dibs

by Kristi Pelton

“Ha!” she shouted to no one. “I bet you would.”

  I was banking on her being drunk enough to text back. Besides, the Sam I knew wouldn’t back away from a fight, and so far, she hadn’t engaged in this one. So I waited. Literally.

  Please Sam. Talk to me

  Her phone chimed again. She stared down at her hands.

  What’s to talk about?

  Finally! A response.

  Tell me why you went to the club.

  The chime seemed quieter.

  A girl’s gotta eat.

  Of course she had to be witty. I grimaced when I fisted my broken hand.

  Maybe we could just talk. Maybe you don’t have to come out swinging.

  I watched as she stood, pulled her keys out from her purse and stumbled toward her car. Oh hell no… Immediately, I got out and hustled toward her. She cast a quick glance directly at me, looked away, and then suddenly, her head snapped in my direction. She wobbled a bit. Instinctively, I steadied her.

  “Oh my God, you’re like stalking me,” she whispered, somewhat beneath her breath.

  “Oh pipe down. If I was stalking you, you wouldn’t know it.”

  I began steering her toward my car. She surprisingly didn’t fight me.

  “How’s did you…” she shook her head trying to make her words right in her head. “How did you find me then?”

  When I opened the car door for her, she stood and stared at me. God, those damn green eyes.

  “How’d you find me, Mac?”

  She intentionally spoke slowly to better articulate. She was so cute.

  “I put GPS on your car three weeks ago?” I teased. I certainly wasn’t throwing Jake under the bus.

  When her mouth fell open in a muted gasp, I chuckled.

  “You did not!”

  “Get in the car,” I said, laughing.

  “Don’t laugh at me, Mac.”

  That made me laugh harder. “It’s hard not to. You’re adorable. You always have been.”

  Exasperated, she threw her head back, consequently falling into the car, which is exactly where I wanted her. Perfect. I closed the door.

  Once in the car, I headed toward her house.

  “How many woman have there been?”

  Why is that always the question women ask…

  “Sam…”

  “How many, Big Mac?” She threw up air quotes when she said my name.

  “A lot.”

  She steepled her fingers, resting them against her nose.

  I stretched to the back seat, grabbed the manila envelope and handed it to her.

  “What is this?”

  “Well, I know you pretty well. I’m guessing the first thought in your head after you left the club was that I was inside you without a condom. It’s my test results.”

  Laying the envelope in her lap, she shook her head. I assumed in disgust.

  “I thought you said you never went without a condom.”

  As we turned onto her street, I stopped the car just so I could look at her.

  “I haven’t. I hadn’t. Once when I was 15. Then not again—until you.”

  She scowled. “You’re lying! No one goes his or her entire life without using a condom. No matter how old you are. You lie about everything.”

  Once in her driveway, I slammed the gearshift into park and flew around to her door. She struggled getting out, so I helped her, my hand throbbing. I fought to maintain composure.

  “What are you even doing here?” she asked, flipping her shoes off.

  Using perfect caveman tactical skills, I bent down and heaved her ass up and over my shoulder with my good hand.

  “Put me down,” she screeched. I mentally noted we would have to discuss that sound and her never using it in the future. Now was not the time, however.

  “I’m going to vomit straight tequila if you don’t put me down,” she threatened.

  Up the staircase, through her door and right to her bed, I plopped her onto the mattress. I quickly snagged her wrist, cuffed it with the steel handcuff that I’d brought, and then cuffed the wrought iron bedpost with the other.

  “Oh. My. God. Mac! Unlock me, now!” she gritted. Her entire face contorted into an angry mess. “You seriously think I’m going to fuck you, right now?”

  I sat across from her in the wicker chair and hoped my silence answered her request and question.

  “Are you serious? Do you not remember the last time you did this?”

  Somehow I knew that was coming. Predictable.

  “Oh, sweetheart, I remember it clearly. Trust me, nothing like that will ever happen again. We are in the safety of your home.”

  The steel clanged against the iron when she jerked her arm repeatedly. “Seriously, why? Why lock me up?”

  As I stretched my legs out and crossed my feet, I casually laced my fingers behind my head and rested my head against the wall. After a deep breath, I said, “When things didn’t go your way on the cruise, you bolted. You fled the damn ship. Who does that? When things didn’t go your way the other day, you ran away again. I’m not sure if things are going to go your way or not tonight, but I’m thinkin’ you can’t David Copperfield your ass out of this.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I see you took your funny pill today.”

  “I’m a lot of things, Sam. But I’m not a liar. I never lied to you.”

  Her wide-eyed, shocked looked changed quickly to a narrowed-eyed skeptical look. “Really, Mac? How so?”

  “I’m glad you asked, Dr. Casey…I mean, Samantha Williams. Tell me one thing I lied about.”

  “My name is Samantha Williams, Mac. Casey is Bryan’s last name. When I gwadu…graduated,” she corrected her slur of words. “From med school, I got my license and set up my practice with that name.”

  I fixed my gaze on her—her beauty captivated me, making it difficult to put my words together.

  “How should I have told you, Sam?”

  “You told me you were a stripper, Mac!” Her voice was hard and echoed across the room.

  I sat upright. “Bullshit. You are the one who said that. I never confirmed or denied. Hell, I was in shock that you thought I was a stripper and were still talking to me. That gave me hope to think maybe…”

  “Maybe what? If I was ok with you being a stripper…I’d be ok with…” her words trailed off as she clenched her eyes shut.

  “With me being a whore? Say it, Sam. We may as well get it out there.”

  Her eyes slammed into mine, a strained expression crept over her face.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “Don’t what, Sam? Spit the truth…”

  She pursed her lips. “Spit the truth?

  I grinned. “I’m way younger than you. You can’t expect to understand my generational slang. But I’ll teach you if you want.”

  Her icy glare made me chuckle.

  “Word to your mother, M-dawg,” she said drily.

  I readjusted my posture, staring at her.

  “What’s your real name?” she asked quietly.

  I sat at the foot of the bed. I needed to be closer to her.

  “Don’t laugh,” I ordered. “Sherman Herbert McAllister.”

  She rolled her lips inward, fighting the smile that bit at her mouth.

  “Do you understand why I go by Mac?”

  “Yes.”

  We both sat for a moment; silence hung in the air between us…unnecessary questions in her eyes.

  “How did it happen?” she whispered, straightening her leg until her shoe touched my leg.

  Here it was. The moment I’d dreaded since the moment we’d met.

  I inhaled the deepest breath I could get.

  “I…am…going to need to say it all at once. Please, don’t interrupt me, ok?”

  “Ok.”

  Chapter 29 ~ Sam

  As buzzed as my head was with alcohol, my full attention was on the beautiful man in front of me.

  He stood with rounded shoulders and slowly strolled toward the wi
ndow.

  “It’s complicated.” He took another deep breath. “When I was 12, my father was killed in a car accident. He had money. A lot. My mother,” he threw up air quotes when he said her name, disgust dripping from his tone, “or should I say step monster, didn’t really want us. Even though she had played the maternal role for seven years, she had no love for me or my little sister. She had signed a pre-nup, so when my dad died, she got nothing. But by taking care of us, she got to stay in the home and became the payee of our death benefits.”

  He stared into the darkness out the window. Suddenly, a heavy sensation settled over my entire heart.

  “My real mother left when I was four. I never saw her again. My step-mother, however, took great pleasure in making us pay for my father not leaving her anything.”

  An involuntary gasp tore up my throat. He spun around; his eyes crashed into me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Finish, please. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  He twisted his head to the side. “No. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  I shook my head, trying to free my brain from the alcohol. “I just find it ironic that he didn’t want her to have his money, but she could have his kids.” My voice broke. I hated that I sounded weak when I said that. “She hurt you?”

  A puff of air shot out of his mouth as he turned back to the window. I wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “Did she hurt me?” he repeated. “Well, when I was 14 she took my virginity.”

  “Oh, Mac!” I tried to hide the shock in my voice, but I simply couldn’t.

  His head was down; he covered his face with his hands.

  “Please let me finish, Sam.” The hurt, embarrassment, was evident in his voice. I quieted, but my eyes flooded. Jake was 15 now, and I’d kill someone who did that.

  “I remember the first time she offered me—my body—to a friend of hers. I was already six feet tall, mature for my age. She’d taught me…a lot.” The darkness outside seemed to hold his attention. “She’d taught me how to please a woman.”

  The tears spilled over the dams of my lids. The emotional, drunken roller coaster I was on made my stomach turn. I felt the vomit inch up my esophagus.

  “She threatened to use my sister if I didn’t fuck her friends. Her friends even paid her. It was crazy. But hell, I was a 15-year-old getting laid daily. What did I have to bitch about?”

  When I squeezed my eyes closed, the tears ran faster down my face.

  “I remember it all so clearly. Nobody knew. Some of the women were my friends’ mothers. It was my secret. Until I was 16. Somehow my sister found out. Without knowing the threats made against her, she told the counselor at our prep school. My sister was so upset. Hurt for me. Embarrassed too.” He paused, shaking his head.

  “I was seen as the problem in a way. I was having sex for money. That’s the day the police took us. A social worker from the department of children and families stood with me next to a police car. The only thing my mother handed me was a trash sack to throw some clothes in.”

  “Step-mother,” I added. Damn her for doing this to him. I wanted the handcuff unlocked. I wanted to go to him. But none of that explained why he didn’t tell me. I could only watch this strong, controlling man steady his breathing as he agonizingly worked through this.

  “Because I was seen as a sexual deviant, they placed my sister in a different foster home. The one I was placed in is where I met Blake.” His voice was soft. He didn’t look at me. I was glad. I wanted to hear it all, but I was afraid if he saw my tears that he would stop talking.

  “I had my cell phone. The women, most of them, still contacted me. I was 16—almost 17—And now they were paying me to have sex. Hell, I thought it was awesome at the time. I introduced Blake to that world. By the time, we’d graduated from high school, been released from the custody of the state, I thought I was the shit.”

  My tears continued to flow as I pictured what had happened to him.

  “The wheels of fate had already started to turn. I went to college, got an MBA, and started a business in the only thing I knew how to do.”

  Hearing his version of how things happened made it seem not as bad. Finally, his glossy eyed gaze found mine. The moment he looked at me, a painful expression shot across his face.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me, Sam. Don’t!” he gritted. Emotion crept into his voice.

  “I don’t feel sorry for you,” I lied, my tears contradicting my words.

  “I’ll be honest,” Mac whispered. “Business has been good—great. As we began to build a solid clientele, we became very exclusive. Women will pay a lot of money to feel special, wanted.”

  I could relate to that.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “The girls on the ship. You had relationships with them?”

  “No. I’ve never had a relationship. I’ve never wanted one.”

  “Then, why did they seem jealous?”

  “A couple of them were clients. They paid for my attention. They hoped for more.”

  I simply nodded. He was everything a man should be…who wouldn’t want more? They all hoped to be the one to snag him. And here he stood, baring his soul to me in my bedroom.

  “And your sister?”

  As soon as the words were spoken, I regretted it. His face crumbled first, then his body crumpled into the wall. With a grimace of overwhelming pain, his back slid down the wall like the littlest of boys curling up.

  “Mac…” I whispered, but it didn’t pull him from his misery. Something awful had happened. I could feel it. As he sat in a massive heap on the floor with his elbows resting on his knees and his palms grinding into his eyes, I knew he silently wept. I felt it in my bones.

  With intentional force, I clanged my bound hand against the iron bedpost jarring him from his trance. His pain-laden eyes darted up to mine.

  “Unlock me, please…” I begged, my own voice cracking.

  Reluctantly, he stood, crammed his hand into his pocket and strode over to me. With the key in his fingers, he gently lifted my hand and unlocked the cuff. Using the back of his hand, he quickly swiped down his face, erasing any evidence of tears.

  “Come here,” I whispered. He knelt on the bed. The mattress dipped with his weight. Hesitation rested in his eyes.

  “She killed herself, Sam,” he cried out when our arms grasped onto each other in a tight embrace.

  I knew it. “I’m so sorry, Mac,” I wept, burying my face in the crook of his neck. “I’m so sorry.”

  If there was one thing I understood about this man, it was the fact that he was just that…a man. A strong man who struggled with emotion. There was no way I’d force him to look at me or talk. I’d simply hold him indefinitely until he was ready.

  When I stirred, opening my eyes, the blackness in the room was overwhelming. Immediately, I sensed Mac breathing next to me. There was no indication of daylight. The effects of the alcohol had left a small ache behind my left eye.

  “You ok?” he asked. His voice was heavy with sleep but his arms tightened around me. I didn’t know he was awake.

  “No.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I need you to be ok, Mac.”

  His chest expanded with his sharp intake of breath. It was as if God knew not to have a moon tonight. The darkness was welcome.

  “You and Blake are the only two who know about her.”

  I kissed his neck.

  “Tell me, Mac.

  “It was awful.”

  My head rested at the base of his throat, and I felt his Adams apple jut out and back in.

  “I honestly don’t know what happened. It was about nine months after we were placed in foster care. I saw her changing. On our weekly visits, I saw it happening.” Regret tinged his tone. “I told her to be strong. When I was 18, I’d get her back. We’d be together again. I promised her I’d take care of things.”

  The crippling guilt this man had carried around for years broke my hear
t.

  “I still have her ashes,” he whispered. “I’ve held onto them all these years.”

  “What would she have wanted to have happen to them?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “What did she love, Mac? Tell me about her.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve fought hard to forget her.”

  Immediately, I rose up on my elbow. My eyes adjusted to the darkness a bit, and I could see the orbits of his eyes.

  “Mac. Listen to me. Fight hard to remember her. Not to forget,” I whispered, dropping a kiss between his eyes.

  “Remembering is hard.”

  “No, baby,” I said, brushing the back of my fingers over his cheeks. “It hurts to heal. It hurts to remember…but you have to do that to deal with it and move forward. Let me help you.”

  He sucked in a ragged breath and whispered, “Ok.”

  Chapter 30 ~ Mac

  The smell of bacon wafted through the air, pulling me from sleep. The sun crashed through the open blinds, making me squint. I was in Sam’s bed and the entire night flashed back through my mind. I released the deepest of breaths. My past. The relief was freeing… All of it was out there now.

  I chuckled to myself. I’d slept an entire night with the same woman that drove me mad. With the same woman that made me harder than any woman ever. With the same woman that I wanted to spend every night with for the rest of forever. With the same woman that made me want a forever.

  I scrambled out of bed, rinsed my mouth, regretting I didn’t have a toothbrush here, and trotted down the stairs. When I rounded the kitchen doorway, Sam was facing the stove, her hair still damp from a shower. God, she was beautiful.

  I knew this is when she thought she looked her worst but I swear to God, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

  “Smells good in here,” I said with a yawn.

  She spun around with a spatula in her head. Damn, I wanted this girl for as long as we both shall live…

  “You like scrambled eggs?”

  “I do.”

  “Good. Sit.”

  I sat. “You know, you’re gonna have to relinquish that control you love so much if this is going to be a thing.”

  “A thing?” she asked salt and peppering the eggs.