Dirty Charmer

by Emma Chase

Clamp.

  “Abby! Where the fuck are you going?”

  Tommy follows me to the parlor, watches as I gather his clothes from the floor—pushing them at him.

  “It’s been wonderful, truly. Exactly what I needed.” I stare at the floor and I sound like a robot—an idiotic fucking robot. “But it’s run its course.”

  “No, it hasn’t. It’s just getting started,” he says stubbornly. “Just . . . just slow down a fucking minute.”

  Tommy grips my shoulders, holding me in place, and dips down to try and catch my eyes.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Separate the limb.

  Cauterize the veins.

  Clean.

  “I’m starting my fourth year. It’s going to be very demanding. I need to focus.”

  “Then we’ll see each other a bit less. We can do that. I won’t tempt you as much with dirty texts, I swear.”

  He’s trying to tease me, to cajole me back—and it’s so hard. Every cell in my body is screaming to hug him and hold him and say yes to anything he offers.

  “No.” I shake my head. “That’s not going to work for me.”

  Stitch.

  Stitch.

  “I’m done, Tommy. I need this to be done. Please go.”

  Close.

  Wrap.

  Tommy puts on his clothes and his shoes but doesn’t move towards the door.

  “Abby, listen to me. If you would just—”

  I close my eyes, even though I wasn’t looking at him.

  “We said there wouldn’t be any drama—no hard feelings. That’s what we agreed—you agreed.” I point at him. “You promised.”

  Yes, I’m using his integrity against him and, yes, it’s unfair—but necessary. Because I need him to leave. I won’t be able to go through with it if I have to look at him, smell him, feel him close to me for much longer.

  I pick up his computer from the table and his coat by the door and press them into his hands.

  “Abby—”

  I look up into his eyes one final time.

  “Goodbye, Tommy. Thank you . . . but goodbye.”

  His brow is furrowed with so much worry, but he doesn’t push me.

  Because I’ve asked him to leave and he’s honorable enough to do that for me, even if he doesn’t understand. His gaze drifts over my face, like he’s memorizing it, and he touches my hair, leans down and presses a single soft kiss against my lips that almost breaks me.

  Then he’s walking to the door and stepping over the threshold into the hall. At the last moment, Tommy turns back, his mouth opening to say something that I won’t be strong enough to hear.

  So I slam the door in his face.

  Classy.

  And I lock the bolt.

  I rest my forehead on the door, my breaths coming quick and harsh. And I can feel him standing on the other side in that strange way human beings can sense the presence of another person even when you can’t see them. As a cacophony of opposing wishes echoes in my head. Just go, stay, leave, please don’t go . . .

  Then, after an interminable moment—he’s gone.

  * * *

  Tommy

  What in the holy fuck just happened?

  That’s the question beating like a drum in my head after I leave Abby’s. I head home, but I don’t stay there. Because I can see the hospital from my bedroom and my sheets still smell like her.

  I go to the shop instead.

  And proceed to get completely sloshed.

  I drink vodka straight from the bottle until it’s empty and I can’t see straight. So I don’t do something really stupid—like go back to Abby’s door and ask for another chance. Another night.

  I tell myself it’s the unexpectedness of it that makes it hard. The sudden end that’s making me feel like a hollowed-out husk. That I didn’t know the last time was the last time . . . and that’s why I miss her already.

  At some point I pass out on the sofa in my office, on my back, my arm slung over my face and a pitiful playlist I won’t remember compiling playing on repeat from my phone.

  In the morning, that’s how the lads find me.

  “Is he breathing?” I hear Owen ask beyond my still closed eyes.

  “Breathing? He’s snoring loud enough to wake the dead,” Walter replies. “Are you deaf?”

  “Is that a Milli Vanilli song playing on his phone?” Gus wonders.

  It is. “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You.” A classic.

  “Maybe he’s trying to tell us something.”

  “Yeah,” Harry agrees, disgustedly. “Like he wants us to shoot him.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tommy

  AND THAT, BOYS AND GIRLS, is how I become a stalker.

  It starts with the path Abby takes to ride her bicycle to the hospital in the morning. I hang around, stationed in the shadows of an alley along the route, just to glimpse her as she passes. A few times a week, at night, I wait across from her flat until the light goes on inside—so I know she’s home safely.

  When it’s too cold and icy for her bike, I sit sentry in an alcove at her Tube station. Sometimes I see her there, looking beautiful but tired, maybe even a bit sad—though that could be my stupidly hopeful, James-Blunt-listening, stalkering imagination running wild. Some days, I don’t spot her at all.

  But she never sees me. I make sure of it.

  I know it’s stupid and pathetic . . . I just can’t seem to make myself stop.

  Until one night, a few weeks later, when my sister Janey comes by my place and corners me. For an intervention.

  Janey’s the only one in my family who knows that Abby Haddock exists. The only one who knows me well enough to understand that while I said all the right things when I first told her about Abby—that it was casual and no-strings, a fuck of convenience—the fact that I was saying anything at all already meant it was more.

  My sister’s eyes are a hard, impenetrable wall of light green, without a speck of sympathy. And that’s good. Because right now, I’m just barely holding it together—I don’t think I could handle her pity.

  “Why her?” Janey asks me. “What is it about this girl that you can’t shake off?”

  It’s a good question. One I’ve asked myself more than once. What is it about a person that hooks the heart and keeps you tied to them even after they’ve walked away?

  And the answer is . . . I don’t know.

  It’s not just one identifiable thing. It’s everything—Abby’s beauty and intelligence and her refined demeanor. It’s her heat and her heart and the vulnerability that she hides so desperately . . . that she’s only showed to me.

  And it’s because at some point, all the parts that make her up—the frustrating fractures and the shy, sweet tender bits . . . it felt like she became mine.

  Mine to protect and cherish, to lead and to follow.

  And I really fucking liked feeling like Abby Haddock belonged to me.

  “You have to let it go, Tommy. She’s done with you—that’s what she said. She hasn’t reached out . . . you have to move on.”

  I give my sister a nod. And from that point on, I give it a go.

  I stop checking my phone like a lovesick twat every ten minutes. I stop finding excuses to venture toward Abby’s side of town. I throw myself into work—signing up to guard a Wessconian banker traveling to Dubai for a month, and when I come back, picking up extra hours from Winston guarding at the palace. When I’m not sleeping, I’m working—moving—training the new hires to be extra thorough, completing projects around the shop, staying busy every second of every day.

  On the outside I’m all me—cracking jokes, drinking, laughing—all the things I did before.

  I start smoking again, and it feels bloody good.

  And maybe . . . a bit spiteful.

  But inside, in my head, late at night when the quiet wraps its hands around me and strangles—I’m still stuck on her. That doesn’t really change.

  I think about her, picture her, dream of
her—the vibrant silk of her hair, the sharpness of her eyes, the “O” of her pretty mouth when I made her moan and gasp. I toss off to the memory of that sound—the feel of her surrounding me, tight and wet and perfect.

  I wonder where she is and what she’s up to. I worry that she’s sad or lonely . . . and I worry that she’s not. I’m able to concentrate on work, focus when I need to—but Abby’s always there in the background.

  The white noise of my life.

  And the cavern where my heart beats—that doesn’t change either. It drowns in the same hollowed-out, gutted sensation, every bit as fresh and empty as the day I forced my feet to walk away from her door. The awful ache doesn’t ease, and it doesn’t mend.

  And after the days drag into weeks, and the weeks blend into months—I start to believe it never will.

  * * *

  “Hey, Tommy—that girl over there is looking at you.”

  Willis is our newest hire. He’s a good lad—tough, loyal—if a little on the dense side. It’s Saturday night and we’re all at Katy’s Pub, drinking to him completing his training this week.

  I glance over my shoulder at a dark-haired vixen with a heart-shaped red mouth giving me the eyes. And it’s like my whole body just sort of . . . shrugs . . . without a scrap of interest.

  Fucking hell.

  “So she is.”

  Willis leans forward, his young blue eyes wide and stunned.

  “Are you practicing to be a monk or something?”

  I chuckle dryly. “Nah—she’s just not my type. I’m selective.”

  I prefer brilliant, frustrating, emotionally stunted redheads with legs for days, heartbreaking eyes, and a pussy that will make you fall to your knees and believe in God.

  And my own hand, of course—Righty and I have never been so close.

  “Willis,” Owen calls, “come on, we’re playing darts.”

  The boy goes off, leaving me and Bea alone at the table.

  No one could ever accuse life of being short on irony, that’s for damn sure. Because while the only reason they crossed paths was when Abby came to Katy’s that night seeking me out, Harry’s still in deep with Henrietta and Bea is still hooking up hard with that Kevin guy. I haven’t asked either of them for intel on Abby—because they work for me and I refuse to come off like a total fucking simp.

  I’m pretty sure Harry is oblivious to the fact that there was anything going on between me and Abby anyway. Henrietta’s not the type to tell him dick—that one’s strong on the girl-code of silence, I can tell. Kevin’s a different story. His sort may be aloof and quiet on the outside, but when he feels like talking, he’s going to talk to someone he’s screwing.

  To Bea.

  Her eyes are heavy on me from across the table—in a way that tells me she knows something.

  “Kevin said Abby’s been working like a beast lately. She’s practically living at the hospital these days.”

  The information prickles at me—like an invisible hand poking a hat pin at my heart.

  I take a long drag from my pint.

  “Good for her. That’s exactly what she wanted.”

  “He’s worried about her.”

  I shake my head. “Not my problem, Bea. Hasn’t been my problem for a while.”

  We have now moved into the bitter portion of our programming, in case you hadn’t noticed.

  “I know,” she hedges. “But do you think, maybe—”

  A shout from the dartboard side of the room cuts off whatever Bea was about to suggest.

  “Son of a whore!”

  “Shit,” I murmur, darting up from the table.

  Because Owen and Gus were playing darts with Willis—but they were showing him the version that involves knives. And the handle of one of those knives is currently sticking out of Willis.

  Not his hand, mind you—it’s imbedded in his fucking chest—about two inches below his collarbone. Way too close to his heart for comfort.

  He reaches for the handle, but I grab onto his forearm before he can grasp it.

  “If you yank the blade out it might cause more damage than it did going in. And relax your arm—don’t jostle about—you don’t want to nick an artery.”

  If he hasn’t already.

  “Ah, fuckin’ hell,” Willis groans. “If I bleed to death, my mum’s going to be so pissed.”

  Yeah—I get that.

  “Really sorry, Willis,” Owen says contritely from behind my shoulder. “That one got away from me.”

  Gus hands me gauze from the first-aid kit that’s no longer behind the bar, and though there’s not a lot of blood seeping out, I carefully pack it around the handle to hold it stable.

  “You’re gonna need a doctor,” Gus tells Willis.

  “I don’t know any doctors,” he replies.

  And the lovely white noise that’s always on the periphery of my thoughts comes roaring to the forefront.

  “I do.”

  * * *

  Abby

  Life after Tommy Sullivan is different than it was before him. Quieter, calmer—grayer. It’s like a tree that’s faded from summer to winter—the tree’s the same, the same branches, same trunk, but it’s bare. No foliage to decorate it, to give it color.

  I make a concentrated effort to shake off the funk that’s shrouded me since the day I kicked him out of my flat. I consider getting a pet—a cat or a pretty bird or a rowdy puppy that will keep me on my toes. But I don’t have time to care for a pet properly.

  So . . . I buy plants.

  Lush, sturdy green plants with vibrant multihued flowers that add a spark of color to my flat. What did Tommy call it? Lifeless. Right.

  I put the plants on a on a wrought-iron shelf in the front parlor by the window that I bought just for them. I read all the books about them—I water them, feed them, fertilize them, sometimes I bloody sing to them.

  And one by one, apparently—I kill them.

  No matter what I do, they wither and die and they’re not shy about it.

  One night after our shift, Etta comes over to my place with a box of wine and stands at the shelf, staring at the vegetation morgue.

  “Holy Morticia Adams!” She fingers one crispy leaf. “Are they supposed to look like this?”

  “No,” I reply. “It’s like they came in here and lost the will to live. I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Etta smirks. “Get a sign above your door—‘Abandon All Hope—Ye Plants Who Enter.’”

  I stick my tongue out at her.

  * * *

  With the plant companion plan an epic fail, I try another tactic.

  Chocolate.

  I eat it with every meal. And I go for long walks in the early evening when I’m not at the hospital to offset the calories. In the hopes of tricking my brain into producing the joyful endorphins that a word or a text from Tommy Sullivan used to inspire so easily.

  One evening, just past six, I happened to walk by Paddy’s Pub, and glanced through the large picture window totally by chance . . . and Tommy was there. Looking achingly handsome and carefree at the bar, his head thrown back in an easy laugh, not a worry in the world.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  There was a fit-looking man beside him with a petite, obviously pregnant, beautiful woman at his side. I surmised from my past conversations with Tommy that they were his partner Logan and his little wife, Ellie.

  But next to Tommy, leaning into him in a familiar way, was another woman—stunning and voluptuous, with bouncy blond hair and a bright, broad smile.

  And I couldn’t seem to move.

  I stood there, watching them, steeped in a dreadful, self-flagellatory, pining pain.

  But, as much as it hurt to watch them—because I wanted to be the one in there beside him—there was a part of me that was glad. Tommy had brought excitement and spontaneity and comfort into my life. And he deserved to be happy.

  I stopped going for walks after that.

  I refocus all my energy on work instead.
Back to the grind—striving to be the best—to be exceptional. I take extra shifts at the hospital—I read more, study harder, go through pounds of chicken’s feet every week practicing my surgical techniques.

  What I don’t do is attend the family brunches at Bumblebridge.

  I make excuses, telling them I don’t have the time, my schedule is too full. Luke texts me that my parents have covertly texted him—inquiring as to whether it’s really work that’s keeping me away or if I’m involved with someone. A certain man on a motorbike, perhaps.

  But the Dowager Countess isn’t the only one who doesn’t have the stomach for things. I don’t trust myself to see her again and remain civil. While the first rule of being a Haddock is to be extraordinary, civility and composure are absolutely the second.

  A few weeks into the start of my fourth year of residency, the hospital hires a new resident—a fifth year, named Riley Bowen. He’s an excellent surgeon and movie-star good-looking, with dark blond hair and broad shoulders that get all the nurses chattering.

  On his second day at the hospital, he asks me out to dinner.

  It’s not difficult to turn him down.

  While I like him well enough as a coworker, his arrogance rubs me the wrong way. It’s so starkly different from Tommy’s. His cocky swagger came from a steady, capable, calm confidence that was irresistibly attractive. Riley’s egotism feels like a flex of superiority—a need to show off—because he has something to prove.

  I wonder if this is how it’s going to be now—that I’ll compare every man I meet to Tommy Sullivan and find them hopelessly lacking.

  For ever and ever, the end.

  One evening, I’m at the nurse’s desk on the surgical floor, adding some final notes to a patient’s chart before heading over to scrub in on a procedure. I hand the chart to nurse Betty and then I look up.

  And my whole world stands still.

  Because Tommy’s here. Really, truly, here. Just a few feet away.

  “Hi,” he says softly.

  “Hello.”

  It’s been so long since I’ve seen him—except in my dreams. My entire being soaks him up like a parched sponge suddenly submerged in cool water. The scruff on his jaw is thicker, his dark hair a bit longer, there’s an intensity in his eyes that wasn’t there before—but his face, his hands, the swells of muscle beneath his gray shirt are every bit as perfect as they always were.