by M. C. Cerny
“I like him, Abby.” Leah squeezes Roman’s muscular arm with a weakened smile, her head covered with a scarf and a fashionable hat. Roman offers me his other arm and we walk side by side, the three of us, to the boat. Lucas practically yaps at our heels like an annoying dog.
“So is it true you actually designed this boat and built it?” Lucas runs his hands over the railing and watching him makes it feel a bit perverted.
Roman helps Leah to a comfortable seating area on the deck with fresh fruit and cheeses to snack on before answering. “I did the hull design, but I worked with someone else to complete the interior finishing. Mostly, I work on the engine design first and build outward from there with custom work.”
“I bet this baby goes for a cool million, huh?” Lucas looks around the boat, mouth practically salivating. Leah and I exchange a look, wondering what either of us was thinking.
Roman covers his mouth, coughing before responding, “Actually, I sold this boat for about three and a half million. The owner and I are good friends.” Lucas’ face drops, probably from counting all the dollar signs and decimal points, greedy jerk.
“Lucas, honey, come and stuff your mouth with some food. You’re attracting flies, dear.” Leah pats the seat next to her and Lucas follows like a hound. Their heads nod together in conversation and Roman motions for me to follow him to the upper deck outside.
I walk up the staircase with him hot on my heels. “I’m sorry he’s such an idiot. We shouldn’t have invited him.” He backs me into a corner on the deck, his arms braces around me. I have no worries about falling overboard in Roman’s arms.
“It’s all right. I have a feeling your sister might toss him over before I get the chance to, though.” He fingers my hair, cupping my cheek in the process.
“So what did my sister say to you when you helped her out of the car?”
He shrugs and continues to massage the back of my head, the feeling distracting me from pressing him further. “Just girl stuff, you know.” He leans in and presses a kiss to my exposed shoulder. As he slips his finger under the skinny strap of my dress, I swallow my response.
“Mmm–hmm,” I murmur as his tongue snakes up my neck to a delicate spot he’s never ventured before. The combination of the yacht leaving port, the cool breeze, and his wet tongue stroking my skin leaves my nerve endings exposed.
“Lift your leg, Abigail.” I don’t bother fighting the automatic response. We’re alone on the deck, the railing keeps my ass from being exposed, and Roman is standing in front of me. He hooks my leg high on his hip and cups me through my dress. I pull the fabric up to give him what he wants and a finger slides deep between my wet folds.
“Roman.” Panting, my voice is pleading as he slips inside me, slowly pumping his finger. His thumb circles my clit slowly, using the moisture to keep the friction slick and steady.
“I want to fuck you on this boat.” There’s a desperation in him I’ve never heard before.
“Yes, I want you.” We both want this and I’ll give him anything he asks of me.
“You can feel the engine purr once we break into open water.” He keeps pumping slowly and I have no idea what he means about the engine purring until the boat leaves the marina.
“Please, Roman.” I reach for the zipper of his cargo shorts and he uses his arm to push my hand away.
“Not this time, princess.” I feel the vibration of the smooth engine hum all the way up the column of the boat as it changes gear, or whatever it is that boats do. The sensation hits a nerve in my back as he presses me deep against the wall. Needing something to hold onto, I grab his shoulders and he fingers me deep, his thumb pressing my hot swollen button. As he rubs a tight circle over the magic spot, I see stars burst behind my tightly shut eyes, and Roman holds me as the orgasm leaves me limp and wilted like a rose too long with water.
“I can’t believe we just did that.”
“I can’t believe I waited this long,” we say simultaneously, laughing. He slips his fingers from me and licks each digit like an ice cream cone. I return the favor by cupping him through his pants, squeezing his hard cock.
“Hey, are you two enjoying the view without us?” We hear Lucas from below and we groan in unison. What the hell were we thinking?
“Not much to see up here, Lucas. I’ll be down in moment.” Taking his hand, I lick the fingers he just used to pleasure me with. Roman’s eyes go wide with promise for retribution.
“Damn right you’ll be down in a moment.” Roman pulls me along the deck to a control room of sorts filled with boating stuff I don’t know the name or use for. He bends me over a table and I hear his zipper pull down. Before I can say much, he’s filling me hard and fast as we both come clutching the wall, deeply entwined.
“I’ll go entertain our guests, there’s a bathroom around the corner.” Roman thrusts his still semi-hard cock a few more times before releasing me. My walk to the bathroom is little more wobbly than before and has nothing to do with the motion of the boat.
Chapter Twenty
ROMAN
I wait for Abby to finish in the shower this morning. Yesterday, we enjoyed a jaunt on one of my boats I designed and built for a friend of mine who helped back my original company. It was lovely to finally meet Abby’s sister, Leah, and watch Lucas drool, tripping over his pretentious self several times over. Abby was curious to know what her sister had shared with me, and it’s something I’m still trying to mull over. It would seem Leah knew she was sick much earlier than perhaps she let on, and her secret isn’t something for me to tell Abby just yet, especially just meeting her. Trying to shake off the strange feelings, I put the focus back on today.
Abby and I planned a day to go to a local farmer’s market and pick up some fresh stuff to bring over to Leah’s place later. The girls want to make these vegan green smoothies doctors swore cured everything under the sun. Personally, anything that bright green or made with beets frightened me and would have me concerned with what exactly it’s supposed to clean out in the end process. Since it is important to Abby, I go with the flow.
I decide making a quick carb-laden breakfast before we leave will, hopefully, draw out the inevitable vegetable shake. Collecting the whole grain bread eggs, and almond milk has me preparing a quick French toast. My arms are full as I turn to put everything on her island counter. I feel the eggs slowly slipping from under my arm.
“Shit!” I accidentally knock over Abby’s briefcase and several files and papers spill out. It’s a nightmare of papers now commingled between legal documents and Abby’s scrawling notes on things she needs to do with her clients. I scramble to put them together, unsure of what goes where in her filing system. A town name has me zeroing in right away before I can ignore it and curiosity takes over. The file is from Oregon—Gold Beach, actually—and is dated over a decade ago. I try shaking it off and stick the file back together, hoping it’s nothing at all.
Distracted, I reach into cabinets for mixing bowls and into drawers for forks, placing them on the counter. “Abby, you coming out soon?” The file sits on top, a beacon calling out to me, and before I realize it, it’s between my fingertips. I’m about to put it away when she calls back out to me.
“I’m going to blow dry my hair, be out in a few.”
“Leave it curly. I like it curly.” My voice drifts off, not waiting for her answer as I stare at the file.
“All right.” I put it down and pour myself a fresh cup of coffee, debating with myself. I reason, as a lawyer, Abby works a lot of case with confidential information I’m not privy too. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong. This, whatever it is, has nothing to do with me, I repeat to myself in a useless mantra. I trust Abby implicitly, so why this bothers me I can’t explain.
I listen for the blow dryer to start, and releasing a puff of air from my lungs, I grab the file and dive in, opening it quickly. I’ll give myself ten seconds and then put it down and forget about it. I love Abby, so whatever this file is, it’s clearly none
of my nosey business. I scan the details quickly while sitting down on a barstool. The room seems to shrink and expand dangerously and quickly for me when I read Abby’s scrawled notes.
‘Oscar Campbell, age 47, is charged with drunk driving and hitting a stop sign. Car jumped the curb almost injuring a crowd of pedestrians. Second offense in ten years. Client agreed to twenty-eight-day residential rehab program and car starter breathalyzer. See case file for Gold Beach.’
My mouth drops, followed by the pit in my stomach. It seems impossible and completely unlikely that the events of that rainy night are coming back to me as if it all happened yesterday. Haunting me. Getting picked up by Maddie, seeing the police cruiser with lights flashing and my mother’s car wrecked. Shaking off the anxiety, I open the file labeled Gold Beach.
It’s the closed police report from my mother’s accident. I don’t know how this man is connected to the two. Wouldn’t Abby have told me? I sit at the counter, going back to the file and flipping through pages, small details and things written in the margins by Abby only confirm for me. She found the man who killed my mother, and she’s kept it a secret from me. I feel a ripping pain in my chest. Opened and exposed, the old wound freshens itself and adolescent anger takes over my rational judgement. Why now when I have everything I ever wanted is this ruined in a matter of life-changing seconds?
“Roman, I was thinking after we go to the market we could stop by that pastry shop and… Roman?” Abby rounds the corner, slipping an elastic headband through her hair to pull the curls off her forehead, but stops to look at me. I hadn’t realized it, but in my daze I had begun to line up the papers from the file into several neat piles.
Robotically, I go into survival mode. I need answers and I need to have my feelings disconnect to get through the betrayal. “You didn’t tell me.” I put my coffee mug down on the counter and stand up as she sits down next to me, pushing short locks of hair behind her ears, which only bounce back into her face.
“Tell you what?” Abby wrings her hands together, looking down at the papers. She tries to collect them and put them back inside the folder, wrinkling the bulk of them, but I stop her hands from moving.
“That man…” I ground out, leaning over the counter, my head held low and weary. Dull pain stabs behind me eyes.
“He’s a client. I’m bound by confidentiality,” she whispers between breaths.
“He did it, didn’t he?” I growl, feeling like a wounded animal.
“Roman, I—”
“Didn’t he?” I yell, slamming my hand on the counter, jostling coffee over the edge of the rim and throwing papers and items to the floor.
Brokenly, she looks up from under soaked lashes with guilt. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“Or you could bear to lie to me?” My fist is clenched and I want to hit something hard to feel the pain radiate up my arm and give me some sort of feeling back in my body again.
“You’re being irrational; I could lose my job breaking client confidentiality. It was killing me keeping it from you.”
“Irrational? I lost my mother that night!” I feel like a kid all over again and she doesn’t see it and I can’t see past the pain.
“What would it change? What would it do?” Abby pleads, reaching out to me, but I push her hand off, pissed and hurt. She lied to me, a lie of omission, but still a lie built of substance that changes everything about our meeting in Gold Beach.
“How long have you known?” I wonder more for my clarification than any real benefit.
“I suspected, but only found out recently.”
I snort. What the hell is recently? Subjective, I suppose. “He killed her. He ripped her away from my family and ruined something so good, so perfect. She didn’t deserve to die.”
“Roman, I am so sorry.” A silence stretches between us like a chasm, impossible and distant.
“Sorry you found out or sorry you kept it from me?” My tone is cutting and she looks back stricken. I’ve wounded her as much as she’s wounded me. It isn’t something you can make even or right. It just hurts all the same.
“Both, I guess. None of it will bring her back,” she mumbles quietly.
“The day they closed the case on her accident was the day he killed my father.”
“Roman!” Abby pleads with me and I shake her off roughly.
“My father died a slow death of a broken heart until it gave out while pruning her roses one morning. That’s how I found him, clutching those fucking thorny bushes to his chest, pricking the skin of his hands.” I can’t stand to be touched right now. Not by her, not by anyone.
“I’m so sorry.” She’s crying in earnest, and I can’t stand to look at her. I trusted her, and this is what is got me.
I back away with my hands in the air, holding her off. “I gotta go.” I grab my jacket and the car keys to my rental and get out of her condo. I jog down the steps to have her follow me barefoot onto the street.
“Stop running, Roman. We need to talk about this. Don’t ignore me.” Abby is insistent, grabbing my arm as I push her off me. I use the only thing I can to get her to leave me the fuck alone.
“I’m not running, Abby. That’s your thing.” I shake my head, almost sorry the moment it comes out of my mouth. Her shock is palatable and anger mars her beautiful face. A face I’ll have to learn to live without if we can’t figure this out. Running fingers through my hair, I back away to get in my car. “I need space.”
“Space or just away from me? Don’t leave like this.” Abby keeps taking steps toward the car, and I try holding her back by putting my hands up, warding her off.
“I can’t do this with you right now, Abigail.”
“You started it and now you’re pushing me away to punish me.” She’s standing on the sidewalk, feet curling into the dirty pavement, eyes downcast. She’s trying to imply I ran first all those years ago, well fuck her. I was a stupid kid. She is an adult and the two don’t compare.
“You keep telling yourself that. Poor little rich girl with all the problems in the world. I’m sure Daddy will fix it for you. Why don’t you take a good look around you and see things for how they really are.” I don’t even know what I’m saying at this point. We’re just volleying hurtful words back and forth in the street. I slam the car door and she jumps back from the curb, arms around her middle, looking as lost as I feel.
* * * * *
I drive my car for about ten minutes until I whip back around and drive past Abby’s house. I don’t want to leave her, but I can’t stay. I continue to loop around the block until I make the choice to drive home. I can’t stay here. I’ll drive to Gold Beach at least because I sure as shit can’t stay here where everything is all confusing and a trigger for the past. I love Abby. I still fucking love her. I’ll always love her, but I can’t take this information in right now. She kept this from me and giving my trust has blown up in my face.
The Pacific Coast Highway looms in my rearview mirror as I accelerate the car out of the city. I drive until the sun sets and even past that. Rain starts to drizzle, making the road slick and the headlights foggy along the coast. A part of me feels like I’m reliving that night all over again, forcing me to pull the car over and dry heave with anxiety. It’s then I realize I’m having a full-blown panic attack. I should have stayed with Abby to talk things out, but foolish pride makes me pull my shit together and keep driving to my house in Gold Beach alone.
Chapter Twenty-one
ABIGAIL
Roman left me.
I’ve been sitting on the floor of my apartment for three hours. After I watched his car drive off and round the corner, speeding away, I began to run after it for a few blocks. I stopped when I stubbed my toe on jagged concrete, cutting it open. It’s throbbing and bleeding, but I don’t care if it becomes infected. I limped the distance back to my condo and I haven’t stirred once. Sitting with my back is against the wall, hugging my knees, my blood stains my clothes and floor as I cry my heart to dust. He just left me. I
understand the concept, but it hurts so fucking bad.
I stare at the ceiling. My eyes feel gritty, my throat parched. I’m wondering how much longer I’m going to sit here when my phone rings. It’s not Roman because he’s the only one with a special ringtone. I crawl over the floor to the coffee table where my phone has sat silent all this time. Turning it over, I see the caller ID says it’s Leah. I swipe the face of the phone to answer the call.
“Abby, where are you? I thought you and Roman would be here an hour ago? Did you two stop for roadside sex?” Leah chuckles into the phone and the waterworks begin anew.
“H-he left me, Leah.” Starting to sob again, I hear her scrambling on the other end of the phone.
“That son of bitch. After I told him…never mind. Can you drive? Should I come over? Where is he?” Leah goes into fight mode and I love her for it.
“It’s my fault. I kept something from him and I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t tell him,” I brokenly tell her.
“Abby, there’s nothing you could have kept from him that would make him leave you like this. Please come over. I don’t want you to be alone.” Leave it to my sister to have all the answers. Not even a chemotherapy treatment robbing her of her strength keeps her charging ahead.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Coughing for breath from my crying jag, I hang up the phone and force myself to get up off the floor. I walk through the kitchen to grab my sweater from the bedroom. On the counter, the file for Mr. Campbell lies open and scattered. My note that reads, ‘Mr. Campbell has confessed he’s the one who did this. How do I tell R?’ is stuck to the top set of documents. I peel the pink sticky note and crumple it up. I guess it doesn’t matter how I tell Roman now that he knows.
Leaving everything where it is, I grab the sweater, my keys, and purse. I try to get shoes on but realize I need to clean and bandage my foot. Another twenty minutes later and I’m getting in my car with flip-flops on, making the drive to Leah’s sedately. When I get up to her steps, she has the door open and her arms are waiting for me.
