Fix Me_TAT_A Rocker Romance

by Melanie Walker

  Not when I am here though.

  Hell fuckin no.

  She looks at me then, frustrated and hurt. I can see it and I know it hurts her when I go caveman. I do this shit to her too often. I give an inch and get her in my sights then I am pulled twelve back. Whether it be band business, our son or even Tay more often than I would like to admit. But, something always gets in my way and now it's this new guy.

  Tay toyed with me once making me think the other guy in her life was my friend Sully and it made me mad with jealousy. It was never Sully though, she was fucking Robert Black the head of our one-time label. For months she fucked him behind my back until that Thanksgiving over a year ago.

  It was then my world tilted on its axis for the eleventeenth time.

  But it is also what lead me here and I want answers.

  I press my body against hers, letting her feel all of me. My heat, my breath and my now hardening dick. Let her deny me now that I am in her face.

  It hits me then that I would never impose on Tayla the way I do Jen. We would fight and fuck, but it was never a need like this. I crave Jen like a junkie to his pipe. I cannot get enough of this drama. This need and desire. It is the most intense thing I have ever experienced and the shit turns me on.

  "Pick me..." I say and try to kiss her but she pushes me back.

  "Pick you?" She almost screams and I jump back from the contempt in her voice. I opened a wound somehow and I immediately hate myself for doing it. But she is infuriating in her rage and it pisses me off.

  "Yeah!" I yell getting just as pissed off as her. "Pick me and stick around this time instead of chasing after some fucking British smurf!"

  She looks at me like I am crazy, and honestly where she is concerned I am fucking certifiable. "I stuck around God dammit, and that hurricane you keep running into ruins any chance!" She screams and slams her hand on the counter. "Any chance!"

  Tears stream down her cheeks now and I am floored by the accusation and disregard her pain. "I have never went looking for her, she crawls to me for answers and it takes everything in me not to kick her when she is down!" I yell and push from the counter, grabbing her wrists and pressing her to the ugly ass fridge. "I don’t want her."

  I try to cup her face in my hands but she turns her head and slaps my hands away. "Yes! You do!" She starts to sob and I step back, lost and thrown by her words.

  It isn’t that she said them, they are words and I can roll them off. It's that she knows they have truth in them. Some sick and twisted part of me still wanted her, for months. I have no answers.

  "I have given you space. I wanted for you to come to terms on your own, but I can’t watch it anymore. I waited for you Cal, waited for you to see me and you never saw me. You saw bits and pieces of this new me and confused it, twisted it into some redemption love spell so you could sleep at night knowing you wanted to fuck me..."

  I am still reeling from her statement before, but what she thinks and what is are two different things. I realize the fight I have had with myself over her and Tay and my place in it all is one I have no handle on.

  None.

  "I know I fucked up Jen." I can hear my voice cracking and I need to get my shit together quick.

  She nods but is cold and detached. "It's fine." She says and wipes her cheek. "We can’t ever do this, this fighting and angry sex thing whatever it is. I own what happened last year on Christmas, I wanted it as much as you did and its buried now. Axe needs us to be the strong and ever stable parents he deserves. He is the best surprise of my life, but I didn’t choose you any more than you did me. This thing between us chose us and honestly it’s like the worst too be continued ever."

  I can feel my eyes burn with unshed tears at her words. They piss me off for equal parts truth and bullshit. Both are present in that speech. "I am here now Jen, right fuckin now." I slam my hand on my chest trying to impact what I feel and the flurry of it all in my chest.

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes; my next words are the truth she needs and the rest of this shit was hopeful filler. It is right now that matters. "I fought like hell to win Tay. I ate shit and I kissed her ass endlessly and there is no way you can possibly understand the lengths I went to learn it was all just a fallacy. I won’t, will not do it again. If you don’t want me- fucking look me in the eye and tell me that shit, but don’t wrap it up in bullshit and try to see if Ill notice the lie. You don’t want me Red, I’m gone."

  She looks at me, tears rimming her eyes and I have no clue if I made a huge mistake or not.

  She places her hand on my cheek and steps up, close...so close. Her hand cups my neck and pulls me to her lips. She kisses me softly, like a lover too scared to admit its love. Once, twice and pulls back after the third and looks me in my eyes.

  "I can’t." She says and keeps her eyes on mine.

  "Tell me you don’t want me Jenny." I demand, but she shakes her head no.

  "I can’t." She says again and I know she wants me, she loves me. I know I burned her, but I just offered the world so it’s a no brainer.

  "No drama, no excuses. Yes or no Jen." I cup her face in my hands one last time and I kiss her. I put everything I feel in that kiss. It is hate and love, betrayal and forgiveness. It is everything. I pull back and watch her, breathless as she fights it.

  "I can’t..." She almost whispers.

  And that’s that.

  "Fuck this shit..." I say and storm out her door. I ignored my name being called as I left.

  So fuckin done.

  Jenny

  For so long I have held in my feelings. I have suffered in silence hoping he would see me... so for him to show up here all frazzled and possessive?

  Nope.

  Not tonight.

  I chased him out the door, my feet instantly feeling the cold cement as I charged the parking lot looking for his Jeep. He was almost to it and the beep beep signaling he had unarmed the alarm had me in a full fledge run. I grabbed a hold of his jacket and screamed his name so he would hear me over the rain that was belting the tin roof of my parking lot.

  He mistook the fire in my eyes for sexual heat and pins me to the back end of his Jeep, his mouth on mine again.

  The kiss was aggressive and full of everything that I ever wanted from him, but I was too mad and it fueled my anger.

  I push him off me, feeling the loss of his lips and for a split second I almost caved. I wanted this man. Every breath, moan and word he had for me. I wanted it all, but I wanted it on my terms for once.

  "Stop it!" I yell and push him from me.

  He spins back from me and roars into the night before he looks at me, that anger a live wire as it mixed with the sexual frustration we both felt. He slams me harder against his Jeep again, lifting me and coming at my mouth with a ferocious intent.

  I can barely move or think straight. Fuck, I just want it over. I want to be one without the history and the anger, I want him to love me.

  The thought is like being choked and I feel my tears burn my eyes and fall. I fight him, his very hold on me like a brand. "Stop, Cal!" I scream and he shakes his head no and grips my chin in his hand forcing me to look at him.

  "No, Jen I am done fighting this. This shit is eating me up." He slants his mouth to mine again and every instinct I have says to just calm down, go slack and don’t fight. I have been here before and the minute his hand grabbed my jaw I checked out.

  Thoughts were a rush through my mind as I fought them, trying to be still. I had pushed him to this hadn’t I? Had he pushed me to twist him up like this? I couldn’t explain to him my suffering in it all. I couldn’t hear his suffering either. We both wanted a past erased that we never would be able to delete.

  Instead he has become a savage and I a victim.

  As if the knowledge hits him with the force of a heavy weight boxer, he pulls back, dropping me from his arms and steps back, looking at me with a horrified truth. I was comforted by that look for simple fact that he knew he went too far.


  We are both staring one another down, breathless- but not from passion. We were both terrified of how far it just went. "I can’t do this Jenny." He looks at his hands, they are shaking and I know he hates himself right now.

  Good.

  He spins from me and roars again and I watch as my neighbors flip on balcony lights and peer through their blinds. "Calm down!" I yell and make the first move to go to him. Not to comfort him, but in hopes I could calm him.

  Cal wasn’t violent or a bully and I know, without knowing, that this was a culmination of the twenty plus years between us coming to a head.

  We both caused it and though he went too far, I will accept that I did push him to it. It does not make it okay and I won’t excuse it. There is no need for forgiveness because we have officially destroyed anything positive between us.

  This was a true end and my heart broke for Axe. He would soon pay the price for the fact his father and I couldn’t even be in the same room any longer. We both failed him in letting our shit fester. "That." He yells and points toward the Jeep he had just pinned me against. "Should never have happened. None of this should! Don’t you fuckin get that?" He is yelling and I am crying and this is going nowhere, but I want to fight. I need this fight.

  I deserve a life outside of Cal Dorian and the Thick as Thieves and the world I left behind. I just wanted a simple life and the love of my son. The rest had too steep a price.

  "I get it!" I yell through chattering teeth and wipe the rain and tears from my face. "But you came hoping to force a reaction and I can’t give you the one you want."

  He steps close to me and I flinch. I see him pause when I do and I see the look of shock on his face. "I would never hurt you Jen. I can’t explain or excuse the aggression that hit me when I saw you coming after me. I took the wrong signal."

  He takes his coat off and hands it to me.

  "I know you won’t hurt me. It's why I went limp in your arms." I try to reason and calm my racing heart as more tears fall.

  "No excuse for it." He laughs without humor as he says it. He opens the door to the Jeep and slides behind the driver’s seat.

  I nod in agreement and go to the door and try to find words to explain. "I feel like we need this Cal. We need this fight." I say, but my words come out wrong and I know it when I see the look on his face.

  "Are you fucking mental? I just had my hands all over you. Without. Your. Permission!" He spoke through his teeth as he said it and all I can do is nod again. I have so much to say, but I am too overwhelmed to form the right words.

  He steps from the Jeep, but stays in front of the door. "You told me, you made it clear that I am not what you need, so tell me why you came after me? Why the fuck am I here if I'm not wanted?"

  He waits for my response, but I stumble over my thoughts. He laughs humorlessly again and shakes his head no. He gets back in the Jeep and slams the door. I watch as he beats his fists on his steering wheel three times wicked fast and all I want is to fix this and come clean.

  I start yelling into the loud night whether he hears me or not, but the minute my lips move he opens the door.

  "What?" He barks and I flinch. I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

  "I have wanted you in some capacity for over half my life. You asked me to tell you the truth and I did. I cannot look you in the eye and tell you I feel nothing Cal. I feel more than I can explain, but it doesn’t mean I want to be your hookup for the night."

  He goes to interrupt me and I hold my hand up cutting him off as I yell over him.

  "I have always been a tool in your arsenal. I was never a person or valuable. I was always a disposable fangirl and when you finally did see me, all you saw was the consequence of too many fucking thrills. I was never anything to you. You never saw me as anything but trash until I gave you Axe." I choke on the last words. "And even then, you didn’t see me..."

  My words trail off because I cannot contain my grief. For the first time in our lives I am facing a true end to whatever the fuck Cal and I are.

  I watch him close as he scrubs his face with his hands. "Jen, I have wanted you. I remember who we were, the things we shared as kids and how we supported each other. I wanted you then and I want you now. I made it clear that night."

  He is referring to that Christmas night the year she left him and like a broken reel I see us together in mindless passion. I see his sorrow and my compassion. I see it with blinding clarity and I hate that he uses it.

  "That night was the start of this bullshit between us!" I yell and start crying again. I hate showing weakness. I am from the ghetto, born and raised and we don’t make it here without masking everything. It is all the proof he needs to know he has destroyed me, yet he knows nothing about me. "I watched your face every time she was around. I could see the desire and how bad you missed her. It was something I could not stomach seeing anymore. I had to move on Cal..." I scrub at my eyes and hate the tears as they continue to fall unwanted. "I deserve to be with someone who loves all of me, past and present and it isn’t you." I look at him and see his fear and want to fall to my knees and forget my needs. Forget what I deserve and just be whatever he needs.

  It is a toxic, toxic love that has you believing you can be what he needs even if he isn’t what you deserve.

  "It isn’t you..." I say again, but my anger is gone and all that is left is this shattered girl from the wrong side of the bridge. You can’t wash that type of dirt off, it stays with you forever.

  I stare at the ground, knowing that I cannot look at him... knowing if I do he will break me and I will cave to be with him.

  I feel his hands, gentle this time as he forces me to look at him. "Listen to me Jen. You can’t possibly know or even have an idea of what I did, what I changed to prove myself to Tay. I bet everything on us and I lost. I cannot be that guy again. It made losing her so much worse. Call your buddy Noah, ask him how deep I went looking to please her. Research the lengths I went and then ask me to forget it all and be with you. You will see that it is exactly what I did tonight. I put everything on the line and asked you to pick me and I never did that for Tayla. I kissed her ass I groveled and apologized endlessly like a fucking whipped pussy."

  His voice is hoarse and I don’t know if it is from the yelling or the emotion, but it kills me.

  "If I would have known that someone else would make me feel the way I do right now, I never would have tried to win her." He lets my face go and steps back from me. "You didn’t pick me Red, so tell me why the fuck I am still here?"

  "Because I deserved to have a voice in it. I have reasons too Cal."

  "Yeah? What are they? What means more than what I offer?"

  "You haven’t offered me anything God dammit!" I scream and make white knuckle fists to release some of the roaring anger in me.

  He comes at me, backing me once again against his Jeep, but he is only invading my space. His hands are nowhere near me, he simply wants my undivided attention.

  He has it.

  "When I say pick me, I mean pick me. Love me, use me, destroy me, hate me. I don’t fucking care anymore, just pick me. Me, be mine and that’s it. Don’t make it complex or dramatize it. In or out? The rest we can hash out, but pick. In or out Red?"

  "It is complex Cal, there is so much you don’t know." I say and I picture all the secrets I have and how my fear keeps them secure inside of me. How, if he knew... it would soil everything between us.

  "Is this about CD?" He asks and looks at me, his arrogant bullshit dripping from every word. "Because if it is, then come here and let me remove any thought of that British blue fuck from your mind."

  "It's not that simple. It isn’t so much CD, but it is the idea of him. You and I live in different worlds and when everything with Tayla happened, I thought I could fit in that world. I don’t though. I can’t change who I am or what it means to be me, but I can’t be the other option because your bed is cold. I deserve CD, I don’t deserve you."

  There it was. I said it all and
didn’t flinch, but I knew I would regret it later. I knew I would be haunted by the look on his face for the rest of my life.

  "When you look back on this, and I know you will." He smirks at me cruelly and goes on. "Remember that I wanted you. All of you and you told me no. Know that I won’t pine for you or ask again. I will fuck every red head I meet to force you from my system until you are nothing but our son’s mom and my kindness to you begins and ends there."

  Tears fall at the absolute hate he speaks to me with. I am instantly in the throes of regret and this is not what I wanted.

  "Until then watch close and pay attention Jen. This shit is seriously going to fuckin hurt."

  Chapter two

  Jen

  I have ignored Noah's calls for a day until he sent the message just now, I knew my time was up.

  Noah: If I don’t hear back from you, knowing you are off work today then I will be hanging on your doorstep. Whatever’s up, don’t lose sight of who I am.

  I respond once I get coffee and can deal with the shit storm that is Noah on a tear. I understood his concern, to a degree. It was one day and yes, we talk a million times every day, but isn’t a girl allowed to lick her wounds before she cries to the bestie?

  I mean...

  This is unjust.

  Me: Yeah, sorry I was licking my wounds from a really awful fight with Cal. Can I come by?

  His response is immediate.

  Noah: Yeah, I need you to help me with something.

  I contemplate what that could mean and the list is endless. I will probably help him mate socks or something just so he has a pretense to ask me what crawled up my ass.

  I throw my hair in a messy bun and dress in my workout clothes knowing I will hit the gym on my way home.

  I stop and get an Iced coffee for both of us and pull in to his drive about twenty minutes later.

  The garage is open and boxes everywhere and I feel the dread come on scared he has asked me to help clean shit out to prepare for even more of Raleigh’s shit.