by A. R. Hadley
“I would never,” I vowed. Shaking my head violently then dropping my chin, I tried to conceal the remorse in my eyes.
He put his finger under my chin and lifted it up. “Promise.”
I bit my lip. “I promise, Jonathan.”
He stood, released a shaky breath, then found my phone and plugged it into the charging cord hanging off the arm of the couch. “I'll get someone in today for the door and all this shit.” He gestured at the various items scattered about. “You're letting my shop go to hell over a man?” He was already punching things into his phone as he spoke to me.
His shop? And it was two men.
“Pledge open?”
He nodded.
I sighed. My bottom lip started to tremble.
He sat next to me on the couch. The man looked serene, even more put together than normal, the polar opposite of me.
"I’ll rescind everything, Dee. The shop. I'll take it all away if you don't—"
"This is just a setback."
He glanced at the near empty bottle on the ground. His eyes made a trail around the room. "Six fucking bottles is a setback? A glass is a setback, Deirdre. This is something else. Jesus. I shouldn't even leave you alone tonight."
He swiped the bottle from the floor and started to make his way to the kitchen, grumbling and groaning the whole way.
The sensation started in my toes and worked its way to my stomach. I tapped my feet on the ground to try to stop it. Chewed my lip. Squeezed the cushions on the couch. All while listening to the sound of my salvation being poured down the drain of the sink.
My head split into pieces.
Had it come to this? A man. Men. I drank because I wanted to drink; that was how it would always be. I hadn't fallen back into my routine because of a man. One or two. They wouldn't get the credit for any of my shit. I owned my shit.
"I'm picking you up in the morning and taking you to treatment. Mom doesn't know about this."
"I'll do it myself."
He stood over me, a hand on his hip and a frown on his lips.
"I want to do AA this time. I'll go."
I would go. Had to go. I couldn't do this anymore. I would always need a drink. I realized that now. I’d realized that years ago. I would need a drink, but it would never need me.
"Tomorrow, Dee. Do you need cash?"
I scoffed.
"Text me the address of the meeting. I'll verify that you are there."
"It's called ‘anonymous’ for a reason, shithead."
"The address, Dee, and then I want to see you at the shop. Personally."
"I need to turn up at the shelter."
"You need to listen to me.” He gazed down at me as if he weren’t my younger brother, looking more like a prince or a king. “You've been on the couch with six bottles of vodka — for how many days? You've avoided work and two of your six sisters. You have a slew of paintings lined up around your shitbox that you obviously don't want to discuss. You've pissed Margie off — which I would always advise against."
"What did I text her?"
He smirked. "Pledge closed, Dee."
"Knock, knock," a man said, standing under the doorframe. Jon went toward him. The two of them spoke a few sentences about the job at hand as they lifted the busted door upright and leaned it against the wall. The man mumbled something about having tools in his truck, and then he left my brother and I alone staring at the walls and those stupid reminder pictures.
"Do you want them?" I asked, not meaning it. I couldn't let them go. Not yet.
"They're good." He walked over to the one with my big, haunting eyes. He appraised it, palm over his chin, gaze astute. "Who's the artist?"
"No one you've heard of."
"Well..." He tapped his chin. "…it appears that Mr. No One I've Heard Of is in love with my snarky martyr of a sister."
TEN
I had been back at the shelter, doing my regular routine for at least a couple of weeks. Except now I attended AA. I wanted to drink but didn't. I made choices. A meeting first thing, early, then the shelter, then the shop. I barely had time to think about men or expert hands or blue eyes. I poured any leftover thoughts into notebooks, discovered reasons I drank beyond circumstance, and looked inside myself without running scared with what I found.
I had found Jeremiah.
Well, he hadn't been lost or in pain or addicted. He had been here, at the shelter all along, volunteering off and on. God only knew where he was crashing. We hardly spoke. The place was big enough that we could avoid conversation, but my heart couldn't avoid the looks or the tension with either man.
Pierce hadn't boarded that train I’d wished upon him, and Jeremiah didn't want to talk to me. Since when had the shelter become aggravation? My shelter. Both men had managed to fuck up the one place that felt like home to me. They were the interlopers. Fuck men. I didn't need their baggage or shit. I had enough of my own.
On my way down the hall to the office, one last thing to grab before it was time to head to the warehouse to customize street bikes, I looked up and almost collided with him.
“Hey,” I said. The ass didn't even stop walking.
“Hey,” he mumbled.
“Jeremiah, wait.”
“What, Dee?” I had forgotten the way he said my name; even exasperated, it sounded beautiful and addictive.
“How are you?”
“Is this what we are doing, Dee? I thought you were too cool for pleasantries and fake bullshit.”
“And I thought you were someone else.” I started to step away, but he grabbed my wrist. Our eyes met. The distance was close. Too close. Whatever we had was still there. The something. The feelings. My denial. Shit. He could see stuff in me that made me uncomfortable.
“I didn't sleep with him,” I blurted.
He dropped my wrist, inhaled a breath, and pushed a hand through his messy, ink-colored hair. “You want to sleep with him.”
“It's not the same thing.” I shook my head.
“Have you always lied to yourself?”
His words stunned me into silence. I could have sworn the hallway we stood in shifted. Maybe there was an earthquake.
“Does he even know about the two of us?”
“What two of us?” I stood tall, my fists balled at my sides. “You. Left. Me.”
The fuck-you Jeremiah wanted to spew was written all over his face, and I deserved it too, but he wouldn't say that or the other thing I needed or wanted him to say. God, I really fit in with L.A. now. My vanity was peaking and puking all over my ten-dollar thrift store clothing.
He screwed up his face and tried to move, but I stepped in front of his path. “What do you want, Dee?”
“Say it,” I demanded, teeth clenched.
“Say what? That I made a colossal mistake with you? That you were right? Do you want an award because your fucking cynicism finally rubbed off on me?” He shoved past me, allowing his shoulder to knock into mine the way a linebacker might smash an opponent on the football field.
I’d exaggerated, but that was how I felt. Shoved, rejected, and stuck on the fifty-yard line of the freaking hallway without the lovey-dovey romantic confession I’d tried to coax out of him. He would never say it, and I would never beg for it. I'd sooner chop off my hand and learn to write poetry by holding my favorite charcoal pencil with the tip of my sarcastic, fire breathing tongue.
“Deirdre,” Pierce called my name from the other end of the hall. Jeremiah rolled his eyes and took off.
Fuck. Shit. Fuck.
Pierce had been watching us. I was sure of it. He would piece it all together, and the sack of shit would let me go, tell me not to show my face here anymore, tell me to take a breather, or worse — he'd tell Jeremiah he wasn’t welcome at the shelter.
That. Could. Not. Happen.
I straightened my shirt, swatted my hair away — which was an exercise in futility — then marched down the hallway and entered the prick’s office. He closed the door, locked it, shoved me
against it, and kissed me like he meant to devour me whole.
I’d thought I wanted Pierce, thought I needed his steely grey eyes to open me, but I had already been peeled back and examined. There wasn't anything left to extract or taste.
He pecked at me, sucked, licked and danced his tongue against mine, but I didn't return his desire until he slid down my body and nuzzled his nose into the apex between my thighs.
“No.” I sucked in a breath and tried to close my legs. He spread me and undid the button of my jeans. “No,” I whispered, moaned, yanked on his hair. I kneed his cheek gently. He laughed, pulled my pants toward my feet, and planted his nose in my seam and inhaled deeply.
“Fuck you,” I moaned, struggled, and wiggled, but he held me against the door and kept up the breathing exercises until I could feel my arousal increase.
“No,” I said, threading my tingly fingers through his hair. “Do you hear me, asshole?”
He licked my clit. Three times. Barely. One, two, three... I gasped and bit back a righteous motherfucking scream.
The man could pleasure me. It would be okay. He knew what he was doing. He would do it for both of us. We could get this over with. Out of the way.
He inched back and glanced up at me, a disgusting smirk still playing at the corner of his lips. "No, sweetheart?"
I pulled his head back with one hand and slapped him across the face with my other. Stunned, he let go, and the moment he did, I bolted. I didn't get far with my damn jeans about my ankles. I tripped, fell forward, but the bastard caught me, pushed me to the edge of desk, and pinned my wrists.
We stared at one another, chests heaving, my cross plainly visible over my shirt, dangling between my breasts.
He released my hands, bit my nipples on his way down my torso, and nuzzled his face right back into my throbbing center.
I ached. Couldn't think. Despite my anger, I was ready to fall at his feet and let him worship me.
He spread my legs and began to lap at me again. Intentional licks. Expertly timed. The man could teach classes — it was that good. I cursed a million quiet fucks while he quietly hummed, strummed, and consumed my doubt.
It wouldn't take long. I'd explode on his face and throb against the two fingers he had shoved inside my pussy and get him out of my system, or he would want more.
I couldn't do more. This was it. The end.
I was over.
I was nothing.
A woman wanting an orgasm more than a life.
Grunting and writhing, I arched my hips closer to his face, feeling the release beginning. My muscles pulled back. He slowed. I could feel his smile against my skin, his sick satisfaction, and then I lost it. My head fell back. My mouth opened. I dug my nails so far into his scalp I was sure he would bleed. I pressed, holding his face against my pussy until the last contraction subsided, and the second it was over, I landed back on the same football field.
The middle.
Nowhere to go.
No play.
I had seen white specks and supernovas, but the earth was still here, and I was still on it, the same. Everything outside the door was the same.
I ached.
He wiped his mouth, pulled up my jeans, and stood, and then he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me down to the floor.
Fuck me to hell… I could smell him.
Fuck me to hell… I wanted him in my mouth.
I looked up at him from my knees as he glanced down, as he opened his pants and guided his monster of a dick toward my waiting mouth. He tapped my cheek. “Open.” I did. “Take all of me, sweetheart.”
I licked his tip and the underside of him, base to crown. The bastard actually tasted sweet. I repeated the teasing until he lost the ability to let me lead. He gripped my shoulders and shoved his dick past my teeth until his tip hit my throat and I groaned.
He mumbled fuck over and over as he thrust, his dick in my throat, his hands on my shoulders, his mouth chanting curses. He fucked it all into me and out of me. I let him use my face as a vessel, my body as a self-fulfilled prophecy.
I would know what it felt like.
I had asked for it. Begged him with my stare for weeks and weeks to take my mouth like this. To tie me, bind me, and rough me up. This was how it had to be.
My eyes watered as I stopped myself from choking. Drool dripped from the corners of my lips, and finally after several harsh thrusts and one long and final "Fuck, sweetheart," he spilled his orgasm into my mouth.
I swallowed, collapsed, and put my face into my palms and started to hyperventilate just a little.
He sank to his knees and uncovered my face.
“You fucking bastard.” I wiggled my arms, but he held my wrists and smiled. Smiled! “You did this for what? Why now?” I bugged out my eyes. “You saw us in the hallway.”
“I already knew.”
“You knew what?” I spat.
“You are in love.”
“Yes, prick! We covered that.”
“You are in love with Jeremiah.” He smirked.
“Oh, well, Mr. Power Dick remembers his name.”
“I don’t forget names.”
“Fuck you.” I tried to stand. “Let me go.”
“Why are you with him?”
“I'm not.”
“Fine. Why were you with someone like him? I know who you are. I discovered your real surname.”
I shook him off. He allowed me to stand, then he followed suit, straightening out his Armani, tucking his fancy shirt back into his fancy pants.
“Deirdre Drazen.”
He said my name as though he were magically summoning a genie from its bottle. What a piece of work.
“You did this because of who I am.”
“No. I did this because I couldn't wait to get my mouth on you, Deirdre.”
“Stop.” I put my palms over my ears. “Don't lie to me.”
“I didn't realize who you were until you went MIA. Your family went apeshit trying to track you down.”
“I'm not like my family.”
“I can see that. You fell in love with a homeless person.”
“And what? Sucking you off in this lovely excuse for an office is a step up from that? You are delusional.”
“And you're in denial.” That was both men now. One said I lied to myself; the other said I was in denial.
“Not anymore. You just cured me. Quit, move, or fuck off, or you will see what the name Drazen stands for in this city.”
“Don't threaten me, sweetheart.”
I stomped toward him. “Maybe I will file with HR.”
He smirked again, looking me up and down like he would take me and pleasure the hell out of me just because he could. And I still wanted him to.
“No,” I answered his silent proclamation with a breathless whisper that sounded like a yes.
“Then go, or I'll turn you around and fuck you — hard, Deirdre.”
“This isn't even about money, is it? Why are you here?” Now I smirked. I held all the cards. “You're running? No … you are paying a debt or a probation.”
The blue in his eyes turned absolutely grey. Steel fucking beams.
My stomach dropped. Lurched.
I put my hand over my mouth, unlocked the office door, ran down the hallway, and pushed open the bar on the exit door. I had never been so happy to smell the smog and trash of L.A. Bolting to the side of the dumpster, I bent over and puked my fucking guts out.
How about that?
My body didn't even want his seed. I’d rejected him.
He was nothing but the contents of my stomach on the concrete.
ELEVEN
I strolled down the sidewalk in Venice for what felt like hours. I had no concept of time, not where he was concerned.
He had to be here.
Walking the sidewalk with my yellow notebook clutched under my arm, I habitually tried to push my hair back, but it wanted to do its own thing, so I slipped my sunglasses on top of my head, hoping they
would hold the curls at bay for a while, and that was when I saw him. He wasn't in his usual spot. I knew because I had been spying on him. Not stalking him. I’d just needed to know he was all right.
He had become a part of me.
Not the kind of part that could be given away or donated. He wasn't one of two kidneys or something.
He was vital.
I couldn't sleep at night without him.
Lately, I had avoided him at the shelter but had become consumed with the shop, working longer hours because it was far better than staring at the ceiling and thinking about drinking. I made myself a promise every day. Resolutions. Committing myself to AA, and today I would commit myself to him.
The weeks had gone by slowly. I could only write for so long. My hand went numb. My eyes would blur and ache. I worked on at least a dozen bikes. But nothing I did quieted the loudness in my heart. Nothing took his place.
My matchbox, as small as it was, was empty without him in it. And at the very least, if he thought my commitment was a joke, I needed to return his canvases to him.
Jeremiah Holden sat on a tiny folding stool next to his easel and tools. A woman had just walked away, an older woman, holding a California souvenir courtesy of the man I loved in her hand, a grin on her face.
I stepped closer to the street artist. He didn't see me yet.
I love him.
I love him.
I love him.
I marched to the beat of the words.
“Dee,” he said, at a loss for breath. Jesus, I’d startled him. “What are you doing?”
I love him. Shit. Fuck.
My throat closed. Why did he want me? What if he didn't want me? I should turn around and leave now.
“Dee...”
I cleared my throat, opened my notebook, tore out three pages, and handed them to him.
“Man List One...” He read the title out loud and arched a brow. His sapphire eyes screwed up into jagged puzzle pieces.
I couldn't blame him. I was amusing, annoying, and I LOVED him.
I had stayed away from the shelter for a couple of weeks, torturous weeks, but I’d had to. There was no way I would go back with both men there because obviously Mr. Prick had something over me. Like lust and sweat and a million ways to orgasm. I couldn't seem to tell Pierce no, or he didn't listen. We would eventually drown in our disease for each other.