Filthy Desires: A Romantic Suspense Collection

by Parker, Kylie

  I hadn’t even thought about that. Would something like this help my image too? I shake the thought away –that’s not why I’m doing it. I think of Gabriella, and it makes me sick to my stomach. “I need trainers,” I say again. “Between the three of us, we could manage the crowds because we’ll be offering all day courses.”

  “All day?” Marty whines.

  “Quit being a bitch, Marty,” Tyler says, “although, it probably wouldn’t hurt if you could find some more people to help. He’s talking about a pretty big event. He’s got to talk to the city about shutting down roads for a marathon run.”

  “All right, all right, fine,” Marty says, “I suppose I can spare an afternoon.” Marty starts coating the ribs in another layer of sauce, and my mouth salivates. “So what’s new with you, Jonathan, other than working at a lady gym?”

  I pause. I have something kind of serious to talk to them about. I pull out my phone. I had been waiting to tell Tyler until I could get him and Marty in a room at the same time; I didn’t want to have this conversation twice. I pull up the picture of the ultrasound. “Brandi’s pregnant,” I say, and they both look at me with serious expressions, “She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t know I know.”

  “Awe… man, shit,” Marty says.

  I show them the ultrasound picture. “Hey, look at the little fist! He’s holding up his fists like a little boxer!” Tyler laughs and holds up both his fists, imitating the photo.

  “I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl,” I say. “I just know she’s pregnant and that she doesn’t want me to know.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Marty seethes.

  “You’re telling me,” I say, “I’m going to be a father, and Brandi doesn’t want me to have anything to do with the kid. And after what happened, I can’t really say I blame her. Should I hire a lawyer? Would a judge even let me see my kid right now?”

  “You have to get your act together,” Tyler steps in as the voice of reason. “I don’t mean to sound cruel, man, but if you try fighting a custody battle now, you’re going to lose, and you’re just going to piss Brandi off even more. You and I both know if I offered you this beer right now you’d take it and then you’d keep drinking until you passed out on Marty’s lawn. You’ve got a problem… plus you’re still living on my couch. That won’t look good either –we live in the slums. And you’ve only had your job for a little over a month now.”

  Marty shoves Tyler to tell him to shut up, but the truth is I need to hear it. He’s right. I have got to get my shit together if I’m ever going to convince Brandi (and a judge) that I could be a good father. “Well, either way,” Marty says, “congratulations. It’s not the ideal circumstance, but you’re going to be a father, and that’s worth celebrating. I think these ribs are about ready, so that’ll have to do.”

  The three of us sit around the patio furniture he has in the courtyard, and I swear these are the best ribs I’ve ever had in my life. Marty knows his way around a grill. “So,” Marty says as he chomps into his ribs and opens up another beer in front of me, “not to be a downer, but if Brandi keeps quiet about this until after the kid is born… do you think she’ll name the baby something stupid? I mean, it’s is Brandi.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Geeze, she’ll probably name the baby something like Jay Z or Beethoven… I can’t imagine what sort of stupid girl names she’d come up with.” I realize I don’t want to talk about this, so I munch on the ribs and shake my head.

  Our conversation shifts again. It seems we have very little positive things to talk about these days. “So, when’s the last time any of you spoke to Gabe’s parents?” Marty asks.

  “Probably the funeral,” I say, and Tyler nods along with me. “Why?” I ask.

  “I stopped by the other day. I don’t know why; I just thought I’d see how they were doing. They’re okay, but his little sister…”

  I frown. I can’t believe I haven’t thought to check in on his little sister. “How is she?” I ask.

  “She’s been better,” Marty says, “She practically worshiped Gabe, you know?”

  Mary is a sweet kid; she’s just seven years old. I’m pretty sure she had been a surprise baby with how she and Gabe had been twelve years apart in age, but Gabe loved Mary. I feel like hell for not going to see her. “We should do something for Mary,” I say, “isn’t her birthday coming up or something?”

  “Yeah, a couple months,” Marty says. “What would you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. Something,” I say, and we agree to come up with a plan to make sure that Mary has a good birthday. It will, after all, be her first birthday without Gabe.

  38

  It has been a week since the nasty clean up duty in the women’s locker room, and it has been one hell of a week. Weirdly enough, I’m actually looking forward to my AA meeting tonight. So much, in fact, I rush to clean up the gym and almost speed there. I had had a few close calls this past week –the cookout at Marty’s had been my first of many. I can’t tell you how much I wanted that beer those two were drinking; if they hadn’t been watching me, I probably would have drunk myself into a coma.

  I am cutting it close, so I park and don’t waste any time in the parking lot before heading into the high school and into the gym where our meeting will be held. I smile, seeing that I haven’t missed everything and that everyone is just now sitting down in the circle of chairs. “Jonathan!” June waves me on over, “we were worried you weren’t going to be back. We missed you last week.” I smile and grab myself a seat next to Bobby. I’m still a little flustered after running through the parking lot, so I don’t even get my bearings about me before June points across the circles of chairs and says, “You two haven’t met yet, have you? Laurel wasn’t here that week you came.”

  Laurel? I look across the circle, and there she is –staring at me with this big “Fuck You” look on her face. “Um…” I say, not really sure what else to say.

  “No,” Laurel says, “we haven’t met.”

  She’s a damn alcoholic –probably a recovering alcoholic. “No,” I say, “we haven’t.”

  June does a quick introduction before the meeting gets underway; Laurel and I are both dead silent –staring at one another with these hateful glances. Bobby nudges me slightly –silently asking me what the hell is up. June doesn’t notice though, and she just keeps on talking. A couple of people share their testimonies. I’m not even sure what tonight’s topic is because I’m too busy shooting dirty looks Laurel’s way.

  “So Laurel,” someone interrupts our stare down, “I’ve been waiting to hear about how the new therapist is going? Is he helping with your PTSD?”

  “I don’t feel like sharing tonight,” she snaps, her eyes finally breaking away from me just long enough to shoot the poor guy who had dared to bring up something private in front of me. It’s not like he had any idea she hates my guts.

  “Okay, well then,” June sings slightly, trying to draw everyone’s attention off of Laurel’s outburst. I snort slightly, knowing she only lost her cool because of me. PTSD? That’s pretty serious stuff; I shake my head at myself for laughing. June heard my snort; she gives me a judgmental look and then asks, “Why don’t you share tonight, Jonathan?”

  “Oh, I… I don’t think so,” I say, “I’m honestly not sure what it is we were even supposed to be discussing.”

  “Our triggers,” June said, “What we think made us start drinking in the first place.”

  Everyone is staring at me. I really rather not talk about this in front of Laurel, but I already came off looking like an asshole after laughing right after the whole PTSD thing came out. Everyone probably thinks I was laughing about that. I talk, but I don’t say much. “I guess when I stopped performing well at my job. I lost my dream job, but I was able to cope with it then. Not long after that my best friend… my best friend was killed right in front of me, and I think that’s really what did it. That’s when it got worse. I had been drinking the night he died. I wasn’t
drunk, but sometimes I wonder if maybe if I hadn’t been drinking if things would have turned out differently. My wife left me the day of the funeral. I guess it was a combination of things, really, that got me into the habit.”

  I didn’t say much, but I still got the awkward AA group round of applause that happens every time someone shares something personal. I sink into myself; it’s not like Laurel didn’t know all of that already from watching the news, but I still didn’t want to say it.

  “Thank you for sharing, Jonathan. Remember, this is a safe place. We’re all here for you if you ever need to talk,” June reminds me.

  “Yeah,” I say, “thanks.”

  I can still feel Laurel staring at me, but I don’t look up at her. I can still tell, though, that it’s not an angry stare anymore.

  39

  I don’t wait around for the snacks and sodas; I head for the parking lot, eager to get out of here as quickly as possible. Now I definitely need to find a new AA group because all that little incident did was make me want to throw back shots. Laurel –seriously? Of all people I could accidentally run into at AA it had to be that bitch!

  “Jonathan!” I hear my name being called just as I am exiting the building. It’s Bobby, the former DA.

  “Hey,” I say under my breath.

  “Look, what’s going on?” he questions. “You seemed pretty ticked tonight.”

  This guy is talking like he knows me. “Yeah, well, it’s been a rough week.”

  “No, it’s Laurel,” he says, calling me out, “you know her, right? What’s the deal?”

  “Beat it, Bobby,” I say.

  “Look,” he says, running around me to block me from continuing on my path towards the pink Volkswagen. “I don’t know what’s happened between you two, but whatever it is, it’s no reason to stop coming to AA. You need this.”

  “No offense, Bobby, but you don’t fucking know me. You don’t know what I need,” I give him a shove. “Now, please, fuck off before I lay you out in the parking lot.”

  He listens, and he heads back inside. “Hey!” I hear Laurel’s voice behind me; she must have passed Bobby on the way out.

  I turn and grit my teeth. “Why do you keep popping up everywhere I go?” I snarl.

  “Believe me,” she says, “it’s not intentional.”

  “Well, I’m going to say the same thing to you that I said to your buddy Bobby –fuck off!” I grab the handle to my car and pull, and the damn handle yanks off. “Son of a bitch!” I scream and throw it, sending it bouncing across the parking lot. I cuss and kick the stupid car in the side until there is this big dent in the driver’s side door.

  “Geeze,” Laurel says once I have calmed myself down enough to stop beating up on the stupid car.

  I take a deep breath. “I don’t need this. I really don’t need this.”

  “Jonathan, listen, maybe you and I need to talk,” she says. “You’re so stressed out, and I can’t help but feeling that I’m partially responsible for that.”

  “Oh, really? You sensed that, did you?” I question and then lean back against the car.

  She crosses her arms. Her bright blue eyes focus in on me. “I’m really not out to get you, you know? Everything just sort of happened to where it seems that way. I didn’t know who you were that night in the bar, and to be honest –hooking up with a random buy in a bar was sort of an all-time low for me. Then all of a sudden you show up at Alexis’ gym… it was embarrassing. My biggest fear was you’d tell all my friends about it, and they don’t even know I have a drinking problem. And then you actually told them. You actually fucking told them. I was furious.”

  “I guess I haven’t made your recovery any easier than you’ve made mine, huh?” I say, and she kind of laughs –it’s an annoyed, sarcastic laugh, but it’s a laugh. “Look, how about I buy you a drink?” I say.

  She rolls her eyes, “Seriously, Jonathan?”

  “Coffee, Laurel. I meant coffee,” I swear to her, and now she actually laughs –a real, honest laugh. And truthfully, it’s kind of cute. It’s almost flattering.

  “Okay,” she says, “I could go for a cup of coffee.”

  We head to nearby coffee shop after I have to climb over the passenger’s seat of my car to unlock the driver’s seat; she found this hilarious, of course. She takes her own car, and we meet out front. The coffee shop closes in an hour, so we go and sit out on the patio so that we won’t get kicked out. I’m not really sure what to talk about with her; it’s already sort of uncomfortable, so I figure I can’t make it worse by asking about the PTSD thing. When I do, she stares at me for a minute before answering. “Okay,” she says, “I was a marine.”

  Holy damn. “Really?” I question as though I think she’s lying to me.

  “Yeah,” she says, “I mean, I’m a woman, so it was a non-combat role. I was a translator for a group of guys who had been tasked with breaking up a local sex trafficking ring outside of Libya.”

  “Damn, Laurel, I had no idea,” I say. “What…what happened to you over there? I mean, you said you were in a non-combat role…”

  “When shit hits the fan, rules fly out the window,” she says, “My convoy was attacked, and two of our guys went right from the start. I took over one of their positions, and we had to fight our way out of a damn ditch. We lost one of the women we were escorting during the ambush, and one of my fellow marines that had been shot during the initial attack bled out before we could get him back to our base of operations.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it.

  “When I got back home, that’s when I started drinking. So I definitely know my trigger. I started doing MMA professionally as a sort of coping thing, but I was still drinking pretty heavily. I joined that AA group, and they convinced me to seek additional counseling,” she takes a long sip of her iced coffee I had bought her.

  “You’re pretty amazing,” I say to her.

  “Really?” she laughs, “Because I was just a bitch a few hours ago.”

  “Oh, you’re still a total bitch, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be impressed.” I’m not sure if that’s a conversational line, but I said it in the flirtiest tone I could manage. She laughs, so I guess that’s a good sign. I’ll avoid using the term bitch in the future anyways just in case. “I got to say, I think it’s pretty awesome that you were a marine, and the whole MMA thing is insane.”

  She has a sort of sad smile. “I wish other guys thought that way. Do you have any idea what my dating life has been like? Geeze, my ex couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t girly enough for him; he was intimidated by all of it.”

  “He sounds like a pussy,” I say, “I think’s its cool.”

  “I call bullshit on that,” she says, “Your ex-wife was as feminine as it gets. Wasn’t she a professional ballerina?”

  I laugh too, “Okay, okay, you got me there. Yeah, she was.”

  Laurel points over to the parking lot at the pink Volkswagen, “and I’m guessing that was hers too, right?”

  “Yeah…” I say, “Okay, you made your point. My ex was a definite girly girl, but that doesn’t mean I don’t find you attractive.” I bite my lip. I didn’t mean to say that.

  “Good to know,” she says and stands up. “It’s late, and I’m training early with the girls. Thanks for the coffee, Jonathan… tonight was… informative.” She leaves me sitting there, feeling like a complete dumbass.

  Well, work tomorrow should be interesting.

  40

  I’m going to be late for work, but this is an opportunity that I can’t pass up. I have made a habit of calling Brandi at least once a day, but she never answers. I’m sure I’m driving her crazy, but I am desperate to get her to talk to me ever since I found out she was pregnant. This morning, out of habit, I gave her a call, and she actually answered. She is not exactly friendly, but I still have gotten her to answer!

  “Jonathan, I swear, stop calling me! It’s fucking early in the morning,” she hisses into the phone.

  “
Please, don’t hang up!” I beg. I’m sitting on the couch in Tyler’s apartment; he had just headed off to Damion’s gym for his morning workout routine before his shift at the dump, so I have the place to myself. Tonight is supposed to be my seminar, and Tyler’s speaking at it, so he headed out early to get his workout in today.

  “Okay, fine,” she snaps, “you got me on the phone. What the hell do you want?”

  I don’t know what to say. I honestly didn’t expect her to answer. “I want to see you,” I say, and I’m sure she can hear the desperation in my voice.

  “Well, that’s not going to happen, Jonathan,” she says.

  “I just wish you’d give me another chance,” I say.

  I can hear her breathing into the phone like she’s panting from her anger. “I gave you plenty of chances.”

  I want her to tell me she’s pregnant at least, but I don’t want to get the housemaid fired for letting me find out. “I know, I know,” I tell her, “you did. Maybe… maybe I could just come see you dance? I haven’t seen one of your shows in a while.” Now, I am hoping, she’ll tell me she hasn’t been dancing because of the pregnancy.

  “No,” she says, and that ended that pretty quickly.

  “I love you,” I say, and she is just quiet, “please, don’t hang up on me,” I add.

  “I’m still here,” she says, and her voice sounds slightly less angry.

  “I’m miserable without you,” I say. “I messed up, I know that. I messed up bad. I hurt you. I hurt myself… I hurt Gabe. But I’m different now. I swear.”

  “Your word means very little to me now, Jonathan. Do you realize I found another one of your alcohol stashes the other day? You moved out months ago, and I’m still finding evidence of all the lies you told me,” she is getting herself worked up again. “I’m sorry, Jonathan, but we’re done.”