It wasn’t until I felt a pair of strong arms lifting me from the sofa that I realized I had fallen asleep, again. So much for my big girl panties.
“Dillon, we need to talk,” I groggily told him.
“Shhhh, just let me hold you tonight,” he murmured into my ear. Like a complete sap, I nodded my head and let him carry me to bed. Stripping down to his boxer briefs, he crawled in behind me and settled my back against his chest. I lay there wide awake and listened to him sleep. All I could think about was how much I missed him. Tomorrow we will talk.
The next day I woke and, like every other day since we moved in, Dillon was gone.
That night, I felt him crawl in behind me and, once again, I lay awake and listened to him sleep, all the while, vowing tomorrow I would finally confront him. And so the pattern continued for the next three days. I was afraid. Deep down I knew the second I put words to my feelings, the very moment they left my lips, the bubble of love and security I had been living in, would burst. I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
Everything changed Saturday night when Dillon decided to take me off the schedule. All of the sudden I was done. Whatever his problem was, it wasn’t getting better and I didn’t want to live this way anymore. His decision to pull me from the schedule hurt. It felt as if he was punishing me for something I didn’t do. This wasn’t about him anymore. This was about me. It felt personal and I was now angry. Like every other night, I fell asleep before he got home. Only, tonight I was determined when he crawled into bed, instead of lying there afraid to move in case he decided to leave, I was going to force him to talk.
Around three in the morning I felt him crawl in behind me. It took me a minute to shake the sleep off. Not only did his breath smell like Bourbon, but he was pressing his very aroused cock against my ass and lower back. My breath hitched when his fingers slid inside my panties. I was torn. On the one hand I wanted to flip over and confront him and, on the other I wanted to let him take me. We could always talk tomorrow. When his fingers slid inside me and he ground his cock into my back, the latter won out. We will definitely talk tomorrow.
Slowly, I turned my head and was met with his bourbon flavored tongue. Bourbon kisses were yummy tasting. Lips on mine, he turned me onto my back and unbuttoned my sleep shirt. By the time he pulled it off of me, we were both breathing heavily and all I could think about was getting him inside me. I grabbed his cock at the same time he ripped my panties from my body and we both groaned. Nothing in the world mattered more than the man above me. I wanted him with a desperation that was not natural. I didn’t want to over think it. I wanted to be in the moment and feel. Apparently Dillon felt the same way, because suddenly my arms were pinned above my head and he was thrusting in deep. Again, we both groaned. I couldn’t take my eyes from his. I loved this man more than I had ever loved anything, other than our daughter. In that moment I knew, no matter what happened between us, I would always belong to him…always. As soon as we lost control and were deep in orgasm, I realized he hadn’t used a condom. The irresponsibility of my actions overwhelmed me. What am I thinking?
Dillon pulled out and flipped over onto his back, while I jumped off the bed and ran to the bathroom to clean up. The whole time I chanted in my head, I’m good. I have to be. When I calmed down a bit, I made my way back to the bed and to a passed out and loudly snoring Dillon. Shit! We still need to talk!
With a big sigh, I crawled back into bed and, after what seemed like hours, finally fell asleep.
Dillon wasn’t in bed when I woke the next morning. Quickly, I threw on a bra, T-shirt and yoga pants and headed for Amelia’s room. As I passed by the kitchen, I heard voices coming from the living room. As I got closer, I could make out Sally and Dillon and it sounded as if they were arguing. I could see Sally feeding Amelia a bottle but she couldn’t see me. It was apparent Dillon didn’t see me either.
“It will kill Isabella if she finds out you have been hanging out with Dana after work,” Sally hissed. My heart leaped into my throat.
What?
“I haven’t been hanging out with Dana,” Dillon harshly whispered. His defensive tone made me pause.
He wouldn’t do that to me.
“Oh yeah? So that wasn’t Dana leaning over the bar with her tits in your face making goo-goo eyes at you last night? Because it sure looked like her.”
I gasped and both sets of eyes swung my way. Pain like I had never known seared through me. Slowly, I blinked back the tears.
He’s been hanging out with Dana?
Then, it hit me.
“Last night was about Dana, not me,” I whispered.
A look of shock appeared on his face. He held out his hand and took a step toward me. “Fuck no, Ibby. Believe me when I say last night was all about you and only you.”
“So Dana hasn’t been hanging out at Dragonfly, lately?” I asked, thinking maybe Sally had it wrong.
He hesitated and I knew what his answer would be. Finally, he got it out. “Dana came in with a group of customers last night. I was their bartender, nothing more.”
He acted as if he was telling the truth, but I had been fooled before. I didn’t think Dillon was the cheating type. Then again, I didn’t think Jimmy was either. My past and my present were merging into one giant ball of confusion and I didn’t know what to think, what to believe. “Did you hang out with her after they left?”
This time his hesitation rocked me to my core. He started to answer, “Only for a second to….”
I held up my hand to stop him from talking. That was all I needed to hear. “Since coming back from Charleston, you’ve had one foot out that door, Dillon. You have held me at arms-length and completely ignored our daughter.” I pointed to Amelia. “Do you see her right in front of your face?” His eyes darted to Amelia, who was staring straight at him. “She’s yours, Dillon…Yours,” I stressed.
“I’m aware of that, Isabella,” he harshly replied. He hadn’t spoken or looked at me with anything other than kindness since I’d first arrived in Charlotte and it hurt.
Not able to stand it any longer, I asked him the one question I knew had the power destroy me. “You don’t want us anymore, do you?”
His silver-grey eyes stared into mine and he said the words I had been dreading all week. “I don’t know what I want.”
Sally mumbled something nasty and promptly carried Amelia out of the room. Brutus followed behind.
It’s hard to describe what a broken heart feels like. It’s as if a part of you has died. The pain is almost unbearable. It hurts to breathe, to think…exist. I couldn’t look him in the eye or he would see I was breaking apart inside, so I wrapped my arms protectively around myself and looked out the window. “I don’t think I can do this,” I quietly told him.
“Do what?” he asked, taking another step toward me.
I looked him straight in the eye and answered, “Live like this anymore.” He flinched and I wanted to hit him. At the same time I wanted to hold him. Couldn’t he see what he was doing to us? “You were fine before you went to Charleston. What happened, Dillon?”
“Nothing,” he quickly replied.
“Bullshit!” I sternly retorted. “Something happened to change your mind about me, about us. What was it?”
“It was nothing,” he repeated, “and I haven’t changed my mind about you. You are amazing. Milly is amazing. It’s just me.”
“What about you? Tell me what happened in Charleston!” I shouted. “You owe me that much!”
“Fine! I decided I can’t be a father. I can’t be a husband! I don’t want to be! Is that what you want to hear? I do not want to be tied down…I just can’t!” There it was, the truth, and it was every bit as ugly as I’d suspected.
“Get out,” I hissed.
“Ibby,” he said. I could see regret written all over his face but I no longer cared.
“Get out!” I screamed. Before he could say anything else, I ran past him. Grabbing my purse and keys, I shot out the door and jum
ped into my car. I drove two blocks to the neighborhood park where I sat in my car and cried. When I returned home two hours later, he was gone and so was my heart.
Chapter Twelve
Dillon
‡
Holy shit, what in the hell just happened? One minute I am minding my own business in the kitchen and the next Sally is all up in my grill. Then I am telling Ibby I don’t know what I want anymore. Fuck! I know exactly what I want. I want Isabella and Milly. I just can’t let myself have them anymore. The look on Ibby’s face when she asked if last night was about Dana made me want to vomit. I fucking hate that bitch. Yes, Dana had shown up at Dragonfly last night, but like every other night this week, the second she so much as glanced my way, I shut her down. Thinking about this past week made my head hurt.
If only I hadn’t gone to Charleston, then none of this would be happening. Charleston was supposed to be about me and Adam hanging out and going through the remainder of my aunt’s shit. Fuck! So many secrets and lies. If only I hadn’t gone. Just thinking of Adam made my chest ache. As I thought back on my time in Charleston, I felt sick…sick with guilt. If I wasn’t careful, it was going to eat me alive.
The entire drive to Charleston, all I could think about was seeing my brother again. As soon as I spotted him waiting on the porch for me, I gave a loud “Whoop” of excitement. Before I could even get the car in park, my door was open and we were slapping each other on the back. Damn, how I missed him. Once we settled with beers, we talked about where he had been stationed in Afghanistan and what he’d been doing. That eventually led to me telling him about my aunt’s last days and how hard it was watching her waste away. It was nice being in her house. In a weird way, it felt as if she was there with us in spirit.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Adam met me in the living room. We ordered pizza, drank more beer, watched soccer and talked about how I had managed to gain both a girlfriend and a daughter in the short time since we last spoke. Adam was skeptical, but I assured him it was the real deal. Not only was he an uncle, I was crazy in love with both of my girls. By the time we turned in for the night, it was too late to call Ibby. I figured I’d call her sometime the next day.
The next morning we were up bright and early. Being that I also had to deal with movers, we only had one day to tackle my aunt’s place. By ten that morning, we had everything out of the closet and were slowly going through it. At noon we stopped for a quick lunch and I thought about calling home, but remembered Ibbs and Milly were meeting Ellie and Mac at the park for a playdate. Slowly but surely we made headway. It was shocking how much shit one woman could cram into a single walk-in closet. Neither Adam nor I were enjoying this…at all. It was a trip down memory lane neither of us wanted to experience. Most of it consisted of boxes full of old photographs and documents from before and after we were born. I couldn’t get over how happy my parents looked in the pictures. They were not happy people. After the fourth photo album Adam let out a disgusted sigh.
“Is it just me or do they look ecstatically happy in all these pictures?”
I was thinking the same thing as I held up a picture. “Look how much you look like Dad.” Adam had our Dad’s dark hair, whereas I had our mom’s blondish color. However we both shared Mom’s grey eyes, and Dad’s muscular build.
“I didn’t realize how much you favor Mom and I favor Dad,” Adam admitted. “Hey, what’s this?” He held up a leather bound book.
“No clue,” I answered as I thumbed through yet another scrapbook full of fake happy pictures.
As he opened it up, several papers fell out. I gathered them off the floor while he looked through the pages of the book.
After a minute or so, he looked up with a shocked expression on his face. “Holy shit, this is Mom’s journal.”
I glanced down at the papers in my hand and started trying to make sense of what I was reading. After a minute or so it clicked. “I think these are the police reports from that night.”
For the next few hours, we each took turns reading our mother’s journal. After we scoured over the police reports and what appeared to be the results from the insurance investigator, we were completely dumbstruck. What we’d discovered was mind boggling.
Having no clue as to how we were supposed to process this information, we left it sitting in the middle of the floor and went for burgers. Halfway through the meal, Adam spoke up.
“None of this is your fault, D. W-we didn’t know,” he stammered.
“It’s all my fault, Adam, and we both know it.”
“Don’t take this on, little brother. It’s just as much mine as it is yours. Think long and hard before you go off half-cocked, okay?”
We both knew it was way too late for that. Once the Pandora’s Box that was our mother’s journal had been opened, nothing would ever again be the same. All I could think about was the devastation her selfishness had caused. Anger burned a hole in my gut and I wanted to hurt something. Instead, we drove home in silence and I went straight to my room where I locked myself in. I could hear Adam cleaning up the rest of the shit downstairs. For hours I sat there going over everything in my head. By the time the sun was up, I was more a mess than ever.
After a quick shower, I gave Adam a half-assed goodbye and headed to Isabella’s townhome. He was pissed I was leaving so soon, but I had to.
Crazy thoughts rolled through my head as I watched the movers load the stuff onto the trucks. After two hours, I gave a nod to the movers and headed for Charlotte. My plan was to move the girls in as quickly as possible and get the fuck out. I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t be a dad or a husband. Before Isabella, I was a selfish prick who could never commit. I am still that guy. I kept trying to convince myself nothing had changed. Ibby and Milly deserve someone clean and good, not tainted and definitely not me. I knew leaving my girls would be the hardest thing I’d ever done, but it was the right thing. In the end, they would be better off without me.
After Ibby stormed out of the house, I went straight to our bedroom and packed a duffle. Then I drove toward Dragonfly, thinking I’d bunk on the office sofa until I could find a better place to stay. A part of me wanted to go back and talk to her, to explain why I had to go. Another part of me knew she wouldn’t understand. She’ll think you’re a horrible person. Hell, you are a horrible person. My phone rang and, hoping it was Isabella, I picked it up on the first ring.
“Ibby?”
“No, it’s Piper. Where are you?”
“I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you back later?”
“You don’t sound right. Are you okay?” The concern in her voice made me want to howl at the unfairness of it all.
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Gage is at work. Come over. I’ll make you lunch and we can talk.” Taking her up on her offer, I told her I’d be over in ten.
Ten minutes later, she greeted me at the door with a beer and a hug. “You look like shit, babe. Did things go bad with your brother?”
I told her I couldn’t drink because I had to work later. Not accepting my answer, she phoned Kurt and told him she needed me for something for the rest of the day and asked him if someone else could cover my shift that night. After what seemed like a million questions, Kurt finally agreed. Piper hung up and handed me the beer. “Chug the first one. It’ll loosen you up. I’m going to slowly sip mine and paint my toenails. We can talk about what’s bothering you when you’re ready.”
Per her instructions, I downed the beer. Still tense, I strolled to the fridge, pulled out two more, opened them and carried them back to the living room. Halfway through the second, I began telling her about what my brother and I had discovered in Charleston. In order to properly do this, I had to take her back to the beginning.
“Adam and I were best friends growing up. When I was twelve and he was fourteen, we moved from Chicago to a little town in Northern Virginia, right outside of Washington DC. Dad was a representative for an insurance company
and had to travel a lot. He and Mom told us the move was job related. Mom was an interior decorator so she could pretty much do her job from anywhere. She always had fabric samples and shit in the back of the car. It was always a mess. I used to get so angry when she would pick us up from school and, instead of taking us home to do our homework, would cart us to client’s houses and make us study in the car while she talked decorating shit. Mom and Dad fought a lot before we moved to Virginia. After the move the fighting stopped and Mom started spending more time at home with us. Dad didn’t seem to travel as much, either. It was nice finally having both parents around.” Memories of my family played like a movie reel inside my head. “Dad bought us an awesome two story, white Victorian house. It was Mom’s dream house.” I stopped and took a huge chug of beer and watched Piper paint her toes a light blue color.
“Continue,” she instructed without looking up.
Taking another swig, I kept going. “A month or so after we moved in, the neighbors threw a party for us. The whole block showed up, including the kids three houses down. Jeff and Rob were the boy’s names and they were about the same ages. We had always lived next to really old people, so it was awesome having kids so close. Every day after school the four of us played together and every weekend we spent one or both nights at each other’s houses. It was great…until that night.”
Piper’s eyes met mine for a second before dropping back to her toes. “What night?”
“Right before my fourteenth birthday, my parent’s started fighting again. Mom was so unhappy. She’d spent the whole first year in Virginia redecorating the inside of the new house. When she finished that, she started trying to build her business back up. I guess it was harder than she thought. I remember her telling us how uptight the women were. She used to talk about moving back to Chicago a lot. She didn’t think we noticed how withdrawn and sad she was, but we did. She cried all the time. I used to sit in my room thinking up ways to make her smile.” I glanced up and Piper was staring at me with tears in her eyes. I quickly looked away. I couldn’t handle her tears. Not right now. Picking back up where I left off, I began talking about the things that led up to that night. “One night, Adam and I were playing hide-and-seek. I was hiding in the kitchen pantry and, before Adam had a chance to find me, the phone rang. Mom rushed into the kitchen to answer it. Being stuck in the pantry, I overheard her conversation.” Piper sniffled and I paused to take another drink. “Remember, Piper, I was fourteen years old. What the fuck did I know?”
One More Time (MMG Series Book 3) Page 15