Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1)

by Ainslie Paton

  For a second, two, he went with it, opened his mouth to her, squeezed her tit. Zarley had abandoned him and Marja was hot and willing.

  Fuuuck. He got his hands to her waist and shoved her away. “Don’t touch me again.”

  They’d made a scene. Marja turned her back on him. Thank Christ. He looked for Zarley as he made his way to the roped-off bar, but she was gone. And so was the Master.

  She wouldn’t. She wanted to win, but not that way. He put his hand over his face and pinched his temples. She’d slept around, had a lot of casual sex, that’s how they’d started. Would she sleep with that fucker? Maybe she already had, he’d never know. He’d fucking kissed Marja, and he hadn’t wanted to until she started it, but he’d done it anyway, he’d felt her up.

  His brain was going to explode.

  He waited at another bar with his eyes on the door he knew led to the performer’s dressing rooms. There was a singer and then a magician on the main stage. And no sign of Zarley. Thinking he’d missed her, he went to club’s reception, where he’d paid an outrageous guest fee to be admitted. She wasn’t waiting there. But she arrived soon after, dressed in her street clothes, with her hair still wild and the cat’s ears on. That man with her.

  They’d walked in here holding hands, both of them nervous and excited. Stopping in this foyer to kiss. He’d carried Zarley’s bag.

  She gave him a cold look that hit him square in the center of his confused state, somewhere south of the rigid ball of guilt and anger in his gut. What just happened?

  “Thank you, Andre.”

  So the fucker had a proper name to go with his ridiculous title and his bare chest. Zarley kissed Andre on the cheek as he signaled a doorman to open the front door for her. She went through it without a glance in Reid’s direction.

  On the street he said her name, but she shouldered her bag and walked on toward the apartment. At least he knew where she was going. He strode up beside her. “Zarley.”

  She stopped abruptly and he stepped past, had to turn back to face her, and when he did his confused state hardened to outright incredulity. She was furious.

  She. Was. Furious.

  But she’d left him and gone off with that fucking playboy.

  “What the fuck, Zarley?”

  Eyes straight to his. “You ask me that when you had your tongue down another woman’s throat.”

  She’d seen. But it was seconds, only seconds. And maybe it didn’t matter. “Did you fuck that guy?”

  “I cannot believe you’d ask me that.”

  “You have a history.”

  Her whole body tensed. “I’m a slutty stripper, right? Because dancing and turning tricks are all the same. I knew you were too good to be true.”

  She went to plough past him and he roared at her. “Did you fuck him?”

  “Did you fuck her?”

  The question shocked, zinged around his head. “No. Of course not.” It was late, it was quiet but they didn’t have the street to themselves. They were having a raging argument in public. If she fucking used tears against him he wasn’t walking away.

  “Why not, clearly I’m not enough? I’m sure if you went back, hell, you don’t even need to go back. Women are attracted to you, they look at you all the time, Reid, you’re too lacking in self-awareness to notice.”

  “You slept with that guy to win.”

  “Oh my God, how could I be so wrong about you?” She pushed him, he stood his ground. He’d get his answer. She pushed him again and he gave way because that was using his size against her and he wanted a fair fight.

  She strode down the street and he followed, letting her stay ahead. Letting the head of steam he’d built up solidify into something new. Terror. If she fucked that guy did it mean they were over, did it have to mean that, could he forgive her? Did he want more with Marja, just to know what it was like with a woman who wasn’t Zarley? Fuck, fuck, he had no answers. He was better off alone because this, the not knowing, the ripping cut of jealousy so savage he’d stopped in the middle of the street, was going to eat him alive.

  “Zarley, I’m dying here. I have to know what you did.”

  She reeled around to face him. “I don’t report to you. I don’t need your permission or approval. Stupid me for thinking we’d agreed that.”

  “You shut me out. You left me alone.”

  She smacked a hand into his chest. “Are you a freaking teenager? I was working. What’s wrong with you that you couldn’t see that? That you had to, I don’t know, retaliate, by putting your hands all over another woman and your tongue down her throat.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You fucking kissed her, felt her up. I saw you.”

  “Jesus. She, she came on to me and I thought you, you . . . it was only a second.”

  “Look at me.”

  He couldn’t meet her eyes. He loved her. He’d forgive her anything. He’d fucked it up.

  “Do you honestly think any of that matters?”

  Why didn’t he simply shut Marja down? Why didn’t he walk away? What the fuck was wrong with him? “Zarley.” He reached for her.

  She jumped back about five countries. He was in France and she was in Romania. He would never reach her.

  She hefted her bag. “Asshole.” She spun around and walked on.

  He called after her. “The only asshole you’re taking home tonight.”

  She stopped walking. He wanted to eat those words, spin the planet backward, summon starships to snatch them back and lock them in a ziggurat where they’d never be heard.

  It was worse she didn’t reply. Didn’t come for him and take his eyes out. She simply lowered her shoulders and walked on.

  They were only a block from the apartment. He hung back. All he’d seen was an arm around her shoulder. All he’d seen was Zarley working. And she’d seen him act like he had no control, like he didn’t understand what he’d found with her and he couldn’t be trusted.

  She’d stood by him, known how to reach him at the anniversary event, but he hadn’t been able to do the same for her. He kept making the same mistakes over and over again and if it wasn’t enough to lose Plus, he was going to lose Zarley too.

  From the top of their narrow street he watched her enter the apartment complex. He couldn’t follow her there. She wouldn’t want to see him, not now, maybe not ever again. He stood outside the apartment entrance and tried to breathe without it hurting, smelling the smoke before he saw the man. Cigar. Its smoker stood in the shadows, but stepped forward as he spoke.

  “You have romantic problems?” It was the man from the window, from the apartment opposite. He grinned, white teeth in the dark. “You fight like lovers.”

  “We. Yes.” No point hiding it, not with him.

  “She is bomb, your woman. She put big hole in your life? Like all beautiful women she is dangerous material. Must be handled carefully.”

  “Too late. Boom.” Reid made the motion with his hands. “I fucked it up. I’m out of my depth.” He appealed to the older man. “What do I do? Do I stay in a hotel tonight?”

  “Eh, only if you have had enough of her. But a woman like that.” He took a drag on the cigar and laughed.

  “There’s never enough.”

  “So, so, my friend. You are not married, I think.”

  “No. Oh, man, we’re only just beginning. Was that your wife?” He meant in the woman in the window sucking cock and taking it from behind and they both knew it.

  “For ten years. She drew,” the man made a heart in the air with the glowing tip of the cigar, “for you.”

  “We saw.”

  “We are very different. She is a princess and I am a pig. She does not remember why she married me. She tells me this every day.”

  “That was the first real fight we’ve had.” The first to make him think he could do something desperate.

  “You feel like you’re choking,” the man made a fake coughing sound.

  “Yes. I am a pig too.”

  T
hat got an arm slung over his shoulder. “You and me, comrades. Men who eat the garnish. It’s our misfortune to love women who deserve the finest.”

  That about covered it. “How do I get her back?”

  “You get on your belly and crawl because she is worth it. No matter what you did. No matter she is right or wrong, you crawl over glass and shit, you eat your pride, and you make her see you are the wrong one and she is the right one.”

  Would that even be enough? Reid moved out of the other man’s hold. “What if she did something and I can’t get past it?”

  “Did she fuck some other man?” A guttural grunt. “You know this or crazy thoughts?”

  “I don’t know.” It was making him crazy. “No, she wouldn’t, I don’t think. I just need to hear her say it.”

  “Comrade, I watched your woman. You know this. She watched me, but she only saw you.”

  That went in like a lumbar puncture, an injection of sense to his spinal column. It’s what he’d needed to hear.

  “If she kicks, you take it, no pain is too much. If she shouts, you are silent. If she cries, ah, if she cries, then you know you made a proud woman break.” Reid’s neighbor thumped his chest. “And you feel shame. This you must show her or she knows a pig like you isn’t worth her love.”

  “Jesus.”

  “My wife. We fight a lot. Fuck a lot. I hate her. I love her, it is all the same. I’d die for her.”

  It’s how he felt about Zarley. “Let’s assume I get the crawling done. How do I keep her?”

  “Ah comrade, I’m a pig, not a man with a couch you can lie on.” He slapped Reid on the back. “Learn how she needs to be loved. Give her that.” He flicked the fiery end of the cigar into the dark and they both watched it disappear. “Good luck, my friend.”

  Once the man had gone, Reid walked on past the apartment entrance. He needed a sharp head before he went to Zarley. He walked for thirty minutes and when he was back outside the big blue carriage door he was no clearer about what to say. But the lights were out in the apartment so maybe he’d let her sleep. In the morning things might not seem so dim.

  He took his shoes off outside the apartment door, keyed it gently open and prayed he walked on the floorboards that didn’t squeak. He’d make a bed on the sofa, not that he expected to sleep.

  “You needn’t creep in like a thief.”

  “Fuck.” He jumped, dropping a shoe. She sat in a single chair in the far corner of the room, her bare legs drawn up, arms wrapped around her shins. Her hair was scraped back from her face. In the filtered light from the street he could see her distress.

  He stayed where he was, at the furthest point from her. Crawl. He put his back to the wall and slid down it till he was sitting with his legs outstretched.

  “I thought you might’ve been asleep.” He was clumsy and his voice sounded too damn loud when he needed to be gentle and soft. She turned her face away. There was no comfort in the silence, or in being in the room with her and having stripped himself of the right to touch her. There were silver tear tracks on her face, but she was dry-eyed.

  He’d already done the worst. He felt the shame like the weight of a truck on his shoulders. He might never be able to get off the floor.

  “I didn’t understand how much it would hurt to hurt you.”

  She kept her face turned away. This was the shit and the glass and the false pride he had to drag his belly through. He wanted to ask about the feedback she’d gotten, but not if it meant hearing what the Master thought. He wanted to ask how she felt about her performance, but he hadn’t earned that knowledge.

  “You were so naked and so fucking beautiful, I thought every man in that place deserved you more than I did. I wasn’t ready to see you like that. The first time I watched you dance I didn’t even know your name. Lux. For deluxe, for the best. Now I’m in love with you and it fucking messed me up to see you on that stage, to know other men wanted you like I do.”

  God, he was pathetic. “It was the longest two minutes forty-five of my life. And when you came out to the bar and you were still in costume. I wasn’t ready for that either. I saw you too, and he was touching you. I thought you’d decided to cut me out.” He ripped at his hair. “I know, I know. I’m an idiot teenager, but the feeling was real to me.”

  Nothing from Zarley, but she had to be listening and all he had was the truth.

  “That woman, her name was Marja. She told me all the contest girls fuck the Master if they wanted to win.”

  That scored a hiss from Zarley that felt like a kick to his soul.

  “Knew you’d never want to win like that, but the way he touched you, the way you were tonight. You belonged to every man in that room and not to me.” He stopped to catch his breath, rubbed his hand over his chest where the pain was vague but constant.

  “Marja put my hands on her body. She kissed me. But I let it happen. I could’ve stopped it and I didn’t. Everything I did tonight was wrong.”

  “Why?”

  He started at the sharp retort.

  If he understood why, it wouldn’t have happened. “I don’t know.”

  “Did you want to fuck her?”

  He was glad of the distance and the lack of light. He could look at her, but not meet her eyes. “Not for a second. Zarley, not for a second.”

  She unfolded her legs and sat forward in the chair. “But you wanted to kiss her.”

  “I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to bring you back here and tell you how incredible you were tonight, but I thought you’d rejected me.”

  “You thought I’d fucked another man.”

  No denying it. “Yes.”

  “Because I couldn’t win without doing that.”

  “No, because he could give you what you needed and I can’t.”

  They lapsed into a silence so heavy with the sense of ending it hammered him into the floor.

  “I have nothing you need, and in my heart I figure you’ll realize I’m hard work and move on. I’m terrified of that. I thought you’d done it tonight.”

  She went to her knees in front of the chair. “Why would you think that?” Her voice wobbled and that shame was on him too. “What have I done to make you trust me so little?”

  She’d done nothing except be the woman he’d fallen for. This was all on him. He got to his knees and crawled closer to her. Not close enough to touch. He sat cross-legged so he wouldn’t spook her.

  “Look at me, Zarley.” The pain in his chest wasn’t vague anymore. He waited till she met his eyes. Hers were wet. “I’m the weird, loner guy. All you’ve seen of me since we met is failure. I was an unemployed drunk, I vomited all over you. I drive a ten-year-old bike and didn’t bother furnishing my place. I dragged you into unfinished business, lost control and acted like an entitled asshole. I thought if I told you I loved you, you’d run so far your dust would be cosmic. All I have to offer you is financial security and you want to go get that for yourself. I fucking love you more for that. But what the hell chance does an asshole like me have with a goddess like you?”

  She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I’m so angry with you.” She stood up, her breathing was as unsteady as his.

  Were they done, was this it? He closed his eyes, his body was heavy with this next failure. It would end with him on his ass at her mercy, the way it had begun between them.

  But she wasn’t done with him. She speared her hand into his hair and jerked his head back. “I don’t do assholes. You were an asshole tonight. But you weren’t one yesterday, or the day before that, and you won’t be one tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow.

  “I need to sleep. I need to see how I feel in the morning.” She took her hand away.

  He scrambled upright, one foot turned to cement from pins and needles and pointed at the couch. “I’ll stay here.”

  “No, you sleep in the bed with me. Because that’s what people who love each other do when they’ve ripped one another apart.”

  “Zarley.” Her name d
rawn from the pain in his body like it was a balm.

  “Come to bed, Reid.”

  He followed her to the bedroom. The weight of all he’d gotten wrong still making it hard to pick up his feet. He washed up and climbed into the bed opposite her.

  “Don’t even think about touching me.” She huddled on her side, facing away from him. It was a warm night but she had the covers up over her shoulders and she wore a t-shirt and panties. It was a warm night and he felt cold.

  They’d never gone to bed wearing clothing before.

  It took a long time for Zarley’s breathing to slow but for him, the agony of being so close to her and yet so very far was more than he could handle. Though he willed it, sleep didn’t come. When he was sure she was deep under, he took a pillow to the sofa where he could practice being alone again.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Zarley woke with sunlight streaming into the bedroom and for a moment forgot to be angry. That was Paris sunlight heating her face. And last night she’d danced at Madame Amour. That had to be credential enough to get a job in any decent club back home. Even if she didn’t win, she was more confident about finding work and negotiating the fine line between artist and stripper.

  No Reid, not exactly a surprise; the place beside her held no warmth. She kicked the covers off and stretched. But she couldn’t shrug off the anger. Of course, in being so hopelessly wrong, Reid was also right. If she discovered him for an asshole through and through, there was no amount of pole wax would make them stick.

  He’d ruined what was meant to be an incredible one-time experience with his ridiculous jealousy and that alone was unforgivable. And then there was the nagging worry he would want sex with more than one person. That kind of monogamy was as old-fashioned as cigarettes. Once he’d woken up to what his body could feel he’d become an incredible lover.

  Did he kiss Marja because she trapped him? Was he turned on by the woman in the window, had he wanted her? Did he want other things with other people? Did she? Why was this so confusing? Press Reid for his sexual fantasy and he claimed to have found it in her. That had to be a lie because he wasn’t a man with a quiet mind. He was a man with obsessions.