by Fields, MJ
After our exchange, he should have been defensive, tell me all men aren’t dogs, or simply walk away, hell if he had called me a bitch I wouldn’t have blamed him.
I was.
But no, the man who GQ should create an Inked edition, just to showcase him, looked at me and said, “I was wondering how much of my cock would come out of that smart little mouth of yours when I bury it in your pussy.”
Who the hell says that! Who?
Him. G-inked.
God, why was I still thinking of him. Was it the way his clothes fit him, the black long sleeve tee that hugged his shoulders, his arms, even his damn abs, adoringly yet mockingly.
Like they were saying, ‘Don’t you wish you were me?’
Well, if the shirt had eyes it would be jealous of his dark jeans because they were housing that exquisite ass.
Christ, I try to scold myself. What is wrong with me?
Desire? Need?
Before he stormed out I was ready to tell him to prove it.
Prove it?
I wanted to taunt and provoke him, like he did me, except I’m sure he didn’t walk out of here hard and I swear I am burning inside, and that hasn’t happened in over a year, not after my last ‘forever’.
Fuck men.
Fuck him and his perfect dark brown hair that was cut short on the sides and left longer on top, begging to be gripped. Fuck him and those almost mystical amber brown eyes that were deep and alluring. Fuck him and those perfect lips and fuck him and that perfectly trimmed scruff that I wish were scratching against my thighs.
“Fuck him,” I say it out loud so it holds more truth.
I look down at the tip he left and after the initial shock of the crisp hundred-dollar bill staring me in the face, I laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Mandee, the owner’s daughter and my best friend, asks from behind me.
I hold up the bill. “Apparently he had some extra cash to blow when his hooker bailed.”
“Dang,” she grins.
I love this girl, love her and I would do anything for her. Including tearing apart a man like, whatever the hell his name was, to make her realize it’s okay to be strong, to not allow men to walk all over you.
“Mandee,” her father, William, calls from the back room where his office is located. “I need a minute.”
“You okay alone?” she asks, giving my hand a squeeze.
“I’m fine, go,” I nod and grab the bar mop to wipe down the spot his drink sat.
When I hesitate because I don’t want to completely wipe him away, I curse at myself under my breath, and force myself to wipe it clean.
Focus.
Men suck, they’re good for two things, peen and procreation.
Be strong for Mandee.
Mandee.
Mandee was in a horrible relationship, the guy’s was a first-class dick. Controlling, emotionally abusive, and a cheat.
I’d had my share of the same, got through it all fine, she would do the same.
My love life was a joke.
My first boyfriend, Paul, was preppy and came from a good family, the most prominent in our town. He made good grades and was one of my very best friends.
Graduation day from high school, my best friend, Gal, and I exchanged BFF necklaces. You know the one heart two necklace thing. We laughed about how dorky they were, but we didn’t care. We were going in separate directions, and we would forever be the same people we were at that moment, best friends.
Paul gave me a ‘promise’ / ‘pre-engagement’ ring and I gave him my V card. We were also going to different schools, but we would spend every break, holiday, long weekend together.
Funny thing about promises, necklaces, and rings. They can be tossed down the toilet and flushed just like shit.
A week before I left for college, I walked in on Paul and Gal, having sex. Yeah, nice huh?
After the initial shock and freak out, I walked out leaving them both sobbing.
After my week of hell and wondering what it was I did to make this happen and realizing not a damn thing, I told them best of luck and wrote them both off. Then I changed my phone number because clearly, they didn’t want me to write them off. They both called, left messages, and sent me texts. I didn’t reply to any of them.
Done.
I was done.
I left my past behind and readied myself to live the life of a strong, independent woman when I went to Rutgers to study psychology.
That’s where Mandee and I met, bonded over pizza, taco Tuesday, and bad relationships. We became best friends.
Which is also why I’m here, well that and with a bachelor in psychology, there isn’t a hell of a lot to do that will make the money and impact I want to on society. So from now until the end of summer, I’m considering my options as I bartend here, at Carlin’s, three nights a week and wait tables four days a week. Two jobs are necessary; I’ll need the cash if I choose option two.
One option is to never use my degree because it’s a fact, people don’t change unless they want to or want to manipulate someone into thinking they will, for them, or option two, going back to school and getting my doctorate.
No pressure, I laugh at myself. None.
“Got a minute?” Mandee calls from the back.
I nod and walk back to her. By the look on her face, I can tell she’s upset.
“What’s up?” I ask truly concerned.
She looks down, I know that look. Oh shit, I think, it’s me.
“Dad,” she whispers. “He was just upset that the guy in the nice clothes left.”
“The guy was a dick,” I sneer.
“I’m not mad,” she whispers a little louder. “He doesn’t want...us, driving away business.”
“By us, you mean me,” I sigh.
“No. I mean us,” she smiles softly. “We just got to be a little less bad butt.”
“Again by we, you mean me, and by butt you mean,” I pause when her father, walks past us nose in the air. “Ass,” comes out in a growl and is totally directed at him. He doesn’t notice.
Self-righteous, self-serving, tool, I think.
She smirks, knowing exactly how I feel about the man, and nods.
“All right then,” I roll my eyes and we both get back to work.
When I pull down the long dirt road I can’t help but smile, even though I’m exhausted, at the place I have called home for a week now.
Mandee was a little disappointed that I turned down the offer to stay with her, and her father, but two days there was enough to tell me I had made the right choice in finding my own place.
I wanted to be free, I wanted to ‘adult’. I had gone from my parents’ home to the dorms. It was time to spread my wings and fly, to rise from the ashes, like my namesake, the Phoenix, implied I could.
When I saw the ad on Google, for a two-bedroom cabin, at a place called ‘Falcon’s Landing’ it was almost as if it was meant to be.
When I called and learned the rent was much more than I wanted to spend. I was shocked that the woman asked what I could afford. Who does that?
I told her a thousand dollars with everything included was the most I could spend if I was going to be able to save for graduate school.
She sent me an e-mail with pictures of the cabin and the land surrounding it.
It was stunning.
She told me that only one of the ten cabins was rented and the main house, which was stunning, was unoccupied most of the time. She said that the property was a work in progress, and needed a lot of work before the owner would be ready to open it up.
The one cabin rented was to an elderly woman, Mags, who was a friend of the property owners’ family. She looked after it and was hell bent on doing lawn work, gardening and landscaping. The woman laughed and then sighed, “We couldn’t tell her no.”
She spoke of her with kindness and adoration.
“I’d love to help her,” came out of my mouth before I had actually thought about it.
“But I said a thou-”
“It’ll be nice to know someone is there to check on Mags once in a while. And if you don’t mind mowing occasionally, well that would be nice too.”
I immediately received another e-mail with a rental agreement and that was it, I was now an independent woman, with a place of my own, responsibilities, and an old woman to keep company.
Old people, they rank right up there with babies, I would prefer to be around them over anyone. They are wisdom and knowledge.
After losing my grandmother, the woman who was for all intent and purpose, myself and my siblings’ parent, I felt almost alone. My parents worked all the time at the salon they own, and now the chain of them, they were never home. My Nan, she was always there.
When I lost her, I lost my ‘person’, my wisdom and my source of answers to all life’s questions. I also gained the responsibility of three siblings, and although they aren’t babies, (I preferred them when they were), it was a lot for me to take on while trying to be a teenager, keep my grades up, and ...become the me I was supposed to be.
I hit the brakes and grab my phone and hit my newly added country playlist as I look at the view in front of me. The place I will rise, and live, and learn about me.
No better place to get to know yourself than in the middle of the woods. It’s also scary as hell for someone like me, who’s lived in the city and surrounded by so many people it’s a wonder there was enough oxygen for us all to survive.
Here, there is plenty and with Thomas Rhett’s “Die A Happy Man” playing over my Jeep’s speakers, I smile knowing whatever decision I make at the end of the summer, I had this. This beautiful place to come and breathe.
When I pull up beside my place, I do the usual, look out every window for possible bears or forest creatures, make sure my cabin key is firm in hand, and grab my bag, as I ready for the sprint to the safety of my place.
Once inside I laugh at myself, at telling myself once again, that I will get used it. Then I strip as I walk to the bathroom to shower, before jumping into my nice comfy bed because my goal for tomorrow is to get up before Mags, and have a cup of coffee ready for her before she has one for me.
*****
I wake to “Hello World” by Lady Antebellum. I sigh and roll to my side and look at the window and realize I hadn’t drawn the curtains when I went to sleep. I’m glad I didn’t.
The upper edge of the sun is creeping up over the crest of the tall pines. Its size is tremendously impressive, its color orange and yellow. The clouds, I think as I sit up and stretch, my God the clouds are almost purple, majestic. It’s awe-inspiring, humbling, it gives me the feeling that I do not have to be the person who helps make everyone’s fears, or insecurities diminish, by showing them just how big and bad I am so they can feel they can be that too.
There is something bigger than all of us, something that is consistent and beautiful. Mandee needs to see this, she needs to see it from here, this miraculous view.
I love it here. Best decision I ever made was to put myself first, sort of. Well, I’m working on it anyway.
I swing my legs over the side of the huge log framed bed and slide off. My feet hit the cool wooden floor and it sends shivers throughout my body.
I quickly step into my slippers and grab my red flannel robe and wrap up in it as I walk to the window and watch quietly for the rising sun to warm my soul as it does the earth.
After a few quiet and reflective moments, I hurry out to the kitchen sink, where I push up on my tip-toes and look out the window to see if Mags has beat me to it again. I don’t see her so I turn on the water and fill the pot.
Peace, I feel at peace in my quiet country space.
The song changes and The Dixie Chicks play “Wide Open Spaces” and even though I have just recently discovered this song, I decide it actually discovered me.
“She needs, wide open spaces, room to make a big mistake,” I sing along with the song and smile.
I’m here for me, no one to take care of but me, no one to let down but me, and I’m going to do it up.
Well, after making coffee for Mags, going to work at the diner, coming back here to shower and change so I don’t smell like a deep fryer, before going to the bar and working a six-hour shift, and then coming back here to do it all over again.
One more day, I tell myself, then you have two whole days off to enjoy this place.
Home.
Chapter Three
Waking Up
Gage
I sit up feeling overheated, the sun is beating down on me through the wall of windows facing the east. I look over at my alarm clock, it’s ten in the morning. Could have slept longer if the fucking sun wasn’t doing its thing. After all, I’m on vacation, I grumble at the thought, throw the covers off of my body, and roll over burying my face in the white sheets determined to sleep until a little before noon when I have to go and meet the property manager to go over some contracts.
I feel like hell, haven’t drunk that much in years. Jameson isn’t my damn friend. Well the half bottle I drank when I got back from that fucking dive bar wasn’t. Had I not drank it I would have gotten in my truck and gone back and told that little shit behind the bar that she was fucking mistaken — real fucking confused, because she wasn’t pissed at me, she fucking wanted me. Guaranteed I left her in a puddle. Probably still standing on that stool trying to figure out how not to drown in the pool of her own need no doubt flooding the place.
“Fuck,” I grumble as I roll over knowing damn well my dick is gonna be hard as fuck thinking about her dark brown eyes that were instantly liquid when I told her what the hell I was thinking, her plump lips that I thought of when I nearly pulled my cock off getting myself off last night, not just once, not even twice, three fucking times I came hard to the thoughts of her I had stuck in my head.
“That’s enough motherfucker,” I scold my dick as I push up off the bed.
I pull open the French doors and walk outside on the deck. If looking out over my land and seeing all the shit I need to do on my ‘vacation’ doesn’t make me forget about the cock block I wanted to nail, nothing would.
I look down at the tire swing and my chest squeezes thinking about the last time I was here, with my boy, with Brand. He loves that fucking swing. Loves fishing too. Now that that the ex has gotten her shit together, he’s spending time with her.
First three years of his life we were married, he was the only thing good about a marriage that was fucked from go. One-night stand, resulting in a kid, I did the right fucking thing, like always, and married her ass.
Thought it would be fine, but there is nothing fine with living a lie for years.
When we split, I didn’t want to ever look at her again, told her that, hated the sight of her, but Brand, Brand deserved better than that bitch. I was right, he did. Went to pick him up one morning and some fucking drunk stumbled out of her bedroom in tightie whities, and she was clearly fucking hungover, possibly still drunk. Brand was three and a half.
I took him, got full custody, and she threatened to fight it, that threat went away when I told her I’d pay her ass to stay away. She took thirty grand and was gone for two fucking years. Wish she never came back, cunt.
But the cunt went to school, got a degree in nursing, got her shit together and went above my head. I’m a tall motherfucker so going above my head is a feat in itself. She went to my mom.
My own mother pushed me to allow visits now a year and a half later, after supervised visits for a year and a psych exam, and she’s got him for a month.
Not a fucking thing I can do about it. If I push, I’ll lose him. That boy has been my little tool belt for five years. If I want him to be in my life, I need to do what’s right for him and every motherfucker involved, no matter how much I hate it.
And I hate it.
*****
I walk into ‘Hope’
s Table’ a diner in town to meet Shirley to go over the plans and grab a couple contracts.
I see her wave from the corner.
Shirley is a trip, been friends with my mom for years, well since they bought the property here back years ago.
She’s single, in her fifties, and looks maybe thirty-five. I’m sure it’s got something to do with any number of the docs she’s dated, which is about one a year since her divorce. She’s not shy about her lifestyle, not even a little, she knows what she wants, gets it too.
I walk over and sit down and she smiles. “Ordered coffee, didn’t know if you’d had your fill already today or not. Me, I live on the stuff, so if you don’t want it black and strong, I’ll drink yours too.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say as I shrug off my leather jacket and toss it in the booth.
I push up my sleeves as I slide into the seat.
“Well look at you,” she grabs my hands, both of them and looks at my knuckles. “Over Come.”
She looks up at me after inspecting them, still holding my hands. “And what does this mean?”
“Means overcome,” I smile. I hate that people want to know what my ink means to me so I don’t tell them, usually I give them some shit answer to fuck with them.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I hear a very soft mumble before the clank of the cups and I look up.
I smirk, can’t help it, it’s the bartender.
“Morning,” I nod and pull my hands back and away from Shirley as I sit back with a shit ass grin on my face because she looks like she didn’t sleep for shit either.
She rolls her eyes and looks at Shirley.
“What can I get for you, a burger, a clue?” Shirley looks confused and the little morsel leans down and whispers, “A box of condoms because this guy, he’s what you would call a male whore.”
Shirley laughs out loud and the tiny shit looks at her like she’s crazy. “If he’d have me, I’d chance the STI.”
Itty Bitty’s jaw drops, I fucking love that look.
“I’ll take a double burger deluxe, with the works” I say before she has a chance to say a damn thing.
“Make that two. I plan on burning off some calories tonight,” Shirley says and it couldn’t be more perfect.
