Very Bad Things

by Ilsa Madden-Mills

  “We knew you loved our daughter from the first moment we saw the way you looked at her. You were still just a boy, but your devotion to her was that of a man. But we also saw the other side of the relationship—her side. When the two of you were still in high school and she’d be alone in her room on the phone with her friends,” Harvey said thoughtfully, “she would say how she had you wrapped around her finger. That was when Gina and I finally admitted that Chloe had bigger problems than depression. We felt horrible that we let it get so out of control and that you got wrapped up in a mess that we maybe could’ve stopped.” Harvey looked at a silent Max, an emotion on his face that Max had never seen there before—embarrassment.

  Gina’s gentle voice permeated the fog that was taking over Max’s thoughts. “We tried to talk to her, we begged her to stop seeing you. But she told us to mind our own business. She said she loved you and this time was going to be different. We wanted to believe her…we really did. Then we started to hear the way she manipulated you about your going away to college. She didn’t want you to go. We hoped you would leave anyway, but you didn’t. When we told your parents our fears, they agreed to talk to you. But honey, nothing worked.”

  Max couldn’t believe his ears. His parents had met with Chloe’s? Why didn’t they ever tell him? Would you have listened? His inner voice asked, even though he already knew the answer. After all, he never went to West Chester University, did he?

  Gina continued her account of the past. “We’d hoped she would finally let go of you when she went away to college herself, but that was when she told us she planned to marry you. All the while she was seeing other guys behind your back.” Gina looked down at her hands, “When we threatened to tell you about her cheating, she just laughed and said, ‘Tell him! He loves me, he’ll never believe you.’ That was the same summer you and Chloe moved in together.” Max thought back—it was the summer that she told him she wanted to get married.

  “My God,” Max whispered his voice breaking, “I was no more than a toy to her; a puppet.” He walked over to his liquor cabinet and poured himself a healthy shot of bourbon. His stomach felt tight as he looked at the two people on his sofa. How was this happening? How could he have been so blind? He tried to focus on the familiar taste of the amber liquid and its slow burn down his throat, into his belly, instead of the sharp pain of the words flying out of the Smyths’ mouths like darts, each one hitting the red bull’s-eye.

  Eyes glassy with unshed tears, Gina explained how over the years they’d kept in touch with Max’s parents because Chloe refused to return their phone calls or answer their letters. She had always managed to cash their monthly checks though.

  “What? You were sending her money? I don’t understand. She never told—” Max’s brain was on overload.

  “No, Max,” Harvey said in a deep voice laced with pain. “We were sending both of you money; large amounts actually. The checks were written in both of your names; yet every time we spoke to your parents, they would tell us how hard you were working to make ends meet so you could one day buy your wife the house of her dreams. We never told your parents about the money we sent, but our bank statements showed the checks had been deposited. I don’t know why we kept sending it…” Harvey looked at his perfectly shined shoes and sighed, “I guess it allowed us to feel like we were still part of her life in some way.” Max stood and walked to the counter, his hand shaking as he poured another drink, “We must have sent over a million dollars in the ten years that you lived together.”

  Max choked on his alcohol. A million dollars? Christ!

  “Where did she put the money? What was she saving it for?” Max’s mouth asked the questions, but his heart already knew the answer, “She was saving it for when she left me, wasn’t she?” he asked quietly. He paused and looked at the guilty faces staring back at him. “Wasn’t she?” he yelled.

  The boom of his voice visibly startled Chloe’s parents, but they made no move to answer his question. They didn’t have to—the writing was on the wall. They knew she hadn’t told him about the checks, yet they continued to give her money. They knew somewhere in their heart of hearts that betrayal would be her end game, and they stood back and stayed silent.

  “Max…” Gina spoke so quietly Max had to focus to hear her, “I know our words must hold no value to you, but we had no idea that Chloe was hiding the money. We didn’t even think to look for it until after she died. At the hospital, when you announced that she was carrying another man’s baby…well, that was the first we had heard about her cheating on you since you’d gotten married. We always hoped that she’d stopped once you were married, and while we weren’t surprised by her behavior, honey, we were horrified by the consequences of her actions. She really did hurt one of the nicest, kindest, most trusting men around. There are not enough I’m sorry’s to make up for our regret.”

  Max’s heart was pounding. He could hear the blood flowing through his ears, and he couldn’t think of anything coherent to say. He just stood there, holding his glass and staring at the amber liquid in front of him.

  Harvey and Gina stood up and walked over to Max; tears inched down both of their tired, pained faces. Harvey placed an envelope on the counter next to the bourbon.

  “Here are the documents regarding the bank account where Chloe kept the money. Everything has been changed over into your name. You may not want it now, but it is your money. Thank you for loving our daughter. We’re sorry that it came at such an awful expense for so many years. Hopefully, one day, happiness will find you…until then, we hope this helps.”

  The man patted him on the shoulder, and then the soft click of the apartment door told him he was alone.

  That was exactly how he intended to stay.

  JANIE BLEW ON her Grande Starbucks as she waited for her friend to arrive. Watching people order their complicated drinks and seeing the annoyed baristas roll their eyes at the incorrect ordering procedure always reminded her of the Seinfeld episode with the Soup Nazi. The thought made her smile as she sipped her cup of liquid energy. Even in a small shop just outside Philadelphia, the crowd was big and anxious.

  The ease of the moment seeped out of Janie’s body only to be replaced with tension as a woman’s voice shouted, “Come on, kid, move! I don’t have time for your crap!” The only thing more upsetting than the sound of the irritation coming from the mother’s voice was the look of complete surrender on the little girl’s face. When her tear-filled brown eyes met Janie’s, Janie could feel her heartbeat quicken, and the memory crashed into her like a wave, pulling her under and keeping her there.

  She was only eight years old when she watched the youngest of her older siblings happily pack the last of his belongings into his beat-up station wagon. Her mother had been in the kitchen, drunk and screaming about all the sacrifices she had made for her “ungrateful excuses for children” and how they could all just go to hell. Janie had followed Evan around, watching him load up his odds and ends.

  “Please, Evan, don’t leave me here with her. She’s so mean,” Janie had begged him; but Evan ignored her pleas, just like the three siblings before him.

  As he was leaving the house for the last time, he’d looked at her—not in the eyes, never in the eyes, “Sorry kid, you’re on your own. Take care.” Then he left.

  Janie had watched him drive away until she could no longer see his car. When she heard her mother’s voice, she reached up and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Kid,” her mother had said, “get your shit and get out. I’m having company for at least a couple of hours. When the door is unlocked, you can come back in, but not before. You understand?”

  Janie nodded, grabbed a blanket and her favorite book, and left the house. At least it’s a hot day and it won’t be too cold once the sun goes down, Janie remembered thinking.

  “I don’t wanna see you too soon, kid,” her mother had shouted as she slammed the door.

  “Why did they even bother giving me a name?” She’d wh
ispered to herself as she headed toward the park.

  Janie had sat on a park bench with her legs pulled up to her chest as she allowed herself to escape into the fairy tales she was reading. On that day, like every day before, and all the days after, she promised herself that she would find someone who would love her someday. She would find someone who, unlike her father and her siblings, wouldn’t abandon her, and unlike her mother, would actually make her feel special and treasured. Someday.

  “Janie? Earth to Janie. You in there?”

  Janie gasped at the sound of her best friend’s voice and took in a deep breath.

  “Where were you just now, Jane?” Lyla asked.

  “I was right here, Ly. Right here.”

  Words, Janie, I Need Words

  “HEY, JANIE, THE girls are lookin’ hot tonight,” Lyla announced as she leaned over to give a playful squeeze to Janie’s breasts.

  “I know, right?” Janie laughed; the silliness familiar and comfortable. Janie could feel four pairs of lust-filled eyes glued to the breasts in question, as a group of men stared at her and Lyla from across the bar. Then, as if by magic, another round of drinks appeared at their table, being carried by two of the leering men.

  It was Thursday night. And just like every Thursday night, Lyla and Janie were at Danny’s on Main, sipping cocktails and entertaining themselves—and their mostly male audience—by telling silly, sexy stories and sometimes-embellished tales. They found it funny, and maybe a little pathetic, how little it took to get a man’s attention. Just the mere mention of words like tits, breasts, or vagina and men would get pie-eyed. If the word pussy came out of either woman’s mouth, it was an all-out drool fest. Janie and Lyla couldn’t help themselves; it was a way to let loose toward the end of a crazy workweek. Plus, the responses were always priceless, and the free drinks certainly didn’t hurt.

  Behind the bar, Max served up shots and poured beers while Janie recounted the details of her latest date with the douche de jour.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Lyla said as she seductively moved her thick, espresso-colored hair off her narrow shoulders, “That cheap loser actually told you to leave the tip?”

  Janie nodded, her demure, teal eyes sparkling with the uncontainable mischief that always seemed to bubble to the surface when she was around Lyla. The two women knew they had a captive audience but refused to engage anyone but each other.

  “So…what did you do?” Lyla lifted her glass to her lips, tipped it back, and then replaced it on its coaster, “Please tell me you didn’t put any money on the table!”

  Janie winked and took a long sip of her cocktail. “Ly, of course I put money on the table. It wasn’t the waiter’s fault my date was a cheap-ass jerk. But”—Janie sipped her drink again—“when he walked me to my door and leaned in for a kiss…I told him that neither his tongue nor his tip were going anywhere near me.”

  Janie and Lyla broke into a fit of laughter, the men who’d been listening seemed equal parts aroused and ashamed. Their expressions only caused more hysterics from the two women.

  Max, on the other hand, felt his protective instincts flare. He wanted to find that guy and teach him a thing or two about how to treat a woman. Since meeting and befriending Janie, he had thought she was attractive—no…not attractive, more than attractive...fucking gorgeous—and over the past month or two, he’d been finding himself wanting to protect her from everything, specifically men, that could hurt her. He had to remind himself to back off, to let go of the urge.

  You’re no one’s hero, he thought. You don’t do relationships. It’s fuck and release. You get in, you get out, no one gets hurt. Max gave himself a mental shake and tuned back into the conversation.

  But Janie and Lyla weren’t at their overcrowded table anymore; they now sat, perched on barstools, directly in front of him at the long, scarred, mahogany bar. Here, Max could look his fill without being too obvious.

  “Girls, you’ve gotta stop torturing my customers. My insurance doesn’t cover heart attacks caused by Danny’s Dolls.” The joke came from Danny, the bar’s owner and namesake.

  “Don’t you mean Danny’s Domme’s?” Max added, with a tightness in his chest that didn’t match his normally calm voice.

  “Po-tay-to, pa-tah-to,” Danny retorted with an easy smile.

  Janie’s eyes sparkled with mischief again, “Ly, do you get the feeling that Mr. Owner and Mr. Bartender are making fun of us?”

  Lyla picked up the proverbial ball and ran with it, “Why, yes. Yes, Jane, I do. And I’m not sure what they’re talking about. Just because the boys who drink here get all goofy over a mild conversation about whether they like their women to have ‘hardwood’ or ‘carpet’ has nothing to do with us.” Lyla smirked as Max’s Adam’s apple bobbed down the thick column of his throat.

  “You’re right, Lyla,” Janie giggled. “And what real man can’t discuss whether or not he likes anal play?”

  At the desperate look on Danny’s face and the lustful look on Max’s, both women burst out laughing again.

  “You are all the same,” Janie said, shaking her head.

  “Eeeaasy,” the women said in unison.

  Janie and Lyla had been coming to Danny’s on Main, for six months. It started out as just a Thursday night thing, but as the women got to know Danny and his wife, Julie, as well as the rest of the bar’s staff, they all started spending time together in a social capacity. The two young women were more than customers now; they were more like family…or as close to family as Janie and Lyla had ever had. Over the past couple of months, the two women had even starting cooking dinner for the whole crew on Sunday nights. Since neither woman was close to her family, either by choice or circumstance, they had made Sunday night dinner their “family time” and invited Danny and Julie, Max, and the other bartenders—Ryan, Kyle, and Ashley—to join them—it was the one night of the week that Danny’s on Main is closed. That’s how close they’d become.

  “All I’m saying is, I know you’re both grown women, but I worry about you,” Danny continued. “And I’m not sexist, but it’s more dangerous for a woman to take home random guys from a bar.” Danny wore his paternal face, the one that said all joking stops now. Looking directly at Lyla, he added, “I can’t keep up with all of the guys you take home any more than I would any of my boys, but I hope you’re at least being safe.”

  Lyla’s cheeks flushed slightly, and Janie watched her closely. She saw the flash of pain sweep across her best friend’s gorgeous, heart-shaped face, before being neatly tucked away in the iron-clad box where her emotions choked and suffered, but stayed put.

  “I’m safe, Danny. Thanks for pointing out that I’m a slut though.” Lyla winked to imply that she was joking, even though Janie knew that she had taken Danny’s caring comment personally. Lyla was always the first to recognize the bad in herself; even if she didn’t publicly acknowledge it. Janie inserted herself into the conversation to take the attention off her friend.

  “Ok, Danny, and my lecture is where?” Janie raised her eyebrows, her gaze focused on the man leaning comfortably on the end of the bar. Lyla reached over to Janie’s lap and squeezed her hand in thanks.

  “Janie…” Danny paused, looking at her thoughtfully, “Janie, you deserve much better than fucking losers like Richard.”

  “You mean Dick,” Lyla chimed in.

  Danny chuckled, “Whatever his name, that guy was an ass. He had no respect for you. Since then, all I’ve heard about are the assholes and douche bags you dated before him and the pussies you’ve gone out with since.” With a softened glance, he said, “Wise up, girl.”

  Janie nodded, properly scolded.

  In that moment, Max’s brain finally lost the battle his body had been waging. Watching Janie step into the line of fire to protect Lyla and take on the unwanted attention herself, broke the dam that had been holding back the want and need he’d so carefully secured. He could no longer deny the desire he felt for the kind, sexy woman who sat
in front of him. She had no idea how gorgeous she was and that naïveté just made her even hotter.

  Staring at her thick, dark, shining hair, his eyes grazed over her every feature. The thought of tangling his fingers through all that silk and pulling it as he stared into her big, bright eyes made his hands itch. His gaze traveled to the plump, pink lips that tilted up in a small smile every time she looked at him. Oh, how he wanted to kiss and nibble those lips. There were so many things he wanted to do with her.

  As his focus traveled down the column of her long neck, to the creamy, smooth skin of her chest and amply showing cleavage, his mouth began to water. Lyla was right; they looked delicious. His dick was as hard as granite. Thank God he was standing behind the bar. She was becoming a distraction he could no longer ignore. If he could have her just one night…maybe then he could finally get her out of his system. Then they could go back to being friends. He just had to mute the little voice in his head that screamed, “Yeah…good luck with that!”

  Max didn’t realize he’d missed the end of Danny’s fatherly “talking to” until he was jarred out of his fantasy by his boss’s voice, “Max, get these girls a drink, on me.”

  Max placed the unordered Cosmos in front of each woman. He knew exactly what each of them wanted to drink based on their moods. It was definitely Cosmo time.

  Lyla smirked. “Which girls, Danny?”

  Janie shimmied her breasts together. “Maybe he means these girls, Ly.”

  A peal of laughter escaped the two women while Danny rolled his eyes, “They’re impossible, Max…impossible, I say.”

  Max lifted one, dirty-blond eyebrow in response while trying his best to avoid the perfect globes on display in front of him. The gruff sound of Danny’s chuckle couldn’t be missed, but Max swore he heard Danny mumble into his beer, “Keepin’ your eye on the prize, I see.”