Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three)

by Dunning, Rachel

  She threw a fit, things were broken, wine was spilled. And then, later, she called Frankie, told him to come over or she’d never see him again!

  He came over.

  She teased him, let him almost have it but then held back. Teased him some more, tortured him! And then, when he was desperate, ready to give her anything, he said, “Yes, I promise! Anything. I’ll give you anything. Just tell me. Please. What do you want from me!”

  And then she answered him: “I want Declan Cox’s head on a platter.”

  His eyes went wide. He saw how the color had returned to her skin, how excited she was getting. She slid her hands through her hair, danced over him, rode him.

  “Why-a, Tatty, I never-a thought that’d make you-a so fuckin-a horneh, honey!”

  “Oh, Frankie, that’s not what’s making me horny. That’s not what’s making me horny at all!”

  She didn’t care what happened to Declan Cox. But bringing him down would shatter that Blaze Ryleigh bitch’s world completely!

  Tatiana rode her lover.

  And she orgasmed exquisitely. All the while thinking of Blaze’s teary eyes.

  It was the best sex she’d ever had.

  ELEVEN

  HARUMPH—THOOMP

  ~ DECEMBER 18 ~

  -1-

  Blaze Ryleigh

  Deck and I go off to Jersey the next day, to the Quest Diagnostics Training Center where The Giants do all their training when they’re in town. It’s a red brick building with the letters ny in small and in white outside. There’s another white sign with the words The New York Football Giants just above the entrance. Inside, it’s an expensive-looking gymnasium, filled with soft lighting and posh walls and flooring, Giants written behind the white-counter reception. Beyond the main building is the indoor field, surrounded by weatherproof glass and warm as a sock by the fire.

  Deck clears it with the Head Coach that I can come in.

  This morning I’d woken up in Declan’s arms, being squeezed so tight that it was hard to breathe. Then he’d asked me if I wanted to spend the day with him. “Like an official date?” I’d asked.

  He shrugged after getting up. “Kinda. You’d be watching a bunch of dudes sweating and groaning and making hooh-ha sounds while pushing heavy tackling machines around.”

  “This feels oddly like déjà vu.”

  One of the first places Deck and I had hung out together after meeting each other had been in a gym as well, watching him groan and lift heavy weights with his boys.

  He remembered. He grinned slightly, and his cheeks rouged just a little. “Yeah, I guess. Some things never change.”

  That made me silent for a second longer than I expected. I was sitting up now, holding my toes in front of me, legs half stretched out on Declan’s bed. He was standing in front of it, shirt off, boxers on.

  Some things never change...

  Like our love? I thought. Like you and me? Because it felt suddenly like nothing had changed, like we were Deck and Blaze again, waking up in the morning, satisfied, knowing there was always that final smile to look forward to at night...

  But somehow, no matter how hard we try, we just can’t make love again. As if something’s blocking us...

  “Uhm, sure, I’ll go watch a bunch of groaning men.”

  Now, at the training facility, Deck introduces me as “Blaze” to the rest of the team. Each team member gives a knowing grin when Deck tells them my name. I can almost hear their thoughts: Ah, the tattoo! It’s clear that Deck never told any of them about its meaning.

  Except Trev. He rubs my back warmly, and whispers in my ear, “I always hoped you guys would find your way back to each other.”

  Trev runs off, and I’m left with a slight reeling sensation.

  Head Coach Warwick comes over and says, in a real tough-guy tune, “Deck, today only. And don’t think I forgot that shit you pulled in the locker room.” Coach Warwick’s pointing at Deck’s nose. Deck looks suddenly pretty diffident and reserved, even though Coach is about my height (a head shorter than Deck) and easily half Deck’s width. “The girl can stay for one practice! Besides, I got a surprise for you fellas. Just wait till playoff week! Your nuts are gonna be so cold no female in the world will come near you!”

  Coach looks over at me with his gray-green eyes, smiles gently, then looks away. He slaps Deck on the shoulder pads and says, “Now get out there and start running! I want you guys warm in five minutes!” He turns, shouts to the rest of the team, spreads his fingers out to show the number five. “FIVE MINUTES! I WANT YOU GUYS WARM! Then I want you onto Strike and Shreds and then onto Combos! Move it, move it, move it!” He claps his hands after each “Move it” and it’s like his words have the force of a stick. Each player starts to “move it” the second the words come out of Coach’s mouth!

  He turns back and looks over at me again, mouth chewing his gum openly. A real New Yorker. Noo Yawhka. He points at the bench. “You’re on bench, Blaze. If I need you I’ll call you. You ever heard of Patricia Palinkas, Katie Hnida?”

  I shake my head. “They sound like Disney characters.”

  He grins with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “They ain’t no Disney characters that’s for sure! Look em up. Female football players. Not NFL, we ain’t never had one o’ those. But if you can keep a ball in place you might have a place on this team.” He smiles widely and I’m uncertain if he’s kidding or not, because he sure looks pretty serious about it! He winks at me, then turns and starts yelling again. “I DON’T SEE NOBODY RUNNIN! I SAID GET WARM NOT LUKEWARM!”

  I sit on the bench and watch the Giants slam into each other and run and “get warm” and build up a sweat. A little while later my phone buzzes with a text from Vikki, asking how things are going.

  I text back: Lookin @ a bunch of dudes with huge muscles sweating on a field. Goin great.

  Vikki: But u only have eyes for 1?

  Me: Of course I do.

  I look up at Deck. He’s scrunched in between the rest of the guys, running to one side of the field, touching the line, then running to the other. Each time they reach the other side of the gridiron and bend down to touch the line a chorus of “HUT!” is echoed like some religious chant in an old monastery. Counterpointing it is Coach Warwick’s World War III calls of “MOVE IT! MOVE IT! MOVE IT! THIS AIN’T NO PEEWEE LEAGUE HERE WE’RE IN IT TO WIN. FUHGAHWDSAKE MOVE IT MOVE MOVE MOVE IT!”

  And the team: “HUT!” Chugga-chugga-chugga run. “HUT!” Chugga chugga chugga “HUT!”

  Men and their sports. Alpha Males, all of them. After two more minutes, they start singing something that sounds uncannily like a Boot Camp chant.

  “HUT!” Chugga chugga “HUT!”

  Deck’s keeping pace. The team’s uniforms scrape and add rhythm to the susurrus of panting breaths.

  And in the middle, my eyes always on him, locked, like a teenage girl in love, mesmerized, is my Deck. Chugga chugga chugga “HUT!”

  I think of us last night, how I was ready for him, ready for him to undress and take me. But he didn’t. The guy I’m seeing on the field wouldn’t hesitate a breath to take a woman, any woman. So why did he hesitate to take me?

  I saw it in his eyes: the love, the need. The Fear.

  In a way, it does feel like we’re back together, but only just. Like a forming spider’s web in the corner of a moldy shed, only waiting for someone with a broom to come and knock it off. Sometimes, after the web is fully formed, reflecting sunlight over its dew-licked strands, that broom stops, its wielder feeling abruptly like she might just be destroying some miracle of nature.

  But we’re not at that stage yet, not even close.

  Were we ever there?

  Will we talk about it? Ignore it? Make love and forget about it?

  CRUNCH! They’re running into each other now, or so it seems, lining up several paces from each other and then, simply, ... CRUNCH!

  Deck and another dude (a little bigger, a little taller, a little wider) lock into each other lik
e rampant deer, antlers hooked, and that crack sound of wood coming together. Every time they CRUNCH I hear that sound in my head, and it takes me a second to realize it’s probably their helmets or their padding or some other thing producing that sound.

  But it still sounds like cracking bones.

  They line up again, run into each other.

  CRUNCH!

  I flinch and actually feel myself lifting off my seat, craning my neck slightly to see if Deck’s OK. He unstraps his helmet, lifts it off. His golden shag tumbles out of it, sweaty and sticking to his beautiful face. Even from this distance I can see his cool eyes, and his permanent, confident grin.

  Oh Blaze, what have you gotten yourself into?

  Suddenly I’m nervous, not in that Fearful way, but in that innocent Oh he’s the High School quarterback way. And that’s ridiculous because I’m twenty-six now. Deck’s twenty-seven. We ain’t kids! Those days are over. This is different. We know more. We hit the wall and we learned from it—

  Crunch! I flinch and look away, even though Deck wasn’t in this charge. He sprays some water in his mouth, throws the bottle on the ground and it tumbles and swirls with a rolling splash. He looks over at me, winks—and my stomach sinks—and straps his helmet back on.

  Just like High School.

  Inside myself I’m jittery and smiling. My mind and thoughts are out of control, my emotions are out of control! What the fuck is going on with you, Blaze? Get a freakin grip!

  Now Trev’s throwing to Deck. Twenty yards, then thirty, then fifty, eighty. Then Deck starts running, looking forward, and Trev throws again and again...

  There goes Declan Cox, ladies and gentlemen. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD, he’s gonna jump over the tumbled bodies and... TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN! GIANTS WIN THE SUPERBOWL! IT’S...

  The imaginary commentary fades in my mind, and as the minutes roll by, I’m drawn to the men—one man—on the field, watching, smiling, thinking, and falling in love again... I cross my legs, put an elbow on my knee and rest my chin in my palm and just...fade away.

  Chugga chugga chugga. HUT! CRUNCH! Swoosh! “Deck, go long...” Swoosh! Chugga chugga chugga— “DON’T YOU PANSIES SIT AROUND ON YOUR ASSES. THE PLAYOFFS AIN’T GUARANTEED, I DON’T CARE HOW HARD IT IS FOR ANOTHER TEAM TO MAKE—”

  “Blaze, catch!” I look left, pulled out of my dreamy daze, and see Trev, smiling brightly, helmet off, dark skin glowing under the shine of the brightly lit ceiling. He throws the ball at me and it soars, soars, soars, headed my way, flying, flying...

  I’m suddenly aware—observing them from the corner of my eye—of thirty or forty men looking at me, and still my eyes are locked on this torpedo spinning and aiming straight for my head!

  I stand, move my feet apart because I simply figure that’s what you do. How hard could it be?

  The ball’s only ten yards away now and—

  I panic! I duck out of its way and let it fall! I hear a few snickers on my right and then I give Trev the finger. He smiles even more brightly. I hear someone running my way. It’s Deck. He picks up the ball and throws it back at Trev. Deck might not be QB, but that ball spirals straight as an arrow back at Trev. Deck tells me to keep my eye on the ball, to extend my hands outward when it starts approaching, to make a triangle with both hands, then to tuck the ball away after I catch it.

  If I catch it, I think.

  Trev throws again. I watch it spiraling...

  And I duck!

  I laugh and Deck laughs with me. I realize vaguely that practice is over because the other guys are starting to mill, to chill out, to talk to the coach, to walk past us and say, “Nice meetin you, Blaze! Tame this Bad Boy, willya?” and “Deck’s in looooooove! Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!” or “Don’t let this loser show you how to catch a ball! Motherfucker can’t even catch a cold!” Slap on the back, slap on the back. One slap is so hard that Deck almost tumbles. He laughs, blushes a little.

  He gets behind me, holds my arms out, shows me how to hold my hands. Then he calls out to Trev. “Closer, homes! Closer! You’re too far!” Trev runs and comes closer, about twenty yards away. Deck holds my hands and I smell the sweat on him, mixed with the polymers of his gear. And it’s an erotic smell. I don’t know why, but it is...

  He holds my hands out. “Keep your eyes on the ball,” he whispers in my ear. The ball approaches...

  I want to duck but I can’t because Deck’s surrounding me! He forces my hands out but I’m looking away and slam! The ball lands in “my” hands, covered by his like I’m a marionette. “And tuck,” he says. He brings the ball to my body. Then he takes it from me, throws it at Trev. “Again, homes.”

  After the fifth try, I stop looking away and actually get point number one down: Eyes on the ball. After ten more tries I’m starting to put my hands ahead of me without having to have Deck force them in place for me! Twenty more tries and Deck leaves me alone, stands just a few feet away from me. Each time I drop a catch, he tells me what I did wrong, slides in behind me and shows me again. At one stage he eases my hair from my ear and gazes for a moment too long into my eyes. I fall away, carried off in a mist of smoke and almost flutter my eyes closed. But Trev stops the dreamy moment short with “Hey! Do that shit later!”

  After seven more tries I actually catch it!

  Other players have returned, dressed in suits or sweats, but all freshly showered. “Do we need to go?” I ask Deck.

  He shakes his head. “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Good.” He grabs the football from my hands, throws it at Trev. “Again.”

  We do that for an hour, and soon I can catch every pass Trev throws at me from twenty yards away. So he starts speeding them up, and I drop a few more. After a while my hands are stinging and I can smell the leather firmly on them. My skin is red, and when Deck holds my hands in his and looks at them, I can’t help notice the difference in their sizes and structure. Deck’s are large and strong. Mine are small, easily hurt.

  Soon Trev is by our side. He squeezes Decks shoulder, says, “I need to shower, bro. Sweatin like a pig. Should we head to Tom’s like the good ole days?”

  Deck hesitates for a second, looks at me. I smile, remembering the days of me and him and Trev and Vikki and Skate chilling out there, drinking Vanilla Egg Creams and Cherry Lime Rickeys and all the free coffee Tom’s provides...

  I remember our nights at Slambam, downing PBRs or Coors and listening to Vikki screech out a melodic storm of punk rock and alternative metal.

  “Blaze, what do you say?” Deck asks me, hope and uncertainty toiling in his eyes.

  I get that This-is-Like-High-School feeling creeping up on me and just want to hold his hand, want to have him put his arm around me and tuck me under his shoulder, want to slink under the bleachers and get to First Base...

  “Blaze?”

  “Uhm, yeah, sure. It’ll be cool. I’m in.”

  He smiles widely, shuffles his feet a second. Is he afraid to kiss me in front of Trev? As if we hadn’t made each other come just yesterday?

  That’s exactly what it is, because when Trev’s gone, Deck grabs my hand, just the fingertips, starts moving in to kiss me, then moves away... “I’m...trying,” he says. “I’m still trying to get used to this, and I can’t shake the feeling there’ve been so many mistakes, Blaze. Mistakes we can’t go back from.”

  “I’ve already told you I’m sorr—”

  “Not your mistakes! Mine!”

  My voice is a rueful whisper. “I guess at some stage we just need to let go, don’t we?”

  His eyes search mine frantically. His grip on my three fingers tightens. He swallows. “I love you, Blaze. I always have. But that’s not new news. I’ve loved you since the day you left me. Loved you before that. I just don’t know if...if love is enough for us.”

  Lead settles on my shoulders. It’s as if my feet actually sink an inch into the turf. The tears start rampaging behind my eyes. I just don’t know if love is enough for us.
r />   Sadly, I feel the same, baby.

  When my fingers start letting go of his, he clasps them harder. “Blaze, I’m doing this again...if you are. I’m... I’m ready to hit my head against the wall again and come back with it battered and blue. I am. If you are. Know what I’m asking?”

  “I do. And I am. I am ready...to...try again...if you are.”

  He laughs. “One of us is gonna have to take the jump, Blaze. Because this ‘ready if you are if you are ready if you are ready if you are...’ ain’t gonna cut it!”

  And then, as if the words are balls of hot, ominous lead, I take the jump, without thinking, without considering it, only feeling it, like I always have with Deck: Rationality and Reason to the wind, just going with my gut. I say, “I’m”—cough—“ready.”

  He smiles, squeezes my hand, holds it there a second. He looks down. He does a loud harumph and coughs and swallows, and then says, “Good. Good. Let’s take it slow, OK? I mean real slow. I just... I just...”

  I put my finger to his lips. “Slow,” I echo. “Real slow.”

  And then he leaves to go take a shower.

  -2-

  Memories of us sitting right here, at Tom’s, over four years ago, seep into my mind. Deck’s got his arm around me. He’s leaning on the corner of the booth, Vanilla Egg Cream in his other hand. Trev’s on my right, and if Deck’s gotten bigger in the last four years (he has, he’s huge now, rock solid) then Trev’s become The Thing, that monstrous-massive rock-lookin dude from the X-Men. Skate and Vikki are in front of us, feeding each other dripping ice-cream (yes, ice cream, despite the cold outside!) with hot caramel sauce and laughing. Skate’s snake tat on his neck has some color in it now, he had it touched up about two years ago. Now it’s not only blue but also has mixtures of green, yellow, red, interspersed with that timeless tat-color, deep blue.

  Vikki’s also gotten a few decorations of her own. Deep on her neckline is a “necklace” of lace and diamonds. Skate paid for it. “The best diamond necklace anyone could ever get,” she told me when she got it. “And the most painful!”