American Dream - Book 2

by Z.M. Kage

  **********

  Tara had a competitive side. Walking hand-in-hand down the sidewalk after the movie had finished, knowing Jon’s pickup truck is just around the corner, Tara lets go of Jon and takes off. “Race you to the truck!” she screams, running around the building.

  The second Jon lost sight of her, he really heard her scream. Like, an I’m in trouble, come and help me kind of scream. When he bolts around the corner to catch up to her and sees what’s got her so shaken up he lays eyes on a knife-wielding, afro-sporting homeless man, demanding that Tara give him her money.

  “Hey!” Jon shouts just feet from them, trying to distract the threat, to take Mr. Afro’s attention off from Tara and put it on himself.

  “Oh, you must be the boyfriend,” the homeless man snarls as he captures Tara, pulling her into him, her back to his chest, while wrapping his arm around her neck and putting his knife to her throat.

  “I’m the boyfriend.” Jon replies calmly, gazing into Tara’s scared blue eyes. He wanted it to be true. And, terrified as Tara was, she wanted the same. She couldn’t believe how unflustered Jon looked right then. She felt safe.

  “Well I hope you got money, boyfriend, or your girl’s gonna bleed.”

  “I’ve got about a grand in my wallet,” Jon lied. “Will that do?”

  Mr. Afro’s eyes bulge. “Oh that’ll do just fine...”

  “Great, I’ll give it to you.” Jon removes his wallet from his back pocket and holds it in front of him, showing the homeless man he’s not kidding. “But not with her like that. Take the knife off her throat, let her come to me, and the wallet’s all yours.”

  Tara gasps when Mr. Afro complies. He removes the knife from her skin, and he lets her go. She gets behind Jon, breathing heavily, trying not to cry.

  “The wallet, boyfriend. Give it here!” the homeless man demands, holding his knife about a foot in front of him and pointing the tip at Jon like he’s ready to lunge forward and use it.

  Jon extends the wallet toward Mr. Afro, handing it to him. “A deal is a deal,” he says. “You held up your end.” The homeless man reaches for it, but right before he grabs it Jon flings the wallet into the air, just a few feet above their heads.

  Afro-man’s eyes follow the airborne wallet, and that’s all the time Jon needs. In one fluid, seamless motion he brushes the homeless man’s knife-bearing arm off to the side, secures it with his left hand and steps inside Mr. Afro’s reach for a devastating head-butt, forehead to forehead, knocking him out cold.

  He retrieves his wallet and turns back to Tara. “You OK?”

  “I... uh... yeah. I’m fine... I think.” Tara can’t believe what she just saw. He made it look so easy. How did he do that? “Are you OK?” she asks. “I mean, doesn’t your head hurt?”

  “Oh I’m fine... but yeah, my head hurts.”

  “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “How to head-butt somebody?” Jon laughs. “Well I’ve never done it before; not until just now, anyway. Damn, this hurts like a bitch. As for knowing how to react to situations like that, I guess I can thank the Marines and the various training I had on the road to becoming a cop.”

  Jon walks to the driver’s side of his truck. He gets in. Tara joins him inside.

  “So you’re a cop and a Marine?” Tara asks.

  “Unfortunately, no. I’m neither... not anymore.”

  “Oh...”

  “It’s a long story, but I promise I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “OK... well, thank you for saving me.” Words didn’t feel like enough.

  “My pleasure. I’m glad I was here,” Jon says as he leans across the center console and kisses her, ever so gently.

  She looks into his eyes as their mouths drift apart, wanting another one, wondering if he’ll kiss her again. “Do you really have a thousand dollars on you?”

  “Of course not,” Jon chuckles, “but he believed me, didn’t he?” He winks at her. “Yeah, I figured a grand would be more than enough to get his attention. C’mon, let’s get you back home before our Afro-buddy decides to wake up.”

  With that Jon fired up his truck and they hit the road.

  Jon was a lot of ‘firsts’ for Tara that night. He was the first guy she’d met that loved quoting movies with her, the first guy to let her pick the movie, the first guy to rescue her from a homeless psycho with a knife… and the first guy to keep her up all night on the first date. She didn’t complain.

  But her neighbors did.

  THREE

  Jon told Tara everything.

  He told her what he’d been through overseas. He showed her the nasty scars on his torso... marks left behind by the bullet that entered him, exited him, and entered him again... marks Dr. Flynn made as he dug it out and did his best to repair the damage... marks that told a story.

  She almost went into shock when she first saw it. Hand covering her mouth, she asked him how he could’ve possibly survived such a thing.

  “Because I was meant to come home and meet you,” he’d replied, leaning in for a kiss. He truly believed that; that she was the reason he made it back.

  He also came clean about the nasty drinking problem that he used to have. How he’d been able to quit, successfully, but had resumed drinking upon his return to the States because he’d been having trouble adjusting, felt awkward and out of place, and was using alcohol to make his boring job and annoying coworkers tolerable.

  Which scared the crap out of Tara, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker for her. Past boyfriends of hers had had drinking issues, that’s why it worried her, but Jon treated her so much better than any of the jerks she’d been with before. When Jon promised her that he was done drinking, that being with her made him not even want to touch the stuff anymore, she believed him.

  He even trusted her with what had happened to his parents, a sensitive subject for him. It saddened Tara to learn that Jon, as far as immediate family was concerned, had nobody. No mom, no dad, no brothers or sisters. But her situation wasn’t much different. Like him, she was an only child. Her dad abandoned her and her mom when she was too young to remember, but she still had her mom.

  Who, unfortunately, wasn’t all that crazy about Jon.

  “A Marine with a drinking problem, oh that’s just what you need,” her mother said when she first met Jon, eyeing him up and down, judging him.

  “He’s not a Marine anymore, mom,” Tara replied. “And he had a drinking problem. Had. Since we’ve been together, he hasn’t touched it.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts,” her mother grumbled, rolling her eyes.

  Definitely not the first impression he was hoping to make, but Jon did his best to not take it personally. After his lovely first meeting with her mother Tara told him how her biological father had been in the Army, and that he’d been a raging, violent alcoholic. Which explained why her mother had jumped to such a harsh conclusion with Jon: her life experience told her that men who’d served in the military and had an issue with drinking automatically meant pain and abandonment.

  Most daughters turn to their mother for advice about those important decisions in life. Job decisions, relationship decisions... and when given that advice, they take it seriously. Tara wasn’t like most daughters. She loved her mother, but that didn’t mean she wanted to end up like her – alone and unable to trust.

  She didn’t care that her mom didn’t think Jon was the right guy for her. To her, that was actually a good sign. What she had with Jon was special, she could feel it.

  Secrets didn’t exist between them. Or so she thought.

  The one thing Jon didn’t talk about with Tara was Erin. It was the one thing she couldn’t get him to open up about. She tried a few more times after she’d first asked him about her that day by the river, the day they’d met, but every time she’d bring it up he’d grow cold and distant.

  So she stopped pressing the issue. She kept thinking about it, though... the wheels in her h
ead kept turning, kept searching for the reason Jon was totally comfortable talking about anything under the sun except Erin, the reason something as simple as hearing her name had such an effect on him. She wondered what Erin could’ve done to Jon to make him that way.

  If he could’ve found the words to say how he truly felt, Jon would’ve made Tara cry.

  He wanted to let it out. He wanted to tell her.

  That she was everything Erin wasn’t. That he was ten times happier with her than he’d ever been with Erin. That, for the first time in his life, he felt completely fulfilled. That he was the luckiest guy on earth, having such a passionate sexual relationship with a woman who just so happened to also be his best friend.

  Tara was Jon’s miracle; his angel.

  If he hadn’t gone running that day, he wouldn’t have found her. If he hadn’t found her, he’d still be drinking. If he hadn’t stopped drinking, he would’ve stayed at that boring, dead-end, ice-cream-stacking job.

  She didn’t tell him to do anything, didn’t try and force him to make changes... to sober up and leave that worthless job behind. Jon made those choices himself based on how being with Tara made him feel inside. Her presence strengthened him, made the impossible seem possible, convinced him that he could conquer the world, reach for the stars, and achieve any goal he set his sights on.

  His primary goal?

  Living the entrepreneurial lifestyle and creating an independent income online. He was done taking orders. He was done trading time for money. He was not going to let himself fall in with the majority of American society... settling for a job that pays the bills and spending most of his waking life doing something he doesn’t want to do, just to have enough money to survive during his time away from work.

  Jon thought there was more to life than that. He believed that if other people had successfully created their own livings using the internet, then damn it, he could too.

  And Tara believed right along with him. She supported him whole-heartedly, in the beginning. His ambition, his drive, his courage to pursue something different, to do his own thing... that’s what she found most attractive about Jon.

  Well... that and his cute butt.

  A breaking point lingered on the horizon, though... a time when Tara’s support would dwindle and her faith in Jon was stretched so thin, ripping to shreds was inevitable:

  Their first big fight.

  FOUR

  “It’s been more than a YEAR, Jon, and still... STILL... nothing. Nothing to show for it. Where is this ‘living’ you keep telling me you ‘have what it takes’ to create? You keep jumping from one idea to another, and nothing’s happening. I’m losing my patience!”

  OK. Tara’s pissed. That much Jon can see.

  He’d asked her to move in with him just a few months into their relationship and they’d been sharing Jon’s house ever since.

  She was right.

  He had jumped from one thing to another – in the beginning. He didn’t know a thing about what he was setting out to do and it’s hard to know who to trust online, so the first few miles on his road to being an entrepreneur were rocky to say the least.

  And he could understand her frustration. She’d been patient with him – very patient – and a year is a long time. But it’s not like Jon hadn’t gone to great lengths to try and turn his situation around. He certainly hadn’t been sitting at home with his thumb up his ass while Tara continued slaving away at her two jobs.

  He’d been fortunate enough to find a guy online with a lot more business experience than he had. And after telling this guy part of his story – his Iraq experiences, his past issues with drinking, his ongoing struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and trying to transition back into civilian life – this guy told Jon to write a book about it.

  So he did.

  For the first time since deciding he’d carve out a living for himself, Jon was completely focused on one thing, and determined to see it through. He spent five months straight working day and night – no days off. He poured his heart and soul into that book in hopes that his experiences might make someone else’s life just a little bit better.

  When it was finally done and Jon put it up for sale online, releasing it to the world, the results were beyond disappointing. He’d given away some free copies to help generate some extra buzz during the initial launch, but two months into his book being ‘live’ online, he’d made less than two hundred dollars in sales.

  So yeah, Tara was pissed.

  What she didn’t understand, though, was that Jon was more pissed.

  The dollar amount that resulted from all the hours he put into creating it (not to mention all the time he spent trying to promote it) infuriated him. It was pitiful.

  Tara had dropped her purse and teaching materials on the kitchen floor when she’d walked in. She’d stormed right past Jon, seemingly unaware that he was at the stove cooking dinner again, like he had every day this week. She was sitting on the living room couch, where she’d been during her sudden outburst, arms crossed and stewing over what she’d like to say next.

  “Dinner’s ready if you’re hungry,” Jon calls out to her, not bothering to poke his head around the corner and look at her.

  It had clearly been a stressful day for Tara. Another stressful day. She worked seven days a week. Monday through Friday she watched after, cared for and taught toddler-aged children. On the weekends, she cleaned offices.

  She worked herself to the bone, thinking that was what she needed to do to get ahead in this world... while Jon worked around the clock to create a way to get ahead without working like a dog for someone else. So it’d been a stressful day for him as well.

  Tara barging in the way she did and having the audacity to yell at him like that, it set him off. He wanted to keep his frustrations to himself, but what was the point? If she could unleash on him, he could unleash on her.

  So he let her have it as soon as they sat down to eat together. “Wanna know what I’m losing my patience over?!?!”

  “Oh geez, not this again,” Tara says with a sigh. They’d had mini-arguments about it before, but never had Jon barreled into it with such volume, with such intensity.

  “Sex.”

  “Knew it.” Tara rolls her eyes.

  “And it’s not that the sex is bad... it’s amazing. When it does happen. When you are in the mood. But you’re never in the mood anymore. You said the less I talk about it the more you’ll naturally want to. Guess what? This is the first time I’ve brought it up in more than a month, and nothing has changed.”

  “But I work...”

  Jon cuts her off. “Yeah, you’ve said that before. You work too much to want to have sex. Why do you think I’ve been doing so much around the house lately? Cooking dinner, taking care of the dishes, vacuuming, cleaning...”

  “So you’ve been doing all that just to get sex.”

  “No, I’ve been doing it so that when you get home, your mind isn’t loaded down with all kinds of stuff you think you’ve got to take care of around here. I thought it would help you relax after work, and yes, eventually, hopefully, result in more ‘us’ time.”

  “Maybe if you were more supportive, I could get in the mood more often.”

  That got Jon’s goat. “How am I not being supportive? Every day you come home stressed out and upset about work. I don’t just listen to what you say when you start going off about whatever’s got you all worked up... I actually hear the words, and I talk to you about it. Or do you mean financially supportive? Last I checked you wouldn’t have gotten the degree that earned you that teaching job if it weren’t for me – or the smart-phone you check fifty times a day.”

  “I guess...”

  Jon wasn’t finished. “And how about you being supportive of what’s going on with me? How about that? I don’t remember the last time I felt like you were behind me with what I’m trying to accomplish. The only time you ever ask about how things are going, you do it with a tone in yo
ur voice that expects something now, like you don’t really give a damn, like you already know that my answer isn’t going to be good enough for you.”

  “OK babe, about the sex.” Jon was amazed she willingly steered the conversation back to that topic, and even though they were knee-deep in an argument, he loved that she called him babe. “Your sex drive is a lot higher than mine. That’s the issue here. And we’ve always had that issue, that’s the way it’s been since the beginning.”

  “That’s not how I remember it,” Jon replies, confused. “We were inseparable when we first got together. We had sex all the time. Every day, sometimes multiple times a day. You couldn’t get enough of me, I couldn’t get enough of you. Your drive was just as high as mine was.”

  “No it wasn’t,” Tara corrects him, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

  “So what are you saying?”

  Her blue eyes leak as she drops the bomb. “I’m saying my natural sex drive was the same then as it is now. I’m saying I matched your urges every step of the way, in those first few months, because I wanted you to like me, I didn’t want you to leave me, and I didn’t have the backbone to stand up for myself.”

  “Wow,” Jon says, completely shocked. “Well, you did a damn good job pretending.

  I thought it was real.”

  “I’m so sorry, babe,” Tara says softly, wiping away tears so more can leak out and ride down her face. “I’ve been making an effort to keep up. I’ve been doing my best.”

  ‘Babe’ didn’t have the same effect on Jon this time. It didn’t comfort him, it upset him. “Oh, you’ve been making an effort? Is that the word you’ve chosen to describe the occasional, robotic, emotionless blowjob that, judging by the complete absence of enthusiasm, is clearly just another ‘chore’ for you to do? Oh please.”

  Tara’s done crying. Her expression cold as ice, she fights back. “You’re going nowhere, Jon.”

  He almost cuts her off right there, but he lets her continue. “Yeah you’ve got drive, yeah you’re determined, but nothing’s happening. What I want is to move forward in life with you. I want to have kids with you, I want to start a family with you.”

  “And I want the same,” Jon chimes in.

  “I don’t think you do. Not like I do. If you did, you would’ve gone out and gotten a job a long time ago instead of being so damn stubborn with what you’re trying to ‘create’ online.”

  He still doesn’t see it coming. “What are you saying?” he asks for the second time in the same fight.

  “We’re not happy together.” She pauses, gathering the strength to say something she never thought she’d say. “I think it’s time we took a break.”

  Ouch.

  There goes Jon’s appetite.

  FIVE

  He didn’t think she was serious.

  Not until she got up from the table, set her half-eaten plate of food in the kitchen sink, loudly, and started packing. She packed fast, too. In what seemed like a matter of minutes to Jon, she’d gathered everything she thought she needed, slammed the front door and roared out of the driveway like she was escaping from prison.

  She’d said nothing else. No goodbye. No see you soon.

  She’d given no indication of how long this ‘break’ was supposed to last. Could be a day, a week, a month, a year... or it could be permanent. It could be forever. Jon had no way of knowing. The only thing he was reasonably sure of was where she was headed. Having terminated the lease on her apartment when she’d moved in with him, she only had one place to go: her mother’s.

  Marvelous, Jon thinks. She’ll fill Tara’s head with all kinds of crap about how she told her so, he’s an asshole, he’s just like her father and any other guy who’d ever served in the military or had an issue with alcohol, they’re all the same, he’ll never change and he doesn’t deserve her.

  If that’s the case, he’s screwed. They’re done.

  But he knew Tara better than that. He knew she didn’t see eye to eye with her mother and had listened to her say, countless times, that she didn’t want to end up like her. Remembering that was a relief, but all Jon could focus on was what she’d said to him. How much her words had hurt.

  And it wasn’t that she wanted a break from him. That’s not what hurt the most. What left him frozen in his chair, unable to move, as if someone had buried him up to his waist in the world’s fastest-setting concrete, was that she truly thought he was going nowhere.

  That her patience was entirely gone and she’d gotten frustrated enough with his lack of forward progress to lash out to him like that, to insult him. Jon felt like he’d been making tons of progress, that he was going somewhere. He’d remained sober for as long as he and Tara had been together, and he’d found the courage to open up about his experiences in that book he wrote.

  Financially, though, Tara was right. He was going nowhere.

  Jon gets up from the dining room table. He sulks his way into the kitchen, takes care of the food he’d prepared, and starts washing the dishes. As he’s scrubbing his mind wanders through the past and systematically reminds him of everything him and Tara had shared.

  Everything she’d done for him and helped him do. Everything she meant to him. She was the reason he’d stopped drinking. He felt like he owed his sobriety to her. Without Tara, he didn’t think he could stay sober. That scared him.

  Dishes are done. There weren’t a lot to do.

  Jon paces back and forth across the kitchen floor, still thinking, still remembering.

  He remembers all the trips him and Tara had planned over the past year. How excited she’d been, picking locations, accommodations, listing out everything they’d do and everywhere they’d go down to the most intricate detail. None of these trips ever panned out. Something always came up… bills, usually.

  It broke Tara’s heart every time, but she’d get over it and start planning something else, only to be let down again when that didn’t work out. Had he not been so damn stubborn they both could’ve been working jobs outside the house, making money, combining that money, and actually going on these trips.

  Maybe that was what tipped her over the edge, Jon wondered. Maybe that was what spurred her into wanting a break... she’d been let down one too many times.

  He hears his phone going off in the living room. He runs to it, hoping that it’s Tara calling to tell him she made a mistake and was on her way back already.

  But it’s not Tara.

  It’s Erin – again.

  She’d started calling him a few months back, leaving desperate messages about missing him, wanting to start over, wanting to work things out. The calls were starting to get more frequent, though. This was her second attempt to talk to him this week.

  He doesn’t pick up. He ignores it like he’d ignored all of her previous calls.

  He wants to drink. He wants to drink badly. He wants to drink so badly his nagging inner voice comes back, rationalizing how quick and easy it would be to shoot a few blocks down the street and hit up the liquor store, the same one he stumbled to in his police uniform the day he got his PTSD test results in the mail.

  How ironic that, as soon as Tara leaves, he can hear it again. He argues with it.

  C’mon, it’s just down the street.

  No.

  It’ll make you feel better. You know it will.

  No it won’t.

  Can’t believe you stopped drinking for HER. She won’t come back, you know that, right?

  YES, SHE WILL.

  Just like that, the voice was gone again. He couldn’t believe it. He’d gotten it to leave on his own. Maybe he was stronger than he thought he was. Maybe he didn’t need Tara to maintain control of his life and stay sober.

  Which was great for Jon to realize, but he wanted her. He wanted to be with her, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He knew this was only temporary, he knew they weren’t done.

  She’d left a lot of her possessions behind. She’d only
taken the essentials with her, so he knew she hadn’t left for good. At least not yet. There was still hope.

  She told him he was going nowhere. He was determined to prove her wrong. It all came down to money. Jon knew that. To get Tara back, to show her how much she meant to him, he had to get money coming in… and FAST.

  She’d mentioned him getting a job, but he crossed that off his list of options right away. Jobs took too long to get paid. He’d have to wait at least a couple weeks before he’d see his first paycheck from any job he might be able to get.

  Everything he’d tried doing online had proved fruitless. What he hadn’t thought of, though, was taking his entrepreneurial drive and seeing what he could do with it offline.

  Jon had an idea. A genius idea.

  An idea that, if it worked, would have him rolling in cash by the end of the week.

  He picks up his phone. He calls Erin.

  SIX

  One ring. Two rings.

  Erin answers, excitement in her voice. “Jon! So good to hear from you, how have you been? Did you listen to my messages?”

  Jon sighs and rolls his eyes. “No, Erin, I haven’t listened to your messages. I didn’t call to catch up, chat, take you back... none of that.”

  “Oh,” Erin replies, sounding deflated. “Well then why’d you call me?”

  Jon gets a pen and paper ready. “Because I’d like the name and phone number of the drug dealer you couldn’t resist when I was in Iraq.”

  Five seconds of silence. Erin is obviously suspicious. “We’re not together anymore. What do you want with him? You’re not gonna hurt him, are you?”

  “No, I’d just like to talk to him, that’s all.”

  “You mean you wanna arrest him...”

  “Erin, I’m not a cop anymore. No badge, no gun. Even if I wanted to lock him up, which I don’t, I couldn’t. C’mon, give me his name and phone number.”

  She pauses again, thinking. “Tell me why you all of a sudden want to talk to him.”

  “Ugh,” Jon groans, losing his patience with her already. “Fine. I’m in a tough spot right now, financially, and I’d like to talk business with him.”

  “You? Deal drugs?” Erin laughs. “You must really need some money.”

  “I do, and I need it... yesterday. This is all I could think of, can you help me?”

  Erin cooperates. She helps him.

  Jon jots down the dealer’s information. He calls him.

  No answer. It didn’t even ring... went straight to an automated recording. Robot voice. This guy must not have set up a personalized greeting, Jon thinks.

  He gives it ten minutes and tries it again. Same thing. No ringing, went straight to the same recording.

  He tries again an hour later – same.

  OK, Jon thinks, either this guy is the ONLY coke dealer in town to have his phone turned off this time of night... or Erin gave me a fake number.

  Erin had to have lied to him. She probably had her hopes up when she saw his call coming in... she probably thought he was calling to take her back.

  So much for his brilliant plan of getting into the drug-slinging business... but that’s what Jon gets for trusting a woman who’d already proven herself untrustworthy.

  If the sound of her voice didn’t make him want to throw up, eat it, and throw up again, he would’ve called her back and given her a good, old fashioned ass-chewing.

  It was times like these Jon wished he had a dog at the house. Someone to talk to, bounce ideas off of, sort shit out with. Because now he was back at square one, back to the drawing board in terms of what he could do to start bringing in some green.

  Maybe spending a little green will help you be more creative.

  The voice is back. That’s just what Jon needs right now.

  Go to the bar. Have a drink.

  “But what about Tara?” Jon talks to himself, out loud, because he’s got no one else to talk to.

  WHO CARES about Tara? She walked out on you, dude. Shit, she must REALLY have you by the balls if you’re freaking out about her knowing you went to the bar for ONE drink.

  “I gotta call her. If she picks up, I’m not going.”

  Fine, be a pansy. Pansy.

  He calls her. Nothing – straight to her voicemail greeting. But he hadn’t planned on leaving a message, so he hangs up before the beep.

  See? She doesn’t give a damn about you. Take me to the bar, I’m thirsty.

  Jon’s tired of arguing with the crazy part of himself, the part he has to fight around the clock to keep in check, the part Tara can make disappear in the blink of an eye.