“Christ, are you fucking someone else? And your parents don’t care?”
That’s when I came into the scene. I stepped up next to Violet. I looked right at Davis. I imagined my fist crushing his chubby face.
“I know, Hank,” I said. “And, yes, I know Violet and her family. No, I’m not fucking her. I came to check on a sick man.”
“I don’t give a shit about cancer right now,” Davis spat. “I care about what she’s doing.”
When he said that, he thrust his finger at Violet like she was an object. That’s when I reached for Davis. I grabbed his whole hand in my fist and squeezed.
He let out a weak-ass sound and looked surprised. He tried to step back, but I wasn’t letting him get away from me.
“Don’t you ever…”
“Stop,” Violet said. She put a hand to my arm and a hand to Davis’s arm. “Stop right now, Mason. Let him go.”
I looked at Violet. “Seriously?”
“Yes. And you should go. It’s time to go.”
“That’s what I thought,” Davis said.
I let Davis go. I looked over at Violet. She was confused on what to do right then.
I looked back and saw Hank standing against the archway of the living room.
“Hank,” I said. “It was good to see you. Keep up the good fight.”
“Mason…I’m…”
I nodded.
There was a silent understanding between us.
I then looked at Violet one more time. “Thanks for having me, Violet.”
I stepped forward and threw my shoulder into Davis, sending him back with ease. Davis then found his balls and decided to stand up for himself a little. He grabbed at my shoulder and tried to push me, thinking he was going to get me off the porch. I planted my feet, and Davis couldn’t move me.
“Davis, stop!” Violet yelled. “You’re going to get hurt!”
“Listen to her, man,” I warned. “You’re lucky I haven’t dropped you yet.”
Davis let me go and put up his fists. “Come on. Fight me then. You stupid asshole.”
My hands were balled up tight into fists. I was ready to go. But then I thought about how it would look. Poor Barb was probably emotional in the kitchen. She had enough shit to deal with. And Hank didn’t need all that excitement on his body as it fought back against fucking cancer.
And Violet?
It was like I didn’t know her anymore.
She was lost in a world that only she could escape from.
“You’re not worth it, man,” I said. “Have a great night.”
I left the porch with Davis throwing out comments that I let bounce off me. I never did that. Nobody fucking talked to me that way and got away with it. But I did it for Barb. For Hank. For Violet.
I got into my truck and left.
I was ready for a fight. But then I got this ripping feeling across my chest. I had the goddamn urge to cry. Cry. Actually cry. That’s what Violet did to me. There was only one other woman that could do that to me. And that woman was gone.
But Violet wasn’t gone.
Violet was back at her parents’ house, trying to manage the entire goddamn world. But all she needed to do was look into her own heart and just fucking follow it.
Yeah, I was an asshole. Yeah, I’d probably hurt her again and again. Yeah, she’d end up hating me. But you know what? Nobody could love her like I did. And that was a fact.
But to prove it…Violet would have to come to me—for good.
16
A HOT Shower
(Violet)
“That’s the guy?” Davis growled.
The way he paced back and forth then darted at me left me nervous. Sadly, Davis wouldn’t have been able to do that if my father wasn’t sick. Dad would have been out on the porch, socking Davis in the gut if he saw him lunge at me the way he did.
“Davis…”
“Tell me right now,” Davis said. “Tell me!”
“That’s the guy!” I yelled back. “Fine. That’s him. That’s Mason. Why does it matter?”
“The guy you were fucking before me was invited into your house?”
“He and Dad bonded over a truck or something,” I said. “And when Mason found out Dad was sick, he wanted to visit.”
“He was the bartender,” Davis said. “You just sat there, and you knew…”
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked. “You get jealous. You get angry. You want me to be your one and only, Davis, but that’s not how it works. I can’t change the past.”
“Because you couldn’t fucking open your legs then?” Davis growled. “But then you’ll do it for some tattooed biker-looking freak. I think I lost respect for you.”
I gasped. I stepped back, and my back bounced off the door.
“You lost respect for me?” I asked.
“Yeah. I did. Look at you. You’re not the person I thought. You haven’t talked to me about your business deals in days. You seem off. And now you have some guy here. And your parents are okay with it? So what am I, Violet?”
I felt like someone was cutting into my gut. Davis was right. Oh, shit, he was so right in so many ways. But my heart…
“You never had an ex?”
“I’ve had exes,” Davis growled. “But my ex isn’t at my parents right now, laughing and sipping fucking tea.”
“Davis…”
“No,” he said. “Bullshit. That’s what I call. You were hurt by me before? Huh? It was because of the same thing. You couldn’t find yourself, Violet. You couldn’t bring yourself to let me touch you. I had no choice but to sleep with other women then. Okay? That wasn’t on me. That was on you. You let that happen. And now you’re doing the same thing.”
“That’s enough, Davis.”
Dad now stood at the door.
“Oh, great,” Davis said. “The limping savior.”
“Davis!” I yelled.
“I don’t give a shit,” he growled.
“You walk away now, son,” Dad said. “If I come out there.”
“What are you going to do?” Davis said, challenging my father.
Holy shit…no…
I lunged at Davis, grabbed his arm, and pulled.
“Please,” I said. “I’m begging you. Not my father, Davis. Please. He’s sick.”
“I feel sick,” Davis whispered in a growl. We walked off the porch. “What are you trying to do to me? To us? I thought this was real?”
Davis’s phone started to beep. He checked, then looked away from me. A grin crept across his face for a second.
“I have to go,” he said. “Work.”
“Work? Right now?”
“I have nothing else here with you. And certainly not your parents. You can beg me all you want, but you’re just battling guilt. And you know that’s true. Guilt. It’s all guilt.”
“Davis…I want to talk about this with you…”
“I don’t want to hear a thing you have to say. Don’t come to the apartment tonight.”
“It’s my apartment,” I said.
Davis laughed. He looked back at me after taking a few steps. “Nothing is yours, Violet. Remember that. Without me, you are nothing. You’ll learn that from now on.”
Davis walked away.
I heard the door open behind me.
“Violet, are you okay?”
I shook my head. “No, Dad, I’m not okay.”
I heard Dad struggling to walk to the edge of the porch. When I turned and looked up at him, I felt the tears fill my eyes. He wasn’t the man I was used to seeing. The treatment and illness was showing easily. I hated it. I hated everything. I hated that I had tasted the air of success, and everything around me fell apart.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have grabbed that pencil-neck by the neck…”
“It’s my problem, Dad,” I said. “I was wrong with some things.”
I walked up the porch and grabbed at him to help him back inside.
“You listen to me right now,” he said to m
e at the door. “You find what you want and you get it. Understand? If you keep walking in circles you’re going to get nowhere.”
The words stuck inside me.
I got Dad to the couch and went to the kitchen to see Mom.
She took one look at me and put her hands to her hips. “So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to see him…and fix things.”
“Good,” she said. “You should. All we want is for you to be happy.”
I left my parents’ house feeling tired, worn-out, sad, and desperate for a hot bath and a glass of wine. I could get that by going to my apartment. I could smooth things over with Davis and start a new foot. But that would be walking in a circle, wouldn’t it?
Then again, driving back to Mason would be the most hurtful circle of all.
I couldn’t explain it, and I wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong.
But I needed him.
I needed everything about him.
The good. The bad. The secrets.
I needed to feel alive and whole again.
When the door opened and Mason filled the doorway, I waited for it to slam shut. Not that I would blame him for doing that to me. I deserved it.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. About all of that.”
“Took you only a few hours to get here,” he said. “Does this mean you love me more than him?”
“I don’t love him, Mason,” I said. “Please know that.”
“But you love me?”
“Does that matter to you? Are you capable of feeling love? I’m trying to understand, Mason. Understand why you hide the way you do. And understand why I care so much.”
“It’s simple,” he said. “You want a distraction from your life. And my tragic past is going to be just that. To fill up all your space, Violet.”
Maybe he was right.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“I’m here, Mason. I don’t want to be anywhere else right now.”
“Of course. Come on in, then.”
He backed up and I stepped into his apartment yet again. I felt pathetic for a few seconds, but then something caught my eye.
“Mason! There’s a fire in your kitchen!”
He looked back at the flames in the sink and moved casually toward them. I was shocked. What was he burning?
He turned on the water, and the flames sizzled while smoke rose up.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just burning something.”
“What is it?” I asked.
I rushed to the sink and looked in. Mason then slipped his hands around my waist and pulled me back. But it wasn’t before I saw two names.
Violet…Kate…
He spun me around and put me in the corner of the counter. “Don’t butt in here, babe.”
“I saw my name. I saw Kate’s name. What was that?”
“Nothing.”
He walked away. I went after him. “Don’t do this, Mason. Please give me something.”
“Beer’s in the fridge. Menus are on the side of fridge. Figure out what you want for dinner and I’ll buy.”
“I’m lost!” I yelled. “I’m fucking lost! I lost everything when I lost you, Mason.”
He stopped walking. But he didn’t look back.
“I lost it all. I gave up my apartment to move into this place with you. And I left wanting you to come after me. I wanted you to prove that you really did love me. I was scared because you did hurt me, just like you said you would. Then I found a place for myself. Then Mom called and said Dad was sick. I thought it was a joke. I thought it was the man-flu that Dad gets where he thinks he’s dying. You weren’t there, Mason. Sitting at the kitchen table. Hearing the word cancer. That was the table where I’d sit and Mom and Dad would joke and laugh. Where they set the foundation of a good marriage in my heart.”
I started to hyperventilate. I was having a panic attack. Everything bad was replaying in my mind, and it was happening fast and repeating over again and again and again.
“And I can’t control it,” I said. “I can’t stop a thing. I have money…but I have nothing…Mason…”
I saw him turn. He was facing me. The room was starting to spin a little. I reached for the counter and missed it. I stumbled to my right, and Mason quickly got to me before I hit the fridge and hurt myself.
“Jesus, Violet,” he said, his voice almost echoing.
“I can’t…”
“Come back to me, babe,” he said.
Mason walked me to the counter and lifted me up, plopping me on it.
“Deep breaths, damn,” he said. “In and out, babe. In and out. You need to calm yourself down.”
I listened to him. I stared at him. His dark hair slicked back. That long hair that wasn’t there when we first met. But what was there…his eyes. His dimples. The rough and tough persona that he made so real.
The room stopped spinning, and I came back down to reality again.
“Okay,” Mason said. “I’m going to get you a beer.”
I sat on the counter. I glanced at the sink at the charred remains of what looked like paper. Paper that had my name on it. Paper that had Kate’s name on it.
Mason returned with a beer.
I took a drink.
“Mason…”
“I’m sorry, babe,” he cut in.
“What?”
“Sorry. About everything. I didn’t want to cause a scene at your parents’. I just wanted to see Hank.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Get what?”
“Everything about you. Why it mattered so much to see Dad.”
“So I could torture you by being there,” he said. “To watch you squirm. Because I knew you’d never tell them the truth about me. I called your bluff, babe. You lost.”
“So now you’re going to be an asshole to me again?”
“I am who I am. And you’re lucky I didn’t knock that guy out.”
“First you apologize for what happened, and now you’re being a dick to me.”
“I’ve got a dick for you, Violet. Whenever you’re ready to step up and realize what you want.”
“You know what I really want, Mason?”
“What?”
“A hot shower.”
Mason pushed from the counter and pointed. “Have at it.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. You want a shower, go take a fucking shower. But you’re not allowed to lock the door.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious,” Mason said. “You do not lock that door.”
“Are you going to tell me about what’s in the sink?”
“Do not lock the door,” he said, ignoring my question.
“That’s right,” I said. I felt a little spark. The panic had subsided. I wanted to take control. “You’re the fucking fake one, Mason.”
“Oh, you have a voice now?”
“Asshole. That’s what you are. You don’t want to tell me a thing because you’re afraid that when I know the truth about you, I’ll leave. You saw me leave once and know I’d do it again. That scares you, but you’re too big and scared to admit fear. You want to control your own fear, but you can’t. So you grab at everyone else’s fear. Fuck you for that, Mason. Because if you even pretend to care about me, then you know I would never leave if you shared the truth with me. I’m going to take a shower and wash this fucked-up night off me. Then I’m leaving.”
“Running back to pretty boy Davis, huh?”
“That’s none of your business,” I said. “And if you want a visual…just think about me on top of him. Riding him. It doesn’t matter if you were there inside me first, Mason. What matters is that Davis gets me whenever he wants.”
“Get out of my fucking apartment,” Mason growled.
“No,” I said. “First, I shower. Then, I go.”
I walked by him, my entire body shaking from the inside out. I took an attempt at a stand and that was a stand to
take a shower at Mason’s apartment. It was nothing more than a cheap invitation for sex, something I knew I’d regret, because I didn’t want to be the woman who actually cheated. It was bad enough I let Mason breathe on me enough to make me orgasm.
I waited for him to chase me down, but he didn’t. So I had to play my hand, which was to shut the bathroom door and turn on the shower water. I realized then I had no clothes. But the day had really worn on me, and I really wanted that shower. Even if it meant putting on dirty clothes, fine. I did want to have something to eat with Mason. I did want to talk to him and see why Dad’s cancer meant so much to him. There were pieces to this puzzle, and I was finding them. Now I just needed to put them together.
Something had to make sense with Mason.
I left the door unlocked as I was told to do, and I stripped naked, leaving my clothes on the floor.
I stepped into the shower. The moment the water hit me, I let out a long sigh of relief. The water felt so good. I put my head back and let it beat against my chest. I took a deep breath, breathing in the steam. I wanted it all to wash away from me and give me a minute to myself to just breathe.
That’s when the bathroom door opened.
I hugged myself, waiting for the shower curtain to tear open.
But that didn’t happen.
“Mason?” I called out.
“Brought you something to wear,” he said.
“What?”
“A t-shirt, Violet. It’s all I’ve got for you. Figure you would want something to change into. At least until tomorrow. You can throw your stuff back on and go home then.”
I grabbed the shower curtain and peeled it back enough to see him.
“What?” I asked. “Tomorrow?”
“You and the boyfriend are fighting, right?” he asked. “If you need a place to crash, you can have mine.”
“You don’t do sleepovers unless the person is naked.”
“You’re naked right now,” Mason said.
“Yeah…”
“Shut the curtain. I want to play a game with you.”
I closed the curtain and stood there. “A game?”
“You want some truth?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Your clit.”
My eyes popped open wide. “Excuse me?”
“Your clit. Your tender, little clit. The truth…is that if I was in the shower with you, I’d be touching your clit. Just enough with the tip of my middle finger to get you to thrust your hips at me. You’d sink your nails into my arms, knowing that gentle isn’t my nature. And that would be the exact second I’d rub my finger harder against your clit. Pressing, twisting, sliding left to right, making your hips dance to a song that wasn’t fucking playing.”
HATE ME AGAIN: a bad boy romance novel Page 12
