by K. S. Adkins
“I know.”
“Then you know that’s what they were for me too,” she says wrapping her arms around me. “A replacement.”
“You remembered,” I say kissing her once. “Pour Some Sugar on Me, the Impala, how you danced for me that day. You remembered.”
“Yeah,” she smiles for me. “I remembered.”
That was a day I’d never forget. Def Leppard coming on, Drew tossing the shop towel she was holding. Ripping the clip from her hair and thrashing. As cheesy as the song was, I loved that she let loose for me then. I loved that she did again tonight. Hell, I didn’t think it was possible to love her more than did then, but I did in fact love her more now. I needed to tell her and he would, soon. When a photo caught my eye, I picked it up and studied it. “You met Kid Rock?”
“Uh huh, many times actually,” she says blowing the dust off the glass. “Bob is a cool cat.”
“Drew,” I accuse looking from the frame to her. “You named your fucking vibrator after Kid Rock?”
“Where do you come up with this shit? B-o-b stands for battery operated boyfriend. I worry about you, seriously.”
A rap on the door ends our chat but when Shane let’s her know Darius was looking for her, it did not end my jealousy.
Not by a long fucking shot. The only reason I didn’t lock her in that closet/office with me was because of the look of apology on her face. Letting Shane know she’ll be out, she looks at me and says, “Don’t let this ruin the moment, Axle. Please.”
“Go,” I forced out and was none too happy when she did.
Following her out, I let her do what she needed to do but I stayed close. Drew was at the end of the bar shifting her weight from foot to foot while I found an imaginary spot behind the bar to clean. When Darius reached for her, she deflected. When he tried coaxing her, she stood firm. When he said, “Baby, what’s changed?” I nearly broke my own jaw by grinding the hell out of it.
“I did,” she says gently. “I can’t see you anymore, D.”
“Fuck,” he said closing his eyes. “I’ve been replaced, haven’t I?”
She tenses and I catch it, but I also caught what came next. “That’s the thing, you’ve never had a place. Not with me.”
“Drew,” he tried again.
“Let me finish, please,” she says looking up to the ceiling. Then meeting his eyes, she blurts, “You were a mercy fuck.”
“A what, now?”
“Mercy fuck.”
“Baby, come on,” he says getting a hold of her this time and pulling her close. “Mercy fuck? Naw, Drew, I ain’t that.”
“You were, they all were,” she says with shame in her voice.
“Baby,” he said kissing her which I did not fucking like. “Like I said, I ain’t that. But what I was, was honored.”
“I’m sorry if I hurt you, D. So fucking sorry.”
“I hoped one day I’d get in there…is it him?” he asks nodding over to me and I found another patch of dirt that needed my attention. This bar top was going to shine if it killed me.
“Yes,” she says glancing over. “It’s him, it’s always been him.”
“He’s big for a white boy,” he tries to joke, but the guy was hurting and did I care? No. “He got money? He take care of you?”
I may be big but I did not have money. However, I wanted to spend my life taking care of her if she’d let me. Watching her let him down, it hit me in the gut. The realization that any guy at any time could have stolen her from me. Had she opened herself up just a little bit, some motherfucker would have found his way in and done whatever the fuck he could to stay there. Had she done that, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be happy for the first time in nine years either.
“He’s good to me,” she says wrapping herself around him again.
Resting his chin on the top of her head, I watch him hold her close and for the last time. “He fucking better be.” Eyes on me he offers the barest nod, kisses her forehead and left the way he came.
She stood there for an extra minute composing herself and I stayed back to let her do it. Even the crowd gave her space. Turning to face me, she gives me a small smile before joining me. “You alright?” I ask her.
“I’m okay,” she says patting my ass. “Just learning from my mistakes is all.”
It was pushing three a.m. when the crew left, Shane went up to crash and Drew was counting money. Syncing my phone to the receiver, I hit play, turned it up loud and when she looked up I said, “Come here, Drew.”
Leaving the money where she stood, she cleared that bar and made her way into my arms.
“Dance with me,” he said opening his arms.
“What?” I asked looking around the room because my nerves refused to let me stay still. We were used to be being alone but this was different. I had propositioned him for sex and he’d agreed. Now he wanted to dance? I was completely confused.
“I asked you to dance with me,” he urged stepping forward. “Before we do this, I’d like to dance with you, Drew.”
“Okay,” I swallowed moving into his space.
“Hey,” he said lifting my chin. “Are you sure about this? About me?”
Losing the nerves, I reach for his face, pull him toward me and promise him, “One hundred percent sure about this and you.”
“Fuck,” he said closing his eyes. “She’s sure about me. Thank God.”
The one night I’d spent with Axle, he’d played a CD he’d burned and sang every song to me.
At the time I thought it was romantic but looking back I realized it was his way of telling me how he felt and gauging my reaction to it. Nineteen years old…I thought I knew everything. Axle had tried and it took me until right now to figure it out. Arms around his waist, head on his chest with his mouth close to my ear, I absorb every word that comes out of it.
Now at last I hold you
Now all is said and done
The search has come full circle
Our destinies are one
Trying not to cry into his shirt, he holds me tight and he keeps singing to me. So I continued to listen, to finally hear.
Gripping him, never wanting to let him go, he lifts my chin and whispers, The search is over, love is right before my eyes.
“Axle,” I manage before taking his mouth. Then kissing his cheeks, his chin and even his nose I didn’t stop until he says, “Should have said it sooner.” Every time he’d sang to me, looked at me, smiled at me, he was trying to tell me.
“I should have been a better listener.”
Tracing my lip, he asks me, “Are you listening now?”
To this all I could do was nod while we swayed.
“When I said they were using you, that you were just pussy…Drew,” he sighs. “I was way off.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Yeah, I was. Darius cares for you, I saw it. I also saw the look on your face when you figured it out. They didn’t keep coming back to you because you were pussy. They came back to you because they saw what I see and wanted that for themselves. I can’t blame a guy for that, Drew.”
“Stop,” I say pitifully but he didn’t.
“Had you let your guard down even once, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he says gripping me. “Do you get that? We wouldn’t be here right now, Drew.”
Losing my temper, I push back, square off and ask him, “What do you want me to say right now, Axle? Every step I take forward with you puts us back where we started. I had sex with other men but I never gave a fuck about a single one, this is not a new song, so can we please stop fucking replaying it?”
“Christ,” he says looking frustrated. “I was fucking apologizing.”
“You don’t have to!”
“Wrong time,” he mumbles sliding out his phone and killing the music. “Let’s just call it a night.”
“No,” I say holding my ground. “I’m not done. I’m not even close to being done. You show up out of nowhere and weasel your way back into my life like no t
ime has passed. We cleared the air, are trying the whole start fresh thing, but it’s not fresh. It’s fucking festering. Not for me but for you. What are you holding onto, Axle?” At his silence, I push further. “What are you holding onto!”
“You!” he roars. “I’m trying to hold onto to you! But you do not make it fucking easy! You used to be easy!”
“I used to be nineteen!” I shout back. “I used to think the sun rose and set with you too, but guess what? Shit happens! I am giving you more than I have ever given anyone else and it’s not enough for you?”
“Fuck no, it’s not enough,” he snaps. “I want you to love me like you used to!”
“I’m not her anymore!”
“God dammit, I know that!”
“Then what’s the fucking issue?”
“The issue is that I want you to be, alright?”
Backing away, I hug myself to prevent my hands from choking him. Hurt and pissed off, I move away when he rushes me. Taking me by my shoulders he says, “That came out wrong.”
“No it didn’t. You want me to be the girl that never said no, that followed you around and ignored the world in favor of you. And you know what? Even if we had stayed together that would not have been our story because you can’t tune the fucking world out for one person.” I lie. Because you can. I did and it bent me over.
So much for keeping your feelings in storage, Drew…
“Shit. You don’t get it.”
“Yes I do, but you don’t want me to love you like I used to,” I whisper. “Maybe you fucked it up then but odds are outstanding that I’ll fuck it up now.” When he stares at his feet I kept going. “I spent two years silently loving you. I spent the nine years following, hating you. We’ve been reconnected for two weeks, Axle and if you’re looking for me to tune the world out for you, if that’s what you need, I can’t give that to you. I can’t be her again.”
And that’s when Axle lost his shit.
“That girl has nothing to offer except a pregnancy to trap you and a prenuptial agreement,” my father said flipping his paper over. Did he care she was all of eighteen years old? No. In his eyes, she should already have her ten-year plan worked out. Hell, I didn’t even have my own plan. My future was planned for me and it wasn’t the future I envisioned for myself either. Honestly, Drew had the right idea and I respected her for it. “She works in a bar for heaven’s sake.”
“I’ve never seen her in anything except jeans and t-shirt,” my mother said in disgust. “I bet they’re even used.”
It amazed me that these people raised me. The same people who were sweet to Drew’s face then cut her down when she wasn’t around to defend herself. “She’s perfect,” I defend. “She works hard, provides for her family –”
“She’s trash,” my mother snapped. “She isn’t like us!”
“Last time I checked, I wasn’t like you either.”
Setting his paper down, my father decreed, “No, but will you be.”
It’s rare I lost my temper like this.
But when it happened, there was no stopping it.
Rounding on her, I let loose a string of curses before driving my point home.
“This wasn’t supposed to be a fight, Drew. Jesus Christ, what I was trying to say was I want you to love me again! Like you did before you became all jaded and shit. And guess what? When you love someone, you do tune the fucking world out, by the way! There is nothing more beautiful than that! Fuck using the past versus now, we’re still us, dammit! You can be her because you are her. The second,” I say pinning her to the brick. “The fucking second you tune into that; you’ll see me for what I really am.”
“And that is?”
“Yours, Drew.”
Closing her eyes, I couldn’t tell if she was shutting down or opening up but I wasn’t done. “You tune shit out all the time, your whole world is work. I’ve watched you tune it all out to get where you needed to be and it’s not a bad thing. I’m just asking you to let me be a part of that.”
“You are,” she fires back. “But fuck, cut me some slack, alright? You’re my man, I’m your woman, I’m living with you since the explosion and I cut Darius loose in front of you. Now you want declarations of love? That’s what you need?”
“Yes,” I hiss at her. “That’s what I fucking need.”
“It’s been two weeks,” she presses and that’s when it all came out.
“I have never stopped loving you, Drew. Darius and who the fuck else out there still has a shot at stealing you from me. But I know,” I growl in her face. “I fucking know that if you loved me that wouldn’t happen. Because if you loved me, they wouldn’t exist for you.”
“You’re afraid of losing me?”
“Lost you once,” I admit quietly. “Can’t lose you again.”
“Axle…”
“I don’t have money, I’m not famous, and as of two weeks ago you lived your life thinking I fucked you over. Married a woman I did not love, bought a business I did not want and I’m scared as fuck that the woman I have loved all these may not ever love me back. Because when she loved me and I was her world, shit made sense. I just want shit to make sense again, Drew. Just once I’d like to get something right.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” she says stroking my arms.
“Yeah.”
“I have to, you know. Losing you the first time altered the course of my life. Losing you a second time would unravel it.”
“Because you love me,” I grin in victory.
“I didn’t say that,” she counters weakly.
“Drew,” I groan tagging her neck and pressing our foreheads together. “You didn’t have to.”
“Are we done fighting?”
“Nice subject change,” I say lifting her up under her ass. “But yeah, we’re done fighting.”
“Make up sex?” she asks raising an eye brow. “Ever have it?”
“No,” I grin again.
“Want to?”
Locking up, setting the alarm, and climbing into the Impala, when she linked her fingers with mine shit finally made sense again. My chest felt lighter, I could breathe easier and I would swear sights and sounds were crisper.
You’ve been living a grey life…
Thinking on that, I had to agree and until finding her again, I hadn’t realized how lost I’d been.
Checking her phone with her free hand, she gets lost in her world while I drive and get lost in her. “Do you mind if I smoke?” she asks breaking me of my thoughts.
“I don’t mind,” I tell her. “You don’t smoke very much, why bother at all?”
“Honestly?” she asks rolling down the window. “I have no idea.”
Lighting up, I watch her exhale and hold the smoke by the cracked window. “Maybe I do it because it’s for me. Like a small break from things. Granted, I can take it or leave it but sometimes it’s the only thing I look forward to.”
“When’s the last time you took a vacation?”
“I haven’t taken a vacation in years,” she says on a laugh. “Unless you count sick in bed with the flu a vacation.”
“It’s good to get away,” I encourage hoping the two of us could ghost someplace for a while.
“Yeah. I just never had anyone to get away with. My sisters are busy doing their own thing and outside of them, I don’t have a list of girlfriends to call. I’ve thought about just hopping on a plane but then problems come up and I put it off. That’s why I bought the boat.”
“Did you talk to your insurance company again?”
“Insurance, police, detectives… Last I heard there was no evidence, cameras showed nothing and they weren’t rushing to open a case. The fire chief left me a message with his bullshit answer about the fuel line or whatever but insurance is covering it and in the end that’s all I care about.”
Pulling into the drive, we each get out and I come to her side while she finishes her smoke. Glancing up at me she says, “I can’t keep you from your job,
Axle.”
“I’m where I want to be, Drew. I’m where I need to be.”
“I’m just saying, I’m not going to disappear if you’re not with me at all times.”
“Foxy’s isn’t going anywhere. I need to hire a few guys anyway so until I do, I’ve got the time to help you.”
“When you need to get back to your life, you say so,” she exhales flicking her butt into the street.
That’s the thing, I wasn’t saying shit. This was the life I wanted, a life with her.
“Make up sex,” I announce grabbing her hand.
“I’m on top!” she squeals pulling me along with her.
Fuck, but I’d follow her wherever she went.
Though I’ve been with my fair share of men, nothing was as erotic and intimate as watching Axle stroke his cock in the shower unaware I was there. With one forearm pressed against the tile while the other fisted his shaft, I sucked it a breath at how beautiful this moment was. I wondered if it was me he was thinking of, considered interrupting him or even lending a hand. Instead, I reached between my own legs with Axle’s soft grunts guiding me.
Noticing me, he raises his head enough to make eye contact and opens the curtains so we can see each other fully.
“Faster,” he ordered me and with a hard exhale I sped up. “You like watching me?”
“Yes,” I confessed breathlessly.
“Naked from the waist down, Drew,” he commanded fully facing me now. “I need to see your pussy.”
Quickly ridding myself of clothing, my fingers find their home once more but his next order made it clear he was a visual person. “One foot up on the toilet, do it now.”
The second I did he growled in appreciation. “Nothing more fucking beautiful,” he praised. “You close, Drew?”
“Yes,” I barely managed because I was almost there.
“Come to me,” he said fisting himself harder, faster. Standing in front of him he looks me over and demanded that I, “Turn around and stay on your toes.”
