But I didn’t dare take it off.
He’d have noticed.
When I looked back, I knew I’d gone all in because of the void of love in my life.
My dad had left us and became a bank check. My mom had checked out the minute I told her I was going back to Hawaii for college, and then Reef had left, too. With all the people I loved and depended on just walking out of my life, the hole of emotion just grew wider. Dean was the only one who had stuck by me. He was all I had left.
Everything Reef had told me about Dean became real the moment he found out he’d left. Instead of being devastated, he’d got an ugly look of ‘I’ve won’ on his face and my stomach churned with fear that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.
All those lies he’d fed me about wanting to protect Reef were just that—lies. The fucker had got off on the thrill of knowing he was fucking me behind Reef’s back.
I’d chosen wrong and I lived with the depression of that every day.
Dean’s parents waved us both off to college in Hawaii. My mom was at work, but since I’d pretty much stabbed her in the back by going to the place of her heartbreak, she didn’t care and was happy to see the back of me. There had been an agonizing conversation between us where she’d pretty much told me I was an adult. She’d put her life on hold for me once and now it was her time to live. Reef had been crystal clear with his parents about what had gone on and they weren’t exactly throwing us a leaving party either. Dean was just pleased that he’d won again.
We were truly on our own and with each passing mile on the plane trip, the weight of dread increased.
Things deteriorated in Hawaii. Dean turned into a professional partygoer. He drank and partied like he’d been released from jail, and the only comfort to me was that I was back in familiar surroundings.
It didn’t take long for him to resent my old friends, so I distanced them to keep him happy. My dad had a new life and was happy with his role as tuition funder and general pay check, but being back near him didn’t mean I had any more family to count on.
It was still just Dean and me.
Dean’s relentless partying got out of control. He made sure he got the full college experience, and when he wasn’t drunk off his head, he was out surfing. Before long I found myself helping him keep his grades up, doing my own college studies and taking on a part time job. Things got bad for a while and he gave the mad parties a miss, but I spent so much time getting him back on track at college that I fell wildly behind.
Through all of this, he was the only one I could depend on. He acted like the only family I had, the only person interested in spending time with me, and I soaked it up. I ended up doing more and more for him, and with each bit extra for Dean, I lost a little more of myself in the process. I wanted Dean to have an easy life and if I couldn’t do that, there was no need for him to keep me around. Then one day he got pulled into the Dean’s office and was told he wouldn’t be able to continue the course the following semester, even with all my help. The life draining motherfucker hadn’t turned up to lectures and had flunked his exams. This time, though, it was a double blow. I’d spent so much time working on keeping him happy that I was on the verge of flunking my course, too.
When Dean announced he wanted to go back to Cali, there was no point in me staying behind. I had nowhere to live, no real job. I’d fucked up college, given up all my friends, and my dad wasn’t going to fund me any longer. It was an easy choice to make. At least if we went home, we could be close to his parents, and that would be the small mercy in the big shit mess of an existence I called my life.
The pattern of our life altered. Dean got a job as a trainee construction manager. He was learning on the job and blamed me for the way his life had turned out. The selfish fucker at least had something. I was stuck in an office with a bunch of moaning bitches who didn’t know just how good they had things. I never saw my mom; she’d moved in with one of her men friends, or rather he’d installed her in a place where he got his piece of ass on the regular. Turned out he didn’t even know she had a daughter and she wasn’t keen on making my presence in her life known to him.
A dad who didn’t care and a mom who cared even less.
Dean’s parents funded a deposit for us to get a place, and we moved across town, away from the ocean. It was the first time in my life that when I looked out of a window in my home, I couldn’t see the sea.
I gave that up for him.
Something had to give, and that something was always me.
I gave.
I started a business management degree with a postal college to try to make things better for me, make a bit more money and make something of myself, but I hated it. I was a surfer, a goddamn mermaid in the making, and I’d gone from dreaming of working on the ocean, riding wave after wave, to riding a fucking desk.
Yeah, my life sucked major ass, but it was all my fault.
The launderette was in the skeeviest part of town. I didn’t think Dean even realized I had to come here to get our laundry done. I had an assignment due the following day and doing it with the whirring of a washing machine and the added distraction of seeing my work uniform go round and round inside it did nothing to help me.
I hated my fucking life.
I had no money, nothing, and once again the realization hit me that the only thing I did have was Dean. And he was proving to be a bigger fucking asshole with each calendar day.
“Hey, girlie.” Mr. Melise came through the door and plopped his butt on the bench next to me. Now there was no way I was going to get my assignment done.
“Mr. M, it’s late for you to be here.”
“Nah, I prefer it at this time of day.” Mr. M and I had struck up an allegiance over laundry a few months earlier. He was a gentle, kind senior citizen who used this place as more of social hangout than a convenience. His wife had died over ten years earlier, and Mr. M was trying to make the most of his lonely days. His cleanliness and appearance were testament to the launderette being his social hub. He was always dressed in a suit with a pocket square and tie to compliment. He pushed his laundry in an old shopping trolley that I suspected had belonged to his late wife. Sometimes he did the crossword, and sometimes he chatted. It all depended on who was in. “What’re you doing here? You should be out painting the town red.”
“Got some stuff on my clothes. Didn’t want it to stain.”
“That man o’yours needs to get you a machine installed.” He shook his head, zipped open his trolley top and pulled out a generous handful of large white underpants.
That man of mine needed to do a lot of things. I’d have settled for him treating me better and loving me like he had years ago rather than a washing machine, but Mr. M didn’t need to know that, and I didn’t offer a reply. We were also a little short of cash, and there were other luxuries we needed more than our own washing machine, like food, gas and water.
Two hours later, I was still there when I should have been at home. Listening to Mr. M reminded me about loneliness—his and mine. He was so utterly devoted to his wife—his very dead wife—that he’d decided to just keep on going, like he was seeing out his time. He felt her loss so deeply in everything he did that I wondered whether I would feel like that if something happened to Dean. Honestly, though, unless he changed, I could see the contempt I held for him growing bigger.
“I’ll walk you home.”
“Don’t be silly,” he told me as he folded up pants the size of parachutes. “I should be escorting you home, anyway. A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be here at all.” It seemed like Mr. M held the same amount of disdain for Dean as I did, and they’d never met. “You should be snuggled up with a bottle of red, watching a good movie or better yet, in bed with—”
“You’re my hot date for the night and we head the same way,” I interrupted. I didn’t need to be reminded of all the ‘shoulds’ in my life.
The night was a perfect temperature, and as we ambled along at his pace, I listened
to him tell me things about the place I lived, but never knew. Businesses that had once been the hub of the community, and the old mom and pop shops that had been swallowed up by the changing immigration patterns over the decades, giving our state vibrancy and diversity. His ground floor apartment was in a complex not far from the sea front, and I could smell it all around me. It reminded me that my toes hadn’t touched the sand in a while, and I needed it. Maybe it could give me that injection of life I was missing.
I had this overwhelming urge to reconnect with my first true love.
I saw him inside and headed down onto the public beach, passing the places where everyone usually sat. I walked to the break point, and from there I was able to sit on the rocks and dangle my toes in the water. As soon as my feet felt the cool liquid, I breathed freer. I drew energy from everything around me—the crashing of the waves, the moon high in the sky and the air… There was something different about sea air. The oxygen was infused with something special. There were a few nighttime surfers out on the water, reminding me of a time when I lived to be on the ocean, riding waves.
The solace I had hoped to find quickly turned sour.
I didn’t have the life I’d wanted. I didn’t even have a life where I could stop for just a couple of hours and be on a board in the sea.
I was jealous, envious to the point where it stuck in my throat that I couldn’t be those people out there. They had something that had been taken away from me.
With depressed frustration I got up and shuffled my feet in the sand. I wriggled my toes to dry the water and wandered up the beach, swinging my laundry and work purse until I found a bench to brush it off and put my shoes back on.
I looked at the ocean again and tried to convince myself I was wrong, that this was still my happy place, but all I felt was jealousy coursing through me. I didn’t belong here anymore. I didn’t belong in my happy place anymore. I didn’t belong with Dean anymore, but I didn’t have anyone else.
I had nothing.
I was nobody.
I existed for the sake of existing.
I felt tears building in my eyes, as I forced away the recognition that this nothingness was my life now and paced along the street. Passing bar after bar, I saw people enjoying themselves, kicking back after a hard day at work.
I saw the sign for O’Malley’s Irish bar in the distance and knew it was a favorite of Dean and his work crew. I didn’t want to walk directly past it, so I crossed the road. As I got to the sidewalk on the other side, I heard the door swing open and with it, a blast of music. Naturally, I glanced to the commotion and saw a doorman holding it open, shortly before a body was ejected through it.
Dean.
In his inebriated state, he tripped, stumbled and landed on the sidewalk with just enough aggression left in him to hurl some abuse at the guys who’d made it crystal clear it wouldn’t go well for him if he tried to go back inside.
Dean tried to get back up and tripped again. I couldn’t leave him like that; he was really out of it. Part of me dreaded getting him home. Things were never fun for me when Dean was this wasted.
I put a foot off the sidewalk and watched as a woman, a little less drunk than Dean, teetered out on skyscraper heels, dropped her purse on the floor next to him and tried to help him.
“What the fuck?”
I shrank back into an empty shop doorway and watched as the woman cajoled and caressed my guy off the floor. She wore a dress so small and lacking in material it bordered on being pointless referring to it as a dress. My fucked-up brain told me that she was just a concerned bar fly, trying to be a good citizen, but then I saw Dean palm her obviously enhanced tit and wanted to throw up in my mouth.
The busty bitch managed to get him to his feet, where he ended up draped around her like a leech. I should have turned around and walked home a different way. I also should have walked across the road and smacked the bitch up, but I didn’t. I skulked in the shadows from doorway to doorway, ghosting their path to wherever the fuck they were going.
I could hear the odd muttered word.
She whispered in his ear and he laughed like a teenager.
This went on for some time until I saw them stop on the sidewalk and he called her, ‘Baby.’
Fucking baby. Like he used to say to me. Like they were very familiar already.
It was like looking at a car crash; it hurt your eyes, made you feel sad and sick all at the same time, but your in-built sense of curiosity forbade you from looking away.
The whore—I’d decided she was a whore—placed a palm on his cheek, and to my horror, he inched closer to her face until they were lip locked in the middle of the street. If I hadn’t been backed up against a door shutter that smelled like someone had urinated there very recently, I would have been ass flat on the floor.
Dean, who finally found some sober cells in his body, grabbed her ass cheeks and lifted her up. She ground herself up the front of him until he spotted a side alley and snuck down it. I stepped on the spot, wondering whether to leave, or follow and have my suspicions confirmed. My internal debate lasted less than ten seconds as I ducked across the street and poked my head around the corner.
They were fucking against the wall.
With a poorly concealed gasp, I pulled my head back around, although the way they were going at each other it was unlikely I’d caused enough of a disturbance to drown out the very loud sounds of what could only be described as farm animals mating.
I stumbled away, utterly shocked and totally devastated.
How could he do this to me?
By the time I got home, I was a mess. The one person who still meant something to me had betrayed me.
Everyone betrayed me.
Just for once, I wanted to be the kind of person who inspired trust and devotion in return. Someone people found easier to love than discard.
I let my clothes hit the floor where they fell, along with my purse and laundry bag, and mindlessly pushed my body into the shower cubicle, even though I knew any attempt to wash away the despair I felt would be in vain. I fell into our bed as a million unanswered questions whirred inside my skull.
But the only one that seemed to matter was, what would happen to me if Dean left me for someone else? How would I make it alone? Dean was all I had.
Malia
He came home last night and climbed into bed beside me.
I knew now what that odd scent was. I’d smelled it before but could never place it. My subconscious recognized it immediately; it was sex. Usually, I’d drift over and cuddle up to him at some point during my slumber, but that night I didn’t, because I knew and because of the smell. I was hyper aware that he’d been with someone else and just crawled into bed with me like it was nothing. How many times had I snuggled up to him after his cock had been inside another woman? It was first light by the time that stomach-churning thought occurred to me and I bolted from the bed, puked in the toilet bowl and wondered what the hell to do.
Like a coward, I did what I always did.
I got up, made our breakfast, put a packed lunch together for him and waited for him to roll out of bed in a seriously grumpy mood. I mindlessly swirled a spoon around in my coffee when he appeared, looking tired and hungover. I’d been so preoccupied with my head twisting thoughts I hadn’t even heard him take a shower.
“Ugh, eggs. Not sure my stomach can take sunny side up today, baby.”
Baby. That one fucking word slayed my insides.
“You hearin’ me?” he asked when I didn’t answer.
“Yeah. I’ll get you some toast and jelly. You were late last night.” I wanted to keep quiet. I was good at hiding my feelings, but I couldn’t.
“You clock watching me now?”
“No. I just didn’t hear you come in.”
I put the toast in front of him and heard him mutter, “She’s busting my fucking balls and I’ve only been awake a half hour.”
“I’m not,” I snapped back at him, something I never norm
ally did, not when he was post-beer tired.
I sat and looked at his face for signs that something was different. When he looked exactly the same as always, I knew he’d been fucking around on me for a while.
“What? You’re staring.”
“I… just… nothing.”
“Stop it. It’s fucking creepy.”
“Are you happy?” I blurted out.
“Is anyone these days?”
“We were. I mean, I remember when we were first together—”
Dean snorted and cut me off. “Long time ago. Things’ll be better soon.”
I looked at him hopeful. “Yeah? How?” I leaned into the table, eager to hear how things would improve for us.
Dean smiled. It was the look that told me he loved having a secret to hold over me and I’d get no more if I pursued it. “Got a big pay day coming.” Well that was something; we needed the money.
“Who’d you go out with last night?”
He dropped a half-eaten slice of toast onto his plate as the smile left his face and he sat back. “The usual.”
“Where’d you go for drinks?”
“What the fuck does it matter?”
I sensed the rise in his irritation as I peppered him with questions.
“It doesn’t. Just taking an interest.”
Dean pushed his plate to one side, stood from the table and walked off. “Might be late tonight.”
“Why? What shall I do with dinner?”
“Don’t fucking care. I don’t need a keeper, and stop asking questions.”
“Dean…” I stood up sharply; it was now or never. “Am I… are you… we still okay?”
His irritation rushed forward and then he dampened it down to show only mild frustration. “Still asking fucking questions.” He looked to the ceiling for patience. “If I’m not okay it’s because you don’t let up. Ever. I need to fuckin’ breathe, Mal.” He grabbed the packed lunch off the side and stropped out.
Malia: A Black Sentinels MC Novel Page 9
