Loving a Sinner

by D. B. Webb

  “Okay,” I said again.

  I watched him as he ate the rest of his food. I couldn’t help but notice he almost looked sad.

  “You okay?” I asked him. I softly made circles on his back with my nails.

  “It’s just family stuff. I’ll tell you when I’m back, okay?”

  I let out a frustrated breath, but nodded in agreement. There was no point in arguing. I had just come back in his life, I couldn’t expect him to tell me all his dirty family secrets by the first day of getting back together.

  “I promise, Ryan. I’ll tell you. I need you to trust me. It’s some heavy shit, so I’m not ready. Not yet, but I promise I will be when I get back.”

  “I trust you,” I told him.

  And I did. He hadn’t given me any reason not to trust him.

  We spent what was left of the day lounging around. Stolen kisses and breaths between conversation that flitted between each of us as we discussed what we had been up to for the past years.

  The first thing I did was shove my arm in his face. Three tiny black outlines of waves were on my underarm. I told him I got it there because it was easy to hide and because it fell near my heart when my arm was at my side. His smile was contagious, and I couldn’t help but feel proud of my ink. He was shocked I had actually done it.

  Then I told him about NYU and how I interned for Eli at The Singing Room Gallery during my last year of school. I told him how Eli had stumbled upon my own photos and forced me to put a collection up for a winter showcase. I told him about the first piece I had ever sold, and how I went home and cried because all my hard work and dedication had finally been worth it. The piece sold for three hundred dollars, but it could have sold for a million and I wouldn’t have been any more happy. Because in that moment, I had realized my passion could also be what I did.

  “Why don’t you just sell your art? Why work at the gallery in sales?”

  I laughed like it was the funniest thing I had ever heard, and it kind of was.

  “I’m not successful enough to live off of selling my pieces, Jackson.”

  “You could be.”

  “No.”

  “I have a beautiful photo hanging in my living room that makes me beg to differ.”

  A blush crept across my chest and up my neck. When I saw the way he was looking at me, it spread across my cheeks and to my ears. I felt like a silly schoolgirl, but I reveled in the fact that he could still make me feel so wonderfully special.

  “Well, thank you, but I don’t have the means to do that right now. And I like my job, thank you very much!” I playfully swatted at him.

  “Even when you have to deal with pain-in-the-ass artists?” he asked me, referring to our conversation in my office. That day seemed like it had been years ago when in reality it had only been a couple of days. Time, in regards to Jackson, had always been off—speeding up or slowing down.

  “Especially then,” I winked.

  He rolled his eyes, laughing at me, before he turned more somber. The mood shifted, and I knew he was about to ask a serious question. We’d managed to skirt around them until then.

  “Why didn’t you ever try to contact me? You were so close…”

  “I did.”

  His eyebrows shot up, and he placed himself closer to where I sat.

  “Well, I found you… or saw you, rather…” I tried to explain.

  I didn’t want to tell him about the time I had seen him on a date with a beautiful brunette who looked like a model.

  “When?” he seemed genuinely confused.

  “About four months after you left… I was just getting settled in New York. I went to this nice restaurant with Kayla, and there you were.” I cleared my throat and began to fiddle with the hem of his plain white tee shirt that I was currently wearing. Taking a deep breath, I continued, “I was shocked to see you. I mean, what were the odds? It’s a huge city… But just before I was going to say hi, I saw that you weren’t alone.”

  “Natalie,” Jackson said under his breath. His eyes squeezed shut, and he shook his head.

  “Was that her name? She was beautiful.”

  “We weren’t ever serious. Dad set us up when he wanted her family’s business to merge with ours. I took her out a few times, but neither of us were ever into each other.”

  His explanation didn’t hurt any less. Though, I couldn’t have really blamed him for the situation. He hadn’t done anything wrong by taking a woman to dinner. More than anything I had been shocked to find him smiling and laughing while on a date when I had spent those four months pining over a man who was clearly over me.

  “You looked happy,” I tried to smile. I failed, miserably, and I knew he saw right through me.

  “Hmm.”

  That was all he said. Awkwardly, I tried to change the subject. “When do you leave?”

  But, apparently, Jackson wasn’t done talking about Natalie, because he ignored my question. “I didn’t ever have feelings for her. I actually broke things off with her prematurely. Dad was pissed, but I couldn’t keep lying and pretending like I was enjoying myself when all I thought about on my dates was whether you were across the country.”

  His confession threw me off because while he had told me that he always held onto the memory of me and he told me he missed me, I hadn’t expected him to feel so deeply the way that I had. I could relate to dating someone for show. After a year of being single, I finally began to date again. Not because I wanted to, but because it was expected of me. Society said it was weird to be approaching marriage age and not be dating. Kayla told me I needed to fuck Jackson out of my system. Dad was worried that he’d never have grandchildren.

  What I wanted hadn’t mattered because it was deemed strange and even ridiculous. So I put on a show for those around me, and as soon as the men I dated began to get more serious, I would move on. I wouldn’t be trapped in a passionless relationship for the rest of my life solely because I stayed with one man too long and he popped the question. That had almost happened once, and I learned the hard way why I left before the “I love you’s.”

  I hadn’t meant to hurt Josh, the one guy I had dated seriously, because he had been nice. Rather than the normally cold feeling I felt with the other men, I had felt warm. Warm, but not hot. It wasn’t the kind of heat that set one’s soul on fire.

  I had experienced that once, and I was convinced it wouldn’t ever happen again. Jackson had eternally branded himself on my heart, and there was no getting rid of him.

  “So I should have said, ‘hi’?” I joked.

  His eyes darkened, sucking his lower lip in his mouth he examined me.

  “Baby, if you would have come over and said hi, I would have stood, taken your hand, and walked the hell out of that restaurant, and I wouldn’t have looked back.”

  “Well, shit. I guess we both missed out on that, then.”

  He pulled me into his arms and laid us down, I on top of him. I laid my head down on his sculpted chest and closed my eyes and listened to his heart beat.

  It was a constant and steady reminder that he was actually here with me. I was being held in his arms again. This wasn’t one of my many dreams, but reality. And we had promised ourselves to each other this time.

  Each thud lulled me closer to the edge of sleep.

  “Ryan,” I faintly heard Jackson’s soft voice. It wrapped me in the warmth of the sound of him.

  “Hmm?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I finally told him aloud. I didn’t have to look up to know he was smiling. I could hear it in the speed of his heart. Mine raced with his. Both beating fast and for each other.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I left Ryan the next day and told her she was welcome to stay at my home while she was gone. She did an excited dance as she clapped her hands wildly at the thought of being allowed to stay there.

  I fucking loved her like that. Excited smile, eyes dancing, ha
ir wild.

  She told me she was inviting Kayla over for a girl’s night, and I sighed an okay. Kayla had been badgering me about visiting my place, but I had always told her it was a bad time. The truth was I had tried to stay away from Kayla because she reminded me too much of her perfect, blonde best friend.

  My flight left early Sunday morning and I returned Tuesday night. I had told Ryan it was a business trip, and with Jane involved, there was a good chance that it would end up being business. She’d inevitably ask me for more money, and I would comply because my heart hadn’t caught up with my head when it came to thinking Jane was a gold-digging leech. No, my heart ached when she would tell me her latest sob story. I would end up feeling guilty for whatever reason, and give her what she asked for.

  Jane had offered to pick me up from the airport, but that was the last thing I wanted, so I had Devlin send one of our company cars for me. Devlin ran our California branch and had suggested to visit the office in L.A. while I was over in Cali. Apparently he was under the impression I would want to see him.

  Too many fucking people thinking I wanted to be a part of their lives when all I really wanted was to cut them out of my life for good.

  The car that picked me up pulled in front of an older stone house. It reminded me of a cottage from a fairy tale or something. It wasn’t a rundown piece of shit I had expected it to be. At least I knew my money was going toward something nice.

  Taking a deep breath, I smoothed out my dress pants. I mentally prepared myself for what I was about to come face to face with.

  Jeffrey.

  My biological dad.

  And the man responsible for Ryan’s mom’s death.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw Jeffrey. He was the man who had knocked up my mother and refused to help her leave my dad. According to my mom, I didn’t need to blame Jeffrey for that. Benjamin was a scary man, and scary men had a way of getting what they wanted. What Benjamin wanted was Johnna as his wife.

  So, Jeffrey accepted Aaron’s payout, and cut off all communication with Mom. They stayed in California for three more years after I had been born before Benjamin decided we were too close to Jeffrey should he ever want to claim me as his son.

  It wasn’t until the accident, the one that caused Ryan to lose her mother, that I ever even found out the identity of Jeffrey. Mom had told me through tears that my biological dad had been in an accident. At first I thought she had told me because he was dead, but it turns out fate had other plans.

  He had fled the scene, leaving a woman unconscious. Well, he had thought she was unconscious. Lana Patterson, however, was dead on impact. When Benjamin and his lawyer looked into the accident, that was when they had learned of the identities of the two people my biological dad had hit in his drunken state.

  Witnesses confirmed that the driver of the car, which was stolen, was most definitely under the influence, but none of them had been able to see the man who ran from the scene. All they knew was that he was a middle-aged man.

  That middle-aged man was Jeffrey Sawyer.

  Jeffrey Sawyer was the man who I had the unfortunate luck of sharing DNA.

  Jeffrey was under hospice care in his sunny Californian home. He looked like shit. The liver cancer had spread into his lymph nodes, and he would drift in and out of consciousness. While I was there, he had been completely unconscious the entire time.

  It felt like a waste of time. I had flown across the country to meet the man who had been a part of giving me life. Yet I hadn’t even been able to have a simple conversation with him. No, How have you been pops? No, Thanks for nothing asshole.

  I was angry I had let myself be convinced to come here. To see a dying man that I didn’t know.

  As I made my way to leave, Jane stopped me.

  “Thank you for everything you’ve done for us, Jackson. It meant a lot to him.”

  Bullshit. We both knew they had used me for my money.

  When I had found out about the accident, I had immediately paid for all the Patterson’s expenses. I had thought about reaching out to Ryan, personally, but what was I supposed to say? Sorry that my biological dad killed your mother?

  So instead I anonymously gave her money. I had chosen that money over her anyway. She might as well have benefited from it as much as I had.

  After the accident, Jane had found me through my mother. For whatever reason, Johnna had decided to give the woman my contact information. I think it had more to do with the fact that Johnna and Benjamin didn’t have the time or patience to deal with the Sawyers. So instead, they stuck them on me so that they could suck me dry of my money.

  “Sure thing. When he dies, lemme know. I’ll pay for the expenses. I’ve heard dying can be expensive.”

  I wanted to say that I knew firsthand how expensive it was because I had been the one to pay for Lana’s funeral. The woman that Jeffrey had killed.

  My harsh and detached tone must have shocked Jane, because she didn’t say a single word. Instead, she let out what sounded like a humming noise.

  I pushed past her and headed toward the car that waited for me. I had been in that house for thirty minutes. It was thirty minutes too long.

  As my driver pulled out of the driveway, I let myself have one more look back at the house that contained a man who was a stranger to me. I wondered what life would have been like if Aaron hadn’t paid him off, if Jeffrey and mom could have ended up together. Would he have been a good father? One to take me to baseball games?

  Probably not, considering the fact he had killed a woman while driving drunk and had left her there to die.

  And people wondered why I never wanted kids.

  Well, this was it. Because my DNA, no matter how you looked at it, was thoroughly screwed up. How in the hell was I supposed to have a shot in hell at being a good dad when every dad I had was a fucked-up mess?

  I thought briefly of Ryan. She deserved better.

  And I hoped after she found out about my mess of a family she would still choose me.

  She had to.

  She was all I had left.

  Jackson had left me the keys of his to his penthouse, much to Kayla’s pleasure. She had practically left me deaf in one ear after she squealed when I told her we were having a girl’s night in Jackson’s home.

  There really wasn’t a good reason why we couldn’t have our girl’s night at my apartment, other than the fact that my apartment was smaller and Jackson kept his house stocked with top-shelf alcohol. He had even sent someone to buy us groceries for the night. Yes, Jackson Bennett had a personal grocery shopper. I had officially seen it all. He had shrugged it off, telling me shopping in New York City was a pain.

  Kayla arrived in her pajamas at seven Sunday night. Only Kayla would run around the city in her silk PJ’s.

  “What if I had wanted to go out?” I asked her in regards to her outfit.

  “Tough shit, sweetheart,” was her reply.

  Kayla had joined me in the city the year after her graduation. She had been there ever since. She worked for some top-notch publishing company, and even had her very own intern. He was the boss’ son, and she spent every waking second of the day complaining about how much she hated the kid.

  Personally, I didn’t see what she had against him. He was easy on the eyes. There were far worse interns to have.

  “I cannot believe you two are back together,” Kayla gaped as she took in her surroundings. Jackson’s house was something to get used to with how big and beautiful it was, though Kayla’s flat was definitely one that could rival it.

  “I know… Sometimes I still pinch myself to see if it’s real or if I’m dreaming.”

  “Babygirl,” Kayla smiled, “You’re not dreaming.”

  She plopped down on the couch. The same couch on which Jackson had done very dirty things to me. I blushed at the memory, but followed suit. I sat myself next to my best friend and put my feet on the coffee table.

  “I think this is fate telling us we were supposed to
be,” I told her.

  “It’s definitely something,” Kayla agreed. She almost sounded discouraged, but when I looked at her, she held her normal, pretty smile.

  “How’s the intern?” I asked her, knowing if I got her on that subject she could spend at least an hour gabbing while I made us drinks and snacks.

  “Gawwwd, don’t remind me! He’s still the worst. Want to know what he told me today?”

  “What?” I asked, only halfway listening. I stood and made my way to the kitchen. Kayla followed and continued to tell me about how her intern, her very hot intern, who had told her he’d like to fuck her against her office door.

  Again, I couldn’t see what the problem was. Sure, it was kind of douchey, but Kayla was usually into those kinds of guys.

  “How old is he again?” I asked. I poured Kahlua into a glass that had vanilla ice cream at the bottom. It was a juvenile drink, but Kayla and I loved them.

  “He’s twenty-three,” she sighed. She grabbed one of the glasses and spun the spoon around. “Remember when we were that young?”

  “He’s not that young,” I argued.

  “Ryan Patterson, he is eight years younger than me! What exactly are you saying? That I should let the kid have his way with me against my door?”

  I bit back a smile and shrugged. Personally, I thought she spent too much time dwelling on a “kid” she said she hated.

  She huffed and headed back to the living room.

  “I’m choosing the movie just because of that remark!”

  I didn’t remind her that I really hadn’t said anything other than the fact that he wasn’t the baby she was trying to make him out to be.

  “And fucking against doors leaves bruises anyway!” she yelled before I grabbed my own glass.

  I laughed and shook my head.

  She was crazy. But she was my best friend, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Because Devlin had claimed he had business reasons for me to visit our L.A. office, and because I had told Ryan I was in California on business anyway, I agreed to meet Devlin on Monday. I wasn’t leaving to head back home until Tuesday anyway.