It's Not Over

by A. L. Zaun

  “Nothing much.” He shrugged. “Santana just introduced himself as your business partner and said he wanted to set up a meeting in a couple of weeks to discuss the marketing plans.” He shook my shoulders. “Madison, this is huge!”

  Music poured into the family room we’d just left. The door closed, and then the room was quiet, except for the clacking of heels, followed by sighs and what sounded like someone sitting down.

  “We’ll talk about this on Monday,” I said to Chris when I heard the voices coming from the other room.

  “Oh my god, Liz.” A woman sighed heavily. “What the hell is he thinking? Mom couldn’t even give one of her ridiculous toasts, praising and hailing him as the next heir to the throne and God’s gift to the universe.”

  I closed my eyes tightly and pressed my lips together in a straight line.

  Chris’s face hardened. “Come on,” he whispered to me, tilting his head toward the door. “Walk out with me.”

  I wanted to. I tried, but a stabbing pain gripped my heart, and I couldn’t move.

  “He’s thinking with his dick.”

  They both laughed.

  “That’s for sure. I’m sure she can suck like a vacuum cleaner.”

  Then, there was cackling.

  “Ugh, I just got a visual. I’m scared.”

  They giggled.

  “I definitely see her on her knees. What a tramp. At least she’s very pretty and thin.”

  That was followed by more laughter.

  “Yeah, give her a freaking double cheeseburger. She probably does drugs.”

  “No, no…throw in some fries and supersize it.”

  And boisterous laughter ensued.

  “She’s got an eating disorder. There’s no way a normal woman could have a body like that.”

  “Yeah, she’s probably throwing up in the bathroom right now. Hey, what are you doing?”

  “You don’t need that.”

  “Give me my dessert. It’s good. See, I can enjoy food. I’m not ashamed of my curves. Three kids later—let’s see how she’ll look then.”

  “Madison,” Chris urged me, pulling me away, “come on. They’re drunk. Macy told me they were bitches.”

  I shook my head and placed my finger over my mouth. I blew out a slow deep breath. They can say whatever they wanted about me. Shit, they can say it to my face. I’d heard worse. My heart tightened only because I knew how close Rick was to his family.

  “At least we can be grateful he has his issues. She won’t be around long enough to find out what she’d look like after kids.”

  “Thank God for small miracles. I never thought I’d be grateful for that. She’ll be out of our hair before Mom has had a chance to disinfect the bathroom.”

  “Did you see the way he was looking at her?”

  “Don’t remind me. I had to hit Carlos a couple of times for staring at her. Pig. Anyway, she just has him under some spell. He’ll get tired of her magic vagina.”

  I stood there and listened as his sisters bashed me.

  Chris closed his eyes, shaking his head.

  I touched his arm reassuringly. “You can leave, Chris. I’m fine.”

  “He’s going to kill them,” he gritted out.

  I couldn’t tell who was saying what. I hadn’t talked to them long enough to be able to differentiate their inflections.

  There was another round of laughter.

  “She did clean up well. I’m sure when he took her to New York—”

  “Do you think he paid for her ticket, too? She’s got gold digger written all over her.”

  “I think she used all her tip money. What does she do at that bar anyway?”

  “Dance on the tables and serve drinks naked.”

  Snorting laughter followed.

  Chris snickered like a kid. “They think you’re a stripper?”

  I placed my hand over his mouth and widened my eyes. I knew we were eavesdropping. I couldn’t help it.

  “I need to go burst their little drunken brouhaha,” Chris whispered.

  I shook my head. I wanted them to get it all out.

  “No, she had to use some of her tips to buy that dress and those shoes—unless she got them in Chinatown.”

  “Hey, don’t knock Chinatown. I got a Louis Vuitton knockoff that looks better than the one from Saks.”

  “Did you see the cubic zirconia bracelet she’s wearing? It didn’t even go with her dress. How tacky.”

  “Wait, wait.” Giggles and snorting interrupted their rant. “I’m going to pee. Stop it. I think the Pandora was real though. That’s why she only had three charms.” They broke into a fit of laughter.

  “Fine, whatever. I can’t fault her for that…if she paid for it with her own money, but—”

  A lump formed in my throat. I ran my fingers over the bracelets Rick had given me and closed my eyes. I could see the excitement on his face, and the way his dimple popped. I never took off the bracelet he had given me for Christmas, and this new one, I would wear always. I didn’t care if they matched or went with my outfit. They were from him. His sisters were bitches, trashing something so beautiful with their ignorance.

  “She’s trailer trash. Mom must be having a heart attack.”

  “What’s he thinking?”

  “We already established that. He’s not.”

  “She is so not at Daniela’s level. No wonder she had to sabotage Rick’s attempts with Dani. She probably manipulated him with her skills in the bedroom.”

  “Either you stop this, or I will,” Chris warned with a sigh.

  He was right. I’d heard enough. “Come on, cowboy.” I hooked my arm with his. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  “I’ll feel better if I take you to Rick,” he said, concerned as he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.

  “Thank you for being a gentleman, but I’m fine.”

  Chris opened the door and wrapped me in a hug before he walked down the driveway. When he turned once more to look at me, I waved, holding back the impending tears.

  I rubbed my hands together tightly, trying to calm down the trembling. I’d held it together for the most part.

  I had gone running earlier today until I had worked out the anger surging through my body when I thought about Alex. When I called my grandfather earlier, he confirmed the news. Alex was telling the truth, but my grandfather was surprised as he’d just been made aware of the new developments.

  “Be careful what you wish for, Maddy,” he’d said to me. “You might get it and realize it’s not what you pictured.”

  Had I made a deal with the devil? Why couldn’t anything ever be easy?

  I looked up into the night sky, clearing my head of my anxious thoughts. It was a perfect evening for a party indeed. I sat down on a porch bench, gripping the seat with my hands. A couple, walking hand in hand, strolled down the driveway toward the valet. Laughter erupted from the group standing by the gate. They were all here for him, one way or another. He had his faults. But don’t we all? Somehow though, he’d managed to form attachments and relationships with all these people. They might not have been close friends, but he knew all their names and the story behind them.

  A lump formed in my throat while I thought of him, of us. Everything around me appeared to be intact and coming together. My tick had continued to amaze me at every turn. With each day, I was falling deeper in love with him, and it still scared me, maybe even more than before. He was pushing me far outside of my comfort zone. I was taking a huge leap with him. I needed him to catch me, and deep down, I knew with complete certainty that he would.

  Rick had thought I was nervous about meeting his family, and I was. I knew how important they were to him. Chris had thought I was upset about overhearing Rick’s sisters with their drunken bullshit, and I was, but I wasn’t. They were idiots. It clearly ran in the family. I couldn’t hold them to a different standard than I held him. The moron gene was hereditary. However, the underlying motivation for their stupidity was th
eir love for him.

  No, what had my stomach in knots was something else. My dream was coming true, but it felt like a vine turning into a weed, wrapping itself around my heart like a boa constrictor. I’d wanted Donovan’s for so long, but now, it came with the little stipulation known as Alex Santana, who was wasting no time in using my name and making inroads with my contacts.

  My eyes fell to the bracelets around my wrist, and that boa constrictor tightened even more.

  What price would I pay for having what I thought I needed?

  Chapter 29

  Rick

  As the party was winding down, I stretched my arms across the back of the chairs at my sides, looking out over the terrace. My eyes focused on the light show from the fountain in the pool. How many of these had I come to? How many of them were for me? Yet, this was the first one I had stayed for the entire party where I wasn’t drunk off my ass and making a fool of myself, and I could say that I’d had the best fucking time of my life. Madison had a lot to do with that.

  I lay my head back, closed my eyes, and smiled, thinking about how my luck had turned around. Who would have thought that on one of my lowest days in the midst of one of my biggest fuck-ups, I would meet the woman who would change my life? I couldn’t believe that I, of all people, had given her a bracelet with the God’s honest desire to fill it up with our memories. That’s a fucking first. I really didn’t have any clue what it all meant. I just knew I wanted Maddy in my life—indefinitely.

  I opened my eyes and scanned the tables, looking for her, but there, across from me, was Valentina, resting her head on her hands. Her face brightened when she noticed me. Without missing a beat, she pushed back from the table and started toward me. She was wearing a tight, little black dress, and her long, dark hair was draped over one shoulder as she moved toward me like she was going to fucking eat me.

  Did she always move like that? I knew the answer to that question—yes.

  “Is this seat taken?” she asked, pulling the chair out from under my arm before slinking into it.

  “I guess it is now.” I tilted my head to her and then returned my gaze to the light show.

  “I feel used.” She pouted, moving into my personal space as she leaned her tits in my direction.

  What is it with women and their fucking tits?

  I brought my gaze to her face and kept it there. “That’s a great opener. Most people start off with a, ‘hello, how are you?’ Maybe they even throw in, ‘great party.’ How about just a congratulations?”

  “Ha, I think my opener is better. We’ve moved beyond the trivial.” She moved in a little closer and placed her hand on my thigh.

  Fuck.

  “Where’s the blonde?”

  “The blonde’s name is Madison, and she’s my girlfriend,” I replied, searching for her with my eyes.

  Madison had gone to the bathroom what felt like an eternity ago, and she still hadn’t come back.

  Where the fuck is she?

  Now, Valentina was sitting next to me, and I had to fucking get rid of her before Madison came back. I took out my phone and sent her a text.

  Me: Do I need to send a search party?

  “Ah, lucky girl,” Valentina cooed, sitting back and running her foot along my leg. “The last time you told me that, we worked around that little technicality. Anyway, you bailed on me on New Year’s.”

  “First of all, we’re not going there—ever again,” I warned her, straightening up in my chair and moving her hand away from my dick. “And second of all, I didn’t bail on you or anyone. I had some place I wanted to be.” I smiled, recalling that night. I’d fucked up royally, but I was exactly where I had wanted to be—with Madison.

  After my mother banned me from bringing dates to her events, whether she had them here or anywhere else, Valentina had become that person I had gravitated toward, or maybe she had leeched on to me. Conveniently, she would never have a date, and we would end up dancing and drinking together. I never gave a fuck. She was hot, and she liked to suck my dick. On a night like tonight, when I normally would have been drunk, she would have followed me to my bedroom or whatever available dark corner we could find. I didn’t do the casual hookup, but I had made the exception when it came to blow jobs and sucking on tits.

  “Why are you being so cold with me?” she whined. “I thought we had a lot of fun together.”

  I blew out a deep breath. Fuck my life. She was my mom’s friend’s daughter. She had also been an easy blow job between girlfriends. It had been a stupid-ass decision, but when I was drunk and had a hard-on, I’d had no problem unzipping my pants and letting her put my dick in her mouth. I supposed it had been an asshole thing to do. She worked the fuck-me and marry-me angles pretty hard, but there had never been a snowball’s chance in hell I’d have put my dick inside her pussy. Fuck no. I didn’t trust that bitch at all—then or now. I really should have just kept my dick in my fucking pants.

  I could hear Madison’s voice mocking me right about now, saying, I guess you didn’t think this one through.

  “Valentina, yes, we had a lot of fun together, but it’s not happening.”

  She started to open her mouth as she ran her hand over my dick.

  What the fuck is wrong with this bitch? She saw me with Madison. Annoyed, I looked at her. “You need to stop before I’m an asshole with you.”

  “I don’t want that.” She looked away and pulled into herself. “It’s only a matter of time anyway,” she said, standing up. She licked her lips and ran her hands through my hair. “See, I get what I want, and right now, I want you.”

  She wanted me, Nicki wanted me, Kristina with a K wanted me and half the female population wanted me. There were some immutable truths in life, and that was one of them, but only one woman had me, and it sure as hell wasn’t Valentina.

  I tilted my head up to her. “That’s where you and I are very much alike. I also get what I want, and it’s not you. I have her.”

  She leaned down and got in my face with a mischievous grin. “We’ll see about that.”

  I shrugged indifferently and reached for the glass of wine to polish off the last sip. I looked around for Madison, but she was nowhere in sight. Instead, my mom headed my way. I was sure she’d been up early and hadn’t stopped all day, but she still looked fresh and energized. She’d outdone herself while putting all of this together. Madison had been right as usual. Everything was perfect.

  “Great party, Ma,” I congratulated her, sitting up to make room for her. “Lovely toast.”

  “Your father made me throw away the speech I was planning on giving.” She sat down next to me. “I almost ignored him, but…” She sighed. “He says I’m not doing you any favors by spoiling you. What does he know?” She leaned in as if to tell me a secret. “I think I like Madison.”

  I reached for her hand, squeezing it. “Wait until you really get to know her. She’s amazing, so damn smart. She’s a lot like you. I’m convinced that I’m a better man because of her.” My phone vibrated on the table. “Speak of the devil,” I said before looking at the screen, thinking it was Madison.

  Chris: Dude, go inside. Madison and your sisters. Ugly.

  “Fuck my motherfucking life,” I groaned, tossing my phone onto the table and pushing back the chair. I went from zero to livid in no time. My jaw tightened, and I clenched my fists in anger.

  “Qué pasó? What’s the matter?” my mother asked, concerned.

  “Tus hijas. Your daughters have crossed the line.” I stormed toward the house.

  Everything happened for me in slow motion. My mom chased behind me as I made the short walk to the house that felt like an eternity. My heart was beating so fucking fast I thought for a second I was going to pass out.

  What did my sisters do now?

  They had promised they would be on their best behavior. They gave me their word they’d give Madison a chance. Liz begged me not to be mad at them. She pleaded with me to understand how much they loved me and that they h
ad been wrong for speaking out of line when I told them about Madison. I didn’t expected them to have lobotomies. What I had counted on was them giving award-winning performances for my sake.

  When I got to the door, I saw them sitting on the couch with their feet kicked up on the coffee table, laughing. I was confused and about to call Chris to find out why the fuck he’d sent me that message. And where the hell was Madison? I patted my pants and shirt for my phone, and then I spun around. My eyes landed on the table where I’d been sitting, and I saw my phone lying there.

  My mom placed her hand on my shoulder. “Relax, and talk to me.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Why can’t they just be happy for me? Why can’t they just let me live my life?” I ran my hands through my hair, looking up. “You don’t get it. No one fucking gets it.” I dropped my eyes to my mom. “No, that’s not right. She gets me.”

  “Who says they’re not happy for you?” my mom asked, running her hand up and down my arm as she tried to calm me down. “Look at them. They’re sitting on the couch, minding their own business. I don’t see them stirring up any trouble. Amor, trust your sisters. They would never do anything to hurt you.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that.” I stared at them, and the memories of all the times we’d sat on that couch, laughing, came back to me.

  Liz saw me and waved for me to come inside. My mom was right. I had to trust them, but I couldn’t explain the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  My mom opened the door for me, urging me inside. “Go, and spend some time with them. I’m sure Madison is around. She’ll find you. I’m going to start kicking people out,” she said with a laugh before placing a kiss on my cheek.

  I walked in, raising an eyebrow at them suspiciously. Liz had chocolate mousse in one hand and a mojito on the table next to her while Estrella sipped on her drink. They moved over on the couch and patted for me to sit between them, just like old times.

  “Come hither, Prince Rick, and sit with the princesses of the kingdom,” Liz said, laughing.