Well, fuck her. Fuck her and our entire relationship. Fuck my beating heart and all my doubts about the stories I’d heard. Fuck her for making me feel anything for her.
“You look like someone just shot your puppy,” Hayley is still giggling and tries to reach for my cock again. “Want me to make it better for you?”
She’d been asking me this for months, but I always kept her back. But why should I? If Cecelia can fuck around on me, even now, then why can’t I return the favor?
“You drunk?” I ask Hayley and she grows serious as she shakes her head. “Good. Come on.” I drag her to the bathroom, glad it’s empty. Kicking the door closed, I push her to sit on the toilet. “Suck my cock.”
“Finally,” she smirks even though I’m not smiling, and I am basically being an asshole to her. She doesn’t seem to mind and I want to roll my eyes at her pathetic eagerness. Still, she tugs the buttons from my jeans open, pulling my cock out. “Oh. Em. Gee. You’re pierced. That’s so awesome!”
“Ugh, shut up.” I’m not hard. Not really. Seeing Celia naked again started something, but her betrayal took anything that would have developed away.
“Geez,” she complains as she stares at my dick.
“Suck it,” I repeat and watch with angry eyes as Hayley takes my dick into her mouth working to make it hard. It takes some time with her struggling with the ball on the piercing, but the stimulation and my anger finally gets me there. Wanting this over quickly, I pull away from her mouth not caring how demeaning I’m being toward her or that I’ve shown no actual interest in her past this point. She’s nothing compared to – no, not going there. “Stand up and turn around,” I order not thinking farther than the moment.
Hayley does as I command as I rifle through the drawer under the sink until I find what I need. I push her to lean over the toilet. I lift the skirt of her dress, and slipping the condom on quick, I push her blue thong to the slide and thrust into her.
I’ve never been with anyone but Celia, so the feeling is immediately different. Not as tight. Not as familiar or overwhelming. I don’t want to think about her or that or anything. So I set a punishing rhythm against Hayley.
“Is this what you want? Huh? Is this what you were after? All this fucking time?”
She’s a moaning mess and I don’t pay attention to whether she’s actually enjoying herself or not. I just continue to thrust to try to forget.
Only problem, I’m nowhere close to coming. Being inside this girl, it isn’t doing it for me. I feel like something is lacking and that pisses me off even further.
“Motherfucker!” I shout and try to conjure images of some porn I’ve watched recently, porn that Celia loves and loved watching with me. That works and I blow my load, pulling out and pushing Hayley away so I can flush the condom.
“Already? Ugh, I didn’t even finish,” she complains with a childish pout as she rights her clothes.
“Does it look like I care?” I leave the bathroom and Hayley behind and rush out of the apartment. After jogging down the stairs, I walk out into the crisp night air and round the building so I’m not seen in the middle of my anxiety attack.
I’m gasping for air, my lungs feeling too tight to breathe.
I can’t believe Cecelia. Betraying me again.
I can’t believe Frankie.
I can’t believe I… I can’t believe I just fucked Hayley.
I can’t stop it, my stomach heaves and I lose my dinner against the building. I’m so disgusted by what I witnessed, by the hurt I can’t shake, and by the itch crawling over my skin like what I just did is so much worse than losing a month to coke.
As I lean my forehead against the side of the building, I hear voices.
“Was that Cecelia I just saw you with?” I don’t know this voice but it sounds amused.
“It was indeed.” That’s Frankie, and the fucker is smug.
“Cecelia, as in Cecelia who is with your roommate?”
“Was. Was with my roommate.”
“No shit? What happened?”
“Guess lots of guys started talking about her. Guess some snooty bitch did too. Jackass believed it all. Wouldn’t even let the poor girl defend herself against the allegations.” There’s something in Frankie’s tone that troubles me. Like this makes him happy somehow.
“Wow.”
“Yup. Poor girl saw Chace and the snooty bitch making out in the kitchen, basically throwing themselves in her face, and well,” he laughs. “You know what they say; a shoulder to cry on makes a good dick to grind on.”
“You dog, you. God, how long you been trying to hit that?” the mystery voice asks.
“Shit, probably since the first time he brought her over. You know I love me a Latin chick. Feisty. Passionate. Loud.” They both laugh and I feel like throwing up again. “But every fucking time she turned me down. Even when Chace went home a couple years ago cause of some family shit. Guess it’s easy to move on when you see the other person has. Girls and their feelings and whatnot.”
“So what’s she like? Think she’d do me?”
I leave. I don’t want to hear Frankie describe his time with Celia. I saw it, which was horrific enough. And I really don’t want to find out if she’d be willing to fuck this unknown asshole.
I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but I don’t see Frankie for several days. He’s gone before I’m up, which is pretty fucking early, or he’s not back by the time I head to bed. I assume he’s with Celia. I hate that assumption, but given what he’s said, what I’ve heard, I have no choice but to believe it.
And then one day, I don’t have to be at work until after noon, and Frankie comes home. I hear his voice, and his one-sided phone conversation as I exit my bedroom and stand in the entry to the kitchen. I don’t know who he’s talking to, but it’s a pathetic conversation.
“Come on baby, don’t play me like that.” He opens the refrigerator and pulls out a beer. “I told you, we can catch a movie, get some dinner and then come back to my place and see where things go. You know you want this hotness. Stop playing hard to get.”
I roll my eyes.
“Yeah, baby, I got moves no other man can recreate. You’ll see stars, I’m telling you.”
I resist the urge to puke as Frankie wraps his conversation up now that he’s gotten his way.
“Hot date later?”
He whips around, surprise completely evident on his face. Guess he hadn’t been expecting me to still be home. “Uh, hey Chace. What are you doing here?”
“Late start for work today. So, you got a hot date later?” I ask again, trying to keep the hard edge out of my voice. It isn’t easy. Seeing him, with Cecelia, his hands on her, his dick inside her, it’s taking everything in me not to fall into a full blown rage.
“Oh um, yeah. Vanity. She’s a stripper.” He wags his eyebrows at me like I’m supposed to be impressed with that. She’s no doubt blond, with big tits and no personality. That seems to be his type. Then I remember how he’d been after, and finally caught, Celia who is in no way like any of the girls Frankie usually goes for and I can’t help the frown that takes over my face. “How’s things going with…what’s her name again?”
“How many times did you and Cecelia sneak around behind my back?” I can’t help it, the words just slip from my mouth, angry, vengeful.
“What? What are you talking about?” His voice is high. Frankie is a big guy with unnaturally tanned skin and bulging muscles. A gym rat who likes to work out, make his muscles bigger so airheads fawn over him. He’s not bigger than Marshall, at least not in the ways of height and mass, but he’s bigger than me. So hearing his voice, like he’s sucked in helium, would be funny if not for the topic.
“You know what I’m talking about.” I uncross my arms and move into the kitchen, resting my hands on the back of a chair at the table. “How many times have you and Cecelia fucked around behind my back?”
“We never went behind your back,” Frankie tells me, placing his b
eer bottle on the counter next to him. “She doesn’t even like me, bro.”
“Really. You sure about that?”
“I swear, man. I wouldn’t do that to you.” He sounds earnest. He sounds almost sincere. If not for the fact I caught them, I’d almost believe him. “So, what, the party a couple weeks ago was what? My imagination?”
“What are you talk…whoa, no. You got the wrong idea.” His hands are up, and he’s shaking his head.
“I got the wrong idea? Really? So you weren’t in my room, on my bed, fucking my…fucking Cecelia?” I catch myself before I say something that isn’t true. She isn’t mine. She stopped being mine when she played me.
A heavy sigh leaves Frankie. “It was one time, Chace. I’ll admit to that.” He shakes his head at me. “You are with Hayley. She was draped all over you at that party and it’s my understanding you were seen leaving with her. Cecelia saw the two of you together, saw how you’d moved on. Guess she was moving on too. The only thing I’m going to apologise for is using your room. Mine was occupied, you’d left yours unlocked. But it really was only one fucking time. Unfortunately.”
“I can’t believe you’d do that to me,” I growl out, anger seeping into every muscle, filling.
“Do what? Fuck some girl you tossed aside? It’s been how long now?” He laughs at me now, like I’m the asshole. “I was leaving the bathroom, saw Cecelia look like she was about to fall apart. So I went to her. Comforted her. Cecelia needed a shoulder to cry on. I provided one. I can’t help it if she ended up riding my dick too.” I flash back to his conversation with the mystery voice. He’d said something similar then. “I scratched her itch, made her forget you, and I got what I’d always wanted. And let me tell you, she did not walk away unsatisfied. Guess you just weren’t man enough for her. Good thing you have that simpering bitch to play with now. Who knows, maybe you’ll see Cecelia around here again, only this time, it’ll be my name she’s screaming.”
I don’t even blink before my fist is thrown, connecting with Frankie’s face. I don’t let him register the shock of my attack before I’m pounding on him, slamming him against the cabinets and into the table, breaking it in two. “You think just because she gave it up to you one time she’ll have you again? You think Cecelia is that fucking pathetic?”
“Once her tears dried, she was practically begging for me to fuck her,” Frankie grouses as blood spurts down his face from the cut above his eye. I hit him again. I’ve been fighting regularly for years. Frankie lives at a gym. Odds are not in his favor. “She wanted me. You dumped her. That pussy was free fucking game. I saw an opportunity and took it. Get over yourself.”
“You took advantage of a bad situation. You took advantage of a broken girl. You took advantage of her!” I shout as I hit him again.
“What do you even care?” He tries to push me off of him, my attack slowing now that I see him moving sluggishly. Even his words are slurred. I’m sure the crashes against the furniture have done their own damage. “You fucked her, dumped her. It’s time to let someone else have a go at her. Get over it.”
I slam my knee into his nose, hearing the satisfying crunch. He drops to the floor and I notice how much blood, Frankie’s blood has been spilled. I have cracked skin on my knuckles, but nothing more. “She’s nothing more than a notch to you. You are a piece of shit, using her like that, knowing she was upset.”
“Better than breaking her heart,” he mutters and slouches onto the floor.
I ignore his comment. She broke my heart first. Her actions, the rumours I’d heard, they broke me first. None of this would have happened if not for that. But Frankie, he used Celia, and now…now I don’t know.
“Get out.” It’s the first thing that comes to me. “Get out of this apartment. Get out of Chicago. I never want to see your face again. If I find out you’ve been hanging around, been anywhere near Cecelia, I will find you and finish what I started here. Do you understand?”
“Whatever, bitch,” he tells me and I start to head to my room to change. I can’t go into work looking like this, covered in his blood. After I reemerge, my jeans and t-shirt new and clean, I walk by Frankie to grab my keys. “You may have beat me today, but you will never forget how I actually won. I fucked Cecelia and there is nothing you can do to change that.”
I leave before I ruin more clothes and go to work.
TWENTY-FOUR
It’s been weeks since the incident with Frankie. Weeks since I came home from work to find the kitchen still splattered with crimson. Weeks since my anger overwhelmed me.
Frankie had packed his shit while I was at work that day, left me a ‘fuck you’ note and vanished. Good fucking riddance. Fucker wasn’t even apologetic when I confronted him. He basically used Celia and enjoyed throwing it in my face.
Of course he didn’t enjoy the ass kicking I’d given him.
I try not to smile as I remember how good it felt to beat him down.
I can’t smile when I remember some of the things he’d said. I know he was just trying to get under my skin telling she’d begged him. I know this. I also know he took advantage of a fucked up situation. But I hate that in a way he’s right. He did win. And I cannot smile at that.
After that day, I allow Hayley in to the apartment twice. Both times she’d paid a surprise visit when I was strung out with frustration and uncaring about anyone. Both times I let her blow me. Both times porn had been blaring on the television, background noise, drowning out the world. Both times Hayley had complained about the movies, called them degrading and insulting to women. Apparently she couldn’t see the irony.
Both times, my mind had drifted from the reality of the moment. I’d pretended I was someone else, anyone else. Anywhere else.
Both times I didn’t return the favor. I’d kicked her out as soon as the toilet flushed or the sink cleaned of my come.
I haven’t seen Cecelia since the night of that party. I still don’t know why she was there, what she wanted, or if she was even looking for me. After all, she didn’t seem to mind hooking up with Frankie.
Still, it’s been a while since I’ve seen her.
That doesn’t change anything with the fights though.
I still get taunts, guys telling me about what they want to do to her. Some tell me things they’ve done to her, but mostly, I hear fantasies. Detailed fantasies. And most are so fucking grotesque, that I can’t help but defeat them. She may not care who she sleeps with, but I know for a fact, what some of these assholes have in mind is bordering on rape.
One guy tries taunting me with Hayley, talking about how she’s nothing but a slut hanging off my dick for a little bit of fame. But it backfires. I don’t care about Hayley. After I laugh him off, he decides to join in on the shit talk about Celia. But he’s so new, he’s just repeating what everyone else has already said.
It’s funny, during this guy’s tirade about Hayley, she doesn’t look offended. In fact, it isn’t until I don’t defend her like I had Celia before that Hayley looks even remotely angry. But again, I don’t care about her. She’s not my girlfriend. I don’t see the point in defending against the truth. Because really, that’s all he was telling.
And anyone with eyes should be able to understand that. I don’t leave with Hayley. I don’t arrive with Hayley. I don’t hold her hand. I don’t kiss her or let her kiss me. If not for that one time during that party, I’d have never kissed Hayley Roberts.
She is just some random who shows up to watch the fights. She stands in her too prim and proper dresses with girls who look like hookers and on only a couple occasions, have I allowed our paths to cross away from these fights.
“You know, I don’t even know why you show up anymore.”
I’m trying to loosen my muscles. I barely made it through the first round against Arcane, some weed smoking douche who should have been an easy win for as slow as he is. But my vibe has been off for weeks. Longer, if I’m honest. Much, much longer.
“Did you hear me?”
>
Letting out a heavy sigh, I acknowledge Banksy. He came in last year and from the get has been talking shit to me about Celia. He’s my next opponent. And he’s too friendly with that fucker Fife.
“You hardly win at all. Mr. I’m-So-Fucking-Hot can’t win for shit anymore. What happened, huh? I’d heard all these stories about this guy who beat everyone. And for a while you were good. But now? Shit, my little sister could take you.”
“Good for your sister,” I offer back, my voice dry. Emotionless.
Banksy wins the fight. I don’t even stand a chance.
“What the hell is going on with you?” Stretch asks as I shove my shirt over my head, ready to head out, home, anywhere else really.
“Nothing.” I start to leave but he grabs my arm.
“Really?”
“Can’t win all the time,” I tell him as I turn to leave again.
“Can’t win any time, it seems.”
I ignore him and keep walking.
As I get close to where Hayley is standing, her back to me, not yet aware I’m leaving, I hear her high-pitched giggles. Her voice has always grated on my nerves, today more so. I really need to get away from her, this scene before I explode.
“So yeah, we’re totally a couple now. I’m even moving in!” she squeals and bounces as the audience before her grumbles about their lack of luck. Guess they haven’t figured out trying to throw themselves at guys who hit it and quit it is not a way to find a happily ever after.
I’m instantly curious as to who Hayley’s talking about though, since it hasn’t been that long since she gave me head. All things considered, though it’s been a few months, the fact she’s moving in with someone so soon makes me feel it necessary to let the poor fucker know he’s not exactly getting little miss sunshine and innocence with her. She’s really nothing like the chaste clothes she wears. And he no doubt doesn’t even know he’s being played here. So I stop just out of view wanting to hear exactly who is dumb enough to take this girl on. “And Oh.Em.Gee! Chace totally told me he loves me too! It was so romantic. I totally cried. And then he took me on the kitchen table before we moved the festivities to his bedroom.”
The Bitter (Addiction #1) Page 18