Bad for You (Dirty Deeds)

by J. Daniels

  “You need anything?” Sean asked, moving ahead of me into the room and looking back.

  “Um, just a toothbrush. I still taste like Creamsicle.”

  He jerked his chin at the door. “Bathroom. I just got the one.”

  “That works.” I smiled at him before turning and heading out, slipping into the bathroom.

  I had absolutely zero problems using Sean’s toothbrush. Some people might find that gross. I did not. I didn’t find anything about him gross.

  I quickly brushed my teeth and decided on leaving my makeup as is, since I didn’t have face wash or anything besides Dial soap handy, then after relieving myself, I turned off the light and moved back into the bedroom.

  Sean was sitting on the edge of the bed, still shirtless and in his jeans, his head lowered, his hair tucked behind his ears, and his hands steepled in front of his face.

  When I walked in, he looked up.

  “Need anything else?” he asked.

  I shook my head and smiled. I was so, so good, he had no idea. Then I walked to the bed, popped off my tall, strappy heels, and climbed on.

  Sean stretched out on his back. He’d given me use of the pillow and was using his arm bent up behind him as a cushion.

  Even if I had been fully drunk, I wouldn’t have allowed that.

  I motioned for him to lift his head, stuck half the pillow under there, and then lay on my side with my back to the wall, facing Sean. We shared the pillow.

  “You mind if I leave that light on?” he asked, talking about the small lamp on the trunk beside the bed.

  The overhead light was off now.

  “No. Not at all,” I told him, voice breaking with a yawn. “Do you mind if I cuddle you at some point? I’m a natural cuddler.”

  Sean cut his eyes to me. “I didn’t mind it before.”

  Aha. So he had been awake the other night on my couch when I’d done that. Good to know.

  “Okay.” I closed my eyes on a second yawn. “Good night, Sean.”

  “Night, Shayla.”

  Sean dozed immediately.

  Forty minutes later, I was still awake and playing with a thread on my dress while watching Sean sleep when the urge to use the bathroom again hit hard.

  I carefully climbed over his legs and snuck out of the room.

  After doing what I needed to and washing my hands, I grabbed my phone out of my bag and set an alarm for eight a.m., just in case Sean didn’t have one set. Then I returned to the bedroom and placed my phone on the trunk.

  Standing beside the bed, I looked down at Sean.

  He was still on his back, one hand on his abdomen and the other buried under the pillow. His head was turned toward me, lips parted, allowing breath to leave him slowly and quietly.

  I let my eyes wander to his ink.

  The low light from the lamp cast a glow over his body, illuminating areas of his skin and shadowing others.

  Sean’s tattoos were still a mystery to me. I’d seen them, but not up close and not like this, where I could stare and study without him knowing.

  On his upper chest were images blended beautifully together among a lot of shading. I could make out two baby footprints on one of his pecs, like you’d see on a birth certificate, and the girls’ names: Caroline and Fiona were scripted just below each of his collarbones. Woven throughout the shading were lines that didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to them. They were thick and dark, looped down to the tops of his ribs, and reached his shoulder, ending there in a bull’s-eye swirl pattern. Below the bull’s-eye on his left upper arm was that drawing I’d noticed a couple weeks ago. I couldn’t see it too well without Sean rolling over, but I could see it enough to know I was right in my observation before—it was a stick-figure person. One like a child would draw. And I knew one of his girls had put that on him.

  God, he’d gotten it permanent. That was incredibly sweet.

  When my eyes swept back over Sean’s chest to study more of the ink, I noticed something. A word written in the background on the skin of his left pec, a word that was mostly hidden by handprints and shadows and the lines weaving, but it was there.

  I bent down and got closer.

  I saw the word—Nothing—tattooed in someone’s handwriting. Gasping, my hand flew to my mouth, and my eyes shifted, refocusing on another spot on his chest. I saw another word—Loser. Same handwriting. And another—Worthless. This one was written around the curve of his ribs.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered behind my hand.

  The words were everywhere. Pain. Hate. Pathetic. Undeserving. They were hidden all over him. On the inside of his arm—the one closest to me that was bent up, and I was sure on the other one as well. I just couldn’t see it. Curving around to his back, and in the center of his chest where his heart was. I looked down to the hand resting on his stomach. On the top, spanning to his knuckles, was a tattoo of a skull with roses coming out of its eye sockets, but when I leaned closer and searched, I could see the word hidden in the shading.

  Space.

  “Didn’t have parents. Had a woman who didn’t want me around. That’s it. I took up space.”

  I whimpered so loudly, I was shocked I didn’t wake him.

  Turning away, I clamped my hand over top of my other one and pressed down as wave after wave of agony pulsed beneath my skin and sunk into my bones like a cancer. This pain was rotting, capable of tearing me apart from the inside out. It would destroy all of me, I just knew it.

  I rushed out of the room before I made another sound.

  The tears were instant, pouring out of me, fast and heavy. There was no stopping them. Pushing the bathroom door closed behind me, I sank to the floor in front of the toilet and sobbed into my hands. I was as far away from the door as I could get without climbing inside the shower.

  Maybe I should’ve done that.

  I wasn’t in there a minute before the door swung open and I’d been found, and because I didn’t want Sean knowing why I was really crying since I wasn’t ready to have this conversation with him, being in the current state I was in and feeling the unrelenting weight of my emotions ripping me apart, I lunged at the toilet and hung my head in it.

  “The fuck?”

  His voice hit me over the sound of my cough/sob, which was the only word I knew to describe what I was doing.

  After flushing nothing but toilet water, I wiped at my mouth and lifted my head, blinking away tears so I could see him.

  “I just really hate throwing up,” I whispered, then immediately began crying again, because he was standing there with those words written on his body and I was mad at myself for not finding Sean sooner so I could’ve somehow prevented him from doing that to himself.

  With worry in his eyes, Sean stepped inside the bathroom and squatted down beside me. He placed his hand on my lower back. “You still got more to get out of you?” he asked.

  I stared into his perfect face, belonging to this perfect man, who had overcome so much to be here.

  “No, I think that’s it,” I said, crying more heavily now. “I-I’m done.”

  Sean stood, grabbed the small towel off the sink and got it damp. He wiped my mouth with it. Then he set the towel aside and lifted me off the floor so I was cradled against his chest.

  I buried my face in his neck and sobbed.

  “Shit. You really fuckin’ hate throwing up, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  I wasn’t lying. I really did hate throwing up. Typically, it didn’t upset me like this, but I was okay leading him to believe that.

  Feeling the bed underneath me, I opened my eyes as Sean sat me down on the edge. I wiped a few tears away and watched him slide a small bucket out from between the trunk and the bed. He sat it beside my feet.

  “Why do you have a bucket in here?” I asked him.

  “Nightmares,” was all he said.

  I pulled my lips between my teeth and trapped a sob inside my mouth.

  Oh, God.

  Oh, God.

/>   He didn’t need to say any more. He got sick just from thinking about that awful woman and the childhood he’d had. I just knew he did.

  I was softly crying still when Sean lifted my feet into bed and forced me to lie back in the spot he had been asleep in.

  He pulled the quilt up and around my body and tucked it in, then he climbed in himself, planting his knee in the bed below my feet and getting up beside me. He lay on his back. He gave me all the covers. He didn’t take any for himself.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  I nodded, swallowing down the emotion thickening my throat. Knowing I wasn’t anywhere near finished crying, especially after what Sean had just revealed to me, I turned away from him and faced the door.

  So many things filled my head, but one thing was standing out over all the others. I wanted Sean knowing he belonged. That people cared for him, and wanted him around.

  “Sundays are family dinner nights at Syd and Brian’s house,” I began, tears still pouring down my face, but my voice sounding steadier than it had been. “You’re invited. It’s a standing thing, no matter who can make it or not. Sometimes people bring a dish, but it’s not required. You absolutely do not have to bring a dish. Tomorrow, I obviously can’t make it and neither can you due to work, but if you’re up for it, I would really like it if you’d accompany me to the next one I’m able to attend.”

  Sean was silent for a moment, then I felt the bed move behind me, and a second later, Sean’s chest was pressing up against my back. His arm draped over my waist, and he buried his nose in my hair.

  I could feel his warm breath on the back of my scalp.

  “Um, is that a yes?” I asked hesitantly.

  I felt his head move. He’d lifted his chin.

  That was a yes.

  I closed my eyes and felt my body melt deeper into the mattress.

  Hands folded in front of my mouth, I used my fingers to wipe my tears away, then I looked off the bed.

  “Sean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m gonna get you to a place where you no longer need that bucket.”

  His arm around my body tensed. I knew that was him hearing me again.

  And since he said no more, that thought was only confirmed, and knowing Sean was accepting my promise, I was able to quietly cry myself to sleep.

  The next day at work, I was trying to keep focus on all the positive things that had happened the night before, but I was having difficulty keeping my mind off those words marked into Sean’s skin.

  I was also wondering while taking down an order how often he used that bucket, not that frequency would matter much to me at this point. Just the fact that Sean had a bucket in his room for when he got sick from nightmares was enough to make me want to go postal.

  Never in my life had I daydreamed about torturing people before. It was all I could seem to do today, though. I’m talking Saw movie torture. I’d go all out.

  “Bastards,” I mumbled.

  “I’m sorry?”

  I looked up from the ticket I was writing on and focused on the man seated at the booth.

  Angelo—he was a young guy I’d waited on a couple times before; I recognized him. Italian. Dark hair. Always came in here wearing business attire. He smiled at me a lot and liked chatting me up whenever I came by his table to check on him.

  I always got a nice tip too.

  “Uh, sorry. Nothing.” I gave him a smile. “Would you like fries, coleslaw, or homemade chips with your burger?”

  “The chips good?”

  “Oh yeah,” I answered, and I wasn’t just saying that either. Sean’s chips were the bomb. “They got a little seasoning on them. Just the right amount of kick. Trust me.”

  “All right. Chips it is.” He handed me his menu and grinned.

  I smiled back. “I’ll put your order right in. Let me know if you need anything in the meantime.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  After sticking the menu up at the podium, I tore the ticket off my book and headed for the kitchen window, passing Tori along the way, who was training a new girl—Lauren—and looked ready to gouge her own eyes out.

  At least I wasn’t the only one struggling to be a people person today.

  “Cheesy crab burger and some chips,” I announced, sliding my ticket across the window to Sean, and, getting his eyes when he looked up, smiling at him.

  I didn’t need to be a people person. I was still a Sean person.

  “I’ve decided that when you do make me dinner, I’d like those chips on the menu,” I announced.

  His eyes brightened, like he was proud of himself, and that made me seriously happy. “That right?”

  “Yep. I’ll let you decide on everything else. But I’m going to be adamant about the chips. I’d eat them every night if I could.” I winked at him before turning away, grabbing a small stack of napkins and carrying it over to Angelo.

  “Order’s in. It’ll be out shortly,” I told him.

  A slow smile twisted across his mouth. “Thanks, Shay.”

  “No problem.”

  “You seeing anyone?”

  His question caught me off guard, and I stumbled a little as I was turning away. “Uh…” Our eyes met. “What?”

  He laughed. “Dating. Boyfriend. You got one?” Leaning back in his chair, Angelo regarded me with kind eyes, but his mouth was all trouble, and lifted flirtatiously.

  I glanced back at the kitchen, saw Sean busy working and concentrating hard, then turned back to Angelo.

  How to answer this…

  “It’s complicated,” I settled on. “And new. Very new. Very, very new.”

  Angelo chuckled. “Bad timing on my part then. I should’ve said something last month.”

  I shrugged and offered him a smile.

  I didn’t know how to respond. Angelo was good looking and always nice to me, but would I have been interested last month?

  No. Probably not. I was in love with Sean last month…

  “Well, your order will be up soon,” I repeated, not knowing what else to say. This was slightly awkward.

  Angelo kept the grin he was wearing, revealing not one hint of awkwardness on his part, then he pulled out his phone when it beeped from his pocket.

  Just as I turned away, Tori grabbed my elbow and hurriedly pulled me to the back of the restaurant, directly opposite the kitchen.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “What nothing. You need to fill me in on the details,” she said, releasing my elbow and standing to face me. “I’ve been too busy training Little Miss Zero Personality to get a moment of gossip time. Now, spill it.”

  I looked over Tori’s shoulder and watched Lauren study her nails like there was some big, important, hidden message written all over them. Then I glanced at the kitchen window again.

  Sean was looking at me. I waved at him before turning back to Tori.

  “Oh, my God, you totally made your move,” she said, a big grin on her face. “What happened? Tell me now.”

  No way was I planning on telling anyone about the words I’d seen tattooed on Sean’s skin. Or about the bucket. And since I hadn’t really made my move, I wasn’t sure there was too much to tell.

  Then I remembered all those positive things I was trying to keep focus on. The memory of them filled me up inside. I instantly felt better.

  “Well, I didn’t exactly get to make my move, but I did spend the night with him.”

  Tori’s eyes widened. “Get out,” she whispered.

  “Oh, I’m out. And it was amazing.”

  “Did he hold you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Kiss?”

  “No, but I got a legit hug out of him, and it was the best hug of my life, hands down. Plus, he sort of held my face while we were talking. His thumb was definitely on my jaw.”

  Tori smiled and held up her hand.

  I high-fived it.

  Then both of us started giggling.

  “This is awesome. When ar
e you going to make your move, though?” she asked.

  “When the time is right and when he’s ready,” I told her, and seeing confusion in Tori’s eyes, I explained. “He needs time to process. I can’t rush him. He’s been through so much, T, and it isn’t easy for him to accept any goodness put on him. His first reaction is to reject it.”

  “Well, he has you now, plus he’s got his kids back. And I told Jamie to get on board and pull Stitch into the group.”

  “That’s seriously cool of you, T. Thanks.”

  Tori played it off with a shrug. “Stitch is in with us,” she said. “He’s got a family for life now, no matter what. We’ll take care of him.”

  They would take care of him.

  Hearing that, I threw my arms around her.

  Dogwood Beach wasn’t full of good people. It was full of the best people.

  Chapter Fourteen

  SEAN

  One Week and Four Days Later

  I tied my hair back and washed up at the sink, then I stepped inside the kitchen, where J.R. was watching between the fryer and the patty he had searing on the grill.

  Turned out the kid wasn’t too bad after all. Any shift I needed covered or switched, he handled. I didn’t even mind all the talking he did back here anymore. I was used to it.

  “Hey,” I greeted him.

  J.R. lifted his chin. “What’s up? Your girl’s on the warpath today.”

  “What?”

  He tipped his chin at the window.

  Brow pulling tight, I stepped up to the counter and scanned the floor until I spotted Shayla.

  She was up at the front stacking menus together in a way it had me wondering what the fuck those menus did to piss her off.

  The one guy seated at a table was watching her with suspicion. He was the only person waiting on food.

  Typically, this place being dead wasn’t a good thing. Right now, I was thinking differently about that.

  “She been like this all morning?” I asked, keeping my focus on Shayla.

  “Yep. Got here and went straight for Nate’s office, then came out of it looking ready to lay the smackdown on somebody. From what I can tell, she’s pissed off at everyone. She’s even been throwing tickets at me, and I know I didn’t do shit.”