“I wouldn’t either.”
“Sometimes I think you’d be just fine without me, baby girl.” Her brow creases, and she shifts beneath me. I come up on my knees so I’m no longer pinning her legs, and then flop back down on my side of the couch.
“Why would you say that?”
“What, that you’d be okay without me? Because it’s true. A beautiful woman like you could have any man you want.”
She snorts.
“I’m serious.”
“Then I want you,” she says and straddles me, settling her weight down in my lap. She links her arms behind my shoulders and toys with the hair at the back of my neck. Ana grinds her arse against my crotch, and my dick goes electric. That fucker is humming louder than her Magic Wand, and it wants out of my jeans, yesterday.
“Good.” I thrust my hips upward and sink my fingers into the soft flesh of her arse, slamming her down on me. I love how we fit together, even fully clothed. “’Cause I’m never giving you up.”
“Then we don’t need to be having this conversation.”
“There’s one thing we do need to talk about, though.”
“Oh, really?” She kisses my lips, my cheeks, and runs her tongue across my stubbled jaw to my ear lobe. “What’s that?”
“What happened today with Nicole?”
She halts her gyrating, and lets out an angry sigh. “Really? We’re going to talk about her right now?”
“No, we’re going to talk about your behaviour.”
“What, are you my dad?”
“Ana.” I warn.
“It just … it makes me crazy when I see you with her.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that. The question is why?”
She laughs, humourlessly. “You’re kidding right?”
“I know there’s history; I’m not talking about that.”
“Right. I forgot we don’t talk about your fuck-ups,” she says, and climbs off me. Picking up our empty glasses of wine, she heads to the kitchen. I follow close behind. This is one conversation I’m not letting her walk away from. “Just mine.”
“Ana …”
“I don’t wanna talk about it, Elijah. Can’t we just put it behind us and move on?”
“You know that’s not ever going to happen again, right? You know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
She freezes before she reaches the sink, her back facing me when she says, “Else.”
“What?” I frown, confused.
“Anything else. You’d never do anything else to hurt me.”
“Baby girl.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, and let out a deep breath. “I was hurting.”
“Oh, and I wasn’t?” She sets the glasses down in the sink. Leaning against the bench, she turns to face me.
“I just—I fucked up. I made a fucking mistake. I was hurting, and I was angry. I couldn’t afford to go back to jail by punching some fucker in the head, which is where you talking to Cooper was taking me.”
“So that makes it okay?”
“No! Of course it doesn’t fucking make it okay. If I could go back and erase the whole thing I would. I’d fix this so that you never had a reason to doubt me again, but I can’t.”
“And I can’t ever un-see it, or un-hear the way she moaned, or the way your voice sounded when you came with your cock inside her.”
“Ana—”
“I don’t want you talking to her again.”
“I didn’t seek her out. She came to deliver a pizza, for Christ’s sake. I glare up at the ceiling, lacing my fingers behind my neck, and wishing we were past this already. “You have got to let this go. I’m not interested in Nicole, and you need to learn to trust me.” I step closer to her, but she holds up her hands to signal me to stop. “I realise I made it hard for that to happen. It was my fault, that’s on me, but baby, if this is going to work you have got to get the fuck over it.”
“Alright then, how ‘bout we take a break? I go and screw some guy you hate in the men’s room at the Sugartown Hotel, and you can walk in on the two us. Then you can see how awkward that is—”
“Don’t even fucking joke about that shit.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says, and then throws the dishcloth at the sink. “I’m going to bed.”
“Come on, Ana.” I stand in front of her, attempting to take her in my arms, but she shirks away, and motions for me to give her space.
“Just … I need to be alone right now.”
She walks from the room and I stare after her, dumbfounded, wondering how the hell that escalated so quickly. I open the fridge for another beer, shoving containers of leftovers aside in order to find one last stubbie. I wind up empty-handed. I slam the fucker closed in a fit of rage, and slump back against the cold metal. It’s not the lack of beer that’s pissing me off right now. It’s that maybe we’re not ready for the rock and the vows. We can’t even have a simple conversation without it blowing up into World War Fucking Three.
DO YOU ever have those moments where you just wanna punch someone in the face? I don’t mean figuratively. I mean, a time when you wanna rear back and smack the shit out of his nose? Maybe I’ve been hanging around Holly too long, but damn it, Elijah makes me furious sometimes.
I know, he’s trying, and I love him for that. I really do. But it doesn’t stop me feeling stabby when I think about Nicole. The funny thing is, three weeks ago we were blissfully happy, and Nicole was a thing of the past. Out of sight, out of mind. But when I see them together, or I think of what I walked into in that bathroom, the rage builds within me. The walls go up so I can’t get hurt again. And the worst part is, I can feel it happening. I can feel myself freaking out and causing a rift between us, and I can’t stop it.
After our argument, I went to bed and lay awake until Elijah came in sometime around two am. He tossed and turned, and then, without a word, he pulled me into the crook of his arm so he could sleep. Ever since we got back together, that’s how we’ve slept. Like he has to touch me, even when he’s unconscious. At first it drove me mad. Despite being naked, he’s a hot sleeper, and so I’d wake in the middle of the night and try and push him off me, which meant he’d wake and try to pull me back in. After a while it just became easier to put up with it, and now I’m not sure I could sleep any other way.
Warm, all-encompassing arms aside, my heart still hurt, and I still lay awake all night while Elijah snored in my ear.
“Okay, you really need to start talking, lady, because this is the third time today I’ve caught you moping around the shop while you glare across the street at your man. What the hell is going on with you two?” Kristine pulls me from my gloomy thoughts. I only hired her a three months ago, but already I love her like she’s part of the family. She and Holly get on like cheese and crackers, which is rare for Hols, because she’s something of an acquired taste. Kristine’s a gorgeous blonde, just a few years older than us, who doesn’t look a day over twenty-two. Her obsession with lipstick might border on insanity, but she can totally pull it off. I’d look like a freaking Muppet if I tried to wear the bright pink she’s sporting now.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.” She fake coughs, and I smile over at her and shake my head.
“We’re just going through a rough patch right now.” Were we, though? I mean, we were doing fine, great even, before Tramp Stamp came strutting back into town. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Nothing, huh?”
The bell above the door jingles as Holly comes strutting through it. “What up, bitches?” She’s not oblivious to the paying customers, but she doesn’t give a crap either. That’s my best friend for you.
“Nothing,” I mumble, and collect the half-empty coffee pot from the dispenser. I pour myself a cup, and mope some more.
“Oh, hell no,” Holly says, and then she turns to Kristine. “How long has she been like this?”
“Since I came in this morning.”
“Hey, I’m standing right here.�
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“Good. Then you’ll be able to feel it when I bitch-slap your pretty little face. What the fuck is going on with you two?”
“Nothing, we’re just—”
“Going through a rough patch?” they both finish for me.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Oh, honey, that’s where you’re wrong. See, when team Fingergate is okay, everything in the world is just fine and dandy. But when you guys are fighting, or God forbid, on a freaking break, the whole world is thrown into chaos.”
“It’s true,” Kristine says.
“That is not true.”
“Mm-hmm.” Kristine shoots Holly a surreptitious glance.
“I expect this kind of thing from her,” I point at Holly, “but Kristine, I’m disappointed in you.”
“Suck it up, princess. You’re just trying to shift focus because you know we’re right.”
“You know what you need?” Holly asks.
“No, but I can’t wait to hear it,” I deadpan.
“We need a girl’s night out with our old friend, Mr Smirnoff.”
“And this is going to fix my relationship problems how?”
“Who cares about your relationship problems? Jack’s driving me fucking crazy, and I could do with a night away where I don’t feel like throttling him.”
“Well then, I’m so glad my problems with my man will save you from strangling yours,” I mutter, and then I give in, because I know there is no other option here. “When and where are we doing this thing?”
“Tonight. Sugartown pub. Be there or be totally unawesome, bitches.”
“Fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to drown my sorrows in a tub of Cookie Cream Commotion.” I collect my things from beneath the counter and trudge my glum little butt toward the door. I fish through my handbag as I step out onto the street. I’m not watching where I’m going, and I feel like a complete spaz when my face slams into a giant wall of muscle. Strong hands reach out to steady me and stop me from toppling.
“God, I am so sorry.” I say, staring up into bright blue eyes.
“It’s fine.” The guy releases my shoulders and finally looks down at me. It takes me a second to realise he’s the guy that was in here yesterday, the same one that left the twenty-dollar tip.
“Hey, you were here yesterday.”
“No. You must have me confused with someone else.”
“I never forget a good tipper, since we don’t often see them in our neck of the woods.” I smile up at him, but he averts his gaze and glances nervously over his shoulder. “Are you visiting someone in town, or just passing through?”
“Just passing through. Excuse me, I gotta go”
“You don’t want pie?”
“No,” he says, and scurries off down Main Street.
Well, that was weird. I glance across the road. Elijah’s standing out the front of Bob’s, his shoulders tight with anger, his arms crossed in front of his massive chest. He looks pissed. Good. I return his steely gaze for a moment and then scurry over to my scooter, buckling up my helmet beneath my chin, and taking off for home without another glance in his direction.
Holly, Kristine and I slam our shot glasses down on the bar. This is my second ABC for the night, and I have to say I’ve never quite been so pleasantly buzzed. Okay, maybe buzzed is the wrong word. I’m flying. We all are.
“I fucking love this song!” Holly shouts over the noise of the live band. She grabs my hand and drags me towards the dance floor, despite my protests. I reach a hand out for Kristine to pull me back, but she just laughs, takes hold, and allows herself to be catapulted along for the ride.
The wailing guitars and distortion from the amps are so loud this close to the stage that I can’t even tell what the song is. I don’t know how Holly’s able to say she loves it. The bands just aren’t the same now that Coop isn’t here to choose them. Dave will let anyone with a couple of instruments and the willingness to play for free drinks, and a hundred bucks, take the stage. The bands begin pumping their sound through the ancient speakers, and we all start gyrating on the dance floor regardless.
After two more songs have passed in a miasma of noise, squealing guitars, and bad vocals, I pull away to wipe the sweat from the back of my neck. I miss Elijah. I roll my eyes and give myself a mental smack down. I am so pathetic. I swear half the time I’m ready to throttle him, or call it quits, or make pretty streamers out of his intestines, and the other half I’m filled to bursting with mad, stupid love. One thing I know for certain—that boy will be the death of me.
I make the international “drunk fairy” signal for drink, and the girls nod and go about their dancing as I stagger my way up to Dave the publican.
“Dave,” I cheer, a little too enthusiastically.
“Ana Belle, your dad’s gonna kill me if I let you have another.”
“Dave, I’m a growed moman.” I frown and try again, “Woman. I am a grown woman. And my dad is not here right now, so I’ll have three Grey Goose martinis, please.”
He shakes his head and mutters, “I never should have bloody well hired that Cooper Ryan. He came in here, wielding his fancy pants drinks, and now it’s all you sheilas ever bloody ask for. What’s wrong with a house wine, or a beer for shit’s sake?”
“Fine. Give us three house wines, then.”
I fish the money out and set it on the bar. “I gotta go tinkle, hold those ‘til I get back?”
“Sure. Just remember, you spew in my bathrooms, you get to be the one to clean that shit up.”
“You know, Dave, I can’t for the life of me understand why a catch like you is still single,” I yell over my shoulder.
“Keep talking, twinkle toes,” he taunts. I walk past the pool table where Elijah and I had our first date, and then down the hall, where he kissed me for the first time. I stop just outside the bathroom where he broke my heart in two, and my phone rings.
“Hey baby girl, how’s it going?”
“Hey you,” I say with a sigh. It’s not like I haven’t been back to the pub since. We come here from time to time when Elijah wants to have his arse kicked in pool.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I just … I think the shots are going to my head.”
“Are you having fun?”
“Not as much fun as if you were here.”
“I’m not crashing a girls’ night. Holly nearly shoved my balls in a vice last time I made that mistake.”
“I remember,” I say, but all the carefree happiness of my night is gone. I wanna be on a beach somewhere with him. Somewhere where there’s no wild, drunk best friends. No annoying cousin who overstays his welcome by two days, trying to master a single video game. Where there’s no diner, no responsibilities, no kid brother, no overbearing father. There’s only sex, and sun, and us, and our crazy, stupid love.
“Remember that time we went to that secluded beach near Coffs Harbour, and we drank sangria and had sex in the sand dunes, and just stayed there all night?”
He clears his throat. “I remember. We were both chafed for a week.”
“I wish we could have that again.”
“The chafing?” He laughs. It does tingly things to my lady parts, despite my melancholy. “I don’t see why we can’t. We could jump on the bike and drive down tomorrow.”
“No, we can’t.” I sigh and close my eyes as I lean back against the wall, absentmindedly watching the guys crowded around the pool table in the opposite room. “We have … things.”
“What things? What’s goin’ on, Ana?”
“Nothing. I think I’m just going to get a cab home. We should talk, and I’m not feeling so in the mood for partying anymore.”
“I’ll come get you.”
“I’m okay, just let me go talk to Holly. I’ll be home soon.”
I can’t explain this feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like everything is swallowing me up from the inside. I don’t know why I’m so damn depressed over this crap with Elijah. Technically, for
the first time in a long time, we’re in a good place. So why do I feel like the walls are about to come caving in?
“I don’t think so. You don’t sound good. I’m coming to pick you up in the van,” he says. I shake my head, and glance up at the raucous group of guys around the pool table. I know all of them; some I went to school with, some were a few years above me, and some are just local bar flies that convinced the younger guys they were a bit of fun to be around.
There’s a guy with blonde curls who has his back to me. He has a creepy looking scar on the back of his neck, and his hair just barely covers it. I narrow my eyes, wondering why he seems familiar. My stomach churns. His mate beside him, Stephen Embry—a douche in school, and an even bigger one as an adult—is watching me carefully. Blonde Guy brings his stubbie to his mouth and then turns, looking right at me.
I stare back into sky-blue eyes that had once upon a time made me weak in the knees. Once upon a time I’d thought he was Prince Charming. And then, like a monster, he held me down in a cane field, stole my innocence and ripped my life apart.
My heart stops.
He can’t possibly be here. It’s only been four years; he can’t be out yet. He can’t …
“Ana?” I hear Elijah’s voice in my ear, but it sounds tinny, and not at all the way it should. The phone falls from my hands. I slide down the wall, but when he sets his beer down on the table, and casually slips his hands in his pockets as he takes a step toward me, my body screams for me to run. My stomach clenches. Bile creeps up my throat.
Scott strides closer. My whole world spins out of control. I want to faint. But then I remember the last time I passed out around this monster—I woke to him shoving himself inside me. My feet move of their own volition, and I run to the bathroom. Possibly not the smartest place to run when your rapist is hell-bent on spending time alone with you.
I lock myself in a stall, and climb onto the toilet seat, squatting in my heels to avoid him seeing which one I’m in. Kinda pointless, I suppose. If he wanted to get to me again, he wouldn’t let a stall door stop him. Nothing could stop him. Nothing stopped him before …
The bathroom door opens. Noise from the bar filters in, but that’s all it is … noise. I can’t think past the blood whooshing through my ears and the heartbeat pounding in my throat. My stomach sloshes uneasily; it hurts from clenching so tight. My chest aches with every erratic beat of my terrified heart. My lungs squeeze tight from the breath I won’t release.
Greetings from Sugartown Page 4
