by Liz Crowe
“No,” she said, startling herself as she opened an old wound with a grunt of pain. “No. No. No. No. No.”
The blood beaded up, then began to flow down her arm—a warm, familiar, soothing sensation. Kayla sighed and dropped her head back. The voices building in her head—mostly her stepfather’s but a few others’ along the way—receded in the face of the pain. But another voice, and a different face, filled her mind as she sobbed, keeping as quiet as possible. Because nobody liked a crier.
The sound of a buzzing phone made her gasp and sit up, slipping around in the coagulating blood on the bathroom floor. Her neck ached from being jammed up for God knew how long after she’d passed out on the floor and dropped over onto her side in the small space. Her arm throbbed. But her head was clear. The pressure was gone. And that was all that mattered.
Pressing a thin towel over the fresh cut, she stumbled out into the other room, still shocked that anyone would have a reason to be calling her. It took her a few seconds to register that it was Melody, her boss.
“Hello?” She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. She was dizzy, weak, hungry. But she needed to sound normal. She wanted to keep the job at the FitzPub.
“Hi, Kayla. It’s Melody. Listen, I’m wondering if you’re available to open tomorrow?”
“Yes, I am.” She pressed the towel against the oozing wound and made herself focus on this conversation. “No problem.”
“I gave you a key, right?”
“Yes. I have one.”
“Great. Okay. Thanks!”
“No problem. Thank you.”
There was a beat of silence. “Kayla, I really think we need to tell Trent.”
“I know you do. But I… I need a little more time.” She closed her eyes, seeing his face in the photo and unable to not superimpose the voice of her stepfather in her ear, the smell of old booze and sour sweat out of her nose, the pain… “I’ll do it soon, I swear. I need to go, though. I’ll open tomorrow. Talk to you soon.” She ended the call and fell back on the mattress, panting and praying that the pressure wouldn’t build and forcing the invasion of Brock Fitzgerald’s face, eyes, smile out of her head.
Chapter Six
Brock sat clutching his water bottle, watching Caroline and her friends get drunk and wondering how long he could wait before they left and he could do what he wanted—what he needed—with his pretty ex-fiancée. She hadn’t changed much. The bubbly laugh, the toss of hair, the twinkle in her eyes when she’d look at him.
He did his usual funny, charming, self-deprecating, water-drinking thing for her. A show, he now knew. A preamble for later.
He sipped and observed her doing her mating dance, in front of an audience of her work friends—including a guy who was staring just as intently as he was. His body hummed in anticipation. Even as his brain yammered at him not to do it. Not to stick around for the inevitable end of this night of torture.
Because it would not be an end—not for him.
He sighed and emptied his third bottle of water, getting up to help clear the wine bottles and dessert plates from the room, figuring he might as well be busy while the evening trundled along its pre-determined path. He smiled as Caroline’s drunk friends hip bumped him, giggling at their daring. As he loaded the dishwasher, he allowed his mind to go blank. The pills were working their way through him now and he was less fraught, less tense, more willing to go slow with her. To enjoy the night in her bed.
But he shouldn’t.
He couldn’t.
Caroline Reilly represented his lost years—years spent fucking, drinking, smoking, shooting up. Years he was embarrassed at this particular moment to long for, to wish himself back to, for no other reason than that he had no worries, no responsibilities, and could do whatever the hell felt good.
He wiped his hands on a towel and turned around to watch the show a little longer, half-convinced that he should leave while she wasn’t paying attention to him. He was her catnip, her pop, her hit, her deepest, darkest urge, in living, breathing form. They’d been perfect and yet awful together for so long. What in the world she was doing inviting him over, getting drunk and doing all the things she knew damn well would encourage him—showing off, flirting with the other guy so hard that poor dude was near pop-eyed?
The music pounded through the Bluetooth speaker. The girls danced around, sliding against each other while his male compatriot-slash-audience member sat, gaga at the potential. Brock sighed and pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent a quick text to his brother.
Yo. You were right. I should never have come here.
He stared at the words after he’d sent them, smiling when he got a message back within seconds, even at this hour.
I’m always right. Do you want me to come get you?
He sighed and looked back into the living room. Caroline was staring at him now, her deep-green eyes flashing, her hips undulating to the music. He smiled and tucked the phone away, crooked his finger at her and put a pillow over the voice in his head that kept reminding him that this…kiss…this…touch…this…all this…was all a very bad idea.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. A call this time, from Austin, no doubt. But he was busy now and he let Caroline take the hand he’d had up her skirt and lead him down the short hallway, past the giggling friends and into her bedroom. He hesitated for a count of three after she shut the door and turned to face him. Then he lost himself in her for hours.
The sex wasn’t perfect. He was out of practice. But her familiar smell and taste and feel under his lips and fingers brought it all back. Afterward, they slept, arms and legs tangled together, sweat drying on their skin, his face buried in her hair.
He woke with a start when the darkness was only beginning to fade into dawn, and disentangled himself, needing water, a shower, space. But obviously wanting something else if his traitorous hard dick was any indication. The ants were crawling all over him now, tickling his ears and making his fingertips tingle. He leaned on the vanity, staring into his flushed face. He felt good but wanted more. Needed more.
“Fuck,” he muttered, splashing water on his face before ducking into an ice-cold shower for a few seconds, emerging with his teeth chattering and his cock at half-mast. After wrapping a towel around his waist, he wandered out into the living room. The girls were still there, as was the guy. All passed out on the couch in various stages of undress. He stood and observed the women with a clinical eye. One was curvy, with full hips and breasts like Caroline. She had a fully waxed pussy, he noted with a sort of clinical detachment, something he’d never cared for.
The other one was a dark-skinned near-goddess. Her nipples were hard, tempting, like drops of chocolate. He licked his lips, took one step toward the scrum, hand on his revived erection tenting the towel. He’d bet money that her pussy was a light shade of brown too but she had on a skirt. Their mouths were hanging open. The dude was snoring. Brock backed away, citing some mantra or another as he went into the kitchen.
He downed two glasses of water and stood, berating himself, until he felt her hands on his shoulders, his arms, around his waist, her lips against his back. He turned and held on to her for dear life, sucking in deep breaths of all that was Caroline.
He grabbed her arms and pushed her away. “I can’t do this, Caro. You know that.”
She nodded, her eyes bright.
“I’m gonna go now. Before I do something really stupid, okay?”
She nodded again. “I was drunk. It was a mistake.” Her voice was low and soft, but serious, as she always was. His serious, sweet, amenable-to-try-anything Caroline. His first love. His first fuck. The girl he’d screwed over so many times and in so many ways he’d lost count.
He poured her a glass of water. She drank it, thanked him and put the empty glass on counter, pulling her robe tighter around her body. “But it was good, right?”
He nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears, cradling her face in his hands and kissing her long and deep. “It was,
” he whispered. “And that’s why I have to leave.”
“I know.” She leaned her forehead against his. “I’m sorry. I was being selfish. But I’ve missed you…so much.”
“I love you, you know,” he said, surprising himself. “But I’m the worst thing in the world for you.”
She sighed and swiped her eyes. “Go on, then. Beat it.” She smiled at him and slapped his ass.
And for the first time in a long while, he had nothing—no witty rejoinder, no snarky response. He stared at her a few minutes, memorizing her. “Could we be friends, maybe? I could use a few of those.”
She sniffled and poured more water. “Maybe,” she parroted him before drinking and staring at him over the rim of the glass. “Yes, I think I’d like that. I mean…if I can’t have you any other way.” She stared pointedly at his bare chest.
He took a breath. “Okay, so come with me up to the lake. It’s in a few weekends. Some get-together, Melody and Trent’s place.”
“Who?”
“Melody’s the manager of the pub. She’s hooked up with Trent Hettinger. He’s—”
“I know who he is. You know him?”
“Only via Austin and the brewery crew. So, will you? I’ll make sure we have separate rooms. I understand his lake house is less cabin and more mansion.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “He’s rich as God. Hot too.” Her eyes twinkled at him when he frowned. “Okay, fine. I’ll go. But as your friend.” She flicked his nipple, making him yelp. “Can you help me with them?” She pointed to the truncated-looking orgy in the other room.
“Yeah. Let me get dressed.” He headed to the bedroom for his clothes, his mind at peace but his body fighting him every step. His curse, he figured. But he felt as if he’d won a major battle just now as he and Caroline got dressed in silence around her tousled bed. He sent two quick texts before assisting her in rousing the partiers and shoving them out the door before helping with a quick clean-up. One to his brother, who was livid, as usual. And one to his therapist, requesting a Sunday, emergency appointment.
Later, he patted his belly, which was full of scrambled eggs and toast. “Gotta go, babe. Thanks for the laughs.” Trying to keep it light, while every nerve and molecule in him was screaming for him to reach for her, hold her, kiss her, fuck her until neither of them could walk. He put his dishes in the washer and downed the last of the coffee. “Don’t,” he said, flinching away from her touch. “This is hard enough, as you well know.”
She sighed and stepped away from him. “I don’t know about this, Brock.”
“Well, you don’t have to come with me.” But he had to chew the inside of his cheek to keep from begging her to promise that she would.
“I know.” She pulled her hair back into a thick ponytail. He tried not to stare at her nipples that were poking through the thin fabric of her T-shirt. “Can we do it? Just be friends, I mean?”
He slumped against her counter, keeping his distance as the ants resumed their circuit across his scalp, down his neck, spine, arms and legs. Shivering, he closed his eyes. She slid into his arms and held on to him, whispering something that he couldn’t hear over the roaring in his ears. The roaring of need, of sick, uncontrollable desire.
Gently, he tugged her off him. “Thanks. I’ll check in with you later.” He touched her nose. “I have to go now and pay my therapist time and a half to talk through this giant mistake I made with you.”
She seemed to deflate. He touched her cheek.
“You’re not a mistake, Caro. You’re not the problem. It’s me. We both know it. And I want to be your friend, but that’s it, okay?”
“Okay.” Her voice was rough with emotion. “I love you, Brock.”
“I know,” he said, heading for her door, his head pounding and his entire body yearning to turn around and go back to her.
Chapter Seven
Kayla spent an hour setting the chairs down and wiping all the tables and the expansive concrete bar. The silence was odd but soothing. Since she’d never worked a Sunday open, and typically took the later weekday shifts, she’d never been in the place when it wasn’t already noisy and teeming with patrons.
She chose the music theme—a non-committal jazz-like station—and sat a few minutes, taking in the calm silence of her new workplace. As she wandered behind the bar, letting her fingers trail along the cool, clean surface, she realized what she wanted to do, right now.
She grabbed her backpack from underneath the cash register and pulled out the cheap sketch pad and charcoal pencils she’d treated herself to after an especially good night of tips. The ‘art thing’ as she’d come to think of it had begun during her last days at the detox camp. Her therapist had been aggravated at her when she’d kept insisting that she had no real hobbies—she didn’t like reading, didn’t play any instruments, hated to cook, didn’t sew or make anything else with her hands and had no real desire to do any of it. But she’d needed something, the woman had kept saying to her, while Kayla had kept shaking her head, telling her that was part of her damn problem—nothing to distract her. No job. No real prospects. No hobbies. No significant skills, unless you counted blow jobs and faking orgasms. Oh, and rolling joints and mixing cheap martinis.
“Stop it,” she muttered as she sat and stared at one of the tables, with its flower stuck in an old beer bottle, the condiments, the rolled utensils and stack of self-serve coasters. Something about it struck her. It was representative of her new world, up to and including the flaws in the wood, the stains on the chairs, the sad dip of the two-day-old flower in its faux-chic bud vase.
The therapist had presented her with her first sketch pad and charcoal pencils. She’d scoffed but after a day of glaring at them from across her small cell-like room, she’d opened the book and drawn the first thing she’d seen—the contents of her bedside table. A box of generic tissues, a half-empty glass of water, five different pill bottles, most of them tipped over, a cracked lamp.
She’d shown it to her therapist the next day, encouraged when the woman had seemed surprised by it. The final weeks of her time in the camp had been spent scribbling and scraping away on the pad until she’d filled it up and worked the pencils down to nubs.
When she’d been set free from that place, with nothing in her possession but a backpack full of shitty drawings, a bus pass, an address for a halfway house and twenty bucks for food, something about her hours spent being creative had given her hope. She’d used the ticket to get home to Grand Rapids, after almost twenty-five years away, realizing that she wanted to reconnect with her brother, now that she was clean. The stack of sketch books was tall enough to serve as her bedside table in the warehouse, alongside the mattress. She’d gone back into them and filled every possible corner of both sides of the paper. Then she’d made herself wait until she had three hundred bucks put away before allowing a thirty-five dollar purchase of fresh pads—the sheets grainy and cheap but blank—and some new pencils.
It freed her for a few minutes—the act of drawing. She had zero delusions about her talent, regardless of what the therapist had said about her early forays. But she had all kinds of faith in its power to distract her from her worst urges, her most violent memories. As she let her hand move, she kept her eyes on the subject as the soft jazzy music filled the air around her.
When the door slammed open, the sun shone in, blinding her for a moment. “We aren’t open yet,” she called, flipping the sketch book closed and tucking everything away in her bag. It was only ten-thirty but she’d forgotten to lock the door behind her so she figured she might as well earn a few bucks early.
“It’s me,” Melody called out.
Kayla blinked, confused. Her boss’ voice sounded strangled, as if she had a cold. Or she’d been crying. The woman walked around behind the bar so fast Kayla couldn’t get a good look at her. She ran through the kitchen that was occupied with cooks doing prep work. Following her, worried in a way that she chalked up to female intuition, she waite
d outside the staff restroom door that had just slammed behind Melody.
“No es bueno,” one of the cooks said. The other one made a clucking sound with his teeth but shrugged at her.
Kayla waited a few minutes, then heard the bar door open again, so she headed out, a smile on her face, ready to earn more sketch book money.
It was freeing, the art. But it was also freeing to only be worried about that—not about where to get her next hit, or how to pay for it. Not that she wouldn’t love to have one. The sweet rush to the brain, the odd sensation of swelling in all her nerve endings, ready to receive all the good the world had to offer. How colors were brighter, sounds more compelling, her sense of touch intensified. Until she lost the high and her body staggered into needy mode.
She shook her head at herself as she approached the couple settling themselves at the end of the bar. After about an hour, she heard a new voice in the kitchen behind her. A somewhat strident, bossy-sounding female speaking rapid Spanish. When she had a spare second, she ducked her head into the busy kitchen and saw a woman who was a shorter, older version of her boss, helping Melody out of the bathroom.
“Hi, Kayla, sorry,” Melody said. “This is my mother. She’s…here to help out this afternoon. A couple of the guys are down with the flu.”
The older woman smiled and shook Kayla’s hand then cluck-clucked at her daughter, who looked as if she had the same problem as the missing kitchen staff, toward her small office at the back of the kitchen. She shot a worried glance over her shoulder then shut the door behind them.
The bar was getting busy, so Kayla headed back out, eager to lose herself in the work for a few hours. She’d almost forgotten about Melody and her mother’s presence but after a while realized the older woman was, indeed, working away in the kitchen, chopping, stirring, prepping, bossing the rest of the staff around like a pro.
Once things had calmed down a bit, she started putting away cleaned glassware. She greeted the second shift of bartenders and servers then filled a couple of beer orders, loving the way she felt in control of this, of herself, for the first time in years. She’d even managed to flirt back with some of the older guys who were semi-regulars, and with the cute young guy sitting alone and watching a Tigers game on one of the televisions.