Until We Fall (Trust Duet Book 2)

by Edyn Michaels

  She turned on those impossibly narrow heels and marched out of the bar, and back out of my life where she belonged.

  “Damn, you really have a way with women, don’t you, big guy.”

  I looked down in surprise, only to see the spitfire from the nursing home standing near my left elbow, looking at the door Aly just walked out of. She had a look of amusement on her face.

  “Jennifer, right?”

  She nodded, a faint look of surprise over the fact that I remembered her name. Hell, I remembered everything about her, but then again, it wasn’t every day that a person got to meet someone that their mother threw her shit at.

  “My way with women is hard and fast. It’s a way that usually results in at least three orgasms, and definitely loose limbs afterwards. My way with women will have you not only screaming out my name and God’s name, but also ancestors’ names you never even knew you had. My way with women will have your heart stop for a moment, just because feeling that many nerve endings coming at once will kill you off for about a second before your body begs you to revive. My way with women will have your ass high in the air, begging for more as your juices flow freely.”

  Her pupils dilated as I spoke, and I watched the pink tip of her tongue moisten her lips as her breathing became a little more labored. I saw her clench her thighs a little tighter, to help alleviate some of the pressure that she was feeling.

  Good.

  “That… thing you just saw walk away from me was nothing more than a shell of a regret. Not human, just a conjuring of an evil spirit. Anytime you want to personally experience my way with women, you know how to find me.”

  I walked away from her, somewhat in a confused daze after the confrontation with Aly, followed by the sexual reminder of my meeting with Jennifer at the nursing home.

  I rode my bike back to my condo, but truthfully, I don’t remember any part of that ride. I just pictured the short blonde bob and hate filled eyes.

  I stumbled to my bed and fell on it fully clothed. I was suddenly beyond exhausted. I had become so used to not dealing with emotions, that having a few days of ghosts and feelings was enough to knock me on my ass for at least a week.

  Sleep came easy, but the memories attacked me hard, jumping from scene to scene as if in a sadistic flash forward episode of ‘this is your life’.

  “Aly, Aly c’mon out.”

  I threw a pebble at her window, impressed that I was able to hit it from the ground. She lived in one of those huge houses that I had only seen on TV before I met her.

  The window opened, and she leaned over, her wavy blond hair swinging as she looked down on me with a huge smile.

  My heart stopped for a half a second, feeling nothing but pride that she was looking at me as if I were the King of England, rather than Jamie from Mattapan.

  “I’ll be right down, but quit throwin’ those rocks at my window, my dad will kill me.”

  Her head disappeared back into the home and within moments that felt like years, I saw the front door open as she slipped out to run to me, holding her shoes in her hand.

  When she got within a foot of me, she leapt and I gladly caught her mid-air. I held her close to me, silently sending up a prayer to whoever it was up there that seemed to like me, because I got to hold one of his angels in my arms. I spun her around, something like they do in movies when the lead is a total pussy and is whipped by his woman. But she loved that shit, and I would do anything to make her happy.

  I think I would easily kill someone if it made her happy.

  Too bad her old man wasn’t at all impressed with my address. Then again, the Royal Crown Mobile Community wasn’t exactly Park Avenue. Fuck, it was ‘bout as redneck as we got up here in Massachusetts, naming a trailer park after the drink most of the residents spent their paychecks on.

  So, we snuck around. The golden angel and the worthless piece of trash. The very things that romances and tragedies had been made of for centuries.

  What? I actually paid attention in school. I had goals, dreams that I shared with Aly but with no one else. I was my only ticket out of this hellhole of a life I was living. No use in depending on anyone else, lord knows no one had ever helped me before.

  “So, what do you want to do tonight, Aly?”

  “Corey Hill?”

  I grinned to myself, knowing that I’d created a monster. Corey Hill was a park in Brookline, about fifteen minutes away that had a bit of a steep hill where we could sit and watch both the stars and the lit-up skyline of Boston. I used to go there alone, and dream of when I would be running the damn city, when I shook free of my life. When my mother no longer told me that she should have just aborted me because I’m as useless to her as my son of a bitch father is. A life where my dad hadn’t taken off before I was born because he didn’t want any fucking kids…her words, not mine.

  I brought Aly, because it was a place that was almost sacred to me. This was my church, my sanctuary. I didn’t bring her to make out, and she seemed to understand that. We sat there together on the hill, quietly holding hands, checking out the city and wishing on stars till we ran out of dreams.

  “Let’s go.”

  She grinned at me, the happy, open grin of a girl who had never had a bad day. Who had never felt a fist against any part of her body. One who had never had a knife held to her throat as a child, being told the world would be a better place if her mom just could take her out of it.

  My mom really fucking sucked.

  She skipped to my car, seemingly ignoring the rust spots and mismatched paint. I had bought it for a hundred bucks off of a guy, and had spent every night and weekend working on it. I was proud as fuck of that piece of shit, because I got it running again. Now I was learning about body work on the side, so I could make her look pretty. She was no sports car, but she was a Honda, so I knew that she would run forever.

  And she was mine. I protected what was mine. Just like I would always protect Aly.

  I woke up suddenly, an unexpected warm feeling in my chest that felt oddly like emotion. Emotion was something I had no business feeling. It was a waste of time and space. Emotion didn’t get you ahead in life, pad your bank account or pay your mortgage.

  Emotion made you weak, and weakness could be exploited and used against you.

  Something I knew all too fucking well.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dane

  “So, how do the numbers look, big brother?”

  Phoenix strode into my office in the back of the QB like he owned the place. None of my damned family knew how to respect boundaries.

  “How the hell did you know I was going to be reviewing the accounts?”

  I looked around, wondering if there was any chance that he’d installed a camera in my small office, not putting it past him. He’d always been a pain in the ass like that.

  “Dude, you are so stuck in your routine, it’s ridiculous. I mean, seriously, if I wanted to mug you or kill you, I’d only have to watch you for a week before knowing where and when. It’s the first Tuesday of the month. On the first Tuesday, you do your month end reconciliations, bank statement review, and freak out over the profit and loss statement.”

  Huh.

  I frowned at my computer screen, irritated at the words ‘Profit and Loss’ that stared back at me, mocking me and my routine.

  “And then, on Wednesday nights after work, you meet the other ladies for bridge night.”

  My little brother smirked at me from the doorway where he was leaning with his arms crossed, watching my irritation grow in amusement.

  “Okay, fucktard, get your laughs in now. But there will come a day when you will need to keep such mundane things as lists and routines or you’ll forget what the hell you’re doing one moment from the next.”

  “Duly noted. I’m sure that will happen when I start wearing my reading glasses on a string around my neck, worry about my fiber content and carry a man purse everywhere.”

  I quickly scanned my cramped desk to see if
there was something I could throw at him that would properly express my annoyance without marring his pretty face too much. I was still getting a bit of the silent treatment from mom for sucker punching him after Mari walked. I considered myself lucky I hadn’t broken his nose. She’d have killed me if I did that. Yeah, she was five foot nothing, but I had no doubt in my mind mom would be able to kill me, make it look like an accident and then wail at my funeral as if the Pope himself had kicked the bucket. I picked up a little football stress ball thingy, and lobbed it at his head, silently appreciating the slight spiral. I still had it, I thought, as it bounced off the center of his forehead, even if only with a foam toy.

  “Now that you’re done with your hissy fit, how are the numbers, Gramps?”

  I flipped him off before looking back at the screen, absorbing the information in front of me with a healthy dose of skepticism.

  “Well, truth be told, it’s better than I thought it would be. You know, better than we’d projected.”

  “That’s good news, right?”

  “Um, well, yeah… I guess it is.”

  “So why do you look like someone just pissed in your All Bran?”

  “Because it seems a little too good to be true. Like, we had planned seven months until we were in the black, supporting the QB2 with family investments and re-investing a portion of the profits from this location. However, if we continue like we have this month, there’s a chance we could be seeing some profit as early as five months in.”

  I chewed on the end of a pen cap, mulling over the potential implications of this success.

  “Still not seeing the problem, Dane.”

  “Sorry, my head is about fifteen steps ahead of the conversation. The problem is two-fold. One, if we are too successful too fast, it could be a fluke. Kind of like a crash and burn. While I am in no way opposed to having more profit than I ever thought possible, at the same time I don’t want to beef up headcount too early and run the risk of having the business pull back. That would definitely eat the profits up quickly.”

  Phoenix nodded along, finally understanding my concerns.

  “What about the other fold?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “You said the problem was two-fold, what’s the other issue?”

  “Wise ass. Well, the other concern is that with us taking on McCallum Properties because of dad’s retirement, I might be backed into a wall of having to hire a manager to run the two cafes. Which forces my hand to either hire a separate manager for each location, or something like an operations manager to oversee both. Either option would cut into profits, especially if the opening success is a blip and not a trend.”

  Phoenix just watched me as I paced the floor in my small closet of an office like a caged animal. For all his whorish tendencies, he had a real mind for business, and could turn up the seriousness level when necessary.

  “I like the idea of a more general manager, someone overseeing both locations at the same time. That will ensure that there is consistency between the two stores, and not just a couple of hotshot lone wolves out there trying to run it their way. Perhaps move someone up in the ranks to be a supervisor at each location to deal with the day to day fires that need to be extinguished, figuratively speaking.”

  I nodded along, mulling over his suggestions enthusiastically, until…

  “Ugh, but then that leaves me again with a higher payroll without enough trending data to support it.”

  “Sucks to be you.”

  “And, he’s back.”

  Phoenix grinned at me, before leaning forward to punch me in the arm.

  “What was that for?”

  “It’s nice to have you back.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him, silently asking him to please explain more. He just shrugged his shoulders as he stared out the top of the little window.

  “I dunno, man, but this is the first time since Mari that I’ve seen you show genuine interest in anything around you. It’s like you’ve been in some sort of weird haze and couldn’t break free. I know she broke you a bit, man, either that or the orgasm was so fucking intense that some of your brain cells spontaneously combusted, but it’s good to have my brother back. There’s no woman on this planet worth what you’ve gone through.”

  I felt bad for a moment. I never really thought about how my reaction to a rough patch in life affected anyone but me. Like, I knew I’d been down and shit, but really thought I was successfully going through the motions in life.

  “Well, it’s time for me to just move past it. If she comes back, I’ll be here. Well, probably. But if she doesn’t, well, I’ll find someone else who wants me. My takeaway is going to have to be that complete honesty is always the best bet.”

  “Are you reading chick self-help books or some shit? Watching that quack psycho dude on TV?”

  I laughed at the look on his face. It was sort of that look you got when you smelled dog shit and checked the bottom of your sneakers to find you’d successfully carried a pile home with you.

  “Nah, no self-help books, just a sassy red headed bartender with a heart of gold.”

  “Does that mean you’ve started dating again? ‘Bout fucking time. And a redhead? Good for you, bro, I hear that they are wildcats in the sack.”

  I pictured the bartender, seeing the wedding band that graced her hand in my mind, knowing that while she probably was a wildcat, she only had eyes for the man who lured her away from Ireland.

  “Would if I could, Nix, but the truth is she just gave me a healthy dose of reality. That woman is so in love with her husband, I would hate myself if I ever came between the two of them. The thing is, yeah, I love Mari. And yeah, I fucked up royally. But, we were also fighting her demons that came between us. She needs to be willing to slay her dragons and let me stand by her side while she does so. She has such huge trust issues when it comes to men, that she needs to work through her shit. I wish I were helping her through it. I’d promised to help hold her together. But she walked. It’s killing me to think that I can’t help her, but she made a choice to not trust me permanently, rather than talk to me about it and give me a chance to grovel, offer sexual favors in exchange for forgiveness, and forever be at her mercy.”

  I shrugged.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’d take her back in a heartbeat, but she’s got to be as committed to it as I am. She’s got issues. I hope she’s getting some help.”

  Phoenix put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in for a quick guy side hug, before smacking me upside the back of my head.

  “Ow, fucker, what was that for?”

  “Because I can.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Mari

  “Group therapy? I don’t know, Janice. I mean, I’m not sure I like the idea of sharing my shit with complete strangers.”

  She smiled at me, a soft, caring look on her face.

  “I get what you’re saying, Mari, and I understand that it might be really intimidating to walk in and have to tell people not only what you’ve gone through, but also how it has affected you. But, I’d like it if you could keep an open mind and at least consider it as an option. It wouldn’t be in place of our individual sessions, rather, it would complement them. Group therapy has been proven to be very successful in cases of traumatic stress, and I think that you would definitely qualify.”

  I sat back, gnawing at my lower lip as I thought about this idea that terrified me. Like, literally terrified me. I could feel nausea rolling in my stomach, threatening to erupt just at the thought of having to be open with a group of people, not only talking about what happened, but the horrific ways that I’d dealt with it. I mean, I sort of felt like I’d already come a long way and shit, you now, acknowledging that I had a problem and trying to deal with it like a grown-ass adult rather than a little kid, ignoring that there’s a problem.

  But group therapy. Could I do it?

  Janice just sat there, as if she knew the battle that was raging within and was willing to ride it out. Like I�
��d said before, she never really just told me what I needed to do or should do. She waited for me to figure out my own stuff.

  “It scares the crap out of me, Jan.”

  There, I’d said it out loud. I had expressed my fears, showed my tender underbelly and all that bullshit.

  “Thank you for your honesty. I’m not going to tell you that you have to do this. Mainly because you’re an adult and call the shots on this. However, I do recommend it. You could go once, try it out, see how it feels, and then decide if you’d like to continue or not. Here, this brochure explains the open group I would recommend you to participate in, the benefits of group therapy, etcetera. If you don’t want to do it, no harm no foul.”

  I took the brochure in my hand and immediately started curling the corners. Total nervous habit.

  “I’ll think about it. When do I need to let you know?”

  “Whenever you are ready and comfortable enough to let me know. Like I said, it’s an open group, which means new participants can join at any time. This group has been meeting for a few years now. It’s not the same people, some have completed their therapy, or are on a ‘break’, but the therapists involved remain the same.”

  Huh.

  “Okay, well, I’ll keep it in mind. I mean it.”

  I added that last bit in, so she wouldn’t think I was blowing smoke up her ass.

  “Great, that’s all I ask. Our time is up, so I’ll see you next week?”

  She always reconfirmed, as if she expected I would just randomly stop coming. Well, I guess I had done that before, so it wasn’t exactly unreasonable. But it always made me feel a little bit defensive. Probably just one more personality trait fail on my part.

  “Yeah, have a great weekend.”

  I stepped into the lobby, staring at the brochure, and ran head first into something. Or, rather, someone.

  “Whoa, there, where’s the fire?”