by Claire Adams
At least it was finally fucking Friday. Maybe things would look better next week, though I’d been telling myself that lie for five years now.
But maybe, just maybe, Monday would signal the arrival of the week when I’d be able to breathe on my own again.
Chapter 6
Juliana
“Please, baby, the game’s over. Let’s just go home, okay?” I asked Scott for what felt like the millionth time, though it was probably only the fourth.
Scott didn’t even look like he’d heard me, but he responded with an irritated noise at the back of his throat. “I’m not ready to go yet.” He drained his beer. “Grab a ride home with one of the girls; I’ll come home when I’m good and ready to.”
Jessica, a girl who worked with Amber at a cosmetics store, stepped forward. She was hesitant and shy, but she’d always been nice to me. “I’m on my way home; would you like a ride?”
I shot a glance at Amber, who was nodding at me encouragingly and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. “Go. I’ll make sure that he makes it home safely. I’m not ready to leave yet either.”
It didn’t feel right leaving Scott behind, but I did it. He barely seemed to notice my leaving, as caught up in the post-game commentary as he was.
Jessica dropped me at home a few minutes later. I slid from her car, giving her a grateful smile. “Thanks, Jess. I’ll see you around.”
She smiled back and waved her fingers. “See you around.”
I didn’t even bother taking off my dress before I collapsed onto my bed. I just pulled the straps of my heels free and sent them flying. It wasn’t like me, but who the hell cared?
Drifting off to sleep, an image of the hot SEAL popped into my mind, but I pushed him away as I succumbed to my exhaustion. I didn’t need any more of him in my mind, thank you very much.
Unfortunately, my mind didn’t seem to listen, and before I knew what was happening or how to stop it, I was in the desert.
My feet were digging into soft sand that was still warm from the sun after a blistering hot day. It would cool down soon, and the temperature would dip, I knew, but also knew that I would be warm by the time that happened. My man would make sure of it.
I waited for him, wearing a thin silk dress that was brushing my ankles in the breeze, and nothing else. He would be able to make out the hard peaks of my nipples easily under the clinging electric blue dress that hugged my curves in all the right places.
A shiver of anticipation ran through me at the thought of being there. Being with him. As if right on cue, he stepped out the gloom, his golden skin pale in the moonlight shining over the arid landscape around us.
He’d prepared a picnic for us under the stars, and my heart was pounding as he stalked towards me, shirtless and gorgeous, literally making my mouth water. As I’d suspected, his body was worthy of being worshipped, with every muscle toned and built for purpose.
The SEAL didn’t hesitate to pull me into his arms, into a passionate kiss that had me wanting to melt into a puddle of desire right there, but I wouldn’t. Because that would mean no longer being held by those muscular arms that I wanted to lick and bite and stay in forever, enveloped as I was by his masculine scent.
He kissed me deeply, with a focused concentration that made me feel like I was the only woman in the world. Like he’d searched all his life and wanted to claim me as his own with his possessive kisses.
When his lips finally lifted from mine, he grinned against them and then sat down on the waiting picnic blanket, gently lowering me into his lap like I was precious to him. He nuzzled my neck and pointed up at the night sky, where millions of twinkling stars sparkled above us—unhindered by any ambient light from a nearby city, they were breathtaking.
He must have heard my sharp intake of breath, because he kissed me hard and whispered into my ear. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”
I nodded, wrapping my arms around his neck and shifting in his lap so that I was straddling him. “They’re just as exquisite as you said they were.”
“And yet none of it holds a candle to you, my love,” he promised huskily, staring deeply into my eyes before dropping his head to my neck, then lower—
A loud alarm started blaring in the distance, becoming louder and louder until it sounded like it was coming from right next to my head.
Which it was, I realized somewhere in the dark recesses of my groggy mind, waking up slowly and reaching over to hit the snooze button on my phone.
Groaning and embarrassingly aroused, I rolled over in bed. Instead of hitting Scott’s warm body as I swept my arm out, my hands brushed ice-cold sheets as I opened my eyes to look at his side of the bed. There wasn’t so much as a dent in his pillow.
He never came home last night.
I grabbed my phone, which was just starting to blare with Kesha’s “Tik Tok” again. I shut down the alarm and checked my messages, but there were none. Not a single text. No missed calls. Nothing.
Asshole! How could he?
Tapping out a quick text to him, I sat up, shook the cobwebs of my stupid dream from my mind, and headed for the shower, fuming more with each step that I took. Sure, I’d had a dirty dream about a stranger, but at least I’d had it in my own bed. I still felt a little guilty about it, but mostly I was angry. Fucking furious, actually.
If it were the first time that Scott hadn’t come home, maybe I wouldn’t be feeling white hot rage pricking at my insides, but worry instead.
Hell, the first few times it had happened, I was ripping my hair out until I got word that he was safe. But it wasn’t the first time. Or the second. It was the third. In as many weeks since he’d moved in. And that wasn’t counting all the times it had happened before he’d officially moved in, the nights he was supposed to have been staying over or the nights I’d gone back to his place earlier than him.
Padding down my short hallway to the small bathroom that I’d recently updated to match the modern kitchen, with the gleaming white tiles and a rain shower, I paused to proudly admire it—just like I did every morning.
The house might’ve been tiny, but it was mine. So when Scott started having trouble with his landlord because of late rent payments and we’d been together for a few months anyway, it made sense for him to move in with me.
I hit the mix tap and waited for the water to get warm before I stepped into the shower, wondering if asking to Scott to move in had been a mistake after all. He had a bit of a reputation as a ladies’ man before we’d gotten together, but he promised me that he was a one-woman man when we started dating.
I’d accepted his promise, on the condition that as soon as his eyes—or his cock—more accurately, started wandering, we were over. Since I’d left him with Amber, I was sure that wasn’t what was going on, but as the rage started turning into the more familiar worry, I couldn’t help being concerned about him.
Steam started fogging up my new shower doors, indicating that the temperature was up to where I liked it to be. I stripped off my dress I’d gone to sleep in, rolling it into a ball and making a neat shot into the hamper nearby, then stepped in.
The hot water that cascaded over my shoulders had a soothing effect, and for just a few seconds, I stood there and tried to relax, but the worry about Scott started gnawing at me again before I’d even squeezed shampoo into my hands.
Where the hell was he? Why wouldn’t he come home and why wouldn’t he at least text me that he was okay?
Picking up the bottle of vanilla-scented shampoo that I’d splurged on and only used when I needed to pamper myself, I gave it a deep sniff and relished in the small comfort of the familiar smell.
I squeezed a blob of liquid between my palms and lathered into my hair, tipping my head under the warm stream to rinse it out as my thoughts continued wandering. The thing about Scott that had drawn me in at first was his easy smile and his charming demeanor, despite his reputation.
In the early days of our relationship, he’d been an absolute dream. He was witty, fun, and at
tentive. He was always up for going out, and never complained that I frequently met my girlfriends out for drinks after work, largely because he did the same thing, and best of all, he was pretty damn decent in bed.
Eventually though, going out for drinks to blow off steam after work seemed to have morphed into something more for Scott. And it wasn’t something I could say that I liked.
Once the shampoo was rinsed clear out of my hair, I conditioned, washed the rest of my body and finished up in the shower. I hit the tap and reached for the fluffy towel I had hanging over the side of the shower and dried off, checking my phone as soon as I stepped out.
There still wasn’t an answer from Scott.
Worry bloomed like a living thing in my stomach. Where was he?
Since I’d left him with Amber, I tried her next.
Me: Do you have any idea where Scott is? He didn’t come home. No msgs. Getting worried :-(
I wrapped the fluffy towel around my chest, knotting it between my boobs and padded back to my bedroom, phone clutched in my hand.
It buzzed with Amber’s answering text just as I stepped over the threshold to our bedroom.
Amber: So sorry! Should’ve texted. Thought he did. He’s fine. Brought him home with me. He got trashed, almost puked. My place was closer. Xx
Rolling my eyes, I threw my phone onto the unmade bed. Well, the one unmade side, since the person who was supposed to sleep on the other side hadn’t been capable of getting home. That was what I was worried about—that he’d gotten that drunk again.
There was blowing off steam because we were all bored with our relatively menial jobs, but then there was what Scott had been doing lately. He’d ventured way beyond a few drinks a couple of nights a week, drinking to the point of passing out and even getting sick more often than not.
I replayed the last few weeks in my head as I got dressed for work. Thank God it was Friday; I needed to take the weekend to think it through and have a serious talk with Scott.
He wasn’t going to want to hear what I had to say, but his erratic behavior and newfound drinking habits bothered me. I loved going out and having fun as much as the next person, but I wasn’t going to tolerate waking up by myself without any word from him, and I certainly wasn’t going to keep having to bug our friends for updates on his whereabouts like I was his mother.
It had been ages since I’d felt like anything but a nuisance to Scott. He claimed that I nagged too much about his friends, like Dreadlocks from yesterday, which he hadn’t even bothered to introduce me to. His habit of going out and disappearing for hours on end had frayed my last nerve, and the fact that we hadn’t spent any quality time together in weeks was more than I could take.
With more than a twinge of disappointment, I remembered my dream and how happy and cherished the SEAL had made me feel. Was it really too much to ask that I feel just a little bit of that with Scott?
Once my ugly work uniform was on, I squirted some product onto my wet hair so that it would dry to form its natural waves, added a bit of mascara and a touch of lip gloss, and with a last nod at my reflection, headed out the door.
Whatever. It was a dream. Dreams weren’t real. Scott was. My relationship with him was, and I had to be honest with him about what I was feeling. Later.
For now, it was time to put all these negative thoughts out of my mind and focus on being ready to tackle the day when I arrived at work.
Chapter 7
Pacey
I needed to fuck. So good and so hard and for so long that I had no choice but to sleep afterward. For several days. But falling asleep after bagging a random never happened for me; actually sleeping with someone required a level of trust that I didn’t associate with someone whose last name I didn’t even want to know.
So I had to settle for throwing myself into work. The day was shaping up to be another scorcher, and while it did nothing to ease my cranky mood, if I played my cards right clearing the brush from the empty lot that Tugger and I were tackling that morning, I’d be so exhausted by the end of the day I would have no choice but to finally get a good night’s sleep.
Tugger held a travel mug of coffee out to me when I pulled up at the lot, slamming the door of my truck behind me. The truck didn’t deserve me taking my frustrations out on her, but they had to be channeled fucking somewhere.
“Jessie made it just the way you like it,” he smiled. “Strong and bitter. Just like you.”
“Ha ha,” I responded dryly, accepting the mug and taking a long sip. It didn’t cheer me up, but it went a long way towards waking me up. “I’m not bitter; I’m stoic and manly.”
“Stoic and manly?” Tugger laughed, brushing his hand over his short dark hair. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“I’m two weeks younger than you, asshole,” I said, dropping the side of the bed of the truck so we could move the equipment we needed off of it.
“Two weeks is a long time; think of all the things you can learn in two weeks, and how much things can change.” Tug heaved a commercial-grade chainsaw from the truck.
I rolled my eyes toward the deep blue sky. “Stop trying to be deep, brother. Philosophical isn’t a good look on you.”
He set the chainsaw down and jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Look at me; everything’s a good look on me.”
Making a gun with my index finger and thumb at my temple, I pretended to pull a trigger and mimed my head exploding. Tugger’s lips hiked up into a smirk. “I’m going to have to remember to tell Jess to stop feeding your ego.”
His’s obsidian eyes flashed with amusement before he threw back at me, “Or, you could find yourself a good woman to feed yours.”
“My ego doesn’t need feeding,” I told him. “I don’t need validation.”
“It’s not about validation, brother,” he started, then narrowed his eyes slightly and shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Thank God.” I grabbed a pair of shears from the truck and headed across the lot to throw myself into the work that needed to be done. I could feel Tugger staring after me, but he didn’t follow. He knew me well enough to know when to leave it be.
We worked mostly in silence for the rest of the morning, and soon, the blazing sun and the physicality of the work started lifting the dark cloud that had been hanging over my head since the night before. It brought with it the clarity of mind that only the burn in my muscles brought about these days.
I knew that Tugger meant well with all of his seemingly offhand comments and invitations to do something other than hooking up with a different woman every night. He didn’t approve of my lifestyle, and I didn’t blame him, but I couldn’t change it because I had no alternative. I’d tried to find one, but it simply didn’t exist, not for me.
Sure enough, while we were eating our lunch in the shade of a tree that wouldn’t be there by the time we left for the day, Tugger’s expression turned contemplative. He was almost surely trying to think of a way to distract me, even if it was just for that one night.
“You wanna go to the movies tonight? There’s a new action flick out that stars that hot gal who played Wonder Woman that you like so much.”
I wondered if he would still have invited me if he’d known the only reason I liked her was because she reminded me a little of May. It was a pathetic way to try and feel close to her, and I knew it, but it wasn’t like there was any other way.
Sometimes, when the emptiness inside became nearly overwhelming, and the tightness threatened to strangle me, I did stupid shit to get through it. Like watching action movies and allowing my mind to draw comparisons between their scenes and similar situations that May and I had lived through.
For just a little while, I relived the memories, allowed them to wash over me, and for just that tiny, otherwise insignificant moment in time, I felt close to her again. Tugger had been close to May too, so he knew what losing her had meant to me.
He knew how much her loss had irrevocably changed the person that I was, but he
wasn’t giving up on me. Every day, subtly and without overtly confronting the issue, he was pushing me to move on.
In my head, however, May was alive and well and I wasn’t ready to let go of her. Nor was I ready to let those memories wash over me in a movie theater with hundreds of other people around me. The memories were mine to relive and mine alone.
“Can’t, sorry,” I said, turning him down yet again.
The corners of his mouth dipped down in disappointment, but I ignored it. I was just trying to survive, and survival meant that I had to do things my own way.
Tugger smoothed his expression and looked thoughtfully into the middle distance while he munched on his sandwich. When he was done with whatever it was he was thinking about, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned his gaze on me.
“How was last night? You end up at Rennie’s?”
“Yeah, I did. Same shit, different day, like I said.” Then I remembered that one thing out of the ordinary had in fact happened. Tugger was going to love the story, and since I’d disappointed him by turning down his invitation, I owed him a laugh.
“Get this. During halftime, I went to take a piss, and when I got back to my seat, there was some asshole sitting in it drinking my beer.”
Tug laughed incredulously, the last traces of disappointment falling away. “How hard did you punch him? Just tell me his head is still attached to his body. It has to be; surely you wouldn’t have deprived your old friend the opportunity to help you bury him if it wasn’t.”
“I wouldn’t have, no. Don’t worry, if I ever need that kind of help, you’re still on the top of my list.” I joked, without really joking. Tugger and I had been through plenty together, though it had all been sanctioned, unlike ripping the asshole’s head off would have been. “I didn’t hit him, actually. So yes, his head is still attached to his body.”