Hesitate

by Brooks, Anna

  “What the fuck’s your problem, bitch?” I jerk in Q’s arms at the sound of a door slamming and lift my head to see a man stalking toward us, my adrenaline somehow able to ratchet up another notch and crash through my body for a different reason now. “Yeah, you. My fuckin’ drink spilled all over my car because you’re a moron who can’t cross a fuckin’ street.”

  Q sighs, and instead of getting in this guy’s face like I expected him to, he only shifts slightly, putting my body to the side of his. He drops his arm from behind my back and angles it down across my stomach, like he’s preparing to push me away. His other arm would appear to be casually dangling, but his hand is balled into a fist. “Walk away, man.”

  “No, fuck that. You’re gonna pay to have my car detailed.” He widens his stance and crosses his arms over his chest.

  “No, she’s not.” Q guides me where he wants me to go by pushing his body against mine. Apparently, we’re walking away.

  I start going to the left, heading back to the crosswalk and giving this guy a wide berth. “You’re not walking away from me without givin’ me the money to have my fucking car detailed.”

  The man takes a giant step to his right, blocking our path. My legs begin to quiver, and my knees become elastic, but Q keeps pushing us forward without an ounce of trepidation. “Come on, sweetheart. Keep walking.” I find it hard to move my legs, seeing as they’re rubber at the moment. And I don’t want to get closer to this man. He’s obviously looking for a fight, and I really don’t want Q to get hurt.

  When Q ignores him, he charges at us. I open my mouth to scream, but before anything can even come out, Q pushes me away, and I watch in a dazed and confused fascination as Q deflects this guy’s swing and knocks him to the ground with a single punch. It looked like his fist barely touched him, but oh, did it ever because he fell like a pile of bricks.

  Oh my God.

  The man moans and rolls to his side, and I’m actually relieved because I thought he might be dead.

  Q turns to me, reaches his arm out, and wiggles his fingers. “Let’s go.”

  “What just happened?”

  “Uh… he was coming at you,” he says like it was the dumbest question in the world.

  “I know that, but you… he… you just… I can’t believe you did that.” He shrugs as he steps over the guy, and I scurry next to his writhing form. “No, Q, that’s impressive as hell. Not many men could do that.”

  There are no cars crossing the street, but still, he pushes the button for the crosswalk, and we wait for the lights to change, a mere three feet from the guy who was gonna hurt me. If I wasn’t so mortified by my declaration earlier, I’d actually laugh at the fact that Q’s waiting to cross the street until the light changes, despite there being no cars on the road.

  “It’s not always about the power behind a punch so much as the accuracy.”

  “But… you work on computers.”

  His shoulders shake, and the orange hand on the display changes to a white stick person, so we begin walking across the street.

  “I had some training in martial arts when I was younger. Guess it stuck.”

  “That didn’t just stick, Q. That was like a professional. It was actually kind of hot to know you can do that to someone and keep me safe.”

  A shift in energy, a change in the air, something is happening. He turns his body and crowds into me, then brings my hand up that’s already clasped to his. Staring deep into my eyes, he kisses the inside of my wrist and then presses my palm against his chest. “I’ll always keep you safe, Madeline.”

  There’s nothing else for me to say right now except, “I know.” Because I do.

  He leads me to his car still holding me tight next to him, where I get in the passenger seat and enjoy the quiet ride home. I’m thankful he’s not pressing me about what I said earlier.

  It only takes a few minutes for us to get back to the apartment building, and as soon as we get inside, he pushes me against the door. He’s done this before, stripped me bare and given me multiple orgasms with his fingers and his mouth before I fully stepped foot inside my kitchen. But instead of him taking my clothes off, he frames my face in his hands and drops his head to mine, staring into my eyes, trying to tell me something I don’t understand. He’s normally so good with words, but him not speaking is starting to scare me. “Q?”

  “Go get in bed. I’ll be there shortly.”

  I can physically feel my face blanching and to save my wounded pride, I simply nod. “Okay.”

  “I have some work to finish up, but I’ll come to you soon.”

  We haven’t gone to be without each other for a month. Not a single day has passed when he wasn’t holding me until I fell asleep. My stomach turns sour, and knowing I messed this up, I just nod and pretend my heart’s not cracking as I speak. “Yeah, sure.”

  His lips flatten, and he steps back, and I take that as my cue. I don’t look at him again as I make my way to the bathroom to get ready. I crawl under the covers, and for the first time in a month, I fall asleep without his arms around me.

  Chapter 10

  Q

  I sit on her couch, leg bouncing, teeth digging into my fist, as I wait for her to stop tossing and turning. This couldn’t have happened on a worse night. I got caught up all day with what I thought was a lead, but it ended up being nothing. Again. And then as I was driving to see her, I got a text from Brodie that I wish I could just pretend I didn’t see. But as soon as I got out of my car, Gio, who had been keeping an eye on Madeline all day, met me and made sure to tell me that I needed to touch base with Brodie.

  Then she ran up to me, threw herself into my arms, told me she loved me. And I’m about to break her heart ’cause I know what Brodie’s gonna tell me.

  So as I sit here and wait for my demise, I try to remember the good shit that’s happened in the past month and secure those memories deep in my head so I’ll have them for a really long fuckin’ time.

  She loves me. And I know she wasn’t planning on saying it, but she did. As fucking ecstatic as I am to know that she feels that way about me, I wish the words had never left her lips. Because the me she thinks she loves isn’t the real me.

  When she finds out the truth, she’s not going to love any version of me anymore. In fact, I’m fully prepared for her to hate me.

  To make sure she’s out, I wait for another hour, and then dial Brodie and put my phone to my ear. When he answers, I don’t say a word. I just wait for him to tell me.

  “They want her.” Fuck. “Or more precisely, Mommy wants her. She’s broke, which we knew, but she’s also about to be homeless with how much her monthly habit is. It’s been so hard to find anything because Roxy’s been stewing over what to do without talking to anyone, so until today we had nothing to go on. But now that she caved and approached her boss, we listened in and the solution is to basically pimp out her daughter.”

  I know why Brodie didn’t tell me this as it was happening or give me access to the feeds ’cause he knows I’d have gone down there and fucking murdered somebody. My worst fear and my instincts have just been confirmed. From the moment my radar went off, this was my suspicion all along. And for the first time ever, I wish I wasn’t right. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Good news, and silver lining, bro. Paid the production company a visit and you should not have any problems. You wanna follow up, be my guest, but me, Erik, Royce, Carter, Damien, Graham, and Noble made it clear that Madeline McKenna would not be following in her mother’s footsteps.” I work with some great men.

  “How confident are you that they heard you?”

  “Well, considering Erik threw down and promised to take out the entire company, and everyone in this industry knows what he’s capable of, about a hundred and ten percent sure.”

  This entire ordeal has put a fucking boulder on my back, but I didn’t realize precisely how heavy it was until it rolled off and crashed to the ground just now.

  “Only bad thing is Mommy dearest i
sn’t on board with how quickly they dropped her. She’s gonna make an approach, just not sure when. I have tabs on her, and I’ll let you know when she’s on her way. Probably tomorrow. She’s desperate.”

  “I’ll deal with her,” I growl. That bitch played me.

  “I’ll keep you posted, and good luck, man. Breaking this shit to your girl isn’t gonna be easy.” I grunt in response. “You did what you had to. What happens from here will happen, but you did your job, Q. You actually did more than your job, but the most important thing is you kept her safe.”

  Yeah, I did, just not from myself. “Later.”

  I hang up and toss my cell on the table, but don’t waste another minute kicking my own ass because that’s a minute I could be beside her. I do a round and make sure all is secure. Even though the lengths I go to are and were unnecessary, I still am glad I did everything the way I did it. Not only because I got to have her for a short period of time, but because I’d rather be safe than sorry.

  I get ready for bed hastily, and when I climb in next to her, she nestles into me.

  And even though I shouldn’t, I wrap her up tight and shove my face in her hair and memorize what this feels like, because come morning, I know I’ll never get it again.

  Madeline

  I’m not used to waking up alone, but after the colossal fuckup last night, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m also not shocked that him not being here makes me want to vomit, thinking I pushed him away. I slept like crap until he crawled in behind me, but I have no clue how long he stayed there. How I’ve come to need this man in such a short amount of time is beyond me.

  Maybe it’s because we’ve spent every available moment together. Maybe it’s because he seems to anticipate my needs before I realize them. Or maybe it’s because he’s the one.

  I never believed any of that stuff before. Not because I didn’t think it was possible, but I just didn’t think it was something that would ever happen to me. The best way to predict the future is to look at the past, and my past tells me that men need one thing and one thing alone. But Q didn’t want that from me, so it makes me question everything I thought I knew.

  It takes me a second to get out of bed because I’m still so tired, but I quickly make a cup of coffee, then go to the living room. As I pull back the curtain to look out the window to find out if Q’s car is still parked on the street, I see him talking to Brodie, and I actually breathe a sigh of relief. He didn’t leave me.

  I have no clue why Brodie is here, but I’m sure Q will tell me later. I’m in the process of lowering the curtain when the cup of coffee falls from my hand. The piping hot liquid burns the fingers that cover my mouth. “No.”

  I don’t even attempt to stop the stinging in my nose and the burning in the back of my eyes because no matter how hard I tried, I know I wouldn’t be able to. I knew it was too good to be true.

  It makes sense now why he didn’t say he loved me back. Now I know why he hasn’t slept with me, and I understand why he sought me out. It wasn’t because of me. Q didn’t like me, and he didn’t want to spend time with me. He wanted my mom. And apparently, she has no problem taking him away from me because she grabs his arm, and he allows her to tug him closer. He goes with her around to the back of the SUV Brodie’s leaning on, out of sight.

  I hunch at the waist and can’t control the bile that pulses up my esophagus. The curtain falls, and it’s like someone reached down my throat, dug their nails into my stomach, twisted, and then yanked it out of my chest. The gagging sound is mingled with my crying, and I spit acid out of my mouth and onto the floor.

  My hands aren’t trembling; they’re shaking. My knees wobble so hard they knock together. Black spots tint my vision. I have to reach out and grab the back of my couch so I don’t fall as I suck in fiberglass-coated oxygen.

  It takes a minute or two, but I’m finally able to lift my head, and I make a decision. There is no way I’m going to let him see me like this. No fucking way. I’m too strong, and I’ve been through too much. No way am I going to let a man bring me down. Especially not a man connected to her. Never.

  “Fuck him.”

  I rush to my bedroom and grab his clothes out of the drawer I cleared for him in my dresser. “Fuck him.” My arms can’t hold everything, and I trip as pieces fall, wincing when my knee hits the floor, but I don’t care. I push myself back up because that’s what I do. I always get back up.

  I yank open the door and throw his clothes in the hallway and run back to get his shampoo he brought over along with his bodywash and shaving cream. “Love the way your hair smells and I like even more how soft it is, but sweetheart, I’d rather reek of body odor than walk around smelling like an orange violet.” I bet he wouldn’t. He’d rather smell like porn star skank. Like my mother. “Fucking asshole.”

  The bottle goes flying across the hall, and it actually bursts open, but I don’t take the time to care about it. Not having any clue how much time I have, I run back inside. Grabbing anything and everything that I can find of his—his watch, computer, duffel bag of gym clothes, and glasses—I throw all of that out, too, but I’m not fast enough.

  “Madeline.”

  “Fuck you!” I scream and try to slam the door, but his strong hand grips it and pushes it open. “Get out. Get the fuck out, you motherfucking liar!”

  I make the mistake of looking at him because instead of seeing guilt that I caught him lying, I see sheer panic on his face. Like when I ran into him in the hallway after walking Sadie to a cab—that pale, wide-eyed, flushed cheek, panic—but right now, it’s a million times worse. He knows I know. He knows I saw him with my fucking mother. And he knows I’m done with him, and that I ruined whatever sick thing he had planned.

  “Sweet—”

  “Don’t you dare. I saw you, you know I did.”

  “Madel—”

  “You know. You know who she is. You knew, and you lied to me from day one.”

  He props his hands on his waist and drops his head as an answer.

  “It was never about me,” I whisper.

  His head snaps up, and he takes a step toward me. “Please, just let me exp—”

  “No.” I back pedal until I have the couch between us. My fingers grip the cushions because I’m afraid if I don’t hold onto something, I’m going to fall to the floor. “You don’t get to explain anything. You don’t get anything else from me, not anymore. She doesn’t get anything else from me… She already took enough, and now she’s taking you, too.”

  His brows snap together. “What? No. Christ. You think that I—”

  “I should have known. God, why didn’t I see it?” I ask more to myself than him. “Whether or not you’ve fucked her already is irrelevant, and I don’t get it, I don’t want to get it, but I guess it makes sense now why you haven’t had sex with me.”

  “That’s bullshit, and the fact that you’d think I would fuck your mother… seriously?” I don’t let the genuine remorse and disgust register.

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know what your play here is, but whatever it is, is over. You need to get out of my apartment and out of my life and stay as far away as you can. Because I kid you not, Q…” I take a step to the left when he takes one toward me. “If you try to touch me, I’ll fight you with every breath in me, and I’ll do it until I’m dead.”

  His face slashes with anger, the pink from his cheeks darkening to almost blood red as he breathes deeply through his nose. “I’m begging you. Please let me explain. And then you can decide—”

  “My decision is already made.” I cut him off because he doesn’t deserve for me to hear a word he has to say, let alone an entire sentence. “Leave.”

  “Madeline, listen to me.”

  “I don’t want to hear it because I don’t care. What part of that is so hard to understand? You know her. You knew who she was this whole time and seeing her hands on you out there was bad enough but listening to you talk about her would be torture.” My voice cracks, and
his lids lower. “Leave, Q. I’m sure she’s waiting. I don’t know if you were looking for some sort of sick mother-daughter thing, but—”

  He takes an aggressive step closer and slashes his hand through the air. “Do not stand here and insult either of us by implying something so fucking stupid. You know me. You know—”

  “I don’t know shit, Q. All I know is no man, no man in the world takes such an interest in a woman without sleeping with her unless he’s with her for a different reason. I wasn’t sure… I asked myself all the time what you saw in me, and honest to God, I thought at first that it was because you saw her in me. Because there’s no way a guy like you would want something to do with a girl like me unless…” I shake my head. “And I was right. It was never me. It was always her.”

  “No, Madeline, it’s not—”

  “Do you have any idea how much of my life she’s ruined?” I drop the anger for a second and show him the vulnerability I kept hidden from him this entire time. “Can you imagine? Your mom, the world’s most famous porn star… me looking exactly like she did when she was my age. The kind of hell that was for me in high school. The sheer torture of the looks I get every single day and knowing assholes are staring at you because they’ve seen your mom with every hole filled, moaning and asking for more. Men who think they can touch you, wanting to fuck you because you remind them of the almighty Roxy Rivers or better yet…” I laugh humorlessly. “Thinking they might score a session with both of us because mommy-daughter porn is all the rage. Never knowing if a man wants you for you or because he’s hoping to get a glimpse of the woman he’s jacked off to and pretended his wife was when he closed his eyes and fucked her.”

  Q just stands here, his jaw getting tighter and the corded tendons in his neck so tight they look like they could snap.

  But I don’t stop. I let him have it all. “Do you have any clue what it’s like to go against your gut and let a guy in, only for him to think he can fuck you up the ass the same way he fucks your pussy because he’s seen your mom take it rough like that?”