Under the Cornerstone

by Sasha Marshall

  “Good luck,” I plaster the smile back on that fell from my face. “Welcome home.”

  I turn back to my friends and walk away from him while I die a little inside.

  Blood Feather plays one hell of a show. They’re better than I remember. I guess they’ve gotten a lot of practice being on stage in the last six months. Normally, I’d stand on the side of the stage and get lost in the music with Jimmy. Tonight, I argue with Sabrina and Roxy until they leave me at the bar and stand in my place. I was prepared to throw a hair-pulling temper tantrum until they left me to myself, but one strategic look and they let me be. I don’t mind sitting here alone, taking shot after shot, drowning in my own pathetic misery as the man I might be in love with sings, and the girl he might be in love with is on the side of the stage… where I used to stand. God, his voice is so fucking raw and beautiful, but I’ve always known that.

  Maybe it’s good that I’m on this side of the stage now. This is where I belong. I’m no longer in the inner folds of Blood Feather. I have no ties to the band itself, just the people in it. I need to know what it feels like on this side of the stage, what it feels like to be put in my place. A place I never really questioned until I saw him with Anna Belle.

  God, her name is horrid. It makes me want to vomit.

  “Hey beautiful,” Some guy calls out as he sits next to me.

  I ignore him.

  “What the hell are you doing by yourself, kitten?” he asks.

  Kitten? Bleh. I take another chug of my beer.

  “What’s she drinking?” he asks the bartender.

  He’s a persistent one.

  I look up to find my favorite bartender, Donnie, staring back at me. Then he turns his attention to the stranger, “She’s on the house tonight. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let it stay that way.”

  “I can’t buy a beautiful woman a drink?” the stranger gets pissy.

  Here we go. My dick is bigger than yours, blah, blah, blah. Eye rolling is commencing as I take yet another drink.

  “Look, motherfucker, you’re in my bar. You can stay in it if you walk the fuck away, or I can remove you from it, if your ears aren’t working so well,” Donnie tells the asshole and I hear a glass slam down on the bar.

  Uh oh.

  “It’s cool, Donnie. No fights tonight,” I slur.

  “You want another drink, sweetheart,” the little fucker pesters again.

  Apparently when you’re going through an existential crisis like I am at this very moment… Am I in love with my best friend?... Does he love the girl with a cow’s name?... That crisis. When you’re in the midst of one of those nasty little fuckers, the fuse on your ticker must be shorter. Mine has never been this short in the past, but it is. Only I don’t realize it until all hell breaks loose. And by hell, I mean Blood Feather, Jimmy, Donnie, Saul, five bouncers, Sabrina, Roxy, and a bunch of other guys who are actually friends with the asshole.

  At the word sweetheart, I slam my beer on the bar, turn to the decent looking guy and tell him, “Fuck off.”

  “What in the fuck did you just say to me?” He seethes and grabs my arm so hard I know it’ll bruise.

  I twist out of his grip and shove him with both of my hands in his chest.

  “I said, ‘Fuck off!’ You fucking deaf?!!”

  He steps back to me, nose to nose, “Don’t you ever put your fucking hands on me again, bitch.”

  Enter Donnie once again, “The fuck you just call her?”

  “A bitch. That’s what she fucking is. I want to buy a drink and get a chance at getting between those thighs, she could show a little more appreciation,” the prick says.

  Donnie puts his hands on the edge of the bar like he’s going to jump it at any moment, but I’m too drunk on the uptake, “You know who the fuck you’re talking to? You’re lucky to be alive right this fucking minute after grabbing her like that.”

  “You gotta rich daddy, kitten?” He asks condescendingly.

  “No, my daddy left when I was a kid, asshole. Can you get to the fucking off part now?” I ask.

  “Ah, you got daddy issues. Fucking all bitches got daddy issues these days,” he says and flicks his hand at the wrist dismissing me.

  The only thing is… he misjudged his distance to me. The guy is a prick, probably a drunk prick, but he didn’t intentionally give my face a tiny slap. I mean it didn’t even hurt if we’re being honest. And I’m sure, it looked entirely way more fucked up from a distance away… like, oh stage distance away.

  The band comes to a screeching halt an hour and a half into their set and Rich’s angry voice comes over the mic, “What the fuck?”

  Donnie jumps the bar and buries his hand in the guy’s face. I’ll give it to the prick, he’s a brawler and gets in as many swings as Donnie does. Then his friends show up and try to defend the prick’s honor because their dicks are bigger too. Blah, blah, blah. I guess it would be rude to sit back down and finish my beer at this point.

  A tiny little guy attempts to jump Donnie from the back, so I stick my foot out and trip the little shit. He falls to the ground, but catches himself with his hands. Little fuckers are quick. I never knew, but this particular little fucker bounces back like a cat and is in my face in oh… two point five seconds.

  “You fucking trip me?” he screams and spits in my face at the same time, which is really fucking gross.

  Ever heard of hepatitis? I like my liver. Well, most days.

  I give him a shit eating grin and wag my finger at him like he’s a child, “In all fairness, you were going to jump on my friend. If you can’t fight fair, don’t fight like a pussy.”

  He steps closer. I’m not sure how that’s possible because I can already smell his breath, but his shoulders hit me and I lose my footing. Some of that could probably be contributed to the vast amount of alcohol I’ve consumed in a short period of time. Nevertheless, I’m about to go down when big Neanderthal hands scoop me up, sets me to rights, and jumps into what has become an all-out brawl since the last time I looked. That was only less than a minute ago. I only see Jimmy’s back as he jumps in.

  Welcome to Brooklyn motherfuckers.

  “What the fuck?” Sabrina asks as she and Roxy join me on the edge of the fight.

  “Asshole wouldn’t leave me alone. Got rough. Donnie warned him. He flicked my face. Donnie lost his shit and jumped the bar. His friend tried to jump Donnie from behind so I tripped him. I guess the guys saw it from the stage?” I give my drunk explanation.

  “Fuckin’ A they did. They jumped the stage in the middle of a song!” Sabrina exclaims.

  I shrug my shoulders. They all have dicks. What else can I say?

  “You put your hand on my man, bitch?” a woman asks from behind us.

  We turn around to find her and four other women lined up.

  Fuck my life.

  I was sitting at the bar, minding my own damn woes, and her man had to come start some shit.

  “No. Your asshole man put his hands on me. I hope you don’t let him push you around like that,” I reply.

  She throws a punch, but my reaction time is shit with all the alcohol swimming around in my bloodstream like it’s spring break. I take the hit on my jaw, fall into Sabrina, and steady myself.

  Fuck that hurts.

  Before I can stand up, Roxy is fighting her. Sabrina and another girl are talking shit to each other, and the other two stragglers stand behind them. They clearly don’t want to fight.

  Thank you, Universe.

  I take a look around and see the battle getting bloodier by the second, and then a Coyote Ugly moment pops into my drunk brain. So, I crawl my drunk ass onto the bar, reach for the hose thing they pour drinks with, and press the first button my little finger can find. Another bartender joins my party, and we drench the men and women in… probably coke.

  Bouncers push through about the time they start breaking up and yelling at me and the bartender to stop ho
sing them with soft drinks.

  Once the bouncers have them separated, they march them to the back of the bar. I nod and smile at the bartender and somehow jump from the bar without busting my ass. It takes forever to get through the crowd. The fight excited everyone.

  When I reach the hallway, I see two bouncers struggling with Johnny. He looks like a bull in a China shop.

  “Go fucking find her!” he yells.

  I roll my eyes. Poor Annie Belle can’t find her way without him. She. Is. Definitely. Not. From. Brooklyn. I smile to my drunk self.

  “Calm down!” the bouncer shouts at Johnny.

  “Go find her!” he yells again and fights like hell against two men who are both bigger than him.

  One of the bouncers turns around and shouts, “Would somebody please go get Noely so he’ll calm the fuck down?”

  My step falters.

  He was looking for me? He was doing all that fighting for me?

  “Johnny,” I call out to him.

  He instantly stops resisting the men and turns to face me, “Noely?”

  His voice is full of real fear.

  “I’m right here,” I say, but don’t step any closer.

  “If I let you go, you better take your ass to that back room and stay there until I come get you,” the bouncer tells him.

  “I’ve got him,” I volunteer.

  The men release him, but won’t let him take a step towards me.

  “You okay?” Johnny asks from between the two large men.

  “I’m fine,” I lie.

  Jimmy sticks his head in with a larger than life smile on his face, “Can you get pretty boy cleaned up?”

  “Yeah,” I say and close the gap between Johnny and me.

  Once I’m within reach, he grabs me by the waist forcefully, pulls me to him, and then pushes me against the wall. I can feel his breath on my lips, so I turn my head to the side.

  His nose touches my cheek, “What hurts, Noely baby?”

  “Nothing. He barely touched me,” I answer him quietly.

  “I saw him grab you and disrespect you,” he huffs between labored breaths from fighting.

  “He was just being an asshole because I told him to fuck off.”

  “Get him in the back room,” the bouncer interrupts as he orders me.

  I roll my eyes, nod, and slip underneath Johnny’s arms. I’m not going to drag him. He’s a grown ass man.

  “Nobody gets through,” Johnny tells the men.

  I open the door several steps later with Johnny on my heels. He gently grabs my wrist and attempts to pull me to him.

  I snatch it away without making eye contact and demand, “Sit down over there while I find the shit to clean you up.”

  “Noely, listen…”

  “NO!” I scream and see his eyes widen in shock. “You listen! Sit your ass down so I can clean you up! End of story!”

  He swallows hard, nods, and sits on a table nearby. I search through a cabinet in the room for a first aid kit. I finally discover a rather large one, go figure. I open the case on the table beside Johnny and rummage through, pulling out supplies.

  “You weren’t on the side of the stage,” his voice comes out shaky.

  I don’t reply. I can’t. I need to clean him up and get out of here.

  “Noely,” he pleads.

  “Stop. Just stop it,” my voice cracks and my lip quivers.

  His hand reaches for my face, but I move away. He drops his hand and sighs.

  I gather my bearings and bite my lip so it’ll stop quivering like a fucking traitor. My eyes finally fall on his face to assess the damage. A cut is bleeding over his right brow, his lip is busted, and there’s blood seeping through his shirt on his shoulder.

  I wipe the blood with gauze but it keeps gushing out over his eye, so I press my hand to it and sigh while I wait for the blood to clot.

  His bloody hands circle my waist and pull me closer to him. I don’t even fight him this time. I’m so fucking tired and so fucking drunk. He places a kiss in the center of my chest.

  “Your lip is busted,” I chastise him and refuse to point out what he just did.

  “I don’t fucking care,” he replies.

  “It’ll get infected.”

  “I. Don’t. Fucking. Care.” His words tremble. “You weren’t on the side of the fucking stage. I waited six months to see you there again.”

  His lips softly graze my chest each time he moves them, causing stupid drunk tears to well up in my eyes.

  “I need to see if it’s clotting,” I say and push his head back to look under the gauze.

  I feel his eyes boring into me while I investigate the cut. It’s clotted, so I place some ointment and a butterfly bandage on it. I press another piece of gauze to his lip to wipe up the blood. It’s already stopped bleeding, so I clean it and leave it to heal on its own.

  “Your shoulder is bleeding,” I say and point to his shirt.

  He doesn’t move, so I look him in the eyes. He’s staring back at me with torment in his own.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful. The tattoos, the piercing, the clothes… fuck, I thought you couldn’t be more beautiful before I left.”

  I take several steps back. We need space.

  “Take your shirt off,” I say sternly.

  I’d turn around and leave if I wasn’t worried about the bleeding on his shoulder.

  We stare at each other for minutes. One minute is a long time to stare at someone… minutes is an eternity. I break the hold first.

  “Take off the fucking shirt or I’m out of here,” I stare at my feet.

  He jumps suddenly from the table, causing me to look back up at him. He rips his shirt over his head, tosses it carelessly behind him, and covers the ground between us.

  Fuck me, those tattoos.

  Focus.

  The tips of his shoes touch mine.

  “Look at me, Noely,” he demands with his lips almost touching mine.

  “Your shoulder or I’m out,” I remind him.

  He lifts me in the air by my hips, turns us, and places my ass on the table he just vacated. Then, he leans down and places his hands on either side of my legs putting his face in mine. I catch his lips parted and can hear the breath escaping through them.

  “Clean my shoulder, Noely,” he whispers.

  “Lean back,” I order him.

  “Somebody got you with a beer bottle,” I tell him.

  “Clean it,” he says unmoving.

  I reach for the supplies and start the work of cleaning around the wound before I clean the inside. The tear isn’t deep, but it looks mean.

  “Butterfly stitches should hold it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Once I finish patching his shoulder, I clean his blood-covered hands with alcohol and a towel until they’re clean and sterilized. Then, I push against his shoulders with a quickness that allows me to duck under his arms and head for the door. My heart can’t take anymore tonight. I’m confused, jealous, half-drunk, and tired. My heart is literally tired, like it might stop from mere exhaustion alone.

  I pull on the knob to open the door, but both of his hands come around either side of my head and push the door closed. He reaches down and flips the lock on the door, and pushes me flat against it.

  “Don’t leave me again,” he begs into my ear.

  “Let me go, Johnny,” I plead back.

  “You’re running from me.”

  I almost tell him I’m not, but that might not be completely true.

  “You’re scared,” he tells me and moves the hair off my shoulder and presses his lips to it.

  He kisses a path from my shoulder, up my neck, and finally pulls the lobe of my ear between his teeth.

  “You don’t want to feel what you’re feeling right now, so you want to run. I had a long time to make peace with this, Noely baby. I was going to let you live your life… find a better man. But you let
me inside you. Then you let me inside you again, and I can’t go back from that. As much as you might try to convince yourself, you can’t either. You feel this shit as deeply as I do. We can’t go back, Noe.”

  “We have to go back,” I whisper.

  His right hand drops to the outside of my thigh and slowly moves up my skin burning a path in its wake, “Can you forget what it feels like when I’m inside of you? I can’t. I had six months to forget and I still remember every fucking second like it was yesterday.”

  Fingertips slide across the top of my thigh and then inside. My breath hitches in my throat.

  “Stop it, Johnny.”

  His hand stills at the very top, “If you say stop again, I’ll stop. I’m warning you.”

  “We can’t do this again.”

  “Tonight or ever?” he asks.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “The problem is for the first time in both of our lives, what you feel here,” His hand cups my pussy, “Traveled all the way up here.” His left hand lies over my heart.

  “Scares the shit out of me, but I knew how I felt about you a long time ago. I’m not scared anymore, because I know what I feel here too,” he uses his index finger to point to my heart.

  Silence stretches out for a few moments and then his right hand slides around the back of my thigh where he pushes my skirt completely over the globes of my ass. He pulls his head from my shoulder and looks down as his hand caresses both cheeks.

  “Tell me to stop, Noe. I’ll stop if you don’t really want this.”

  I don’t tell him to stop, because I can’t say I don’t want to feel this one last time. It’s selfish, but fuck it feels good when he touches me.

  Both of his hands, hook fingers into my thong and pull it down until it drops to my ankles. I feel emptiness at my back as he steps away, but not for long. He grabs my naked hips and pulls me back, a step away from the door. Then his right hand travels down and touches me. His hand flexes on my left hand when he makes contact between my legs and he pushes his jean-clad erection into my ass.

  “You’re wet,” he says into my ear. He grinds his dick into me, “You feel what you do to me?”

  Then he plunges a finger inside of me, causing me to release a small moan.