by Ali Parker
I'd have given anything to find her and drown her in apologies, making love to her with a passion that would burn her forever. I needed her tucked against me, yearned for her scent, her softness... her.
I groaned as I sat up and took another long drink from the bottle. The warmth rushing down my chest was merely a sign that I was alive physically. Emotionally, I was moving toward being nothing more than a shell of a man.
How many losses could one person sustain before they let life have its way with them? Before they just give up caring? Quit fucking trying?
Pulling out my phone, I fingered through the texts between us from the month before, each one causing small sobs to rise in my chest.
I wasn't worthy of love. That was the conclusion I was left with. I'd chosen my career, and now I could drown in the sorrow that came with a decision like that.
A few more drinks from my bottle, and I had enough liquid courage to dial her number. I leaned back on the couch and let out a long sigh as it rang four times and went to voice mail.
As always, I listened to the sound of her voice and dropped the call the minute the phone beeped. There was nothing to say that I hadn't already said. A day would come soon when I would dial her number and it would come back as a disconnection notice. She'd get sick of seeing my digits on her phone and realize that moving on was the only safe thing to do.
I sat there a few more minutes, drowning in my sorrows before getting up in search of my guitar. I hadn't played since Mandy died, which wasn't too far in the past. The act of strumming out a few chords was quickly becoming associated with depression and loss in my life. Neither of which were things I wanted to be reminded of.
After running through the four songs I knew by heart, I got up and walked toward the back door. With my guitar in one hand and my bottle of Jack in the other, I walked out on the back patio and sat the bottle down.
"I hate you," I whispered to the guitar and grabbed the handle. Anger burned through me where sadness was only a few minutes before.
Fury at my situation. At my loss.
"Always loss with me." I lifted the guitar above my head and beat it against the railing of my back patio until there was wood splinters covering the ground. It should have made me feel better, but of course it didn't.
It was the last gift my mother gave me before she died.
It was all I had left of her. She should have left it to Mandy.
I closed the door behind me and let out a sardonic laugh. Everything had been taken from me because of my indiscretions early in life. Nothing I'd done in my younger years had gone unnoticed, and now it was time to pay the piper.
Nothing could shift the course of darkness my life was headed for.
Not even breaking the rules.
Chapter 2
Dana
The gold and crimson leaves all over the ground were usually one of my favorite parts of fall in Texas, but nothing seemed to matter as I walked toward the hospital. I'd been avoiding Kendal like the plague for a little over two weeks, though it almost killed me to do it.
But how in the hell could I do anything else but avoid him?
His Ana was my Ana.
Bile rose in my throat as I forced myself to jog up the stairs to the front door. How anyone who had been with my perfect, older sister could want me was a mystery. A sickening mystery.
Ana was tall and thin, her skin flawless, her boobs big and curves alluring. She was everything I wasn't.
Every nasty thing Cameron had said to me over the last few years rose up inside of me, his insults and degradation drowning me in sorrow.
No. Ignoring Kendal was the most responsible thing to do - for both of us. If he was the type of man that wanted a girl like my sister, then with me, he was settling. He deserved better than that.
We both did.
He might love me for a while, but when he realized that I wasn't Ana, he'd turn into Cameron, trying to change me to fit the mold.
Tears burned my eyes at the thought of Kendal ordering my food and warning me to put down a cookie or piece of candy that I wanted. Nothing would hurt worse than having him want me to be someone I would never be, someone I really didn't even like much.
My older sister was wild and flew by the seat of her pants. I had no question on how she hooked a man like Kendal, but why she ran from him was a different story. It was something I didn't want to dig into. I couldn't hear it. Didn't want to. I was too raw, too bare and broken from knowing whatever we almost had was over.
He'd broken the rules for her. She meant more than I ever would.
I pulled the heavy door open and walked in to the smell of cleanliness and the sound of soft elevator music and the occasional announcement over the loud speakers.
"But why didn't she stick with him? If he loved her... why would she-"
"You talking to yourself?" Jackie bounced up beside me, my only friend in all of Dallas is a whore and a half, but I loved her anyway. Her latest escapade with a young doctor from New York had her acting like a spaz, but I was grateful. It kept my mind off Kendal for a few moments during the day.
"Yep. I'm still mulling over all this stuff with Kendal." I shrugged. She knew exactly what I was talking about. I'd dumped all of it on her the weekend before when she finally forced me to spill. A couple of pitchers of margaritas and I was balling like a baby, vomiting information on our relationship and how he was the only man I'd ever loved.
Lies. I thought I was in love with everyone I'd ever dated. Love was something I coveted and wanted above anything else.
It just wasn't meant to be.
"Not him again. You can do so much better, Dana. He slept with your sister. He's a man-whore." She wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
"He thought he was in love with her and it was six years ago." I let out a soft sigh. "Well, he was in love with her. Fuck, maybe he still is. You should have seen-"
"How fast he left after she got there. I know. You told me." She squeezed me one more time and let me go. "I'm telling you, this is why you need a sexy resident or young doctor to ravish you from time to time and nothing else."
I snorted and walked into the elevator, turning and holding the door open for her. "Wait. I thought you told me that you were in love with Parks?"
"Love. Lust. Whatever. I don't know." She walked in and wagged her eyebrows at me. "I'm just going to be chill about it, you know?"
"No. I don't know. You were a total lune about it a week ago."
"Things change." She shrugged. "People change. Besides, I think he's addicted to me. He's called twice a week since we went on that trip to New York. I think I have him where I want him."
"Twice in a week? Wow. That is progress." I slipped my hands into my scrub's pockets. "Kendal called ten times in the last two weeks, but never left a message."
"Creep! How weird is that. You need to let me go over and tell him to back off, or maybe your brother, Brandon, could do it?" She reached over and tugged at my ponytail.
"No. I just wish he would have left a message. I want to hear his voice." My throat closed up, and I swallowed hard, trying to relieve the pressure in my chest. I still wanted a life with him, to be the woman he gave everything up for because I was worth it, but that wasn't me. It was Ana, and I wasn't anything like her.
I'd lived in her shadow my whole life.
"Dude. I don't like what this guy is doing to you. You're almost obsessing over him. You've been walking around like a zombie. If he's that important-"
"Wait. This coming from you, who ran to New York the first time this cocky playboy of a doctor didn't return your call?" The elevator opened, and I moved out into the hallway. "And you just called him a whore because he slept with my sister, who by the way, he didn't know was my sister. It was six years ago."
"You're taking up for him." She was far calmer than I expected. Anytime I brought up Parks and her obsession with him, she would divert and then turn into a bitch, defending herself for being crazy over a one-night stand.
"Dr. Lewis wants to see you this afternoon before you leave." Tinsely lifted her head, her expression almost kind. It was weird and threw me off. The number one bitch in the hospital was giving me a break from her usual abuse? Why?
Why today?
"Yeah, alright." I glanced over at Jackie as she followed me to the nurse's station on our floor. "I'm taking up for him because I'm still in love with him. Just because he was with Ana doesn't mean my heart isn't still completely his."
"So why are we having this conversation?" She reached out and yanked a chart from the wall. "You have Mrs. Delmaz. She hates the rest of us."
I let out a soft sigh and gave her a look. Crazy, old Mrs. Delmaz was always mine to deal with, but it was good. She kept life interesting, and her stories were always fascinating. I couldn't tell if they were real or not, but like a good novel, I enjoyed them as often as I could.
"Because I'm not my sister, Jackie." I reached up and took a few clipboards off the wall. "She's beautiful, successful, an accountant like Kendal, feminine, gorgeous. She's everything I'm not." The words were harder to speak out loud than I thought they would be.
"And yet Kendal is still calling you. He could have gone after her six years ago. It's not hard to find someone when you want to."
"Stalker." I forced a chuckle and walked to the medicine cabinet, slipping my key into the lock. "I really don't want to talk about this anymore. He's a good man and deserves a great woman. That's just not me. I can't live up to my older sister, and it would rot me from the inside out to try to."
"What did Ana say about it?"
I turned and gave her a stern look as she raised her hands in defense. "Drop it."
"I will. Just tell me what she said." She took a step back, but the smirk at the side of her mouth lifted higher.
"She said that she and Kendal were a thing of the past. She's not interested in him, and he's not interested in her. She gives me her blessing, as if I fucking asked for it."
"Well, then there you go."
I turned back to my tray. "It's not that easy and you know it. My father was still alive when all that shit between Kendal and Ana went down, and my mother is all up in arms about the pervert coming after her younger daughter now. She thinks it was all planned."
"That's absurd." Jackie moved up beside me, pressing her shoulder against mine.
"Tell me about it." I finished filling the patient prescriptions and backed my cart out of the room. "It's going to hurt for a long time, but I'll get over it. He'll find someone that lights him on fire like my sister probably did."
"Like you did?" She turned and glanced over her shoulder. "I know I'm not looking for love because I hate how bad it hurts when I lose it, but I haven’t had it in a long time. You have, and you were more alive because of it. Believe me. I'm your best friend-"
"My only friend here." I chuckled.
"Don't let it go so easily, Dana. It's not as common as everyone thinks." She shrugged and turned back around, her shoulders rolling in a little. She was in love with Parks. I knew she was, and she knew it too, but just like she was willing to let the conversation die over Kendal, I wasn't going to start one up over Parks.
She was in pain just like I was.
Crazy how love seemed to take more than it ever gave, or maybe I just hadn't given it the chance it deserved.
***
"And then there he was. His eyes as big as saucers, his lips ruby red like those shiny-ass slippers from the Wizard of Oz movie back in 1939. You should have seen him." Mrs. Delmaz laughed, her eyes closing as she relaxed against the white sheets and chuckled. "He was my favorite husband. Great guy. Really. Too bad he up and died. Old bastard."
I pressed my hand to my mouth as she opened her eyes. It was hard not to giggle at her ridiculous stories. She had a million of them, and I was quickly becoming addicted to them.
"He sounds great."
She reached out her hand. "Dana. Do you have a beau?"
I took her hand and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. I knew better than to let another one of my patients into my heart, but I couldn't help it. I would always lead with my heart instead of my head where people were concerned.
"I did, but we broke up recently." I shrugged, hoping she would let it be.
"That's no good. A pretty girl like you deserves a beautiful man." She smiled and studied me. "You broke up recently, did you, duckie?"
"Duckie?" I laughed and pulled my hand from her as my phone buzzed in my slacks. "Yeah, we did. My heart is still a little tender over it."
"Well, then you need to do the one thing that'll get you over it and quick." She pressed her hands into the bed and hoisted herself to a more upright position.
"What's that?" I stood and glanced down to find a missed call from my brother, Brandon. We were close, but not too close. I kept my distance from everyone since Daddy's death. We all had. Life was easier alone when you didn't have to see a daily reminder that you lost someone so important to your happiness. It was sad, but we all lived with it as part of our reality.
"Get yourself another man! It's simple. Find someone who sets your panties on fire and makes your heart swell."
I was grateful she didn't go the other way with her statement. I walked toward the door and paused before going out.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe going out with someone else would help." I shrugged. "I don't know, but thanks for the story. I'd love to have my own Fred."
"Honey, hush. Everyone needs a Fred. The way that man could move his hips." She growled and it was time for me to leave.
I laughed on the way down the hall, unable to help myself. I was grateful for her brand of crazy. It helped the dark feeling inside of me dissipate for a few seconds. Nothing would ever be right without Kendal by my side, but that promise was over. I had to find a way to look for hope and love in a new place.
I knew it was impossible, but I could at least lie to myself.
After putting my supplies back up, I walked to the break room and called my brother. He answered on the first ring.
"Sis?"
"Yeah. I only have a few minutes, so make it quick." I sat down in a chair and pulled my legs up into the seat with me, wrapping my free arm around them.
"So you know my friend Talon has been asking about you for almost forever now."
"The tall blond guy that owns the tattoo parlor near the house?"
"Yep. He's a good looking guy and he's really awesome. I told him that I'd mention him to you again."
"Weird." I closed my eyes as my thoughts went back to Mrs. Delmaz. We just talked about me trying to date someone else, but I was still head over heels in love with Kendal.
"Anyway, he wants to take you out this week."
"So have him call me. This is weird as shit." I got up and walked toward the window, trying to figure out if fate was fucking with me, or if my brother was just being a weirdo, which was probably much closer to the truth.
"Alright. I'll have him call. Just say yes when he does. You need a new start and he's a great guy. It's dinner, not a ring."
He was right. "Alright. I'll say yes, but one date. Nothing more."
"Awesome! I get free tattoos if you guys hook up."
I rolled my eyes. "Glad to be of service to you, asshat."
"Love you too."
At least this guy would be nothing like Kendal.
No one ever would...
Chapter 3
Kendal
I dragged myself out of bed the next morning after hitting the snooze button ten times. A groan left me as my head pounded. Drinking in my thirties was hella different than drinking in my twenties, or maybe I was used to burning the liquor out of my system through sex.
Something had to give. I'd have to find a different way to dull the pain. Liquor just gave a temporary reprieve only to show up the next day in a new way.
The alarm went off, and I growled and walked toward the phone. "Alright. Fuck. I'm up." I turned it off and pulled my t-shirt over my h
ead and kicked off my pants on the way to the shower.
Leaving the light off, I started the hot water and got in, letting the warmth pour over my shoulders and chest. I bowed my head and ran my hands over my face as relief swam through me.
"God, I miss you so much," I mumbled softly and turned, putting my back to the water. Memories of Dana danced through my skull, leaving my stomach tight, my cock rock hard.
I wanted to offer myself some relief, but it almost seemed trite. I didn't deserve it.
A moan left me as the hot water ran over the top of my head. I needed to lather up my hands and fuck myself until my knees were weak, but I couldn't.
I hated myself so much in that moment. Why hadn't I run from her? Why hadn't I warned her that nothing good could come of us? Nothing ever worked out for me in love. I was a selfish prick for pulling her into a relationship when I knew that it wasn't going to last.
My career was too important at first, and after melting a little, something else sprung up. Nothing was smooth about our courtship, but I fell hard for her anyway.
"She was there when Mandy died." I swallowed the lump in my throat and ran my hands down my stomach before gripping my erection and tugging at it. Pleasure danced down my thighs, covering my exposed skin in chill bumps and leaving me a little off kilter.
The sound of my soft pants as I lifted my hips and worked myself to the edge of orgasm was almost too much. I was too emotionally raw. I needed my hand to be her hand, her mouth, her sweet body.
More than the sex, I wanted her heart. I needed to belong to her, to someone that would remind me that I was a good man. I couldn't do it for myself anymore. It was too painful to realize that it was a damn lie every day.
A good man would have a good woman.
A family.
A life.
I took my pain out on my body, tugging and pulling at my cock until the world disappeared, no matter how badly it hurt.
Pleasure soon overtook pain, and I slid to my knees as the orgasm finally hit, forcing me to submit to the power of it.
