by Marie James
“Just wait until you’re further along and it’s the middle of summer,” he joked, making me want to stab him in the eye.
“I say,” Stone begins with a devilish grin, “you quit your job and spend the week with me in Mexico. The beach and virgin daiquiris will give you the energy you need to push through until graduation.”
“That sounds wonderful,” I tell him, but before I can let him down gently, the scrape of a chair to my left draws my attention.
Tears sting my eyes immediately at the sight of Blaze as he storms toward us. Stone’s fierce, protective side flares the second he notices him. He stands to my side, creating a wall of muscle between me and the raging bull piercing me with his gaze.
I tilt my head and look around Stone’s thigh, gasping at the sight of the man I once knew. Dark, bloodshot eyes surrounded by sunken, discolored skin glare daggers at Stone. His hands clench, opening and closing while he stands, gaunt and tired, hatred marring his once handsome face as he snarls.
Stone remains unaffected, bored even. At least he does to anyone on the outside looking in, but I know better. I can feel the tension radiating off him.
I lower my head as the first tear falls. Embarrassment is the only thing I feel—embarrassed for him. Even though I’ve heard he’s been around campus the last three months, I haven’t seen him. The rumors about him have started to die down, replaced by the next rumor-worthy story, yet here he is, stirring it all up again. My hands remain in my lap near my stomach as I wish with everything I am to melt into the concrete as if I never existed.
“Fallyn?” Blaze’s broken voice rings out around the muscled statue.
“Can you be civil?” Stone asks with more than a warning in his voice.
“Can you back the fuck up and let me talk to my goddamn wife?”
Determining Blaze isn’t the threat he imagines he is, Stone takes a half-step to the side, clearing my line of sight to take in the full image of my husband. Thin, dirty, and pale, Blaze Porter looks nothing like the magnanimous football star he was just over a year ago. The memories of who he was are almost enough to break me, but I straighten my spine and face him as if my heart isn’t hemorrhaging inside my chest.
He leans in, a hand on either side of my chair. My eyes flutter closed, almost giving in, until the stench coming from his clothes hits my nose before his lips touch mine. Surprisingly, he stops when my hands shove gently against his chest.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “We’re over.”
If only my heart would listen.
“You’re still wearing my ring,” he says, looking down at the hand on his chest.
“And you’re not,” I counter, staring at his bare finger.
My eyes find his, his pupils like saucers in the bright sunlight. He hasn’t changed a fraction since leaving me. If anything, he’s gotten worse.
“You’re high,” I observe.
He stands as if I’ve slapped him across the face, but I don’t back down.
“You want me sober?” His sarcastic tone tangles with the desperation in his eyes, and I can’t tell whether he’s taunting me or actually considering offering me what I asked of him months ago.
“I wouldn’t consider it any other way.”
His temper, always on a hair trigger, flares at my declaration and he turns his attention back to Stone.
“You like fucking my wife’s pussy?” he sneers, though his eyes are pleading, as if he’s begging Stone to dispel something I imagine is his worst nightmare. I know the thought of him with someone other than me is mine.
A wicked sneer I’ve never seen before crosses Stone’s golden skin and my heart pounds in my chest. He’s about to say something that has the potential to cause Blaze’s ultimate demise. Reaching out, I clutch his arm, pulling the hand resting casually in his pocket.
He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t confirm nor deny, but the look on his face can only be interpreted one way. Blaze’s fist flies before I even register he’s moving. Stone is quick enough that the blow grazes off his shoulder rather than the cheek it was intended for. He recovers and shoves Blaze before following him to the ground, his hands gripping the front of his shirt.
I do the only thing I can to protect myself. I stand on unsure legs and push back my chair. The scraping sound of the metal on the concrete patio open the unhealed wounds around my heart. The burn of tears behind my eyes pairs with trembling lips as I walk away while my estranged husband and best friend beat the shit out of each other.
Chapter 30
Blaze
“One more time,” Paige urges from the front of the room.
“We don’t always get what we wish for, we get what we work for,” I, along with the other ten or so people in the room, echo again.
“Awesome, guys! See you tomorrow, and remember,” she begins, “one day at a time.”
Chairs scrape, some people file out heading to work the menial jobs they hate, while others hang around, vying for the attention they know they’ll get from the addiction counselor who just closed the group session.
Having had the opportunity to speak to her before the group started, I head out into the heat to my shitty job, even though I’m not scheduled for another three hours. I reach into the front pocket of my jeans and rub the pads over the thirty-day chip that feels like it’s carrying an energy of its own most days. By this time next week, I’ll have my sixty-day chip to replace this one.
Pride swells in my chest knowing how hard I’ve fought to get and stay clean. The ass whooping from that guy Fallyn was with two months ago landed me in the hospital. Shame from being so weak a few punches cracked a couple ribs kept me from filing charges. But it was the pain I saw in her eyes on the café patio that made me reconsider my life. When I walked away the first time, I was jonesing so bad, nothing could’ve distracted me. Two months ago, I was so fucking blitzed, everything seemed almost normal. I felt fantastic, overly cocky, and was put in my place in a matter of seconds.
When the big guy was done pounding me into the concrete, he leaned down and whispered the words that tore my whole world apart.
“She’s mine now, motherfucker.”
His words echoed through my head the full three miles I stumbled home—home being a relative term considering the friend whose house I was headed for turned me away without pause. I was in so much pain, I could hardly stand, but somehow managed to get to a hospital. There, I could score the pain meds I needed, not only for the new injuries, but the ones that never seemed to heal.
“Hey, Blaze!” I turn to see the blonde chick from group jogging toward me. “Wait up!”
I slow my pace, but don’t halt completely, annoyed but unable to be blatantly rude.
“Hey,” I say as she catches up, her steps falling in line with mine.
“Kate,” she says, offering me her hand.
“What can I do for you, Kate?” I ask, lengthening my stride.
I stop on the corner, waiting for the light to change, and allow myself to catalogue her face. She was once very pretty, but the effects of the drugs have taken their toll—premature wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, along with the bulge of dentures that don’t fit quite right behind her closed lips.
“I was wondering if you’d like to grab lunch or something.” Hopeful eyes gaze back at me, and I already feel bad that I’m going to turn her down.
Rejection, even on a small level, is sometimes enough to cause an addict to spiral out of control and relapse. What I can’t do, however, even to protect her, is compromise my own recovery.
I glance down at the cheap watch on my wrist. “I have work in just a bit.”
She grins. “Maybe tomorrow then?”
I shake my head. “You know the rules, Kate. We’re not supposed to associate with other addicts.” She winces, so I add, “Even those in recovery.”
She swallows hard, her eyes leaving mine and darting down the street.
“But,” I say, “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee at tomorrow’s meeting.�
�
She nods her head slowly, her smile returning. “The coffee is free at the meetings.”
The light changes, so I begin to cross the street. Glancing back over my shoulder, I look at her one last time. “Good thing. Means I can keep my shitty apartment.”
The steady fall of my feet on the ground is comforting. It means I’m moving ahead—literally and figuratively. There are so many things I can’t remember after getting out of jail, and the only thing I can’t seem to force myself to forget are the words that asshole said to me.
“She’s mine now, motherfucker.”
I love and hate it all in the same breath. It’s what motivated me to get clean, but it’s also what threatens to make me relapse every day I wake up without her.
I’ve avoided everything Las Vegas University, even though the only job I could find is only a few blocks away from campus. Crappy jobs and crappy apartments surrounding a thriving institution of higher learning. Vegas can’t be the only city like that. I may be close to her, but I can’t see her yet. Fifty days may seem like a lifetime when you’re getting clean, but it’s nothing in the life of a college student. I think about Fallyn and how excited she has to be to graduate next week. If I don’t make my move soon, I could lose her forever.
I push open the door to the old-style diner and make my way to the back.
“You’re early,” Rocco chastises from the kitchen as he flips a hamburger patty on the grill. “I’m not paying you until your shift starts.”
“Settle down,” I tell him, not even breaking my stride as I head to the tiny breakroom in the back. “I hit an early meeting. I’m just gonna hang until it’s time.”
He grunts his approval as I settle in the far corner of the small room. It’s the only spot where I can relax and remain unseen.
Her laughter fills my ears and I allow my eyes to close briefly, enjoying the memory, but they snap back open when I hear her voice closer than she has been in months. With a single finger, I shift the avocado green shirts hanging near my head and look out into the hallway.
My gorgeous wife stands in the hallway, looking up at that same asshole from two months ago, love shining in her eyes.
“You have to buy something,” she says playfully. “I feel weird coming in and using the restroom without getting something.”
He grins down at her and my eyes follow his hand as it clutches her lower stomach. “Is my boy jumping up and down on Mommy’s bladder?”
The childish sentiment pisses me off, but when my brain catches up to his words, my heart nearly explodes.
My boy? Mommy?
She turns before I can visually confirm a pregnancy and heads into the bathroom. The golden boy in the hallway adjusts his nuts before turning back to buy something, I presume. I wait with baited breath for the door to open again.
The toilet flushes. My pulse thrums. The water turns on in the sink. The wild beat can be heard. The paper towel dispenser automatically activates, and I’m certain I’m going to stroke out. The door opens. My heart stops.
Gorgeous as the first day I saw her, she steps out of the bathroom with the softest contented sigh. Her hand rubs her lower belly and there’s no missing the tiny bump sticking out a few inches from her normally flat stomach, her petite frame unable to hide her secret.
I was angry the day I saw them at the café. I said shit I shouldn’t have, but there’s no chance in denying the knowing smirk the smug bastard gave me was a validation that he’d been inside my wife. I trip over the rack of clothes as I make my way out of the breakroom and back down the hall. I have nothing to lose and I’ll be damned if I let them just walk out without knowing I’m well aware of the situation.
“Don’t be late for your shift,” Rocco calls, still manning the grill as I walk past in pursuit of them.
I catch sight of her dark brown hair sweeping away from her face in the dry wind, her cheeks flushed. I clench my fists, but remain inside the diner, ignoring the chatter around me.
I’d love nothing more than to step outside and confront them, demand she come back to me, but I’m a lesser man. I could never accept knowing another man made love to my wife, much less be around a child he fathered with her. Tears sting my eyes when I force myself to take a deeper look. She’s happy, content as her head follows him around the front of the car. Sleek black BMW SUV. Rich.
He can give her more than I could ever hope for. He can provide the life I once promised before my world began to crumble apart. I watch him drive away, the strings that have always been connected to her pulling my heart right out of my chest as he turns left at the green light.
“Blaze,” Rocco yells from the kitchen as I tug the heavy diner door open.
I keep walking. Everything I’ve fought for, every pain I’ve felt through my recovery was for nothing. She’s fulfilled, safe. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s perfect for her, and I was never good enough.
Five blocks in the opposite direction of the way they went, I open the door to The Lucky Dice, my ears filled with the clang of obsolete slot machines and midday chatter from a group of mostly unemployed bar patrons. I hate this place, but whiskey isn’t the same as Percocet and I’m hanging on by a fucking thread.
I slap down a twenty on the bar and order two fingers of bourbon. The bartender fills the order in a dirty glass, but I can’t be bothered to complain.
“Long time no see,” a voice I prayed I’d never hear again hisses in my ear.
“Bones,” I mutter, turning to face my former drug dealer. My mind struggles to remember how much trouble I’m in, unable to pull the details of our last transaction up in my memory bank. We could be square, or my night could’ve gotten exponentially worse.
He slings an arm around my shoulder and leans in close. “Good to see you. Got just the thing you’re looking for.”
I wave the bartender back over and order a second drink, gripping it in trembling hands as he slides it toward me across the weathered wood.
I don’t question a damn thing when the pressure of Bones’ arm urges me out of my seat toward the dark hallway past the broken jukebox.
I don’t even think of Fallyn or the baby growing in her stomach, put there by another man, as I trade twenty dollars for two hydro and toss them back with the bourbon left in my glass. And I sure as fuck don’t think about the relapse two days shy of going sixty clean. Being sober is not something I imagine I’ll ever be again.
Chapter 31
Fallyn
“Stone!” I yell from the middle of my bedroom, praying he hasn’t left for school yet.
“Fuck,” he mutters as he slides into my room on the hardwood floor.
His eyes rake over me from head to swollen breasts, but that’s where they stay, ogling the drops of water dripping from my skin as I stand buck-ass naked in front of him. If he’d bother to look past the tits he’s been dreaming about seeing in the flesh the last year and a half, he’d know exactly why I called him in here before I bothered to get dressed.
“Jesus, you’re gorgeous.”
I growl at him like a savage animal. “Are you serious right now?”
My eyes drift down to the straining erection in his sweats, answering the question for me.
“Are the painfully swollen breasts appealing to you, or is it the puddle of fucking amniotic fluid I’m standing in that turns you on?”
“Definitely your tit—oh shit, Fallyn. You’re in labor.”
“It’s too early,” I mumble, unable to keep the fear out of my voice and the cringe off my face as a wave of pain tightens around my middle.
He chuckles. “It’s not too early. It’s two days early, and you shouldn’t be surprised. You were dilated to a three a couple days ago at the doctor’s office. Jump back in the shower and I’ll get the car ready.”
“I can’t,” I sob as the contraction begins to subside. “I’ll fall. Can you help me?”
He groans as if traumatized by the thought. “Sure.”
That one word is what
he says out loud, but things like, “I’m in med school,” and, “You can be professional about this,” are mumbled under his breath as he helps me walk back to the bathroom. It’s the, “Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look,” he’s chanting that makes me smile through the discomfort.
“Thank you,” I praise as he lets me hold onto his arm while I clean my lower half.
His eyes are squeezed shut and his head is cocked to the side as if it physically pains him to stand next to me while I’m naked.
“You’re hard,” I whisper.
“I’m an asshole,” he counters.
I giggle.
“Tell you a secret?”
“Sure,” I say, rinsing the soap from the loofah.
“I’ve pretty much been hard since you said the doctor recommended sex to jump start your labor.” His eyes find mine, but I find uneasiness rather than the playfulness I expected.
“Julian,” I say softly, reaching my hand out to comfort him. I told him that in passing. The recommendation from the doctor was absurd and I thought he’d find it as comical as I did.
“Let’s get you dressed, Cariño. We’re having a baby!” He ignores my attempt to console him, no doubt tired of the you’re-my-best-friend-and-I-don’t-want-to-do-anything-to-ruin-that broken record that has been a shining star in our relationship for almost as long as I’ve known him.
I can’t be bothered to worry about Stone and his feelings as we drive slower than imaginable to the hospital. The contractions and gut splitting pain in my back are the only things I can concentrate on as he helps me from the car to sit in a waiting wheelchair in the emergency entrance.
He kisses my forehead. “I have to park the car. You’re preregistered and all the paperwork has been done. Jenny is going to take you to L and D. I’ll be right up.”
“Thank you,” I whisper as the contraction begins to fade and I can see more than haloed darkness.
