by Brent, Cora
Leah was watching me as I said goodbye to McGraw and company. I raised my half empty beer glass to her and she blushed, fussing with her pretty hair before moving down the bar to settle a few tabs while Terry announced last call. It was just him and Leah working now. I’d seen Misty sail out the door about half an hour earlier.
While the last call drinks were still being served to the handful of remaining customers I strolled behind the bar like I had every right in the world to be there. Terry noticed me first and glowered, those meat hooks that dangled from his body curling into fists. His bench press evidence didn’t amaze me and if he assumed I could be bounced out the door like one of these sad-eyed drunks then I’d be glad to educate him otherwise.
Leah was messing with the handle on one of the taps and she flinched when my hand landed on her back. However when she pushed away her curtain of hair and noticed the hand belonged to me she couldn’t hide her pleasure.
“Hi,” she said, a telltale blush rising in her cheeks as she straightened up. “What are you doing back here?”
I leaned in. “Something I’ve wanted to do since I walked through the door.”
In spite of already fucking in half the nasty positions known to man I hadn’t kissed her yet. I kissed her now, long and slow, sliding one hand under her shirt to spread across her lower back and snaking the other up to thread through her hair. It was goddamn cinematic the way I cradled her in my arms and toured her mouth with my tongue. She responded instantly, melting against me, hungry for more and letting me know she fucking loved this sweet stuff, that she might love it more than the way I made her come so hard she shrieked. I could almost believe she craved the tenderness of my mouth on hers more than she craved a thrust of my dick.
Wasn’t that what I wanted? To get Leah all mentally and physically scrambled and so freaking into me she could be crushed anytime I chose?
Yet when I kissed her my pulse sped up and my mouth refused to break away. Kissing Leah was like indulging in the most delicious addiction. Once I started I couldn’t stop.
She was the one who ended the kiss, jerking her head away to find Terry was observing this exhibition with the bug-eyed glare of a guy who’d just had his bag of candy snatched out of his hand.
“What the hell’s going on, Leah?” he whined, as if it weren’t completely obvious to anyone with eyes. To hammer the point home I cupped my hand around Leah’s ass and squeezed.
The attention of the bar’s remaining patrons was divided between the live love triangle and the last karaoke singer gargling the wrong words to Let’s Get It On.
“Terry.” Leah shook my hand off and moved to comfort her jilted ex lover. “Can we please talk?”
But Terry didn’t want to talk because Terry was fuming. If his bright red square-jawed face got any hotter then steam would come whistling out of his ears. I tensed in case he wanted to come barreling into my chest or worse, if he tried to smack down Leah. The latter possibility alarmed me much more so I stepped between them.
Terry didn’t come charging at anyone though. He threw Leah a hangdog glance of betrayal, then lowered his head and trudged right out of the bar. A few seconds later I heard the roar of a muscle car engine peel out and then fade into the distance.
Leah was upset. She left my side and wilted at the counter with her head in her hands. Some bearded fat dude in a pair of dirty overalls approached and dropped some cash, telling her in a kindly voice to keep the change. He threw me a disapproving look.
I joined Leah at the bar, sinking down to my elbows so I’d be at her level.
She looked over and nudged me. “I kind of wish you hadn’t done that.”
I stood and reached down to run a fingertip across her lower lip, satisfied by the way she shuddered even as she tried to be pissed.
“But you looked like you needed it.”
Her eyes shot over to the door where Terry had just stormed out. “It’s just…I haven’t had a chance to tell him about us yet.”
Us?
She realized her leap in logic and stammered to correct it. “I mean, I don’t mean that we’re together. I just mean that Terry’s always been a friend to me and I owe him a little bit of honesty.”
“Honesty is good,” I agreed. “We should give it a try.”
Leah didn’t catch my meaning. She became distracted because the bar’s remaining customers needed to settle their tabs. I stayed back and watched her making change and smiling as she waved the final customers out the door and switched the sign over to CLOSED.
She grabbed some dirty glasses off a nearby table and carried them to the sink. I contributed to the cleanup effort by dumping out all the half empty pretzel bowls and spraying down the wooden counter.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, looking surprised that I would go to the trouble.
“It’s not a big deal.” I swiped the towel down the length of the bar.
Leah dumped more glasses into the sink. “Dammit,” she sniffed. “I should give Terry a call and make sure he’s okay.”
“You said he was never your boyfriend.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Maybe in the future you should stick to one guy at a time so you don’t run into these problems.”
“I already told you I haven’t been with Terry in a while.”
“The look on his face said otherwise.”
She tossed a drink tray down. “What about you? Are you trying to tell me you only ever have sex with women you’re in a committed relationship with? I don’t even know if you have a girlfriend or not.”
“That didn’t seem important to you when you were sucking my dick.”
She inhaled sharply. “What the hell does that mean, Ryan? Are you with someone?”
I crossed my arms. “Let me explain something to you. I wouldn’t have fucked you last night if I had a girlfriend. I wouldn’t have fucked you even if I was just fucking someone else. We’re different in that way.”
She clapped very loudly and obnoxiously. “Congratulations Ryan Jedson, you win the moral high ground award and you are a much better person than I am.”
I was being a dickhead. I couldn’t stop myself. “I guess that’s true. I’m not the one who made a two hundred and fifty pound man cry.”
“Terry wasn’t crying for heaven’s sake.”
I laughed. “Like you give a hot damn about Terry.”
She was hurt. “I never said that at all.”
“So what do you care about, Leah? Tell me.”
She had to think about the question while her lower lip trembled. “I care about my family. I care about my friends. Wait, screw this shit. I don’t have to explain myself to you, asshole.”
“No, you don’t explain anything, do you?”
She pressed her lips together and stared down at the floor. “Why are you being like this, Ryan?”
“Because this is what I turned into when I wasn’t allowed to be Ryan anymore.”
She closed her eyes for a second. “I’m sorry about that.”
“What exactly are you sorry about? The fact that I lost six years in the Florida swamps living a pretend life as Greg Holbrook? Or the fact that my mother choked to death on smoke in a dirty basement before she ever got a chance to see me again?”
The mention of my mother hit her like a blow and a tear fell down her check. “I miss Celeste every day,” she whispered. “I loved her.”
I refused to be moved by her grief. “Not nearly as much as I did.”
“You’re right.” She nodded. “You’re right.” Her expression was designed to break my heart. It might have. If my heart hadn’t already been shredded a long time ago. “I don’t know why we’re fighting. Look, I’m not a terrible person.”
I wanted to turn it off, this valve of cruelty that had been opened up inside me. Instead I chose to twist the handle full blast. “Terry might disagree. Did you just intend to keep working him with your smiles so that he’d be on hand to do your bidding?”
S
he flinched. “No! I don’t fucking do shit like that. I don’t use sex as a weapon.”
“Are you sure? After all, it’s in your blood. Like mother like daughter.”
The instant the words left my mouth I wanted to take them back. Leah might be guilty of being a gutless liar but she wasn’t in the same league as Luanne. She never could be. Plus I was already pissed at myself for instigating this blow up. The sight of Leah in tears reminded me that I was scum. I’d been underhanded and manipulative and possibly worse than what I was accusing her of.
I expected the comment would make her angry. I didn’t expect her to snatch the nearest bottle of whiskey and fire it in my direction like a speedball. Her aim was awful and the bottle didn’t come close to hitting me, shattering against the wall beside the jukebox five feet away, all the broken pieces and the sticky alcohol making a mess.
“Get out,” she hissed.
I casually grabbed a pile of napkins and acted like the last few minutes hadn’t happened. “I’ll clean this up.”
“I don’t want your fucking help. I want you to fucking LEAVE!”
The napkins were balled up in my fist, ready to start mopping up the mess, but I hesitated. Leah was a vision of fury, her face crimson, her breathing rapid, looking ready to launch another whisky missile in my general direction. As I stared another tear leaked out of her right eye and trailed down her cheek, then her face completely crumpled. Seeds of doubt rapidly grew roots in my mind.
“Get out, Ryan,” she said and choked off a sob, turning away and covering her face with one hand.
I tossed the napkins in the nearest garbage can and exited the Dirty Cactus. I shouldn’t have felt like shit but my conscience refused to read the memo. The parking lot was deserted except for my truck and Leah’s car. About twenty yards away in a gravel strip that handled overflow parking a lone car sat and for a split second I glimpsed a pale face in the window before it swam back into the darkness. Chances were high there was a couple screwing around in there, exhaling beer breath in the tight space and moaning out a quick fuck. That was none of my business though so I got in my truck and started the engine.
Before I left the parking lot I glanced back to see if there was a chance Leah had followed but there was nothing to see except the hint of light around the drawn shades. She was alone in there, likely sweeping up the shards of the whiskey bottle and swiping away her own angry tears.
That really did something to me, the idea of her all alone in the bar, like maybe she was all alone in the world.
I’d been playing that girl for fun and for a dose of old fashioned revenge. Who cared whether or not she deserved it? I didn’t like being the kind of man who’d behave this way.
I almost shut off the engine and returned inside. If I had then Leah would have been spared the horror of what was about to happen to her. But instead I drove away.
Chapter Thirteen
Leah
That entire fight was fucked up. But then again the two of us had a fucked up history.
Who had I been kidding to believe Ryan Jedson and I had a shot at something real? We’d do nothing but poison each other. Some legacies are too ugly to overcome.
I switched on the jukebox at top volume and began cleaning like a fiend. I wished someone would invent an app to delete memories. I never again wanted to think about the things Ryan and I had said to each other. There were a lot of memories I’d like to delete.
The bar was spotless within fifteen minutes. I stood in the middle of the room for a moment, wishing I didn’t have to leave. If there had been a sofa in my father’s tiny office I would have used it.
Main Street was deserted, all the other establishments long since closed, only half the street lamps functioning. No traffic was in sight and my car was the lone vehicle remaining. Usually when I exited the bar this late all alone I kept on high alert, the pepper spray on my keychain in my hand and ready to fire. But tonight I wasn’t in self defense mode because I was still preoccupied with how pissed I was at Ryan Jedson. That had to be why I took no notice of anything unusual as I hastily locked the door, slid the metal grate across the glass and locked that too before heading toward my car.
I made it three steps and then arms seized me from behind. Very strong arms that communicated instantly that I was in a shitload of trouble as they hooked under my shoulders and dragged me against the building. I managed to release one healthy scream before something foul smelling was stuffed into my mouth.
“Hold her,” hissed a female voice.
“She ain’t going nowhere,” said the owner of the arms as he secured his grip using some kind of wrestling move, keeping his arms looped underneath my shoulders and locking his hands behind my head. When I tried to kick my legs he grunted and tightened his hold until my shoulder joints screamed for mercy. I was pulled along the north wall of the building, further into the area that was as dark as darkness got. A street light was located only ten feet away but someone had shot out the glass months ago and it remained broken.
“Get on with this shit,” grunted the man as he kept me locked in place and with revulsion I felt how much he enjoyed this, the hard swelling in his pants rubbing against my back. The piece of cloth in my mouth tasted like it had been used to wipe a public urinal and I gagged on it as I continued to try thrashing my way free. It was a terrible moment of savage reality and yet also a moment of pure unreality as my mind kept telling me this wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening.
The laughter from the woman was high and delighted and the most awful thing I’d ever heard. A hand pulled at the neckline of my shirt and something sharp and metal nicked the base of my throat. There was that laughter again, muted into more of a giggle that managed to terrifyingly top its predecessor. I froze, petrified that my throat was about to be cut. The giggling turned into a grunt of effort as the knife at my throat moved, cutting through the middle of my shirt and then ripping all the way down.
“Bitch,” she said and betrayed herself in doing so because I recognized her voice even if I couldn’t see her face.
“You said you were just going to fuck up her hair,” her companion objected but I could feel how hard he was, how much he was getting off on this. And I knew him too. He was Vance Mueller and while he’d never had a problem with me he was obviously willing to set that aside to get Gina her kicks.
“Hold her still, goddammit,” Gina whined as I got over the shock of the knife and launched a frenzied struggle.
I whipped my head back, bashing Gina’s friend in the face. He cursed me out and switched positions, turning around and flattening me hard against the jagged surface of the wall, scraping my belly, which was now exposed thanks to my shirt being sliced in half. That was the least of my problems though. Gina’s partner in crime could keep me in place for as long he pleased, enabling her to do whatever she wanted. And what she wanted to do was roll the tip of the knife blade against my cheek and over my neck, producing a ticklish shiver that was beyond dreadful. Then a large section of my hair was savagely tugged and I felt the knife sawing away. Cutting one piece at a time.
I broke. Snapped. Shattered.
Pure animal panic can award people unusual strength and I became a demon, bucking and flailing and managing to reach my fingers to my mouth and pull out the gag.
I screamed. And screamed. And screamed.
My captor was so startled that he simply let go and I fell to the ground, landing painfully on my knees.
“Fuck,” shouted Gina and I dissolved into manic sobbing.
The guy had backed up. “Jesus,” he said, like he was puzzled over why I was so hysterical.
“It’s just hair you weak little cunt,” Gina announced with disgust.
“I’m getting the fuck out of here,” declared Vance, who must have sobered up enough to think twice about assaulting a woman on a public street.
I heard a car door close and I was free to move, to run. Except I couldn’t. I was curled up in a ball and crying so hard I o
nly vaguely wondered why the world had suddenly grown as bright as daylight.
“Leah!” Footsteps pounded in my direction and arms tried to lift me but I was still half out of my head and reacted with violence, flailing my fists and trying to punch anything I found.
“Leah. Honey, it’s okay. It’s me.”
Ryan.
Ryan Jedson might be a hateful asshole sometimes but he wouldn’t hurt me and I nearly fainted with relief. I ceased struggling and allowed him to gather me into his arms and carry me out of the darkness.
He didn’t ask questions immediately. He found my keys, opened up the bar and brought me inside, flicking on the lights and setting me on top of a table like I was a small child.
Ryan conducted a rapid assessment, searching for open wounds, openly relieved when he didn’t find any. He took stock of my ruined shirt, my scrapes, my savaged hair, and he cupped my face gently in his hands.
“Tell me what they did to you.” There was fury in his face, rage on my behalf.
I tried to speak and only discharged a pathetic croak, my throat on fire from all that screaming. Ryan understood and hurried to the bar, filling a glass of water and returning it promptly. I drank rapidly, eager to remove the taste of whatever had been soaked into that disgusting rag in my mouth.
Ryan waited. I saw his eyes roam over my body again and recognized the wrath mixed with utter grief over what he saw.
“I wasn’t raped,” I told him to get that ugly possibility out of the way.
He breathed out, closed his eyes for a second, then nodded. “Thank god.”
“It was Gina Scarpetti.” Now that I wasn’t terrified any longer I could feel my own rage gaining a foothold. “She and her boyfriend were waiting when I locked up. He held me while she…” I looked down at my shirt and winced, felt my shorn hair with trembling fingers. “Played with a knife.”