apartment less and less, and I know I’m going to show up one day and all her things are going to be gone. I won’t be able to afford the modest apartment on my own, and definitely not after the baby is born. I expressed my concern over this once to Stone. His solution? “Move in with me, Cariño. I have plenty of room.”
And he does. Living in a three-bedroom home six miles from campus, he has more space than a bachelor college student would ever need. When he moved his things from his studio apartment to the new house a month ago, I questioned whether I had anything to do with it. He joked about my room being ready anytime, and I laughed then, but seeing him getting upset over working a few extra shifts makes me wonder.
“I want to put away as much money as possible, just in case,” I say as we step up to the counter.
After ordering—him insisting on paying, of course—we wait at the end of the counter and carry our food out to the patio to the right of the building. Spring in Vegas is like most people’s summer—dry and almost to the point of unbearable. I expressed my concern at the doctor’s office over being hotter than usual, afraid I was getting sick, but the doctor explained increased blood flow contributed to my discomfort.