Screw It

by Nicki DeStasi

  I didn’t know she would die!

  A sob rips out of my chest.

  “Shh…baby girl. I know you’re sad,” her voice says in my head.

  “I hate it here, Mama. I miss you,” I say to the empty air.

  “I know, baby girl, but you’ll make it. You’re better than me. Be strong. You can make something of yourself.”

  I sob louder. “I can’t, Mama.”

  “You can, baby girl.”

  “Becca!” Tammy pounds on the door, but her voice sounds off. It’s deeper and desperate.

  “Becca!”

  The banging on the door causes me to shoot up in bed. Disoriented, I glance around the room, half-expecting my mama to comfort me again. I jump when I hear a crash against the door that’s definitely not a hand but probably a foot.

  “Goddamn it.” I throw back the purple covers, walk to the door, and check the peephole.

  Brian.

  My heart sinks to my stomach.

  Fuck.

  “Becca, open the door.”

  I rest my head on the door, praying for patience.

  “Becca!”

  The pounding vibrates on my forehead.

  “Go away, Brian,” I say low, detached.

  “Becca, please, open the door.” His voice is agonized, desperate.

  Rethinking my arrangement with Brian for the first time, I decide to just get this over with before the neighbors call the cops. I disengage the locks, and as soon as I start turning the doorknob, he pushes open the door before slamming it behind him.

  When I take in his wild, crazed eyes, I realize my mistake. I should have let the cops come. Then, my eyes narrow on the gun at his hip, and my heart slides further down to my toes. Wide-eyed, I take a step back, but he’s on me and running his hands over my hair, my face, my arms, and my stomach.

  I slap him, but I’m not breaking through. “Brian.”

  He lowers his mouth.

  I push on his chest. “Brian.”

  “Becca, please listen to me.”

  My heart is beating a mile a minute. I’m nervous about that gun on his hip. Still, he needs to snap out of his delusion.

  “No. You need to listen to me. We’re done.”

  Something shatters in him. He’s crazy desperate one second and then crazy angry the next. His jaw is hard, his eyes are flashing, and his body locks solid. The change is aggressive, and it’s terrifying me.

  “Stop saying that,” he snarls. He literally snarls like a rabid wolf with his teeth bared.

  My muscles tense, my shoulders inching up to my ears, and ice sinks into my veins. “Brian.”

  “So help me God, don’t make me do something I’ll regret.” His tone is as hard as the rest of him. “Listen. To. Me.”

  My mouth clamps shut, and I nod my head. It’s probably best not to push the psycho-scary-angry guy with the gun, making him do something he’ll regret. I definitely don’t want that.

  He crushes my stiff body to his, running his hand up and down my spine. “I’m sorry, baby, but seeing him with you tonight—talking to you, putting his hands on you—drove me crazy. You’re mine, Becca. You need to accept that you belong to me.”

  I’m thinking that he’s not referring to the bar, but he’s telling me that he followed us. I’m also thinking that I need to let this play out, so I do my best to push down the rising fear and panic.

  “I understand.”

  “Really?” His voice is high, showing his relief. He pulls away enough to look down at me. His soft eyes and slight smile scream hope.

  I try to tip up the corners of my mouth, but my lips tremble. “Yeah, Brian, I get it. But do you think we could do this another time? I’m really tired,” I say, knowing that I’m never letting him back in if I get him out.

  He kisses me hard, claiming me, pushing his tongue against my lips. I hesitate, and he presses his mouth to mine harder, bruising my lips. Not knowing what to do because I do not want him to snap again, I open my mouth for him. He groans, slipping into me and tangling our tongues. I used to think he was a good kisser, but now, I’m fighting the urge to vomit.

  I tear my mouth away from his. “Brian, seriously, I need to get up in a few hours. I’m exhausted. Can we do this another time?”

  He takes a deep breath, and the tension eases from his body. My shoulders relax, thinking I dodged a bullet—literally and figuratively.

  He leans down and kisses my nose. “Sure, baby.”

  Phew!

  He twists my body, and he locks up the door before pulling me to my bed.

  Wait. What?

  “What are you doing?” My voice rises an octave.

  He glances at me, his expression soft. “I’m locking up, so we can go to sleep.” He kisses my temple.

  That’s not part of the arrangement. “But—”

  “The rules don’t apply to us anymore, right?” There’s a hopeful hint to his voice.

  Oh shit. Oh damn.

  I try to think of a way out of this, but his face loses the softness, so I agree. “Right.”

  My face drains of color when he takes off his gun, slips it under a pillow, and proceeds to strip naked.

  He climbs into bed and under the covers. “You coming?”

  “Um…”

  “Baby, not to have sex. I’m tired, and you’re tired. We have a long time to do that.”

  Long time?

  “Um…”

  “Becca,” he says, his tone a warning.

  I take heed and crawl into bed. He tucks my white sheets and purple comforter over us and pulls me into him, spooning me. My eyes widen, and my frame stills when his dick grows hard. He presses it into my ass.

  “I really need my sleep, Brian.” My voice comes out squeaky.

  “I know, but I can’t help what you do to me. Sleep, baby.”

  At that, I let the tension slip out. I work to loosen my muscles, imagine them turning to jelly, and I force my breath to even out.

  Dawn kisses the room before the edges of sleep finally call to me.

  Just before I slip into dreamland, he whispers so low that my conscious barely catches it, “This is our beginning, baby.”

  I’m on my back in her lumpy bed. Becca is moving up and down on my cock, her hair flying all around. Her cotton-candy nipples are puckered and glistening from me sucking on them earlier. She is tight and hot, my wet heaven.

  “Lean back, sweets, and put your hands on my thighs.”

  She does as she’s told, likely knowing that what I said would feel good. I like knowing that everything she does, I taught her to do.

  She tosses her head back. “Zach.” Her voice is a whisper.

  From her pussy squeezing me, I know she said my name like that ’cause she’s close. I put my thumb on her clit and rub hard.

  “Zach.” Her movements grow jerky.

  “Take yourself there.” I grit my teeth.

  Looking at her body tipped back for me—her tits pushed out, her pussy sliding up and down my dick—is taking everything in me to hold back until she has hers.

  This is not usual. In fact, it’s highly unusual.

  I have sex—a lot of it. I learned stamina at a young age, so I can go for a long fuckin’ time.

  But I haven’t caught fire like this, never like this.

  I quit thinking when she clamps down on me and convulses. I wish she wasn’t tipped back ’cause I missed seeing that look on her face that said she entered an alternate universe. That look is fucking phenomenal. I regret not witnessing her face as her orgasm washed through her for only a second before I let that pressure go, and it bottle-rockets out of me.

  These are the thoughts I’m having when pulling up to work on Monday morning. If I were home and in the shower with my dick in my hand, these would be good thoughts. Now, not so much.

  Over the past day and a half, I’ve remembered a lot about the us we had back in the day. Going over those memories, I’m thinking I was a dumber fuck than I thought.

  I
decided to give Becca the weekend before I started working my way back into her life. I didn’t like it, but I knew she needed space. I’d come on heavy, laying it out in a way that she hadn’t taken well. I’d known she wouldn’t, but we could get past it.

  I just have to work on it. Tonight, I’m going to walk into Mario’s and sit in her section. If she’s not there, I’ll go to Hole. If she’s not there, I’ve considered the possible drawbacks of showing up at her place. Her nails would likely come out. I know this, and I like this. The tug-and-pull makes my blood pump. I forgot that we did this. I didn’t have much of it before her or after her, and I forgot how much it made me want to kiss her quiet.

  After I pull my old F-150 into my spot and jump from my truck, I walk through the station and to my desk. After I plop my ass in my black leather chair, I turn on my laptop.

  Matt walks in just as it completes booting up. “Ready?”

  We’re due for the interview with last Friday’s widower. “Yep.”

  Twenty minutes later, we’re pulling up the husband’s driveway in Matt’s black Explorer. The secluded house is on the outskirts of the city, one of the few homes in Worcester that has the luxury of privacy. From research, we know the husband worked hard, climbed his way to the top, and is sitting pretty as VP of a food distributor based out of Boston. He travels a lot for work, which would make me think this could be a crime of passion, except Matt said the husband was such a mess that he deserved an Oscar if he was faking.

  When the engine shuts off, I swing open the door, and my boots hit the driveway. I absorb the tan mansion complete with a four-car garage and pruned bushes. The bright green grass looks like someone was on hands and knees with a ruler and scissors.

  “I bet it takes a year to clean that house, only to start all over again when the next year begins—and that’s without kids,” Matt says as he comes to a stop next to me.

  I turn my head to see his shaded eyes aimed at the mansion. I grin and shake my head. Then, I move my boots to the door with Matt right next to me. After I knock, I slide my shades on top of my head. The man who answers the door is the same man with blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair on the company website—except the man in front of me reeks of despair.

  “Mr. Anderson?” Matt asks.

  “Yes.” He’s pale with circles under his eyes, standing in a wifebeater and gray sweatpants.

  “I’m Detective Matt Bradley, and this”—he tilts his head toward me—“is Detective Zach Moretti. We scheduled an interview to ask you a few questions this morning.”

  The fog in the husband’s eyes clear, and he opens the door wider. “Right, right. Please come in.”

  We turn down his offer for drinks and find ourselves on a white leather couch. It’s softer and more comfortable than my bed, and I spent three grand on that mattress.

  Knowing this is my first rodeo, Matt takes the lead. “You said several times that you don’t believe Sharon would hurt herself. Can you tell us why, Mr. Anderson?”

  Mr. Anderson’s face crumples, and my heart goes out to the man who lost his wife of twenty-five years. I can’t imagine feeling the kind of pain he’s in, and I pray to God that I never have to.

  He clears his throat. “Please call me Paul.”

  I nod, and in my peripheral, I catch Matt doing the same.

  “I know that it looks like a suicide, but I don’t believe that. We didn’t see each other nearly as often as we wanted because we both travel, um…traveled for work, but we would talk every night for hours. She loves…loved—” He chokes on the word loved and brings a fist to his mouth.

  “Take your time, Paul,” Matt says.

  He nods and squeezes his eyes shut. After a few moments, he clears his throat and continues with a scratchy voice, “She loved her job. She loved her life and specifically the life we built together. She was always smiling, and she laughed often. There is no way that after laughing about one of her clients, she would ki—” He stops. Planting his face in his hands, a sob tears out of him from so deep that I feel the pain in me. “We had plans to spend a week together in Fiji. She even bought a whole new wardrobe. We would have left last Saturday night.”

  Matt puts a hand on the man’s shoulder. “All right, Paul. I understand what you’re saying. I just need to ask a few more questions. Some of them might be difficult, but they’ll help us build a picture of what happened to your wife.”

  With a dip of his head, Paul acknowledges what Matt said.

  “So, I’d like for you to confirm the details we have so far.”

  Paul nods again.

  “Right. Sharon Marie Anderson, age fifty-five, worked as a talent recruiter for Snap, an art studio in Boston.”

  When Matt stops, Paul jerks his chin up in assent.

  “Mind sharing why you live out here when both of your jobs are based in Boston?”

  Paul gives a half-ass shrug. “We grew up here and wanted to stay near our parents. After they passed, we stayed because we both have home offices, and we traveled a lot. We rarely needed to go into the city. We lived our lives here and didn’t want to leave.”

  “Okay.” Matt nods like he thinks that was a good answer.

  I agree.

  The questions keep coming, staying mostly on the surface. Paul paints a picture of two people who worked hard and liked what they did. They thoroughly enjoyed the benefits of being dedicated to their jobs. This is emphasized by the fact that my ass is on a comfy leather sofa that probably cost more than my monthly paycheck.

  There is never a time when I think he’s feeding us shit—no nervous tics, no looking around anxiously, no worried tremble in his voice when there shouldn’t be. It’s nothing but a grieving man telling us about him, his wife, and the life they shared.

  “Okay, I know this is a hard question,” Matt says softly, “but did you ever suspect Sharon of infidelity?”

  My eyes narrow when pink colors Paul’s cheeks.

  “We, uh…well…” He squirms in his seat. “We had an open relationship.”

  My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline.

  “I know it’s unusual. We, uh…we were always, um…adventurous, and there were times when we had more than just us in bed. Ten years ago, when we’d both started traveling more, she’d brought up the idea of, um…relieving urges with other partners. So, it’s, um…possible she recently had other partners, but I don’t know for certain because we never discussed it outside the original conversation.”

  I bite my top lip to suppress the slow whistle of surprise.

  “You’re telling me that you were both seeing other people while married?” I asked, thinking we might have something to run with there.

  “Well, no. Just, uh…if the urge struck while I was away on work and the opportunity presented itself, I um…would go with it. I assumed it was the same with Sharon. We never talked about it, and I never heard about her, uh…dealings.” He runs his hands through his hair. “Look, I know it sounds odd, but it worked for us.”

  “Not my job to judge, Paul. It’s your life to live how you want to live it. I just want the whole story,” I say, meaning every word—to each their own.

  Matt clears his throat. “Right. Mind if we see her home office? It was locked on Friday, and since you were unavailable, we couldn’t get inside without breaking in.”

  “She keeps it locked.” Paul hesitates. “Do you think another lover murdered her?”

  “Too soon to speculate, but we need to explore all possibilities.”

  Five minutes later, Matt and I are rummaging around her home office with gloved hands. Matt thumbs through the mammoth oak desk. I pick through the beach tote–sized Coach purse—no phone and nothing useful in the wallet with eighty bucks in it. I find receipts dating back to six months ago, and then my heart thumps when I find one from last Thursday.

  “Got something.” I lift the receipt in the air.

  Matt’s head snaps up. “What is it?”

  “Receipt to Eddie’s and the date stamp says
it’s from last Thursday. Two meals. Could’ve been with one of her girls, but also could’ve been out with a man. Seeing as there are two glasses of wine and two beers, I’m thinking it’s the latter. Women drink beers, too, but not usually at a fancy-ass place like Eddie’s.”

  “Right. Call the restaurant, and have them find the waitress. Get a description of who the wife was with.”

  “Shouldn’t I just go down there?”

  He shakes his head. “No use making the trip before finding out who the waitress was. She might not be there.”

  “Right. On it.” Pulling out my phone, I find the number and call it. Talking to the manager, I give him Sharon’s description and the information on the receipt, and he says he’ll look into it and get back to me. I rattle off my number and hang up.

  Matt’s still digging around the desk, so I dive back into the behemoth purse.

  “Jackpot,” Matt says.

  My head jerks up to look at him.

  “Cell phone.” He thumbs through it. “Few phone calls back and forth with Stick on Thursday. Let’s head back to the station, so I can look up the number and hand the phone over to forensics.”

  “Sounds good.”

  With that, we’re out.

  Operation Daze and Wow

  “Fuck my life,” I mutter as I wind my way to the tall, muscled, strong-jawed Italian Zach that I did not want sitting in my section at Mario’s.

  I can’t deal with this now.

  My emotions and control are already ragged from carefully keeping Brian at bay. I don’t have it in me to deal with Zach.

  But I don’t have a choice.

  Pulling in a breath and pasting on a smile, I ignore my tightening stomach and thundering heart. “Hi, my name is—”

  “Sweets—”

  I flinch. I can’t help it. He catches my response and presses his lips together.

  I clear my throat. “My name is—”

  “Becca, I know your name.” His voice is low. He’s pissed.

  He’s pissed? Screw him.