We leave with Darlene’s guitar on my back and her hand in mine. I think she’s nervous, although she won’t say why. She couldn’t. She remains tight to me as we enter and tighter still when she sees Blue behind the bar. He looks completely shocked when he sees her, probably because I’m next to her, but for some reason it’s her he shoots looks at.
Fire flows through my veins when I see him. I am reminded of how much I hate him and my restraint is at its very thinnest. I work hard to relax my brow and unclench my fist, not wanting to alert Darlene to my rage.
“What did you want to drink?” I ask her, brushing my lips against her ear and wrapping a hand around her waist. Yes, I have possession in this little game.
“The usual.”
“Two Corona’s, please,” I call to a startled redhead behind the bar. She smiles weakly before saying hi to Darlene and getting our drinks. She accepts my cash and I let her keep the excessive change. I don’t know why. I guess I’m trying to impress.
“You’re here.” We turn to see Blue has made his way from the bar to stand behind us.
“Of course,” Darlene says, looking noticeably flustered.
“Great.”
There’s an awkward silence that hovers between us all, giving me time to clock the cut on his lip.
“Cut yourself shaving?” I ask, praying that Darlene is the assaulter but then worrying about why she would need to.
“Oh this? Just an accident. My mistake.” He’s eying Darlene when he speaks and I want to rip his eyes out. My jaw is hurting from too much tension so I swig my beer and try to loosen up again. It’s not going to happen until I am far from this asshole. Thankfully, Darlene pulls me away.
“Come on, you can sit at the front.” She puts our bottles on a table near the stage. There is an old couple already sitting there but they smile warmly at Darlene when she asks if her husband can sit with them. After five years you’d think that I’d have grown used to hearing myself being referred to as her husband, but when it has felt like such a delicate title of late, it means so much. I warm under her gaze and kiss her cheek before she takes to the stage.
The room immediately falls silent when the noise of the guitar and amp pops to life. She takes a seat and all eyes are on her. I feel immensely proud already and she has yet to sing a word. She smiles at me as she tests her guitar and I see her nerves. She’s not nervous for her performance, she never is. No, she’s nervous because of Blue and I being in the same room. I don’t feel guilty. Not now that the adrenaline of his presence has been lit.
“Good evening, boys and girls. I’m going to kick off with a song that means a lot to me. It means a lot to me because apparently it means a lot to someone else, someone very special.” She brings her eyes to mine as she strums the opening to Can’t Fight The Moonlight.
I laugh and she smiles with me. She sticks a Spanish twist on the chords and alters the arrangement a little to suit a slower pace. It’s incredibly sexy and with her focus on me my unease is cooled.
It’s the first song I ever heard her sing and from that moment I vowed to not let it be the last. I’d been dragged in off the street by her melody and I stood with a crammed bar full of people who were just as captivated by her as me.
Piecing her voice with her physical beauty meant that she was a double threat to my heart. A heart that had vowed never to fall victim to the cons of relationships or marriage. But with no more than two minutes in her company I knew that I had to try. And when she singled me out of the crowd, smiling a wicked smile, I knew that I would.
Maybe I didn’t fall in love with her at first sight, not to the power of what I feel for her now at least, but there was definitely something that bound us together that night. The second I found her I knew I would never let her go. I never have and I never will.
So much has transpired between us since that moment over seven years ago and yet nothing has changed. She still owns my heart and what’s more, I still want her to. No fleeting affair will change that, not as long as it’s my bed she comes back to. I’m still competing and the longer she sings at me the more I feel the odds fall in my favor. Whatever her and Blue have been stupid enough to slip into is nothing compared to what we have, and the sooner she is reminded of that then the sooner they will be history. His feelings for her travel no further than his pants, and surely that’s not enough for him to want to pursue her anymore. Not now that he sees us as a solid unit.
Darlene sticks with country for the next few songs and I feel myself getting lost in the storytelling before reliving my own story. I can’t deny that this drama with Darlene hasn’t prompted me to look at my reasons for not walking away from an obviously failing marriage. I don’t need a psychiatrist to tell me that it is seeing my own parent’s marriage break down that has prompted this reaction. I never wanted a marriage, seeing it as a dead weight of a strain on a relationship, but when I found the one person who I wanted to be bound to in every way I knew that I could never let it fail. I wouldn’t be another statistic. My grandparents made it work and we could too.
I don’t even know if I believe my own psychoanalysis. My parent’s relationship was doomed from the start and the best thing they ever did was split up. But we aren’t them. This is a minor bump in a very long road. And at the end, we will barely even remember it.
As if in sync with my inner ramblings, both the lights and the music cut out sharply. I can’t see a thing in front of me, let alone Darlene. After a second of stunned silence the bar is filled with confused chatter and Blue is trying to talk over the top of the noise. I ignore the lot of them, focusing entirely on getting to Darlene. I hear her faint voice and use it to guide me to the stage edge. I call her and she finds me. I lift her down to the floor, but not before she makes sure to have Cash with her.
“What’s going on?” she asks, clinging tightly to my arm.
“I don’t know. Let’s go find out.”
We hear Blue telling people that the whole street is in darkness. He can’t get any power. The redhead and another guy are lighting candles as he speaks but the light doesn’t travel much further than the immediate area around the bar. He explains that the cash register is out of use but they are willing to keep serving if people have the correct change. Immediately the bar starts emptying. A few stay glued to their seats, waiting out the power outage and looking at Darlene expectantly.
“What do you want to do?” I ask Darlene, hoping that she is ready to leave.
“You can still play,” Blue interrupts. I wasn’t even aware that he was listening in.
Darlene looks between the two of us.
“I don’t think so.” She shrugs lightly. “Who would I be singing to? Nobody is listening.”
“Don’t then. I’ll sing.” If Blue had long hair it would have been whipped over his shoulder with the force of his turn. He stalks off toward the stage, but he’s halted by an arm on his shoulder. The blond guy is at least a foot shorter than him and half as wide, but that doesn’t stop him from speaking with conviction. They must be friends, I think, until Blue crushes him into the wall, his forearm at his throat. I react instinctively, wanting to separate them, but then I’m reminded of my hatred for the big fucker and I sit back, hoping that the little surfer guy is about to unleash his black belt and murder him.
He doesn’t.
He holds his hands up in defeat. Blue promptly walks away, appearing on stage a moment later as if the altercation was just my imagination. Darlene seems just as confused as me.
Sitting on a stool that looks small in comparison to his frame, Blue is hunched over a guitar, looking beaten before he’s even begun. The only light comes from beneath him and it flickers sinisterly.
“Shall we go?” I ask Darlene, optimistically. Blue’s eyes are locked on her and I want her away from him before he does something that rids the last of my self-discipline.
“Sure, let’s finish these.” She lifts up her full bottle of Corona and flops against the bar. Great.
Blue has no amp or microphone as he plucks the strings of his guitar, but with the emptiness of the bar comes the ability to hear him. His song echoes across the room, trailing over to us and wrapping around us hauntingly. He’s looking down as he begins to sing and it takes me only a second to decipher what his chosen song is. Chris Issac’s Wicked Game.
The words are an ode to Darlene. That much is obvious.But even without the words that speak of an uneasy desire it’s clear that this is a desperate bid for her. Gone is his cockiness, his attitude portraying nothing but sincerity.
I hate him more with each word.
At the chorus his eyes lift to meet Darlene’s, ignoring my own gaze that sits between them. When I look at Darlene she is staring straight back. Her face is a contortion of confusion and upset as he sings rounds of, “No, I don’t want to fall in love.”
He sings about wicked games played by Darlene, I assume, and it’s becoming clearer and clearer that his affection for her transcends anything merely physical. With the second chorus, Darlene casts her eyes down. She’s embarrassed as she tries to lose herself in the last of her bottle. I want to drag her away from what is clearly a declaration of his love. I assume that she sees it too, but knowing Darlene’s ability to overlook the men that fall at her feet I wouldn’t count on it.
Blue cunningly opts to change the last chorus to repeats of, “And I’ve fallen in love.” If I was his friend I’d slap him on the back. If it wasn’t my wife he was confessing his love to I’d congratulate him on his huge balls. If I wasn’t scared to death that his subtle dedication was working I would admire his creativity.
As it happens, I want to take his guitar and crush it into his skull.
Repeatedly.
I’m about to when I am pulled roughly from the red.
24
REID
I am dragged onto the street by a flustered Darlene. The red has followed me. I’m outraged on both of our behalves and terrified that Blue has managed to chip away at whatever caused her to give him a split lip. Darlene’s cheeks are red from anger, or embarrassment, I don’t know. Her hand lets go of my arm and promptly flies to her throat, rubbing it soothingly as if it has been noosed.
“You won’t ever set foot back in that bar. Never again,” I command as we hover in the street.
She turns to look at me, shocked, but I ignore it as I walk past her, remaining slow enough for her to catch up. She does.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she contests, stopping in front of me. Typical fucking Darlene. She can’t follow any order. She defies authority and revels in recklessness. That’s what happens when you grow up without reins. I not so silently curse her parents.
“I’m not telling you what to do. I’m asking,” I reply, bowing to her unworkable obstinacy. “Please. Don’t ever go in there again. Not for a gig or for a drink.”
She looks lost in her skin as she squirms. “Why?” I know she’s fishing because she’s worried and the wounded asshole in me wants her to be.
“Because...because I’ve trusted you in Blue’s company and I can’t anymore.”
“I-I don’t get it.” She’s fidgeting with the buttons on her jacket, fear of being found out splashed all over her face.
“What’s not to get? He’s obviously a violent person, Darlene. Didn’t you see him with that guy?”
She can’t hide her relief at my reason.
“That was Zach. They’re friends,” she says with no conviction.
“If he treats his friends like that then I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“NO!” My voice booms from deep within my chest, deep within the foundations of my stress. My last strand of restraint has snapped and I’m now unable to put up with her bullshit unreasonableness. “I’m not budging on this! You will not go in there again. You will not...put yourself in danger like that.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she mutters. That damn muttering. She turns and walks with determination toward our home, but she’s stopped at the doors to our apartment block by my echoing voice.
“I’m ridiculous? I’m ridiculous?! You’d rather go to that bar and upset me than stay at home and appease me?”
“Stay at home? I’ve stayed at home for five fucking months, Reid!” she screams. She actually screams. I’m both shocked and ecstatic that I have encouraged some passion from her. “That place is the only thing I have to occupy my time other than you and you’re asking me to give it up?”
“I’m not asking you, Darlene. I’m telling you.”
She throws her arms out. “You’re a walking contradiction!”
“I’m a walking mess!”
She narrows her eyes at me before realizing that’s my last offering. I see the words expand in her mind as her gaze flickers across my features. I’m aware that I’m frowning. I’m frowning so much it hurts, but the ability to relax is way out of reach.
“What do you mean, you are a mess?” she asks, much quieter.
“Because I want you safe, with me, and you’re denying me that.” My voice trembles with the annoyance at having to explain myself over and over, and not being able to touch my real reasons for not wanting her in that hell pit. I’m so close to screaming at her that I know. I’m so close to laying it all out on the line and watching her dance all over it. She would tell me that she’s sorry but she wouldn’t mean it. She would be thinking about missing out on being with him, like she is now.
She wants him.
I have to stop her wanting him.
“You’re not to go there ever again,” I say, my voice quiet but the intensity ever present.
She shakes her head but I step closer. She matches my step, challenging me.
“You’re not to go there ever again,” I repeat, inciting another repercussion of steps between us. Her chest is inches from mine, her doe eyes wide and defiant as she holds my attention. She doesn’t blanch as my hands lift to her jaw and my fingers bend behind her ears. “Never again,” are the last words spoken.
My lips meet hers with an explosion. Heat rises up between us so fast and so tangible that we could light a match. It burns through my veins and sends a shiver down my spine. It’s the stimulus I need to pursue this. I thrust my tongue into her mouth and she greets it with her own warmth. When her hands lock behind my neck I know that she’s as eager for this as I am.
I’m completely lost in this moment, a moment that has been too long coming. I’ve kissed her this week, but not like this, not passionately and not with such matched aggression. Our bodies are fighting through what our minds can’t and it’s exactly what I need.
In the far depths of my consciousness I hear a couple walking past, coughing indiscreetly. Suddenly concerned that I am about to have my wife in the middle of the street, I release her lips, but not her body. My hands hold firm against her waist and in her hair.
“I’m not stopping this, okay? This is just suspended until we get upstairs. Yes?”
She nods, breathlessly, as her fingers trace the plumpness of her lips. She hasn’t met my eyes. She’s too busy burning my chest with a look of confusion. I kiss her again, chasing that confusion away.
“Yes?” I assert. She nods again and I take her hand in mine before she has time to overanalyze this. I check the elevator but the power is still out so we make our way up the dark stairs and corridor.
We’re panting when we reach our door, from the exhaustion or expectation, who knows, who cares. I battle with the keys as my hand shakes. Darlene takes them from me and with renewed resolve she unlocks the door and guides me inside.
The apartment is dark, too dark, and I curse the damn black out. I want to see my wife, every bit of her. Darlene is already on it, finding a box of matches and lighting the candles on the table. She carries them by their intricate frame and lights the way to the bedroom. I follow in a daze, hypnotized by the sudden determination she encompasses.
In our bedroom, I watch Darlene as she places
the candles on her bedside table and lights several more. I thank God for my wife’s candle addiction and welcome the soft aroma of vanilla that rolls through the air. It smells like her.
Darlene’s watching me, I’m watching her. We are shrouded in silence and it only intensifies the electricity that is buzzing between us. It’s palpable, it’s visual. I can feel it in the tightness of my pants and the shortness of my breath. I can see it in the flush of her cheeks and her rising chest. It’s as obvious as the candle light dancing beside us and the bed laying in wait.
The wait is over.
I’m ready to pounce when I am halted by the subtle, open-mouthed exhale that leaves Darlene’s perfectly sculpted mouth. I watch as she psyches herself up and then leans down. She pulls off her boots along with her socks, straightening up to resume staring me straight in the eye. Her big eyes are hooded and lazy with seduction. She drops the sweater from her shoulders and I watch it filter to the floor. Toying with the hem of her camisole, she eyes me expectantly, running her tongue unconsciously over her lips.
Reading her thoughts, I kick off my shoes and roll off my socks. I throw my jacket to the floor before I catch myself. Slowing down, I finger the bottom of my sweater, silently inferring my proposal.
Together, we bare our chests, and while I watch with fascination she unhooks her bra and pulls it from her heavy breasts. They sit on her chest, too large for her slim frame but counteracting perfectly with the soft swell of her hips. Her nipples are already pointed and beckoning me to take them in my mouth. I’m hungry to taste her.
She lingers at the button of her jeans and so I reach for mine, managing to unbutton them despite my anxiously weak fingers. She mirrors my actions and I unashamedly follow the long line of her legs. Their ivory pallor is flawless even in the dim light of the candles. Darlene stands there in nothing but a pale pink thong, radiating beauty worthy of novels, sculptures, masterpieces.
An artist’s dream.
My breath is labored already and I’m yet to even touch her. I step forward and finger the long curls of her hair. She leans into my touch and so I oblige, cupping her delicate jaw and angling her to meet my lips. I stop, caught off guard by the glistening in her powder blue eyes.
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