by Gabi Moore
I instantly reached for it but he beat me to it, snatched it and rolled over, drawing it on me so I had to quickly back away again, hands raised.
“Andrew, stop it! Put that down!” Ally cried, but this was no longer about her.
I looked at him. It always amazed me no fucking end. All these white supremacists? All these self-appointed master-race Nazi assholes? Man, whenever you got to take a good look at them, they were all so wretched. Here was a man who had neglected his physical form, who hadn’t shaved in days and who reeked of alcohol. Here was a man ugly inside and out, a man who spoke to the mother of his children like a dog and treated his fellow man like they were all his inferiors. My blood was beyond boiling. I looked down and saw the hate twisted into his cruel-looking face and felt a sudden …freedom. I didn’t want to be like him. Ever. I wouldn’t even give him the benefit of my hatred.
I eyeballed the drawn knife. I could hear Ally’s frantic breathing behind me.
“You really don’t want to do that,” I said quietly, and stood my ground. He clamored to his feet and waved the knife around. Piece of shit.
“Get out of my way. Ally, you’re fucking this asshole? You have to be kidding me.”
“It’s time to leave now,” I said, still calm. I could see his knuckles whiten around the handle of the knife. I leapt out of the way before he took a lunge at me, then I grabbed his wrist, twisted hard and when the knife clattered to the floor I kicked it towards Ally, who was already scrambling for her cellphone.
“Don’t call anyone, Ally. He was just leaving,” I said as I held him, arm twisted behind. This guy was no contest, not even close, but I had hoped it wouldn’t have to get messy like this. I loosened my grip to try and talk sense into him but he squirmed away and began taking swings at me again. He was drunker than he looked. I blocked most of them but some of his blows made contact. One to my neck. One in my ribs. I didn’t care. He’d have to hit a lot harder than that. I dropped my weight, slipped my foot between his feet and kicked out his heel so he tumbled back and onto the floor. I pinned him down and delivered a series of three sharp, brutal punches to his jaw. I could go harder but I didn’t have the heart to completely hand his ass to him, not in front of Ally.
Teeth reddened, he stared up at me bleary eyed. Fuck I love that moment. That moment when you know you’ve won. It had almost been too easy. I could almost hear him thinking, then he changed tacks.
“You’re in big fucking trouble, pal. You have no idea. You’ve fucked with the wrong guy. I know people who could destroy your life in an afternoon… David Segal,” he spat, drawing out the second name like it was a dirty word.
I leaned all my weight down onto his chest and looked at him with contempt. It took all my willpower not to tear into him then and there, but one glance at Ally’s frightened face and I knew that justice wasn’t mine to give, not today at least.
“You know people, huh? You mean your little friends from the National Legacy? It would be my pleasure to meet them actually,” I said, and dug my knee down deeper.
“What the fuck do you know about—”
“Andrew you need to go.”
We both turned to look at Ally, who was utterly distraught.
“Go and never come back. Don’t ever set eyes on Ben and Alex again, I’m warning you.”
Her voice was quiet and soft, but she spoke with such conviction even I was a little scared. It took me a moment to notice the knife she was now holding tightly at her side. I felt a quick little flutter of pride for her. That woman had spirit, that’s for sure.
Andrew went limp underneath me, and looked to me then her, then me again.
“Oh, I get it now. Silly me. What has she been telling you, huh, buddy? Fucking women, man, I’m the big bad ex, aren’t I? She telling you stories? She pull the abuse card and go crying about how much she loves her kids? Ally, you were just as involved as I was, honey. Did you tell your little toy boy that?”
“David, he’s lying,” she said instantly. Her eyes were big as saucers.
Andrew held my gaze. His eyes were blue and the whites a milky yellow. They were so different from my own dark, brown eyes.
“Come on, man, what’s your end game here? She’s obviously just using you. You train to be the badass marine you are and serve your country so you can hand your paychecks to some leech and raise another man’s kid? Come on, have some pride.”
I froze. He was a much better speaker than he was a fighter. Here was a man who talked a big game, even flat on his back and beat. I shuddered to think of him with Ben and Alex, pouring poison into their hearts, teaching them his hate. But I had to admit that he wasn’t wrong. I had promised myself I’d never allow any woman to hitch herself to me and make claims on me. I had never dreamed I’d get involved with one who was forty and had two kids.
“I bet she plays a real good little victim, doesn’t she? Poor, sweet little victim Ally, but does she tell you she happily takes my money every month? Ooh, I bet she leaves that part out. Takes one man’s money while fucking another? Sure, sounds like she’s the good guy here, huh?” he chuckled.
The blood in his mouth was disgusting. But not as disgusting as I found his words. I looked to Ally with questions in my eyes. Could it be? That Ally was a member of the group as much as he was, and she had lied? That she had manipulated me somehow?
I took one look at her wide-open eyes and …just couldn’t believe it. I had held this woman in my arms. I had held her as she let go with me, as she had let me take her into those sweet, secret places, and she had trusted me, and now there was nothing in my heart, no matter how hard I looked, that couldn’t trust her now. I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and yanked him up to his feet.
“Nice try, buddy,” I said and loomed threateningly over him.
“Get the fuck out of here. I love Ally, and I love Ben and Alex.”
This seemed to genuinely give him pause. He tried to hide it, but I could tell I had beaten him pretty bad. He looked with disbelief at us both, then half limped out of the room, giving a poisonous sidelong glance to Ally and then hobbling down the staircase. The look of pure shock on her face lingered long after we heard the front door slam behind him. Chest heaving, she turned to look at me. In that moment, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I stood before her, knuckles bloody, some raw scratched welts on my bare chest, trying to find my own breath. I had said the words, and now they were out there.
She looked down the staircase, then at me, then at the staircase again.
“I’m… I’m so sorry that any of that had to happen,” she said at last.
“I’m not.”
I looked into her eyes and immediately saw the same beautiful, juicy woman I had spent all night loving. I never wanted her to feel afraid again, of anything. Especially not a low-life clown like him. A wobbly line of tears clung to her lower lashes. I gave her a goofy smile.
“That was him, huh? He’s not so tough, I could eat like, five of him for breakfast,” I said and took a cheesy pose. She burst into relieved laughter and ran over to hug me tightly, pressing her wet tears to my bare chest. Already the moment was whizzing past us, but when she looked up at me I knew instantly what was on her mind.
“You said…”
“Yeah.”
“Did you…?”
“Yeah. I meant it.”
“That’s …crazy.”
I nodded. It sure was. I had never said those words to any woman. But it wasn’t just romance for me. I loved her kids, too. They were a part of her, weren’t they? I loved all of them. Why the fuck not? I didn’t know if that feeling I had whenever I thought about her was what people called love. I didn’t know if I was just a big idiot who didn’t understand love at all. When that asshole came close to her, I was ready to do anything. No question. Was that love? If there was a risk that she went around in this world not truly understanding how awesome I thought she was, then I would rather err on the side of being a big gushy idiot. It felt so goo
d, to hold her then.
“It’s crazy. But it’s sexy too,” she said.
I peered down at her. Her lips were parted; her hair was wild and her eyes wilder. She wore the adrenalin well. I suddenly understood exactly why the fairy tales always had the noble knight swooping the rescued maid off at the end of a battle for her honor…
“You wanna…?”
Scarcely had the words left my lips when she kissed them, deeply. I grabbed her, flung her onto the bed and watched her fall, squealing, her hair everywhere. I pounced on her and kissed her back. Her little hand was already furiously rubbing small circles between her legs, like she couldn’t even wait for it. Fuck she was gorgeous. I collapsed my weight onto her and kissed her for all I was worth, my tongue against hers, tasting that hot desperation on her breath, feeling the eagerness in her limbs. And soon, before I’d even caught my breath from the night before, I’d be fucking her sexy little body all over again.
Chapter 13 - Ally
The first time I saw her my heart sank. She wasn’t just pretty; she was groomed and polished like some kind of beauty pageant contestant. She was blonde and skinny and bubbly and wore buckets of shiny silver jewelry and just …made me feel like a total underachiever.
When David had suggested I meet up with his friend’s girlfriend for a ‘girl’s day out’, I had only really agreed because I knew he was itching to take the kids go karting and didn’t want me sitting at home alone on my day off.
So here I was, making small talk with a woman a decade my junior who was called Kate and who was smiling so much it was beginning to make me feel nervous. Life felt like it was changing fast for me. I went from being a harried and overworked nurse who hadn’t had any in years to a woman who was fucking a gorgeous man every night of the week and surprisingly, amazingly, wanted even more still. I got a secret thrill of pride that he was mine somehow, that every evening we’d meet up and I’d be treated to that perfect, firm body of his, to his sweet lips, to his thick, juicy cock and to all those lovely little nothings he’d whisper into my ear as he stuffed every inch of it into me…
But truth be told, the transformation was still more of a behind-the-scenes kind of thing for me. I felt like a goddess in his arms but I still owned my same dowdy wardrobe I always did, and I still felt a little frumpy and unexciting next to this pretty woman, still a little out of my element in the notion that we could be friends somehow. But I smiled and we ordered some iced coffees.
She prattled on about how she had met David’s friend Max, and how Max always mentioned David, and she said more than once how I was welcome to pop into her new gym any time to try out a free class if I wanted. I wondered if she thought I was overweight. I told her about my work at the ER, which she thought was impressive although she probably had no idea how unglamorous a job it really was, and then I casually mentioned something about Andrew, and she paused, politely clinked her glass onto the table and looked at me.
She gave me a knowing look. I felt a ‘female bonding’ moment coming on and shyly avoided her gaze.
“You know, my ex was abusive too,” she said quietly.
“Oh, no no no, he wasn’t abusive,” I said and waved her off. She frowned her perfectly shaped eyebrows at me and gave me an almost-pitying look.
“He was a royal pain in the ass, that’s for sure, but he loved the kids and, to his credit, he never laid a hand on me…”
She was nodding sagely.
“I mean it, though, he wasn’t abusive.”
“Not physically, sure,” she said and took a sip.
It was mildly irritating that such a pretty woman should be so right and so quickly, but I had to nod.
“It’s hard to put my finger on it. It’s hard to really explain what was so awful about being married to him,” I said. But she was nodding her head again like she already understood.
“Girl, I know exactly what you mean. It always seems so obvious in books and movies, who the bad guy is. But in life it’s more complicated, isn’t it?”
I locked eyes with her.
“Yes… I… I think that all the time.”
“I get that. Women like us are too kind, that’s the problem. We can’t imagine someone being that bad, because we could never see ourselves acting that way, so we make up excuses for them, some reason to explain why they’re like that. To justify it all. And then it’s too late and we find ourselves in bed with the devil, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“Or, you know, having the devil’s babies,” I said with a wry little smile.
“Shit, that’s dark.”
I looked at her again, and in an instant we were both laughing. Maybe I could see myself liking this girl after all.
“It’s just… he was like a worm or something. He always knew exactly the weakest place to burrow into. He always knew exactly what to say to hurt people.”
“Did we date the same guy?” she said. “Classic, I swear. And they say women are manipulative.”
“Exactly. For him, the world is just enemies, just everyone versus everyone, and then he looks at you and somehow he knows exactly how to divide you up against yourself.”
She was nodding quickly now, leaning in close so I could see the brilliant pink of her perfect lipstick in even closer detail.
“Like, as an example, he knew that I felt kind of old and unsexy, right? So he would say these subtle little things to me all the time. Little, tiny insults. And they added up. Nothing obvious, always things he could deny, but things that hurt anyway. And then he’d tease me for having low self-confidence. And because he knows about David and I, literally the first thing he goes for is how young David is, and how old and desperate and gross I must be, because he just knows I’d feel self-conscious about it…”
“What? That’s crazy. Girl, don’t worry, you have nothing to be ashamed of,” she said. But I shook my head.
“No, see, that’s where he’s really smart. There’s always an element of truth in the attack, you see. Be honest, I know I’m donkey’s years older than David.”
She smiled to herself and shrugged.
“Well… okay, I admit when I first saw you I was pretty surprised. But it’s not because you’re old or anything. It’s because David’s so young!”
I laughed.
“That he is. What do you think? Am I being stupid and a relationship like this can’t really work? I mean, I already have two kids…” I said and she giggled.
“Look, I don’t know David that well. I’ve only met him a few times. But I can tell you that Max isn’t like that. SEALs may blow hard, they may act all macho and full of it, I swear, but deep down they have stronger principles than many people understand. They have a brotherhood, as cheesy as it sounds. And if David is part of their team, and if what Max says about him is true, then I just know that he’s a good guy.”
“You really think so?”
“Oh absolutely. Look, I never saw myself with a military man, believe me.”
“Me neither!”
I sighed and looked all around the café. I had never explicitly thought of David as a “military man”, but that’s exactly what he was.
“I don’t know, Kate, I just want to do right by my kids. But who the hell knows how to even do that? The world just seems so messed up sometimes.”
“I can imagine. And when you meet someone, you’re not just thinking of them as a partner, but you also have to look at them with your kids in mind.”
“Well, David loves the boys almost more than he loves me, that’s at least true!” The smile on her face was really warm.
“Really? And you guys are happy together?”
“Yes. Of course we are.”
“Then what’s the problem? Go for it,” she said.
“Go for it? Even though I’m an old crone?”
“Come on, don’t say that.”
“Ugh, David is like a Greek god, he deserves a hot young thing… someone like you. Someone without the burden of kids.”
“W
hoa whoa whoa, he chose you! He doesn’t want some mindless bimbo like me, believe it,” she said with a silly wink. “He wants someone of substance. Besides, have you ever thought that your kids are actually an asset? That he should be honored that he gets to know them and have them in his life?”
I shook my head. I guess I hadn’t.
“Haven’t they added so much value and meaning to your life?” she continued. I didn’t need to even think to answer.
“They’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, hands down,” I said.
She nodded.
“So, maybe let David decide what he feels about them, then. Maybe he feels that way eventually too, who knows. Not everyone has the picture perfect nuclear family. Maybe this is what it looks like for you guys…”
I sighed and sunk into my chair, surprised that I was having such a deep conversation with a woman when I had expected to chat about banal things like makeup or TV series.
“You are incredibly easy to talk to, you know that?” I told her. “And you give really good advice.”
She gave a gracious little bow of her head.
“Why thank you. Just sharing what Max has taught me. You know I always thought I wanted one thing and then I ended up being the most happy with something completely different in the end. Can I tell you a secret now?”
I looked at her mid sip.
“Sure.”
“Well, don’t say anything but—” she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I’m pregnant.”
I laughed out loud.
“What? Oh wow, that’s incredible, congratulations,” I said, shocked.
Her face glowed as she traced a little fingertip round the rim of her now empty glass.
“Yeah, I know, it’s crazy. But… well, since you have two of your own, maybe you could give me advice?” she said.