by Liz Crowe
He propped his chin on his hands. She could see him through the bottle, his face distorted by the amber liquid between them. “Fine. I was flipping to see what kind of a man I was. Heads, I’d go to you, try to make it work. Tails, I’d run away.”
She grinned, picked up both of the quarters, and tossed them high, watching the dim bar lights glint off each one. Catching them both in mid-drop, she slapped them onto the table. “There. Now are you happy? Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creepy crawlies.”
He stared at the dual George Washington profiles glinting up at him from the scarred wood table, then up at her. “I…don’t know…”
“I do. I understand everything now. About you, about me, about us.”
He raised an eyebrow but she kept going, figuring that if she stopped, she’d chicken out. She held out her hands, palms up. He put his in them. She felt him trembling and believed that she could sense his zinging nerves deep in her soul. She held on to him, tight, like he had done for her the night before. “We aren’t co-dependent, Brock. That word is no longer allowed in our vocabulary. We’re co-survivors, okay? We’ve been through hell and back and now…we’re gonna survive together.”
He smiled. “Co-survivors, eh? Nice.”
“Yeah, I thought of it all on my own.” She put her palm alongside his stubbled jaw. “Can we please get out of here? We have some unfinished business, I think.”
“Do we?” His dark eyebrow raised. The sparkle in his eyes made every inch of her skin tingle. “What sort of business might this be, madam?”
“Personal business, mister.”
“Ah, yes, my favorite kind.” He got up and pulled her to her feet, and they walked out of the stinky, smoky old life into the crisp Michigan October night.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
One year later
Once Brock woke, he realized something was wrong. After noting the empty space next to him, the sheets hardly mussed, he climbed out of bed. He padded barefoot down the long hall toward the main room, a small box from his bedside table tucked in his PJs pocket. He blinked into the dark space, lit only from streetlights below the wall of windows, and heard the soft strains of the Bob Dylan song that they both agreed defined the moment that their relationship changed.
He spotted her sitting at the massive dining room table that was covered by sheets of architectural renderings he’d been studying before going to bed. Her hands were wrapped around a mug of tea, her eyes focused out onto the Grand Rapids streetscape below. She’d gained weight since they’d moved in together, thanks to his cooking, which had the side bonus of making her hair and skin glow with good health. They were both glowing, and he liked to claim that having a healthy sex life for the first time was the reason.
Deciding that standing across the loft great room and watching her was what he wanted to do right then, Brock leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his bare chest, humming along with the chorus of Tangled Up in Blue. Kayla remained still, the cup in one hand, her gaze fixed outward.
The moment shimmered with portent on one hand, but felt so ordinary, so normal, Brock smiled in the dark, his skin not crawling, his body not urging him forward to do something to her, with her. He could stand here and look at her and feel happy. The sensation still gave him a bit of pause. He’d been conditioned to mistrust happiness in most any form that didn’t come with an external, chemical high. But as their new therapist reminded them, they had to adjust to happiness, learn to accept it on its own terms. To understand that it was okay to feel it. It was fine to trust it. That there was no reason to upset it for the sake of upset, as had been their mutual modus operandi for years.
Kayla met his gaze in the gloom then crooked her finger. He straightened and glanced over his shoulder before pointing to his chest and mouthing “me?” She tilted her head, accommodating his bad joke. He stuck his hand in his pocket and curled his fingers around the ring he’d bought six months ago.
When he reached her, he saw she had a computer tablet in her lap, open to email. Leaving the ring hidden for now, he plucked the tablet up and read the message she’d had opened last. She remained as still as a stone while he read it again, then once more, to ensure he was seeing the words correctly. A surge of pride filled his chest. “Kayla,” he whispered, pointing to the message glowing in the dark. “Honey. Is this…what I think it is?”
She nodded but kept her gaze averted. Tears stood in her eyes. Her hands shook as she put the tea mug to her lips. Brock put the tablet down and took the mug from her, pulling her up and into his arms. She remained wooden, stiff, her arms hanging at her sides. He held on to her, giving her his body warmth, his wordless support, until she softened and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“I can’t do it,” she said into his chest. “I never meant for people to…to…”
He pulled back and stared into her eyes. “For people to want to give you money—serious money—in exchange for your art?”
She sighed and buried her face into his chest again. He stroked her hair, relishing the normalcy of his mind and body for the millionth—zillionth?—time since she’d pulled him out of that dive bar. Holding her close, filling all his senses with everything about her, was all he needed most days. Well, that and regular attendance at meetings, therapy sessions, a full medicine cabinet of drugs, a fridge full of ginger ale, exercise…the usual.
Once a junkie and all that.
As they stood there, the Dylan tune swirling in the air around them, the blueprints on the table caught his eye. A whoosh of anxiety filled him, making him look away. It was too much. She was right. Too many things were going so great right now for them. It was a matter of time before the other shoe dropped—before one of them slipped, fell, used, or worse.
He pressed his nose into her hair, eyes squeezed shut. As if sensing his lapse, she tightened her arms and lifted her face to his. “Did you see that number?”
He nodded, willing his brain to settle. Which it did, thanks to the kiss she laid on him. He broke away and touched her face. “I’m so proud of you. I told you those pictures were incredible. So did the gallery owner.”
She shook her head but remained in his arms, their bodies mashed together the way they both preferred it. “It was only supposed to be a charity thing. You know, pictures by losers and shit.”
“It was for some people, but for you…” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “You are the real deal, it would seem.”
Her collection of self-portraits had been included in a large gallery show as part of the Fitzgerald Foundation’s latest fundraiser. The weekend-long event included a walking tour of all the galleries in town, with the art provided by recovering addicts and others with mental health issues. She’d been reluctant to show him the charcoal drawings, so he’d seen them for the first time at the Friday opening reception. He’d stared at them while the party swirled around him, amazed and horrified at how completely she’d captured herself. He’d stood there, frozen by the raw emotion she’d poured into the simple portraits, until his intern crew had pulled him away for interviews and face-time with local muckety-mucks.
Two weeks after she’d saved him, he’d decided to sell the Inn to a local non-profit that provided therapies for children and teenagers who were survivors of any number of life’s horrors—abuse, abandonment, drugs, alcohol—the gamut. He’d signed the deed over with his mother’s blessing for a single dollar, then launched himself into the effort to raise money to renovate the main building to house offices, classrooms, therapy room and the adjoining cabins into short-term residential options for kids who had no other place to go. He’d talked the architects into donating their time, as well as lawyers, and a few contractors. But he wanted people to get paid something for their work, so he’d pledged a matching donation up to a million dollars and the non-profit, well-named Survivor’s Club, had been in hardcore, no-holds-barred fundraising mode for almost a year.
He tucked a lock of Kayla’s hair behind her ear, kissed her n
eck, then pulled the ring from his pocket. She smiled as he slid it onto her finger. They’d agreed to get married the following spring, had worked out the details between them, but had decided not to make a big announcement or fuss.
“You promised,” she whispered, holding her left hand up so the light from outside caught the facets of the brilliant round amethyst surrounded by small, sparkling diamonds all set in heavy platinum. “Oh, shit, Brock.”
“I heard that bitches love big rings,” he said, threading his fingers in hers. “That true?”
“But we said nothing showy.”
“I changed my mind,” he said, pulling her close again, swaying to the music which had changed to Etta James.
“Did you set this up? I mean, you’re not the ‘anonymous buyer’ who wants to pay me half a million bucks for my whole collection of scratchings, are you?” She leaned away from him, her eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t put that past you.”
“Now that would have been super romantic and cool, but no. I don’t think I could have those things here.”
She nodded and molded her body to his again as every single line of the song seemed to describe exactly how he felt, right here, right now. He was dead serious about the pictures. They were harsh and brutal in a way that had left him breathless. The work had been featured on a few national morning chat shows, once his passel of promo geniuses had worked their magic, and now the art world was yammering about her non-stop.
But he hated them. Despised the damn things with a burning, consuming passion that had kept him up all night after he’d seen them the first time.
They were six self-portraits, all of them the same dimensions—a standard, student-sketch-book size. Three of them were etched onto his brain as if by laser. The one she’d titled simply K was in a mirror image-style, her face thin and drawn, her eyes haunted, her hand to her neck. Pain was a frank rendering of the state of her upper arms, cross-hatched with thick scar tissue, shown lifted over her head as if in surrender.
The worst—or the best, depending on your perspective—was one called High. It depicted a grinning, made-up, beautiful Kayla, decked out and ready to party, holding a cigarette in one hand, a bottle in another. It gutted him on so many levels—not the least of which that he recognized what she meant by it. That being high made her feel beautiful, for a while. It gave her control, for a time. And no matter how far she—and he—got away from that life, no matter how much they understood that it wasn’t the case, they would never, ever forgot that sensation—in some cases, addicts never stopped chasing it. They both understood that the danger was never far from the surface. Life’s myriad temptations were always lurking, whispering their poisonous entreaties, urging them both back into the dark.
“So,” he said, when the touch of her lips to his neck and her hands moving downward toward his ass made his body harden and his skin tingle. “I say we make the big announcement.” He kissed her ring finger. “Tell all the pertinent family members and friends. Invite them to the ceremony next year. That sort of thing.”
“Maybe,” she said, gripping his butt with one hand and his erection with the other. “Mmmm…this for me?”
“I can’t imagine who else it would be for, future Mrs. Fitzgerald.”
She gazed up at him, her eyes haunted, before letting him go and dropping back into her chair. He fell to his knees and put his head in her lap, his arms around her calves. “It’s all right.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “I’m all right, Brock.”
“Hmpf,” he said into her thighs. “Maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m wigging out.” He looked up at her, happier and more content at this precise moment than he’d been in his entire, shitty life. “Or, maybe I just like this position.” He pulled her knees apart and yanked her forward, making her squeal. “Yes. This is my happy place, without a doubt. Hang on, my dear.” She hooked her legs around his waist with a grin. Using the strength of his legs and back, he rose, bringing her with him, heading for the massive leather couch.
“Kiss me,” she demanded in a whisper. He did, and when he sat with her straddling his lap, he kept doing it, even as she shoved his PJs down and lowered herself onto him. They moved with languorous ease, lips locked, hips rolling in unison, skin dampening with sweat. As he approached his release, Brock broke the kiss and stared up into her eyes.
This woman.
This woman is my very oxygen. No. She’s my gravity.
Her head dropped back as she ground down, gaining the outer friction she required, along with the deep angle of penetration he provided, moving fast, and faster. He watched her skin flush, felt her body tighten around his, heard her cry out his name right before his vision dimmed. And he was at peace, at long, long last.
Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:
Adjunct Lovers
Liz Crowe
Excerpt
Chapter One
“So help me,” Ross muttered under his breath as Elle stomped away from him, the set of her slight shoulders and the sight of her clenched fists a reminder of why he loved her—but at the same time how she’d made him put his own fist through the drywall of their modest Detroit loft that very morning. His shoulders tensed when he averted his gaze from her retreating back. He forced himself to relax by focusing on the pilot system he’d bought, where he’d been busy and content a few minutes ago, working through a new recipe he hoped Austin would let him try on their larger system the following month.
But his brain was boiling with rage and he gave up after a few minutes spent tinkering with the ingredients. He sat and stared at the three-vessel Brew Magic that he’d treated himself to with his last giant consulting payment. His vision wavered and wobbled then finally settled as his pulse calmed along with his heartbeat. When he reached out to touch one of the stainless steel vessels, it felt cool under his hand. That calmed him further.
The old theater that he and his fiancé had converted to house the restaurant that he’d dreamed up and she’d agreed to, included a bit of warehouse-style space in back for him to call his brewery, where he would utilize this shiny new toy he’d bought and the mini distilling one he’d ordered. Ross loved it back here. It kept him in tune with the restaurant and yet allowed him plenty of space and quiet where he could concoct to his heart’s content. He spent the days he wasn’t running around the country trying to help hapless breweries get their relative shit together for embarrassingly large sums of money, here—so he could be close to Elle and yet on his own at the same time.
But lately, he’d begun to doubt the advisability of this arrangement.
When he checked the time on his phone, still keeping a hand on one of the metal tanks that had been delivered and set up, he heard the sound that never failed to lift his heart and his spirits no matter how shitty his day.
“Papa! Where are you? What is that? Can I touch it?”
A small form raced past him, her wild blonde curls barely contained by a pink hair tie. Even with her Star Wars backpack still strapped to her shoulders, the girl shimmied up to the metal platform and stood with her hands braced on two of the vessels, grinning at him. He grinned back, unable to stop himself as the cool breeze of happiness that never failed to suffuse his entire being at the sight of his almost three-year-old daughter went further toward lifting his mood.
“My sweet,” he said, speaking to her in German, even though she’d begun the conversation in English. “This is Papa’s new pilot brewing system.” He crossed his arms and gave her a fake glare. “Can you tell me what these are for?” He touched each of the three keg-shaped vessels.
She furrowed her brow, her blue eyes getting serious.
“Making Papa’s beer,” she declared in perfect German, batting her long lashes at him.
Ross kept glaring. She sighed and held out her arms to him, tilting her head and giving her best ‘but, Papa’ look.
He sighed, but the feel of her tiny body in his arms made him content—no mean feat, considering. She linked her fingers behind his
neck, pressed her nose to his then leaned away.
“Don’t like Frau,” she said in English, in a loud whisper, glancing over Ross’s shoulder at the woman who waited patiently at the back door.
Ross chuckled and studied the girl’s face—a pure blending of his and Elle’s features if ever he’d seen it. And her attitude was alarmingly the same—a mix of smart, funny, proud, and as stubborn as fifty mules. “You just don’t like it that she won’t let you watch television all day.”
The girl stuck her lower lip out—way too far for Ross’s strict, German mind.
“Liesl,” he said, a warning clear in his voice. “You know how I feel about that.”
She treated him to a teenager-worthy eye roll, which made him shudder in anticipation of that horror show of a life stage. “Don’t like her,” the girl said, still in a stage whisper. With one raised eyebrow, she treated him to another foreshadowing glimpse of his future with her. “Vati,” she said, using the German endearment for ‘Papa’.
“Don’t Vati me, young lady. I am on to you.” The strict, gray-haired German woman Elle had claimed ‘perfect’ as a nanny for their child intimidated the living shit out of him but he’d agreed that they should raise their children without all the Americanized looseness they believed caused trouble down the road. He gave the woman a small wave and a smile.
“The child was hungry,” she called across the empty space. “And since it was almost time for me to go I thought I should bring her here, after we spent some time outdoors.”
He sensed Liesl pulling away from him so he tightened his grip on her, irritated but realizing he had to put on his fatherly show of complicity with the tall, scary, imposing woman.
“Stop,” he snapped perhaps a little too sharply.
She frowned and wiggled out of his arms but he snagged her backpack before she could make a break for it. The girl sometimes forgot that, if anything, her mother was even more strict and on the side of the nanny when it came to how she spent her free time. He was the good cop in this equation. But he had to make a point now, to let her know she couldn’t manipulate them. As if Helga, the German Frau-nanny, could be manipulated.
