by Ali Parker
Her stare dared me to confess.
So I did. “There’s something about you, Cheryl. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the other day. Do you think me a bad man for lusting after someone who is committed to another?”
Her cheeks turned a brilliant shade of pink. She shook her head, swallowed, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she stared at the table. “I don’t think you’re a bad man.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what do you think?”
She bit her bottom lip. Sexy little vixen. Did she have any idea how fucking cute that was? How hard it was for me to sit across from her like this with my cock straining to escape my jeans? It was sheer torture. “I think you’ll be disappointed if you keep saying things like that to me. I’m with Vinny. I’ll always be with Vinny.”
“A shame.”
“For you.”
I shrugged. “Not just for me.”
She licked her lips and tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears. “Look. I appreciate the coffee and the scone and all your help the other day. But I think it would be best if we don’t see each other anymore. If you run into me again, just—let me walk away, will you?”
“That’s what you want?” I asked, before draining the last couple mouthfuls of coffee left in my cup.
“It’s what needs to happen.”
“Why?”
She didn’t like that I was pushing. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter why. But I’m asking you to forget about this, okay? I won’t tell Vinny. He’ll still refer friends to the auto shop you sent us to.”
“I don’t give a damn about that.”
She stood up and so did I. Disheartened, I watched her put her ear buds back in. She gave me a polite smile before sliding past me and making her way to the door. “Thanks again for the coffee, Aiden. I needed it.”
“Be seeing you,” I said, as she walked to the door.
She paused, as she pushed it open the bell chimed overhead. Then she shook her head. “Probably not.”
Chapter 8
Cheryl
I intended on walking home from the coffee shop to cool my muscles down and do some light stretching afterward, but I ended up running anyway. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had a second wind of energy and wanted to work off the half a scone I ate, or if it was because I wanted to put as much distance between me and Aiden as possible.
I’d jogged past his motorcycle when I left the cafe.
It was matte black and mean looking, everything one would expect a guy like him to ride.
He screamed danger and trouble.
But why was I so fascinated by him? Why had I been so hung up on the way his lips formed his words and the way his Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat whenever he laughed? Why was I so absorbed in the whispering sound his fingertips made when he scratched his stubble?
Why did I like the way he looked at me?
I definitely needed to run as far as I possibly could from him. He spelled disaster in big capital letters, and my plate was full enough focusing on the move, my body, and Vinny’s new girl toy. I could only handle so much at once and I needed to push Aiden from my mind.
I was surprised to find Vinny’s Range Rover in the drive when I got home.
My first thought was dread. I didn’t want him to see me in my leggings and all covered in sweat. I wished I’d had a chance to shower and get ready for him to come home—I still had some things to do and I had to get dinner in the oven. If he was still in a sour mood from the damage to the Mercedes, which he hadn’t snapped out of since I told him about it two days ago, I was likely to get an earful for not upholding my responsibilities at home.
I came through the front door and stumbled over his work shoes.
I tucked them aside, took off my sneakers, and walked deeper into the house to find him in the living room with a glass of whiskey in one hand while he read a magazine.
“Hey babe,” I said, still a little out of breath.
He didn’t look up from the Forbes magazine in his lap. “Where were you, Cheryl?”
“I went for a run.”
“What time did you leave?”
“I don’t know—”
“Think.”
I glanced at the clock on the bookshelf and did a quick calculation. “Probably around eleven.”
“So you went on a two hour run? Please. Like you could run for two hours. Tell me the truth, Cheryl. Where were you?” He finally looked up and closed the magazine. Then he swirled the whiskey around in his glass and took a long steady sip.
“On a run.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“It was a long run,” I said, lifting my chin a little. Where did he get off criticizing where I spent my time? He was the one fucking other women.
“Don’t give me attitude.” Vince stood up and tossed the magazine down on the sofa cushion. He took a few steps toward me and pointed an accusing finger at my chest. “Did you go to meet someone?”
“No, Vinny. I swear. I went for a run and I stopped at a coffee shop to get out of the heat. I had a cold coffee and came back home once I was cooled down.”
He crossed his arms. His features screwed up with anger and he shook his head.
I stepped forward and reached for him, but he pulled away. “Vinny. Baby. Aren’t you the one who said we need to trust each other if we’re going to make this thing work? I’m telling you the truth. Cross my heart. It was only coffee and a chance to get out of the sun. I dressed too warm, is all.”
“You covered up like you should have,” he said, running his hand down his face.
“What does that mean?” I shouldn’t have asked. But the words were out there, hanging between us, inviting him to answer—inviting him to say something I knew would hurt me.
“Nobody needs to see you running down the street in a sports bra and short shorts, Cheryl. Come on. Fuck. You really had to make me say it?”
The burn in the back of my throat caught me off guard. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes closed to hold my tears at bay.
Vince threw his hands in the air. “Great. Now you’re gonna fucking cry. Like it’s my goddamn fault you put the weight on. How many times are we going to do this before you get your ass in gear and fix your problem? You know what you have to do—”
“And I did it!” I cried. I hadn’t raised my voice like this before, but this was too much. He’d never questioned my loyalty and my faithfulness. He’d never accused me of lying to him. And he’d never used my weight as a way to evade the current subject. “I’m doing everything I can, Vinny! I’ve cut my food intake in half. I don’t eat sugar. I don’t eat hardly any carbs. No soda, barely any alcohol. I eat salads for lunch every day and I’ve tried intermittent fasting and diets and cleanses and green detox teas and—”
“I don’t want to do this with you right now.”
“I don’t want to do this either! But here we are, Vinny. Fucking doing it. Do you know how bad it makes me feel when you say shit like that?”
“Shit like what, Cheryl?”
“That nobody needs to see this,” I gestured at myself, “running down the sidewalk?”
He sneered at me. “I’m just doing a public service.”
I recoiled like he’d slapped me. “Do you not care how much that hurts me?”
His groan was more of a growl as he hung his head back in exasperation. “Of course I care. But how many times are we going to keep coming back to this conversation? You’re miserable. You keep trying to lose the weight but nothing changes. What do you want me to do? Tell you you’re beautiful as is when you and I both know you have it in you to be better?”
My bottom lip started to tremble. I hung my head. “I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
A sob escaped me. I covered my face with my hands and wished I could keep it together. I wished I could stand tall in front of him and keep my emotions in check just long enough to tell hi
m how I felt and what I wanted and needed from him. Support. That was all I wanted. Understanding. Sympathy. Trust.
Why was that so hard for him to give me?
“Stop crying, Cheryl.”
I shook my head.
“I said, stop crying.”
I sniffled and dragged the back of my hand under my nose. Then I licked my lips, swallowed back the burn in my throat a few more times, and lifted my gaze. A couple more tears fell but I didn’t let a sound escape. “My daddy would be so ashamed if he knew the things you said to me.”
Vince’s stare was blank. Then he barked with laughter and slapped his leg. “Really Cheryl? You wish your daddy was still alive so he could see what’s become of you? You’re right. He would be fucking ashamed. He’d be ashamed that his beautiful country girl let herself go because she couldn’t move on. He’d want more for you than this. I want more for you than this.”
“You want more from me,” I whispered.
“How do you manage to make me the bad guy in every fucking argument we ever have?”
“I’m not the one asking you to change.”
“Because I’m not fucking complacent, Cheryl!” He bellowed.
I flinched.
The vein on the left side of his forehead bulged and his face started turning red. Now I’d done it. I pushed too far and too hard. I should have dropped it. I knew better than to continue pushing. It would have been smarter to let this lie for now and talk about it another time after we’d both had a chance to cool off and process this. But no. I’d gone and continued poking at him.
This was my fault.
It was always my fault.
“I’m sorry, Vinny. I didn’t mean to—”
He marched around me, clipping me with his shoulder as he went into the dining room. I followed in a hurry as he tore open one of the boxes sitting on one of the chairs. He pulled out a set of my mother’s china; floral patterned plates that we used to eat dinner on in the spring and summer. There were little blue hummingbirds painted on them with gold beaks and streaks of silver in their wings.
Vince held one of the plates up and glared at me. “These boxes have been here for weeks! What do you do while I’m at work all day? You have this whole beautiful house to yourself and you’re too lazy to find a place for all this shit!”
“It’s not shit,” I said, my eyes glued to the plate. “Please put the plate down, Vinny. You know those are my mother’s.”
“Of course I know they’re hers! Every time I walk by these boxes I think about your parents and the fact that they’re gone and it makes me want to rip my hair out. I’ve tried to fill that void for you. I really have. I bought you this house, new clothes when your old ones didn’t fit—hell, I even bought you shoes when you couldn’t fit into your old ones. I bought you a fucking Mercedes and I pay for your haircuts and nail appointments. And these boxes just sit here taunting me. Every. Fucking. Day.”
“I’ll unpack them all tomorrow.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“I promise. I’ll do it all tomorrow. The boxes will be gone when you get home from work.”
Vince studied the plate. The smile that washed over his face made his features almost unrecognizable to me. “Why do you care so much about a plate?”
“It reminds me of my childhood.”
“You have to let go sometime, Cheryl.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
My tears came more freely. My chin started to tremble. “I don’t want to, Vinny. I need more time. I miss them every day.”
“Stop crying.”
I hid my face behind my fingers.
“Stop fucking crying!” He roared.
I yelped and fell back a step. And then a crash rang in my ears.
Opening my fingers, I peered through the cracks to see the plate shattered at Vince’s feet. He pointed his finger at me. “If this shit isn’t out of my face when I get home tomorrow I’m going to break every single one of them. You hear me?”
I wrapped my arms around myself and nodded.
“I need to hear you say it.”
“I heard you,” I whispered.
“Good,” he growled.
He left.
I stayed where I was, cradling myself because there was no one in my life who would hold me the way I needed to be held, then flinched when he slammed the front door behind him.
Then I sank to my knees, pulled all the sharp pieces of china toward myself, and cried over them like the china was my mother’s soul.
Chapter 9
Aiden
The weather on Saturday was perfect for a ride. It was overcast so the sun didn’t beat down on you when you had to stop, and the air wasn’t sweltering with heat like it was when me and the boys rode down to Mastic.
Me, Owen and Rhys left my place around nine in the morning and found ourselves pulling off the road at a small biker pub off the interstate. It was attached to a seedy looking motel, but they sold cheap beer and loaded nachos, so we bit the bullet and gave it a shot.
We didn’t regret it.
The food was delicious, the beer refreshing, and the staff friendly.
The three of us picked at our nachos and talked shit for a while. Then, when we moved on to our second beers, Rhys leaned back in his chair and said, “Axel tells me there’s a girl who caught your eye earlier this week. A rich bimbo or something?”
“She’s not a bimbo,” I said, perhaps a little too quickly.
Owen snickered and licked cheese from his fingers. “So, you are into her.”
“Never said I wasn’t.”
Rhys and Owen exchanged a look.
“What?”
They shrugged. Rhys took the lead. “Nothing, man. I guess neither of us expected you to be attracted to a girl who had an appreciation for the finer things in life.”
“If you saw her you’d get it,” I grumbled.
“Axel did say she was pretty cute,” Rhys said.
“He’s not lying,” I said, before I drained the rest of my beer.
“So make a move,” Owen suggested.
I stared at him. “Did you miss the part where she has a boyfriend?”
“So?”
“So,” I said, looking back and forth between them. “I’m not a home wrecker.”
Owen snorted and shook his head at me. “Boyfriend isn’t the same thing as husband. And what’s the harm in giving it a shot? What if she’s, you know, special?”
“Who are you? Rhys?” I asked.
Rhys sat up a little straighter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re gone soft since you and Quinn got over all your ‘should we or shouldn’t we’ bullshit.”
Rhys grinned. “I won’t deny that. It feels good.”
“I bet,” I said.
“Take it from a guy who never fought for what he wanted for years. Just take a shot, man. You never know how things could play out. Find out if there’s anything there.”
I rubbed my jaw. “I suppose one more attempt couldn’t hurt.”
“Go big or go home, man,” Owen said.
I fished my phone out of my pocket and called Axel. He answered on the third ring. “Talk. I’m busy.”
I could hear power tools humming in the background and assumed he was in the middle of a job. “I want the number you have on file for that Price guy. The one who brought in the Mercedes.”
“Why?”
“Just get me the number.”
Axel grumbled and I listened as he plodded across the shop and into the office. Jamie’s voice was in the background as she talked on the phone to a customer. Papers rustled and he cleared his throat. “Alright. Price—let’s see.” He trailed off and then read me the phone number.
I committed it to memory. “Thanks man.”
“What are you calling that prick about?”
“I’m not calling to talk to him.”
“Oh,” Axel chuckled. “You’re calling
to talk to his girl. Smooth move, Aiden. Real smooth. He’s not going to like that if he finds out.”
“Lucky for me he won’t find out.”
“Why so confident?” Axel asked.
“Just a hunch. I know how this girl thinks. And I know he won’t be home at one o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. He’s probably golfing with a bunch of his corporate buddies or sitting in front of a stage watching a strip show.”
Axel laughed. “You’re probably right. Good luck.”
I hung up the phone and instantly punched in the number Axel had given me, just in case I forgot. Then I stared at it and started to reconsider if this was the right decision to make.
I could be putting Cheryl in a bad spot if Vince Price answered the phone.
I had the distinct impression that he wasn’t a nice guy and didn’t treat her well, but there was no way of knowing what someone’s home life was really like from the outside looking in. All I knew was that he wasn’t good to her. After all, he’d openly admitted that he wished they’d got a payday from the car accident, blatantly inferring that it would have been worth Cheryl having whiplash.
He was a total dick.
“Are you going to call her or what?” Owen said.
I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll call her.”
There were other variables at play here besides Vince. The last time I saw her she’d explicitly told me that she didn’t want to see or hear from me again. She wanted to strike me from the record.
Her reasons were her reasons, and she had every right to want it that way. I knew I was crossing a line—another one, specifically—by reaching out like this and ignoring her request. The chances of it going well were slim to none, and even if it did go well, there was a part of me that screamed about how disrespectful this move would be.
But if I didn’t try I would regret it. I knew that for a fact. And she’d carry on with that total waste of space.
What if something could come of us?
What if us meeting by happenstance was the universe throwing us together because we both needed a change?
I hit dial. I wasn’t the sort of man to deal in with ‘what if’ scenarios.