by Amity Cross
“I said no.”
I cringed as his words sliced through me. I knew he would just walk away the moment the car stopped, so with an annoyed sigh, I pulled over and did a U-turn to go back to the motel. I thought about the things I’d given up to even be here right now, and white-hot anger simmered in my stomach. Dee just wanted to punish me. He never wanted to listen to an apology. He wanted to punish me and keep rubbing it in like a fucking child.
I pulled into the gas station and without a word, climbed out the car and went into the overly lit store, looking for some antiseptic wipes. If Dee was stupid enough not to get his head looked at, I was going to make him clean it up properly, and I didn’t care how much he complained. He’d gotten into a fight to protect me. It was then that my thoughts caught up with me. He’d tried to protect me.
Maybe he didn’t hate me after all. Things had started to smooth out, so maybe it would be okay. By the time we got back to New York, maybe we would be okay.
Looking over the meager selection in the medicinal aisle, which was just a shelf tacked onto the candy bars, I grabbed a travel-sized pack of antiseptic wipes. I went up to the front counter, pulled change out of my pocket and practically threw it at the guy behind the register, and stormed back out to the car.
Without a word, I drove us back to the motel, pulling into a spot in front of the door to our room. Dee was out and inside before I had a chance to lock the car behind me. Following him in, I went to grab his wrist.
“Just leave it alone,” he said, knocking my hand out of the way.
Determined not to let him get his way, I pushed him back onto the bed with a hard jab to his chest. “Stop being such a stupid jerk, and let me take care of you. It’s not my fault you’re too stupid to go to the hospital.” He looked at me like I was either a crazy bitch or just plain mental. “Yeah,” I continued, seriously riled up, “when you push me, I bite back.”
I pulled out the travel-sized antiseptic wipes from my back pocket. The cut above his eye looked deep, and who knew what nasty stuff was growing on the floor of that bar. Not to mention where that guy’s nasty hands had been. Cleaning the blood off with antiseptic was better than with soap and water.
Pulling a chair over, I sat in front of Dee, our knees pressed together. Despite how pissed I was at him, the mere act of touching was electrifying. Biting my lower lip, I opened the wipes, took one out, and began dabbing the cut over his eyebrow. As soon as the antiseptic hit the open wound, he pulled away with a hiss.
“Keep still,” I murmured, putting my other hand on his shoulder and dabbing again, cleaning the dried blood away. I didn’t know much about cuts, but now that it was clean, this one didn’t look that deep, and he probably would’ve gotten away without stitches.
He sat there without complaint as I moved onto the cut on his lip, and my thoughts instantly went to that night we’d spent together. I felt that place between my legs stir, and my breath caught. Dropping my hands, my gaze flickered up to find his locked on me. I just wanted to press forward, push him back onto the bed, and touch every part of him. I wanted to feel that fire like I had that night. I wanted to go back so badly and change everything.
I let my hand trail up his leg, and my fingers curled into his shirt, brushing against the bare skin of his hip. My body was shifting itself forward, drawn to him like a magnet, desperate for something. Anything.
Finally drawing on some confidence, I looked up and almost gasped when I saw how close we were. His eyes were taking me in, lingering on my lips. I was too afraid to move, too afraid that any sudden movements would scare him away like a wild animal.
Our noses brushed together, his breath tickling against my skin. He smelt like beer, blood, and antiseptic mixed with the spicy cologne he usually wore. The cologne that would always remind me of him.
Kiss me, I urged silently, kiss me.
Taking a chance, I brushed my lips against his, my whole body prickling with anticipation. At the last second, I felt him tense.
“Don’t,” he whispered, and I jerked back, breaking contact.
God, he just woke this thing inside of me that couldn’t be sated. I wanted to latch on and never let go. I wanted to feel his lips on mine again. I understood how he’d felt now, and it made what I did all the more painful. He didn’t want me anymore. I’d royally screwed it up. Forever.
“Dee?” I whispered, staring at my hands because I was too much of a coward to look him in the eye. Fingers took the wipe from my hand and tossed it in the plastic bag from earlier. When the silence stretched on and he didn’t reply, I just said what was on my mind. “I am sorry, you know. For everything.”
The only sound that broke the silence was the thrumming of my heart in my ears. Surely he could hear it? I didn’t know what else I could do to show him. What else I could say.
When he got up and closed himself in the bathroom, I let the tears I’d been holding in fall.
Chapter 19
Dee
I woke to a hand on my shoulder.
As soon as I shifted in the chair, I knew my back was stuffed. My head ached, but that was from the multiple punches I’d copped the night before.
“You should’ve slept in the bed,” Jessie said thinly. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak, and rubbed some feeling back into my neck. Last night, she’d taken care of me and cleaned my wounds like a fucking sexy nurse. It would’ve been so easy to lean over and kiss her, to lose myself again, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t find it in myself to let it go.
Seeing that guy trying to pressure himself on her, that had broken something inside me I never thought lived in there. Jealousy.
“I was...” I began but didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Was what?”
“Too fast in saying all that stuff to you before.”
“Oh.” She edged away slightly, her gaze downcast. I knew what she wanted but me? I still wasn’t sure.
“It was probably for the best that you ditched me.” I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees, and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
“Dee…”
“I’m sorry you came all this way.”
“Shut up,” she said irritably.
“It’s the truth.” As the words fell from my lips, I wasn’t so sure that statement was as truthful as I wanted it to be.
“Are you trying to punish me?”
My head dropped into my hands, and my fingernails bit into the skin of my scalp.
“How long is this going to go on, Dee?” Her voice was clipped.
I got up and started to shove my stuff in my bag, just scooping my clothes from the night before and screwing them up in balls. Anything to get away from this place.
“What are you doing?” Jessie asked. She hadn’t moved from where she stood by the chair, arms wrapped around her middle.
“We’re going,” I said.
“Then let me drive.”
“No. I’m fine. My head doesn’t hurt anymore.” Total lie.
“If you don’t want me to drive, then at least stay here another night. You’ll wear yourself out.”
I should’ve felt at least a little warm that she was worried about me, but I just wanted this whole thing to be over. It was too complicated and confusing for a simple guy like me.
“Dee, you were punched in the head repeatedly, kicked in the stomach, and you slept in a chair all night. If you’re not going to let me drive, then we’re not going anywhere.”
I grabbed the keys off the table and walked toward the door. “Fine. Then you can stay, but I’m going.” I opened the door, but her hand was there, slamming it closed again.
“You’re such a stubborn asshole,” she said heatedly.
I let my head bash against the back of the door and dropped my bag.
“Have a shower. I’ll go get some breakfast for us. Okay?” She pulled me back from the door, and I didn’t have it in me to argue anymore. She pushed past me
and went outside, giving me a pointed look as she closed the door. Damn it. Of course, she knew I wouldn’t leave without her, so that meant I was stuck here until she got back.
With a groan, I pulled my bag along the floor and back into the main part of the room. I didn’t want a shower, but I knew it would help my aching muscles better than sitting in a car for six hours straight.
Pulling everything out of my bag, my hands connected with my notebook that had been buried and forgotten at the bottom for the past two weeks. It was full of words and scribbles, its pages torn and dog-eared. It was full of songs and lyrics and pieces of my soul.
Pulling it out, I ran my fingers along the cover. I’d given Zoe one back when we’d started the band as a way to help her air her feelings a little. She’d been so closed back then, living in a world of denial, that I thought it would do her some kind of good.
Lying back on the bed, I flipped through the pages, reading bits and pieces of songs that I’d started, ones that I’d finished, and chord progressions I’d been working on. They were all pre-Jessie Dee. Full of carefree longing and hope. I’d wanted to fall in love so badly before. I’d wanted a connection with someone like I needed air to breathe. The last two weeks had only shown me that dream was foolish.
Resting the notebook on my chest, I closed my tired eyes, listening to the sounds of the motel. A slamming door, the sound of a television, the shower running in the next room, and it wasn’t long before I fell asleep.
I didn’t know how long I’d been comatose, but when my eyes cracked open, it was still light out. Or that might have been the security light outside. It was hard to tell.
Jessie was sitting in the armchair, reading a magazine, a brown paper bag of food on the table beside her. She must have felt my gaze on her because she looked up and gave me a small smile.
“Feel better?” she asked.
“What time is it?” I groaned, rolling over.
“Six thirty.”
“Sorry.” I don’t know what good it did, sleeping all day and night, but I felt weird having slept in my clothes.
“Don’t worry about it. You needed to rest.”
“The food…”
“When I said I was getting breakfast, it was really lunch,” she said. “Just sandwiches, so yours is still good if you want it.”
I sat up, resting my back against the headboard, and Jessie sat next to me, taking out a sandwich from the bag. We sat together like that for a while, our legs outstretched on the mattress while I ate, another awkward silence hanging in the air between us.
When I was done, she didn’t move, picking up her magazine and flipping through the pages. Looked like some kind of hipster fashion thing. I grabbed my notebook again and ignored her, opening up to a new page. Working on some of the shit that was stuck in my head seemed better than just sitting there in silence.
“What are you writing?” she asked after a while of nothing but pen scratches on paper. Her curiosity obviously got the better of her, and I wondered if that was a good or a bad thing where she was concerned.
“I’m trying to write some lyrics.”
“Can I see?” Her voice was so hopeful I shrugged and let her lean over my shoulder. It wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, soul-bearing stuff I was writing.
“This is great,” she exclaimed after a minute.
“It’s a load of shit.”
“Better than I could do.”
I watched her out the corner of my eye as she scanned the page again, trying to decipher my messy handwriting.
“It’s i before e.” She pointed to the word pieces that I’d misspelled. “And you need a comma there.”
“Who the motherfucking hell cares where I put the letter i,” I cursed. “If it’s a good story, then who the fuck cares.”
“Just offering some advice.”
“It’s the imperfections that make things better. People aren’t perfect. I can’t spell for shit? Who the fuck cares?”
She shifted next to me and said, “I could say something about that.”
Cue blood boiling. The expression on my face must have been enough because she promptly dropped it.
Flinging the notebook back into my open bag, I slid off the bed and declared, “I’m having a shower.”
Chapter 20
Jessie
I was falling in love with Dee Cosgrove.
It was the little things that got to me. The way he wrote in his notebook. The way he got annoyed when I picked on his spelling. The way he’d tried to protect me from those guys at that bar. The way he’d looked at me that first day at the recording studio. Every time he would do something little, like chew on the end of his pen or not bother tying up the laces on his boots…it made my heart swell.
Then it was the way he talked about music. Like it filled his soul and made his heart beat. Like it was as important as oxygen for his survival. I didn’t think he knew how passionate he was. He was a good guy, kindhearted and funny, and every hurt he took on the chin. Until I’d walked out on him.
Behind closed doors, he could be this brooding, dominant man, who just took control without warning, and it turned me on. Just thinking about it made me wet. We seemed to have this recurring thing about grinding against walls that got me every single time.
Dee wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t have a bad bone in his entire body. He was just hurting, and by the way he was reacting to it, he’d probably never had his heart broken before. I was his scar, his wound. Me.
Last night, when we’d almost kissed, I’d thought about busting into that bathroom and talking to him. The way I saw it, I only had two options. I could just throw myself at him and force him to face me, or I could just give him the God’s honest truth.
I was going to tell him everything, and when I said everything, I meant every dirty little detail. When I first moved to New York, it wasn’t good. I probably should say I ran away to New York without the support of any friends or family. I just upped and left and never looked back. I should’ve looked back because when you have to live on the street, desperation claws its way to the surface. Desperation was the thing that had gotten me in a whole heap of trouble. I’d ended up broken and terrified and with no one to help me through the aftermath.
Deep down, I knew that was the reason I’d run out on Dee, not the whole professionalism angle I’d been trying to convince myself with. That was only an excuse. I thought I’d moved on and grown and dealt with it all, but obviously, I was lying to myself.
I don’t know what stopped me from walking in there. Fear that he would judge me for my past mistakes? Fear of rejection? If he actually said it, that he didn’t want me, then it would really be forever. I would never get to talk to him or even touch him again. He would just disappear, and life would go on. There was no moving on from Dee Cosgrove…not for me.
The familiar feeling of desperation was simmering under the surface, and even I didn’t know what I was going to do.
Tomorrow we would be back in New York, and he would leave forever. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t.
Chapter 21
Dee
Turning on the shower, I pressed my forehead against the glass, waiting for the water to warm up. There was this cyclone of emotions rolling around in my heart, and I didn’t know how to stop them. It was exactly like that movie Twister, except there was no cow flying past the window. I just had to hold on and ride it out.
Ducking underneath the spray of water, I leaned a cheek against the tiles and let the warmth soothe out the kinks in my neck and my heart. Or whichever way you wanted to look at it.
At first, I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone, but when the shower screen slid open, my breath caught in the back of my throat. I was too tired to say anything. Too tired of this stupid game.
Jessie pressed the length of her body into my back and her lips against the curve of my shoulder. Grateful she couldn’t see my face, I bit my lower lip to stifle a moan that had been boiling up inside me. I wanted her.
After everything, I still wanted her.
She slid her hands over my hips, the contact searing through me. Shit. Fuck. Ass. Why did she have to have this effect on me? It was hard enough to keep myself under control, to keep this dangerous thing from destroying us both, and she had to come in here and push it.
As her hands trailed toward the one place I wanted her to touch, I stifled another moan, leaning my face harder against the tiles. Her breasts were pressed into my back, and it was all I could do not to turn around and just take her.
“Don’t.” I groaned as she was about to take me in her hands.
“Why not?” Her lips were soft against the curve of my shoulder. Did she get a kick out of torturing me? Was that what this was?
I pulled her hands away and dragged her around to face me. This time, her back was against the tiles, and I was the one in control. “If I fuck you now,” I said, my eyes drilling into hers, “it won’t mean anything.”
“I don’t care.”
I felt my entire body stiffen as her words sliced through me. No, she didn’t, did she?
“I don’t care,” she said again. “Fuck me how you want, but I can’t let you go.”
Turning off the shower, I stepped out, pulling a towel around my waist. I heard a muffled whimper behind me as Jessie followed, and I watched in the mirror as she dried herself off, a look of absolute defeat on her face. I hardened even more at the sight of her naked body, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I had to try something,” she said, and I clenched my jaw.
That was the thing about tentative grips. They’re tentative until something comes along and breaks them.
Before I understood what I was doing, I turned and pushed her back against the wall, the towel dropping away. Her lips parted as she gasped, but her eyes never left mine.
“Is this what you want?” I asked, pressing my erection into her stomach.