by Harper Sloan
He shocks me when, instead of lashing out, he starts to shake with silent laughter “Napoleon complex, hmm? Do I really need to remind you just how untrue that statement is, Izzy? Take a look at me. My height isn’t the only thing that fucking grew since you ran off.” After he throws that unexpected remark out, I am once again stunned.
Ran off? I would have thought he was talking about this past week if it hadn’t been for the offhand comment about him changing. What is he talking about? I didn’t run off. He did. As my confusion grows, I am even more convinced that I do not want to have this conversation with him.
Finally, having lost his last thread of control, he grabs my hips and lifts, unceremoniously dumping me into the seat. He harshly mutters for me to buckle my ‘fucking belt,’ before he slams the door and disappears around the hood. My jaw is still hanging when he opens his door and slings his giant frame into the seat, turning the key and bringing this beast to a roaring start. He slams it into gear and shoots away from his spot.
Coming out of my stunned silence, I look over at his harsh face. “Where are you taking me? My house is the other way,” I meekly ask.
“I know where your house is. I also know that you have been there all week, even while ignoring me. I’m not taking you there, where you can have the protection of your little pit bull roommate. We’re talking and we will be doing it with no fucking interruptions and no one to help you cower behind a locked door. Hear me that, right fucking now.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Maybe we can just go to the Starbucks around the corner?” Maybe if I had little more conviction, he would have taken me seriously. The last place I want to be is in his space, alone with him.
“Forget that right now. What I have to say to you will not be said around others. Get ready, Princess, because I am done playing games. I don’t care if it takes an eternity. You will fucking talk.”
I snap my mouth shut and turn to watch the city fly past him, trying frantically to think of a way out of this, a way to escape. I’m not ready, and I am even more convinced that I might not ever be.
Axel
My heart feels like it might burst from my chest at any second, just blow up, right out of my body. The pounding of my heart, even booming in my ears as loudly as it is, is doing nothing to disguise the soft sniffling coming from the other side of my truck. As much as I wish I could keep my heart hardened from her, the sound of her crying is tearing me up. I shouldn’t have any compassion left for her; it should have died a long time ago.
I know from my reaction to seeing her again last Saturday that this chat won’t be easy. There are still feelings—feelings I thought were long gone and lost forever—trapped in that box with my heart. This girl ripped my heart to fucking shreds and I never knew why. It would have been quicker if she had stuck around and shot me in the fucking chest. At least I would have died instantly instead of bleeding out slowly for the last twelve years.
Jesus, I can’t get the image of her slender body holding that small excuse for a towel against her chest out of my head. When she let it drop from her tight hold, I thought I was going to swallow my tongue. Her tits had always been fucking perfect but, to see them like that, with her nipples erect and sporting two hot barbells, I might have shot off in my pants. As much as I wanted to drop to my knees and suck her pert, pink nipples into my mouth, I couldn’t help my first thought: that motherfucker had his hands on her. He’d held her tits in his hands. There was no reasoning with my brain that she wasn’t mine; I saw red.
Those are my fucking tits and she is my fucking girl. It doesn’t matter to my mind that it has been well over a decade since I have been able to enjoy them; someone else touched what was mine. If I hadn’t thought she would take off and run again, I would have killed that little shit.
All week I have thought about her. She has been a constant stress that I don’t need when I am trying to get everything in my life in order. Greg and I have been busy enough with all the legal paperwork and issues that keep popping up with the new company. Plus meetings and moving into the office space, briefings with him and the boys, and consultations with new clients. I don’t have time to be strolling down memory lane.
It wasn’t until Wednesday evening that I remembered Greg coming to talk to me about his friend. Iz, with the threat and husband who did not want to let go. Livid—that would be the first thing I felt. I remember thinking, very briefly, when I first saw her about the connection but it instantly fled when all hell followed our collision. I need more information and I need it yesterday. I don’t know what kind of threat she is under and I don’t even really know much about her marriage. I assumed for so many years that she was happy. I was crushed and pissed because I couldn’t bring myself to barge into her life if she was happy.
Even now, craving answers as fiercely as I do, my main focus is figuring out what is happening with this douchebag. The time to get my answers will come, but first we will be talking about this husband of hers.
I waited for her call yesterday, anticipating some bullshit reason why she wouldn’t be able to meet today. I hadn’t expected her to pull some vanishing act and hide all day. I should have. When lunch rolled around today and I still hadn’t heard from her, I set off for her house. When I got there to find it locked tight and no one home, I was pissed.
I called Greg to see if maybe I could gain one fucking supporter in this fight. He said, “Not getting in this. She knows how I feel and she will talk when she’s ready. I don’t agree with this, but I will support her because she’s my girl.” He was not happy when I blew up in his ear. She is not his goddamn girl. It didn’t matter how many times I asked or straight-up demanded—he wasn’t telling me where they were.
Imagine my shock when I got a call not even an hour later from Greg, spitting fire and giving up her location. When I arrived and walked into a tattoo parlor of all places, my rage joined his.
Fuck, those tits looked fucking hot though.
After another five-minute drive and sporadic soft sniffles from Izzy, I pull up to the security gate of my house. After entering the code, I pull the truck up my driveway. I feel like I’m looking at the house from a new set of eyes, trying to see how she will view my success. I might be a thirty-one-year-old man, but even that doesn’t stop me from hoping she sees how far I’ve come, how I have finally taken myself from orphaned and penniless to this. Part of the plans we once made together, only this isn’t the one-bedroom apartment we had our eyes set on. As much of a douche as it might make me, an even smaller part of me hopes she feels just an ounce of jealousy for how good my life is and see how much I was able to accomplish without her in my life.
How laughable that thought is. I would have gladly given every single penny to my name away if it meant I would have had my Izzy with me all these years. But this Izzy? No. I don’t even know this Izzy.
The house I bought was over the top, I know this, but fuck if I would ever live cramped for space again. I’m sure there are plenty of shrinks who would love to get into my head; there’s plenty of jacked-up shit in there. I know why I bought this place and I don’t need anyone to tell me that I am making up for my childhood haunts.
We clear the last of the Bradford pears that line my half-a-mile drive and the house is coming into view. Large and imposing. The deep red bricks almost look black against the night sky. The light next to the red double front doors beams bright and cheerful, almost inviting. Again, laughable. The colonial-style house is made to be a home, not this farce I have going. The huge front porch looks cozy with the rocking chairs positioned between the large four columns, and the flowers look domestic; it is just some huge juxtapose of my life. The outside doesn’t match the inside. The house is just as vacant as I feel right now and I don’t like it at all.
Time to get this over with.
Time to figure out whatever the issue is with her husband and find out what the fuck happened to her.
Izzy is still just gazing out her window, but since
we are sitting in my dark garage, my guess is this is her attempt at avoiding me. How the hell she plans on doing that when she is in my damn house and unable to leave without me taking her is beyond me.
I can feel my temper rising. I’m fighting myself for control—control against my own frustrations, control over the pain that has no place in my heart anymore, and control against my raging hard-on that seems to be pointing right at Izzy. I have never had this many issues with controlling the situations around me.
She must feel my eyes on her because she finally turns to me.
“What now?” It’s barely a whisper, and if I hadn’t been looking at her, I might have missed it.
“Get out of the truck. We talk. Simple as that. It only becomes this giant mess of immature games when you become difficult. So work with me, because I’m sick of fucking playing games.” I think that is nice enough until the tears start rolling down her velvety cheeks.
Goddammit.
I climb down from the cab and start making my way around the hood to her side, fully expecting to have to pull her out and throw her over my shoulder. Surprisingly, she is waiting next to the door, and is clearly pissed about her long climb down.
“This way.” The welcome is just rolling off my words. I’m sure she can feel the vibes choking her. It’s hard to miss when someone would rather be anywhere than with the person they are with. Hard to tell if I would even be going through all this shit if it hadn’t been for Greg and his request to help his friend. My gut tells me that I should just leave her alone, forget about her and the answers I crave. My gut is screaming at me to let it die, pass it over to Locke or Coop, and pretend I never looked back into those pale green eyes again.
Fat chance of that.
I open the door to the mudroom off the garage and motion for her to enter. The house is dark, so she pauses next to the door. Coming in behind her, I enter the alarm code and snap on the light to the kitchen. There are chrome appliances, dark wood cabinets, granite countertops, and a whole lot of nothing else. No table, just two barstools next to the island. It screams welcome home.
I point over to the stool and bark off one word. “Sit.”
She is looking at her feet, doesn’t even attempt to fight me, and sits. I give her a second. She knows why we are here, so hopefully she will just tell me what I need to know without making this a big deal. Ten minutes go by with me looking at her and her wringing her hands together in her lap.
“Talk,” I bark, the sound vibrating off the naked walls.
If I hadn’t been observing her for the last eternity, I might have missed the small jump she takes at my tone. It’s hard to tell if I scared her or if something else is working behind her eyes when she snaps her head up.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” More whispers. Seems like I might need hearing aids for this conversation.
“Well, let’s see. I didn’t drag you down here to give you a tour, I don’t need to catch up on the latest town gossip, and I sure as fuck didn’t bring you here for the company, so that just leaves one thing. First, you explain, in detail, what is going on with your husband.” I spit the word out, the bitterness on my tongue loud and clear. “Then you can explain to me what that fucked-up package meant. Details, Izzy. This isn’t a game, and I tell you this, if it hadn’t been for Greg basically begging me to help you, I would not be doing this.”
It takes her a second; I can see my words working around her mind. She opens her mouth a few times, but words never come out. Right when I start to lose any thread of patience I have left, she finally speaks.
“Can’t someone else do this? Do you have to be the one?” I want to throttle her. Fucking bullshit. Greg will owe me big for this.
“End the high school bullshit. He didn’t ask me personally to take your shit for the hell of it. I’m good at what I do, Izzy. Locke and Coop? Sure, they could do it, but I can do it better. Now, what the fuck?”
She closes her eyes for a few minutes before inhaling deeply. “Brandon, my ex . . . well, almost ex. We had a . . . challenging marriage. I left a little over two years ago and moved here. He’s been fighting the divorce.” Didn’t take much of a deduction to guess she was leaving something out—a whole lot of somethings.
“Let me ask you something, Izzy. How do you expect me to look into this, into him, without anything other than your telling me your perfect marriage didn’t work? What, did he cheat on you or something? Finally get enough of living the perfect little life? Tell me, because I just don’t get it. The little I was able to dig up this week makes it look like you had everything your little heart desired. And what I really don’t get—what I really don’t understand—is why he won’t just let you go.” Even to my own ears, that comes out harsher than I intended it to.
A little light on this situation would have been nice, because when she bursts into tears and runs off into the darken halls of my house, I am completely thrown. Shocked. What in the fucking hell? Grumbling like a fool, I take off to find her.
Almost thirty minutes later, I finally narrow the search. Really, it shouldn’t have been this much of a challenge since I have more empty rooms than furniture. This is what I get for buying a six-fucking-bedroom house I do not need. I look in every room on the main floor—nothing. I jog up the stairs and look in every room—nothing. I finally catch a break when I pass the bedroom next to the stairs—soft crying. I already checked this room and she wasn’t there. I use this room to store all my old case files. Being that all the other rooms except the one I sleep in are empty, she couldn’t have picked a better hiding spot.
I finally find her wedged between two big stacks of boxes. She has completely moused her way between them and turned into herself, legs pulled close to her chest and arms wrapped tightly around her body. She is rocking, fucking rocking, back and forth.
“Izzy, come out.” I try.
Nothing but soft cries.
“Come on now. Get out of there.” And try.
Silence.
“Really, Izzy, I’m too fucking big to crawl in there for you. Out.” And try.
I keep going for ten long-ass, frustrating minutes with no luck.
Enough of this shit. I start picking up the boxes around her, moving one at a time away from her small ball-like body. Once I have enough cleared that I can touch her, I reach my hand out to pull her up and out. I don’t expect her to throw herself back away from my outstretched hand. She has holed herself up so well that there isn’t much room between her head and the wall. She makes contract with a sick thud.
“Fuck,” I hiss out before scooping her up and carrying her down to my room. Flicking the lights on with my elbow, I walk over to the bed and place her gently down against the mattress before running my fingers through her hair.
Nice lump, stupid girl.
“All right, Izzy. Enough of this. Now we can add explaining what the hell that was to the list.”
My patience is shot, blown to fucking dust. My mood is deteriorating with every second, and she just looks at me with empty eyes. It’s like she isn’t even here with me. She just keeps roaming her eyes over my face. As pissed as I am right now, I can’t help but become sucked into her all over again. She looks so scared, but it’s the longing I see all over her face that has me transfixed. It’s like someone just kicked her puppy, killed her cat, and told her she wouldn’t get a pony for Christmas.
“Please, talk.”
She jumps at my hushed pleading. It takes her a minute and more of that heavy analyzing gaze before she speaks again. Her tone is dead; she sounds so small and defeated. Chills break out all over my body with her next words.
“It was so hard, Ax. So hard.” She looks away, focusing off into space instead of on me. “The first year was okay. He worked a lot but it wasn’t bad. He didn’t want me to work, said the only thing I needed to do was care for him, the house, and any . . . kids. What did I know? Stupid, broken Iz, what did I know? Huh?”
She finally looks back at me; she lo
oks like some spirit has returned but not much. I know this won’t be good before she even says a word. I have to fight the urge to punch something, reminding myself that I asked for this.
“The second year was when he started to change a little. We didn’t go visit my grandparents as much. He was always asking me to stay home and not meet Dee for lunch or dinner. Little things that I didn’t notice at first . . . until they became big things.” She gives a bitter snort before taking another big intake of air. “I hadn’t seen Dee in a few weeks. I think it was a Wednesday . . . I don’t know. He was going to be late that day, and the only thing I could think was, Finally . . . finally I can see Dee. A half-hour coffee date with Dee turned into a split lip. I didn’t even think he was out of line, you know. I thought I deserved it. I think Dee always knew things were off in the Hunter house. About a month after that, I ran into her again. She begged me to open up to her, but I told her I was fine. Fine. What a joke that was.”
If I couldn’t feel my blood rushing through my body right now, I would be convinced I have turned to stone. Words were beyond me, and my earlier taunts were smacking me all in the face.
I will kill this motherfucker.
“Princess,” I reach down for her hand but she pulls it close to her body. “Was that the only time he put his hands on you?” I try for soft, but the lethal fury in my voice can’t be missed.
“For a while. They didn’t start getting bad for another few months. He acted like he was sorry and it was an accident. They didn’t get bad until around our third anniversary.”
“What exactly is defined as bad? Because I can’t find any good way for a man to touch a woman like that.”
When her eyes come back to me and that single fat tear slips from her eye, I know. I just know.
“Don’t you feel pity for me. This wasn’t your mess. You didn’t make him do it. I should have left, been strong enough to leave. I didn’t have anyone, Axel, so don’t think I didn’t think about it. He was smart. He cut me off from everyone. I didn’t even get to go to my grandmother’s funeral, and Pop . . . He wasn’t doing well either. I didn’t want Dee to know how bad it was. I was stuck . . . Stuck with no one.”