by Jodie Becker
He stormed to the door, wrenched it open and threw her a look of utter disdain. “You want that sleaze next door, then you’re welcome to him. But don’t come crying to me when he leaves you for some woman who knows what a man likes.”
The barb hit home and she picked up the nearest item, a vase of roses, and flung it at him. It shattered on the floor near the door. Water and rose petals trailed along the wooden floor, bringing with it the memory of last night.
She wiped at the tears on her cheeks and wondered who she should believe, Dylan’s proclamations of being different, or the internal voice that screamed at her to protect her heart. Except she feared it might be too late, her heart might’ve already been lost.
* * * * *
Dylan was vaguely aware of opening the door to his home and shutting it behind him, the click like a gunshot in the eerie silence within his soul. He blinked, feeling somewhat befuddled to find himself inside his house, away from Erica. The ache in his chest expanded to hollow out his stomach and weaken his knees. Gasping for a breath, he stumbled for his chair and fell into it.
Every breath he took seemed to whistle in his ears and accompanied the accusations of the past. He shut his eyes, but all he could see was the misery in Erica’s face. The betrayal she felt.
“Jesus,” he mumbled and dropped his face in his hands.
A shudder rocked him and desolation opened beneath his feet, ready to swallow him whole. A warm hand settled on his shoulder and he twisted around, hoping to find Erica. The hope that bloomed died swiftly at the sight of Ruby.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
Dylan cleared the lump in his throat. “Nothing.”
Ruby shifted around the chair and settled on the lounge, a frown pulling her delicate brows together. “It doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
“Ruby, leave it.”
Lips he’d once watched suck his cock pursed. Self-disgust rose inside him. He didn’t have an ounce of romantic feeling for Ruby and not more than three months ago he used her like a whore. Damn it. He was everything Erica thought he was. He was nothing but a prick.
Ruby leaned forward and touched his thigh. “Dylan. What is up with you?”
“I… I fucked up.”
Ruby leaned closer. “Is it because I’m here? Is that why?”
Dylan shook his head.
“I can go over and talk to her. If this is about me, I can explain.”
She stood and he grasped her wrist. “Leave it, Rube. Just…leave it.”
A knock at the door had both their heads jerking in that direction. His heart thumped once, then raced with barely restrained hope. He pushed past Ruby and swung the door open. Greg stood on the threshold, arms crossed and hatred vibrating off his frame.
Rage bubbled to the surface. It burned in his gut with an intensity that robbed him of breath. “What the fuck do you want?”
“I don’t know what you think to achieve, waltzing into my town and trying to corrupt Erica. But I’m here to tell you, it ends now.”
Dylan gripped the doorframe so tight his knuckles hurt. “Where do you get off? This isn’t your town and you don’t own Erica. She can make her own decisions.”
“And you and I both know what she chose.”
“Get the fuck off my property.”
Greg smirked. “By this time tomorrow everyone in this town is going to know you for the liar you are.”
Dylan swung a fist and caught Greg in the jaw. For the second time that day, Greg stumbled backward and fell on his ass. Dylan marched down the stairs and ducked a wild swing, only to deliver one to the man’s soft gut. Clutching his belly, Greg tried to straighten.
“I’m giving you another warning. I want you off my property. I don’t want to see your face here, near me or Erica.”
“You don’t get to dictate to me, you perverted fuck!”
“Dylan, what is going on?”
He glanced over his shoulder at Ruby, who stood pale-faced on the porch. “Get back inside, Rube. This doesn’t involve you.”
Greg chuckled, the sound malicious. “Well, look who has come home to roost. You fucking that whore too, Drake?”
Fury blinded him and he threw several blows, ducking some strikes and taking others. Pain rattled his skull as Greg landed a moneymaker shot by his temple. Ears ringing, Dylan stumbled back. He blinked at his wavering vision.
Greg punched him in his gut and Dylan grunted in agony, his knees buckling. Shit. Struggling for breath, he pressed his fingers into the soft grass, one knee pressed into the dirt.
“Is that all you got, you fucking piece of shit?”
All of a sudden Ruby was there, her delicate features marked with anger. “How dare you come into someone’s house and threaten them? Leave him alone or I’ll call the cops.”
“Do it,” Greg taunted. “I believe prostituting is against the law.”
Ruby slapped him before Dylan could find his feet. Greg’s eyes flashed and he raised his own hand. Before he could complete the action, Dylan tackled him into the ground. Straddling him, Dylan struck mercilessly, wanting to erase the look of disdain. Wanting to purge the hatred inside. Greg put up a weak resistance, but he wasn’t a match for the driving force of Dylan’s rage.
“Stop!”
Dylan looked up at the sound of Erica’s voice. Knuckles aching, he heaved out a shuddering breath. She stood at the border of their property, her face pale and filled with disbelief. He pushed off Greg, the weight of self-recrimination returning tenfold. Greg found his feet also, one eye swelled shut, his mouth cut and his nose bleeding. He fingered his upper lip gingerly.
There was a throbbing pain on Dylan’s cheek and he didn’t doubt for one second he looked like shit. “You ever come near me and the people I care about again, I won’t be nearly so nice. You think to run to the cops about this, I have a witness to say you came onto my property and threatened me. I have my rights and I’ll exercise them. Now get the fuck off my property!”
Greg wandered toward Erica, but she raised her hands to caution him off. Greg swore then trudged off to his vehicle. The engine revved before he burned rubber upon his leaving.
Dylan stared at Erica as she hovered in her yard. He indicated the ground where he and Greg had tussled. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”
Erica folded her arms. “You lied to me.”
The agony in his chest surpassed the physical pain. “Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me that Ruby was someone you…you…”
“Why should he?” Ruby inserted.
Dylan held out a hand. “Ruby. Please. Let me handle it.”
Ruby turned on him, eyes flashing with indignation. “Why do you have to explain yourself to her? She throws you out because you fucked other people? She doesn’t even deserve to occupy the same air as you!”
Dylan groaned at the hurt and anger that flittered over Erica’s face.
“I don’t deserve an explanation? Why not? After all, I told you my secrets. I told you of my fears and you didn’t offer me the same courtesy.”
Ruby spoke up again. “And when you—”
“Ruby!”
Ruby snapped her mouth shut and glared at Erica before she stomped back into his house.
“Look, I went about this all wrong. I should’ve told you what I did for a living. I didn’t think it really mattered,” he said, lying through his teeth.
“But it does matter. Ruby is here. She’s pregnant and you might be the father.”
“Ruby told me she thinks it’s most likely someone else. I’m not the father.”
“But you could be. Until that baby comes out and is DNA tested, you won’t know with all certainty. Did you have unprotected sex in your work?”
Dylan’s lips pursed. “Yes.”
Color leached from her face. “We had unprotected sex.”
“But I was clean. We have to have regular checkups. I wouldn’t ever put you at risk.”
“But you did with Ruby.”
&n
bsp; “She worked with me, for Godsake. She knew the risks as much as I. I didn’t expect her contraceptive to fail. I’m not the father, Erica. I swear I’m not.”
“I don’t care if she is pregnant or who the father is. I shared very intimate things about myself with you and I’m only just realizing, I don’t know you at all.”
“You do know me.” Desperation roiled in his gut and shook his voice. “If you can just see beyond that to what we have—”
“I can’t.”
“Wh-what?”
“I just can’t right now. I need time, Dylan.”
With that she turned around and disappeared into her house, taking with her the last of his hope.
Chapter Thirteen
Five weeks later
Erica sat at the bar and contemplated her spritzer, her body separated from the revelry around her. It had been over a month of pure misery since she’d thrown both Greg and Dylan from her house. Word had spread around town pretty fast. Women were horrified, while the men who leapt to his defense were stifled by their partners. Erica despised the glances thrown her way and the conversations filled with commiseration people seemed to want to draw her into. The women of the town were morbidly fascinated by it all and failed to see that two people were hurting.
Although she’d been avoiding Dylan for the last few weeks, she found herself peeking at him through the windows of her home. He worked like a demon on his house, the sound of saws and hammer work a constant drumming beat. On occasion they would stumble upon each other in town and the whole world would cease to exist. She felt as though they stood separated by a raging river, both wanting to find a way to each other, but with no way to pass over.
As though her thoughts conjured him, Dylan wandered into the bar. The buzz of conversation ceased, and Erica stiffened, drinking in every angle of his beautifully tragic face. The shadows beneath his eyes told her of the lack of sleep he suffered. Beneath his tan he appeared a bit wan and Erica wanted to go to him. But there was too much unsaid between them.
His gaze settled on her, the impact of his need for her felt clear across the room. His Adam’s apple worked, and a torrent of emotions raced across his features. Happiness weighed down with misery. Desire stifled by defeat. Yearning leashed by cold acceptance. Caught up in his stare, she couldn’t look away and her heart ached for him. She missed him. A wealth of emotions churned in her stomach, each pulling her in different directions.
Finally he dropped his head, rubbed the back of his neck and trudged to the table of men he played poker with every Friday. The discomfort around the table could be cut with a knife. Some threw speaking glances in her direction, as though she could fix this. But Erica didn’t know how. Didn’t know if she could.
The men started their game and some patted Dylan on his back, their words swallowed by the conversations that began around them. Whatever was said, Dylan didn’t take much gumption from it and instead stared at his cards, his lips drawn downward in misery. Every few minutes, Dylan would search her out and stare at her as though to memorize her features. Each time she felt his regard like a caress and would shudder with a need to be with him. To forget these weeks had even happened.
Someone eased beside her and she blew out a relieved breath at the sight of Tammy. “How’re you holding up?” she asked.
Erica shrugged. “No better, no worse.”
Tammy made a sympathetic sound in her throat. “He looks like a man being dragged through the fires of hell. How long are you going to torture him?”
Guilt curdled in her gut and she pushed away her drink. “He isn’t the only one hurting, you know.”
“Then why aren’t you over there making up right now?”
Erica glared at Tammy. “You were the first person I called about this. You should understand how I feel right now.”
“And most of that was a blubbering mess. Look, from what I hear about town, he made adult films. I don’t see what the big deal is. You’d think his mere presence would force women to throw their clothes off the way some women are acting around here.”
Erica nodded. It grated on her how other women chose to act self-righteous and appalled given Dylan’s past. If she’d deigned to ask, almost every woman would claim they knew there was something “not quite right” about him. That they’d suspected he was some type of deviant set to corrupt innocent minds. Instead, she bore the townsfolk’s silent disdain and mortified conversations as her due.
“So you’re going to throw in the towel.”
Was she? The thought made her sick to the stomach. “I don’t know.”
“All relationships are complicated, Erica. Sure, yours is unusually so, but the man is dying without you.”
She glanced at him then and his focus was on the game. He appeared leaner than before. Everything about him screamed utter devastation and yet he got up every morning. He went to work and ignored it when people would cross the street to avoid him. He was polite in the face of contempt and patient when she hadn’t even asked it of him. He waited for her deliberation and she knew she must make a decision.
“No one is winning here, and you know that,” Tammy murmured.
Erica’s heart hurt and she swallowed back the tears in the back of the throat. “I know.”
“Then put the man out of his misery. Yes or no, Erica. That’s all it’ll take.”
* * * * *
Although he didn’t look up, Dylan knew the moment Erica left the bar. He stared down at his one pair without even seeing it, the soft cardboard crumbling under his grip.
“Easy there, Dylan. We don’t want you destroying the whole deck,” said Charlie.
Dylan blinked then eased his grip. “What?”
“It’s your bet.”
“I fold.”
He threw down his cards and leaned back in his chair, swiped up his beer and took a generous swallow. Anything to dislodge that damn ball at the back of his throat.
“She’ll come around.”
Dylan didn’t look at who said that, but he appreciated that his friends didn’t give him the cold shoulder. “I don’t think she will.”
The silence settled on him like an anvil. They might say the right things, but he knew deep down they didn’t expect this to end well for him. And he didn’t blame them. He was a fool to think he could escape his past.
“Phfft. If you want her, why not just go after her and tell her that you’ve had enough of her silent treatment and the matter is settled.”
“Like you do with your woman, Harry?” intoned another.
“Well…yeah.”
“And how’d that work out for you?”
“I was in the doghouse for a few more days,” he grumbled.
Everyone chuckled.
“Women, who understands them anyway?” Charlie held up his mug.
They all toasted, then continued on with the game. Bill shifted beside him, his rheumy eyes narrowed in thought. “So, that’s it huh?”
Dylan frowned. “What?”
“You just gonna throw it all away because you hit a rough spot.”
The table fell silent under the weight of Bill’s censure. “What is there to throw away, Bill? She chucked me out and hasn’t spoken to me since.”
Bill grunted. “You think none of us have been thrown out of our own houses before? We sure have.”
Men grumbled in assent.
“Women are prickly pears and you gotta grovel and I’m telling you, I’ve done it a fair few times in my life. Sometimes even when I didn’t know what the hell I did wrong. But if you love her, then you’ll do everything you can do get her back. There ain’t no science to it.”
Dylan shook his head. “She’s a primary school teacher and I’m a… I had sex with women for cash.”
“So you slept with more women than usual before you met her.” He shrugged. “Ain’t nothing you can overcome.”
“And what about the women here?”
Bill eyed him shrewdly. “What of ’em?”
; “You think they’re just gonna be okay with me walking down the street? They already cross the road whenever they see me.”
Bill waved his hands. “Those old biddies don’t know you. Besides, they’ll come around, just let me put on my good old charm and everything will be right as rain.”
Dylan fiddled with a chip in his hand and contemplated his words as the game carried on. Bill hadn’t seen the disbelief and torment on her face. Hadn’t watched helplessly as the woman he cared about turned her back on him. Pain throbbed through his chest and he rubbed a hand over it in hopes of easing the agony there. He was an idiot to think he could leave all that crap behind so he could live a normal life.
Rather than listen to the voice of misery, Dylan ordered another beer, determined to drown it out. After a while, the cards started to blur together and he steadily lost the money he’d won. As he lost his last chip, he threw down his cards and stood.
“I’m done.”
Bill peered up at him and his shoulders dropped a fraction as though he sensed Dylan had accepted more than defeat at the tables. Dylan walked from the bar, his thoughts focused on decisions he needed to make. It wasn’t until he collided into someone that his attention turned outward. His hands grasped at soft flesh and he found Mary-Mae in his arms. Her heavily done-up face stared up at him, a lustful gleam in her eyes.
“Why hello, Dylan.”
He stepped back from her, his nose assaulted by the heavy floral aroma of her perfume. Unlike Erica, Mary-Mae liked to pound her presence in like a sledgehammer. There was nothing subtle about her. Not her skintight clothes, her unusually long nails or her stiff hairstyle.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled, then stepped around her.
Mary-Mae grabbed his arm, nails digging into his flesh. “I heard it didn’t work out between you and Erica.”
A knife ripped his rib cage apart. Damn, he didn’t need another reminder.
“Yeah.” He shrugged and spread his legs to keep his balance.
“Perhaps I could interest you in a nightcap?”
It didn’t take an intellectual to understand her meaning. Here it was, a woman willing to spread her legs for him and he didn’t feel the inclination to act on it. God, he hoped this didn’t last long. For years he’d been able to fuck whomever without a qualm and now he hesitated. He needed to get over Erica and the only way he saw was in the arms of another. He stepped toward her and cupped her cheek. Maybe he’d feel something if he kissed her? He ran his thumb along her lip and across her cheek, smudging her lipstick. He leaned forward, swallowing back his reluctance and hesitated. Her ragged breath heated his lips.
