by Lonnie Doris
“Doesn’t the truth come out when someone is drunk?” I have been told that most of my life. If you want to know how someone feels, listen to them when they’ve been drinking. Their true feelings will emerge eventually.
“Not always, sweetie.” I sit upright to look at her. “Sometimes, when someone is in a drunken state, they don’t know what they are saying. It has nothing to do with fact or fiction.”
“I didn’t plan on falling in love with him, but I did, and now my heart is crushed.”
“My best advice to you is to pull yourself together. Let him sleep off his drunkenness and then talk to him. You know better than anyone, nothing gets resolved by ignoring the problem.”
Grace is making a lot of sense. And typically, I would agree with her. I’ve been pushing Tommy to face his demons head on and to forgive himself.
I just don’t know that I’m ready to forgive him for this.
TOMMY
I wake up with the worst hangover and lie in my bed looking at the ceiling, trying to remember why I feel this way and how I got here. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way.
My memory is foggy.
Without warning, I feel a sudden pain in my chest, and then I remember.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
I jump out of bed instantly, causing my head to spin, but I have to get to Robyn. Ah fuck! Is she still here? What time is it?
Before I can think about any of that, my stomach protests, and I run straight to the bathroom. It has been many years since I found myself hugging a toilet from drinking too much.
After I empty the contents of my stomach, which is only bourbon, I stand up and splash water on my face at the sink. Rubbing my face with my hands, I look in the mirror.
I don’t recognize the guy looking back at me.
I’ve spent most of my life running from my demons. The faster I ran, the harder they chased. Bourbon and drugs helped me keep them at bay.
The memory of calling her Maddie while I was kissing her brings me to my knees. How many times have I rebuffed her when she accused me of only seeing Maddie in her? I did the one thing she was most afraid of. Robyn never told me she feared it, but it was written all over her face.
I let my demons come back to haunt us both. I pull myself back up, holding on to the counter for balance. The world is still spinning, but I can’t tell if it is the hangover or my regret.
Once I’m steady on my feet, I walk back into my bedroom. The bedside clock says it’s 8:46. Is that a.m. or p.m.? It takes me a few seconds to determine it is dark outside. I dart out of my room across the hall to hers and grab the door handle. It’s locked.
Fuck!
I decide not to bother her and go downstairs to find Grace in the kitchen.
“Have you seen Robyn?” I ask her as I sit down at the breakfast bar.
“Not since she ran upstairs from your office.” She glares at me. She knows I fucked up. “Boy, get your head out of your ass.”
Grace doesn’t hold back. I like that about her.
“Grace, I’m older than you.” I sigh heavily. “I don’t think ‘boy’ works for me.”
“Act like a man, then, and I won’t call you boy.” Damn, that glare she is giving me is intimidating. But she’s right. “I’m an ol’ Southern woman. Every male is boy to me. And I don’t sugarcoat shit.”
“I don’t know what to do.” I scrub my hands over my face. “I really fucked up this time.”
“Fix it,” Grace commands, reminding me of my own mother when I was a teenager.
“She’s in her room with the door locked. I’m pretty sure I am the last person she wants to see right now.”
“Give her time to come to terms with what she is feeling. Both of you won’t admit what is right in front of you.” She moves closer to me. “Honestly, the first thing you have to do is decide to put your past where it belongs. Do you want a future with Robyn?”
“I don’t want a future without her.” It’s the truth. I don’t ever want to be without her.
“Then, fix it.”
“Will you check on her?” My eyes plead with her.
“Yes, I will do that for you.” She turns to walk away, pausing to look back at me. “Fix it.”
I will fix it. I’m not sure how. She might not know it yet, but Robyn is mine. I will spend every single day for the rest of whatever life I have left showing her.
She is mine, and I am hers.
It’s time to finally put Maddie to rest. I may have destroyed everything in my path since losing her—including myself—but that stops today.
It’s been a few days now; Robyn is only talking to me if it is work-related. With Grace’s help, I’m hoping that ends tonight. I leave in two days for these last three concerts. Robyn hasn’t said if she is coming with me or not. I really hope she does.
Grace has set us a table for two outside under the stars. She prepared Robyn’s favorite dinner. I text Robyn and ask her to come outside. I’m standing at the table, waiting for her to appear in the doorway.
She gasps when she opens the door to see the setup. “What’s this?”
“Don’t give up on me just yet.” I walk forward, reaching out my hand for hers. Surprising me, she takes my hand. “Join me for dinner.”
“Okay.”
I walk her over to the table, pulling out her chair for her. Once she is seated, I make my way around the table to sit in my chair.
“Grace made your favorite dinner.”
“It looks delicious,” she murmurs, grabbing her fork to take a bite of the Mongolian beef in front of her.
“I leave in two days for the shows.”
“I know.” I can tell she is hesitating. I can feel it; she’s not coming with me. “I… Tommy…”
“You’re not coming,” I whisper.
“I think we need to take these three weeks apart.”
“Robyn, I am so sorry…” She opens her mouth to cut me off, but I keep going. “I have no excuse for what happened. I don’t think you are Maddie—”
“But you called me by her name.”
“And I regret it more than you could ever imagine.” I take her hand in mine, not giving her the chance to pull it away from me. “I love you, Robyn. You. It’s time for Maddie to be left in the past. I’ve spent almost forty years running from it. You have helped me see that it is time.”
“Tommy, it is going to take me a little while. In a sense, Maddie is my demon too. I have spent my whole life living in her shadow. Even coming here to meet you was probably one of the biggest mistakes—”
“No!” I stand from my chair and drop to my knees in front of her, taking both of her hands in mine. “Robyn, you coming here was not a mistake.” The pain from her words hits me hard. “You coming here opened my eyes. You coming here has given me a reason to wake up that doesn’t consist of destroying myself. You did that.”
“I still think it would be a good idea if we put some space between us. I love you too. I didn’t want to admit it. I even felt guilty for breaking the sister code. I didn’t come here to fall in love with you, but I did. It scares me.”
“You love me? You fell in love with me?” I can’t explain what I feel. I can’t even compare it to the best high I’ve ever had. This feeling is the best high.
She loves me.
“Yes…” she whispers.
I pull her head down to me and kiss her deeply, wrapping my fingers in her hair. She kisses me back, her hands stroking my face.
I kiss her until we are both breathless.
“Don’t give up on me,” I beg.
Thirteen
Robyn
I don’t know how many times Tommy has apologized to me over the last three weeks. He called me at least ten times a day while he was gone. And I lost count of the text messages. Our relationship definitely went from hot to cold to warm and is now working its way back toward hot. I had to put some distance between us.
Last week, I came home from a meeting to find the house over
run with bouquets of flowers. Every kind of floral arrangement you could imagine decorated the rooms. How could I resist him when he was going to these great lengths to get me to forgive him?
When Tommy wants to be, he is the sweetest man I have ever met. He doesn’t like to let that side of him show, though. He still holds on to the part of himself that puts up a guard by being an asshole. He says he’s working on it.
He came home late last night from his three-cities, three-weeks, three-shows tour. I was already fast asleep by the time he got in. This morning, I was out of the house before nine for meetings.
Tonight, he is taking me to the local fair. As I stand in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom examining myself for tonight—which he labeled as a date—I feel a flare of excitement. Our first date. Sure, we’ve gone out to dinner together, but that was before he fell to his knees and begged me not to give up on him.
We’re having a great time, just like two regular people finding their way in the world. We love each other; that much is established. But I have to overcome my demons related to Maddie, and so does he. We’ve agreed to work on it. One step at a time.
“Tommy, win me a teddy bear.” I smile up at him.
“I may be a little rusty at carnival games, but I’d move heaven and earth to give you what you want.”
We walk the aisle, looking at all the options for games. Tommy decides to throw darts and pop the balloons.
“How many balloons do I have to pop to win a teddy bear?” he asks the game attendant.
“Just five.”
“I’ll tell you what. Give me fifty bucks worth of darts, and let’s see how many times I can hit five.” Tommy throws down a fifty-dollar bill, and the guy hands over thirty darts. I stand off to the side and watch Tommy throw each dart, popping each balloon.
“That’s six teddy bears your daddy just won you, darlin’.” The guy smirks at me. “How ’bout you ditch the old man, and me and you go enjoy the fair?”
“What the fuck did you say?” Tommy roars at the guy and jumps over the rail. Before the guy can get his wits about him, Tommy has him on the ground and is pounding the hell out of his face.
“That’s not my daughter, you sick fuck. That’s my woman,” he bellows while he delivers punch after punch.
“Tommy! Stop! He’s had enough!” I yell.
Tommy stops, his fist mid-strike, and turns to look at me. He jumps off the guy and leaps back over the barricade, reaching for me.
“I’m sorry.” He groans, noticing my fear, but I can still see the anger in his eyes.
“Hey dude, you’re gonna pay for all this!” the game attendant shouts in our direction.
Tommy starts to turn around to go back after him again, but I grab my man, stopping him in his tracks. “Watch your babysitter handle this.” I wink and reach into my purse, pulling out a wad of hundred-dollar bills. Tommy pays me very, very well.
“This is probably the most money you’ll see anytime soon, so take it, shut the fuck up, and watch how you talk to people.” I throw the wad of cash at his feet. He opens his mouth to speak, but I raise my hand to stop him. There’s blood coming from his split bottom lip, and his left eye is already swelling as it turns a rainbow of blues and blacks. “Don’t say a fucking word, or I’ll let him finish you off. I’m sure you won’t be missed.” The guy snaps his bloody mouth shut.
I intertwine my arm with Tommy’s. “Let’s go home, big daddy.” I smirk.
“I love you, sexy mama.”
“Take me home and show me,” I lean up and whisper in his ear. Before I can say anything else, he swoops me up over his shoulder and heads for the exit.
Once we are back at the house, our driver barely gets the car in park before Tommy is jumping out of the SUV, lifting me into his arms, and carrying me to my bedroom. I am slightly taken aback that he came to my room and not his.
He places me on the edge of the bed and kneels in front of me.
“Robyn, I want this. I want us.”
“I want this too, Tommy.” I place my hands on his face. “But why did you bring me to my room and not yours?”
“My room is tainted.” He shifts his eyes to glance down before looking back into mine. “I don’t want the first time I make love to you to be in a bed that I’ve shared with anyone but you.”
“And you’ve never shared this bed with anyone…” It isn’t a question. I know the answer; I just want confirmation.
“No, Robyn, I haven’t.” He sighs, remembering his past, I’m sure. “I’ll buy us a new bed tomorrow.”
His lips devour mine in an urgent frenzy, his hands skimming over my body. I’m not ready for him to break free from our kiss when he does, and I whine in protest. He’s left me wanting more, so much more. I can feel my insides quake with anticipation.
“I need to feel you inside me,” I breathe at his ear.
“You have no idea how much I want to be inside you, but first I want to taste each inch of your body.” He gently pushes me so I am lying flat on the bed with my legs still hanging off the side.
He gives me another hard, quick kiss before pulling my shirt over my head. Pinning my arms above my head, he begins slowly kissing my ear, then down to my neck. His lips send electric currents straight through me. I start to squirm under his touch as he skims his hands down to my chest.
“Patience, my sweet mama. All good things come to those who wait,” he whispers in my ear, sending goose bumps all down my flesh.
Tommy continues his very unfair assault on my body, making me want him more with each touch. Just when I don’t think I can take much more, he has my jeans and panties off and tossed on the floor.
“I’m going to taste this sweet pussy that haunts my dreams.” I can’t make anything other than a whimper come out of my mouth.
He moves down my stomach, leaving kisses as he spreads my legs. I open them willingly for him. When his tongue dips into me, I can’t hold back a sob. The pleasure of feeling his tongue on me makes my head spin.
I slide my hands into his hair. I’ve never felt pleasure like this. “Fuck…” I moan as his tongue assaults my clit and his fingers enter me.
“Ah, Robyn, you taste so good. Let it go. Drench my face with those sweet juices.” He breathes into me, and right on command, my release floods through me. “That’s it, hot mama, give it all to me.”
I want him inside me. I can feel my core pulsing as he licks up every drop my body has released for him. If he can undo me like that with his tongue, I’m sure his cock is going to destroy me. But I want it more than my next breath.
He stands, pulling off his T-shirt and jeans. Jesus, he’s bare under his jeans, and I see his cock spring out. Oh fuck. He’s huge. Will that fit in me? I haven’t been with a man in about seven years. I get plenty of use out of my vibrator, but Tommy’s bigger than anything that’s ever been inside me.
I push myself up on the bed, and he crawls in between my legs, hovering over me. Stalking me like I am his prey.
“You’re my forever, Robyn. Me and you.”
“I love you, Tommy. Me and you,” I breathe back to him, still trying to catch my breath.
“I’m clean. You’re the first woman in some twenty-odd years I haven’t wrapped up for. And I’m not going to. I need to feel all of you.”
“I’m clean too, but I’m not on any kind of birth control,” I whisper.
“Don’t care, mama. It’s me and you, and if we are meant to have a baby, we’ll have one.”
I’m a little shocked by his words. But they make me want him more, which I didn’t think was possible. I grab his shoulders and pull him to me, taking his mouth with mine as he plunges into me. I let out a moan and arch my back. He feels so good inside me. I match him stroke for stroke, our rhythm completely in sync.
“Oh God!” I cry out. I can feel my release building again, ready to explode all over him.
“You feel so good, Robyn. So fucking tight and wet for me.” He kisses me again, drowning out my m
oans.
As we come together and our exhausted bodies stay entwined, I stroke my fingers through his hair. “I love you, Tommy,” I whisper.
“I love you so much more, Robyn.”
We wake in the morning, our bodies still wrapped around each other.
As I lie in his arms, the night before replays in my mind. I feel the most content I ever have, Tommy rubbing my back. I love him so much. I feel all of his love for me too.
“Robyn?” He lifts up on his elbow to look at me. “I want us to go back to San Antonio.”
“Are you sure?” I’m unable to hide my surprise. “You haven’t been back there since you left all those years ago.”
“It’s time to put Maddie to rest. It’s time for me to finally say good-bye to her. My life, what’s left of it, is with you.”
I reach up and stroke his cheek. He really is mine. My eyes swell with tears. “Okay. I would like that.”
Fourteen
Tommy
We arrived at Tampa International and made the forty-five-minute drive to the grave site where Maddie is buried in San Antonio. We stopped at the local flower shop so I could pick up a bouquet of lilies, Maddie’s favorite, to place on her grave.
Getting out of the chauffeured town car, I take Robyn’s hand in mine as we walk to Maddie. My saying good-bye to her is long overdue. I never dreamed anyone could come into my world who would make me want to live again. But Robyn did, and now I’m devoting my life to her.
We reach Maddie’s grave, and I place the lilies in the vase attached. Still holding on to Robyn’s hand, I take a deep breath to say what I came here to say.
“I’ve spent most of my life running from the pain of losing you. And then I met Robyn. It made me realize that part of me will always love you, but I think… No, I know, I’m more in love with her than I was ever able to love you. I’m sorry about that. But deep down, I think you would be happy for us.”
With tears in my eyes, I pull Robyn into my side and kiss the top of her sweet-scented head.
