“We can solve all that with one event, babe, and you know what I mean.”
I’ve been avoiding this since he stopped the bus yesterday with his very unexpected announcement that had Edie and Astrid both hysterical with glee.
I, of course, am not so happy because damn, the man put me on the spot and here he is doing it again with the jackals salivating to see my downfall.
“Don’t do this here please, not now,” I hiss, feeling my face blush when I see Gruffy winking and grinning her false tooth grin.
“Why? What’s the big deal, Percy? We always spoke about getting married and I don’t see the use of waiting when we both know I love you and you still love me.”
That has me seething enough that I don’t pay a scrap of attention to the silence that descends, or the curious apes looking on without so much as a hint of subtlety.
“The big deal? Marks, be fair here. We just started seeing each other again like days ago!”
His face is a dark mask as he leans closer and seems to take up all the breathing room around me.
“Are you saying you don’t see us going anywhere? Is this just a casual thing to you?”
“No! God, stop being a dick, Marks, I never said that. I’m just saying that you’re pushing things a little too fast is all. Slow the hell down already. What’s the big rush?”
And why can’t everyone stop staring as I lose my shit?! I feel trapped beneath their gazes even as he rises from the table and stares down at me, his eyes blazing.
“The rush? What rush? I’ve waited ten fucking years for you to come back to me, why the hell should I wait any longer?”
“You waited? You left, you big ass!” I yell, coming to my feet as his height starts intimidating me. “I was not the one who walked away and left, you were. I waited! I freaking begged you to just talk to me and let me know you were okay and not one, not ONE fucking call or text. What did you think I was going to do, huh, Marks? Come running?”
“No, but I never once thought that you’d decide to sleep with half the fucking city, either!”
Uh, yeah. I’m not mad anymore as his anger hits me like a tsunami. No, I feel hurt and somewhat broken as I hear the gasps and see his face fall before he tries to touch me.
“Don’t. Don’t you dare put your hands on me. You want to know why I have a guy for every weekday? Because that way I can never lie to myself about what is happening! They don’t spin me dreams and then walk away like I meant nothing, and they sure as hell do not expect anything more from me than what I have to give. You were the first and last man I ever made the mistake of loving, Marks, and you broke something in me that I can’t put back together. And for what, huh? Because you had some noble freaking idea that taking me with you would ruin my life? Bullshit. It was just easier.”
His face falls more and I feel myself trembling and on the verge of real tears when he sighs and shakes his head.
“No, I never thought that. I just couldn’t expect you to come with me when I had to marry another woman to save my family’s inheritance.”
Chapter Eleven
I Always Hated Long Songs
Percy
I want to say that I’m okay as I lie in bed and stare out at the rainy gloom outside my window on this Saturday morning and a whopping two days after that fiasco of a family dinner.
After Marks choked out that atom bomb of a confession and walked out, once again leaving me standing there with my heart in pieces, all I could do was stare sightlessly at the floor as everything collapsed inside me.
The fight was a shitty one and I have to accept all the blame for it. I just…I think that it was just too much for me. The perfection of the families coming together, the happy bubble I was floating in that I kept expecting to burst.
The whole marriage thing that was never really a proposal, more of an assumption on his part.
And yeah, I totally get that I could have handled things a little better, but shit, give me a break. I’ve been alone and drifting for years and now all of a sudden everyone just expects me to stop and weigh anchor. I don’t even have one.
Talk about an impossibility when all I have left of my boat is an oar and a plank that doesn’t even float right.
“Percy?”
I ignore the knock at the door and sniff loudly as another tear escapes, my head pounding from the effort not to cry at all, though honest to hell, I can’t stop the shit from just leaking out in a steady stream.
“Percy? Honey? You need to answer your phone,” Indie says quietly from the doorway, her voice soft and sympathetic as I keep staring blankly and just drift along in a sea of broken thoughts.
He was married? My Marks? He found someone he wanted enough to make it legal…
Words cannot fully describe what hearing that did to me. I want to say I got angry or that I’ve felt angry at all, just one moment of that churning, healing ire I know so well.
I can’t, though. All I feel is bereft, cheated, and duped—again.
“Percy.”
“Go away, Indiana. I don’t want to talk or answer my phone or eat a fucking cookie. I just want to lie here till I have to get up and go to work, so please, just go away.”
“No! I let you do this shit once and we ended up having to weed wack your damn legs. Get up.”
Her yells make me flinch and I breathe deeply before turning to catch her eyes.
“I’m not going to turn into a vegetable again. I just need another day or so to get over this and move on. I’ll just…I’ll get in touch with the Days tomorrow and get back to normal.”
Not that I think that poor excuse for solace would work after this, not now when I’m so hurt from loss it feels like I could shatter. And the absolute killer to this situation, the veritable cheery on top of this shit pie?
All of my friends and family now tiptoe around me on eggshells as if I’ll break or something. You should have seen their faces when Marks stormed out. I swear, I would have cried if I’d been capable of any sort of reaction at all.
I just stood there and watched Edie and Astrid cry before Indie, in her awesomeness, gently took me by the shoulders and guided me out of the house, into Jack’s car, and told the driver to get us home.
She’s tried everything to get me talking, from brownie dough to Titanic. She even cringed her way through an entire Britney album before she gave up and left me to my anguish.
The bed moves suddenly and I’m pinned beneath her, my arms shackled in a hard grip as she hovers over me and scowls darkly.
“Don’t you fucking do this, Percy. Don’t you lie here and give up on the first thing that has made you happy in years. So what if he’s a dick sometimes? All men are dicks! And so fucking what if he was married? I was there too and I heard it all. Whatever happened and whatever he had to do, he did it for his moms and the brother he had to support. Besides, it’s not like you’re all that innocent either here, Percy. You sleep with a different man every day!”
“No I don’t!” I yell into her face, my jaw clenched against the need to explain myself. “I don’t. Monday? He’s lonely and can’t watch Animal Planet by himself because he likes to do this funny running commentary while the sound is off. He’s just a guy who’s my friend. Tuesday? His wife died in a fire four years ago. He comes here to sleep because he can’t fall asleep alone and I sometimes put on the same brand of perfume just so the guy can get some rest. Wednesday?” I scream, watching her face blanch of all color as she lets go of me and falls back when I shove her off.
“He’s gay, Indie, but he’s so conflicted about it and the way his conservative family will act that he still tries. How sad is that? He comes to me because he knows I won’t judge him if he flags halfway through. Thursday? We do have sex on Thursdays, and you know why? Because he hasn’t been with anyone else in two years since he caught his fiancée in bed with his brother and had to go to their wedding and stand as best man! He still cries through it all, but I don’t judge him because I get what it’s like to love so
meone who leaves you! Friday? He’s a businessman who lost his whole family—mom, dad, and sisters—when he was eighteen and took over his father’s business. He relies on me to be here for him, even when he’s so pooped he can’t keep his eyes open.”
With every single story I feel as if I’m being unburdened and set free. I don’t carry only my own pain. I carry theirs too because for once, someone needs just me and I like it. I like knowing I can be what they need for that brief bit of time, and I like knowing that when they’re done they can go home and live their lives with some sort of relief or at least a lessening of what they feel.
“Those are my Days and I swear to God if you tell anyone anything about them I will never talk to you again,” I warn, breathing deeply as I wind down.
Indie looks stricken, utterly and completely stunned and shaken as I pull myself up and stare back out of the window.
“I get what everyone thinks and a big part of me doesn’t care. I just thought that you all would at least know me better than that, Indie.”
“God, Percy, I am so sorry. So, so sorry for saying those things to you. I didn’t mean them, honest. I’m just so worried about you right now. I know Marks said some shit to you but you said it first, babe, and you know you weren’t right either. You need to stop pillow crying right now and answer the man’s calls before he comes over here again and has a nervous breakdown.”
I want to, that’s the problem. See, I can’t talk to him and still be the hardass I want to be so that’s why I’m just lying here crying. I’m trying to figure out if I can be okay with giving it all up on the gamble that is Marks.
He’s funny, sweet, smart and I want him, a lot. But to have him I have to let go of the Days and my life. The question on my mind now is not whether Marks can be enough for me, I’m already so deep, just like he said on Thursday, that I know I love him. I just don’t know if what there is of me is enough for him.
“I will, Indie, I will. I just need to think about some things is all,” I say tiredly, rubbing at my throbbing temple.
“Think? What is there to think about, Percy? The man loves you.”
“Yeah? He loved me before and walked away for ten years. He chose his whole family over me, Indie. He saw their need and married some asshole I don’t even know, I can’t even begin to imagine why, and just left me alone here. How am I supposed to just forget that? And another thing? You know after that, after I went to the hospital? They took one of my ovaries when they found a cyst. What if I can’t get pregnant? Marks is one of those ten-kids kinds of guys, Indie.”
Her huff is loud as she flops back on my bed and joins me to stare at the ceiling.
“This sucks, bubby.”
“You’re telling me. And they say the world is big? Right now I feel like it’s so small it’s closing in on me.”
Her hand touches mine then and I squeeze back with a rueful chuckle.
“You and me, bubby. We have each other. Always.”
That’s what I’m afraid of I guess. Indie, she’s going through something she won’t talk to me about and will probably end up self-destructing if she doesn’t learn to deal real soon. Me, I think I may have passed that point a long time ago.
“This is why I hate Meatloaf.”
“The food or the band?”
“The band.”
“Speak oh wise one and tell a sister what that chubby hottie has done to offend thee.”
Her snort is gleeful and I laugh with her, feeling better. Well a little, enough that the tears have dried and my eyes feel less swollen.
“That fat bastard makes a powerful power ballad but he was definitely not channeling us when he did that shit. Just once I want a man that can make me want to slow dance to Meatloaf without having to be drunk, smoked, or delusional.”
“Amen to that sister. A-fucking-men.”
***
Marks
“Stop it! You can’t do this, Markus,” Mom yells, grabbing hold of my luggage with a snarl.
I feel her pain and my own, and the hundred head swats Edie gave me the last four days but I am just done right now. There’s not a thing I could possibly ever say to Percy that would fix the fucked-up things I said.
I’ve been calling her and showing up at the apartment all weekend with nothing to show for it but dead air and Indie’s refusal to let me in. I feel like shit, I haven’t slept in more than seventy-two hours, and my heart is just done.
“Stop it, Mom. I need to get back to the farm and get back to work. I can’t stay here indefinitely now that Finn has things under control.”
“No! You mean you can’t stay here because you fucked up the best thing that ever happened to you, and now you’re giving up and running away just like you did when you planned to see her again but saw her with that blond down in Chinatown,” she rages, slapping my chest with a yell.
“Mom calm down and breathe between sentences, dammit. And stop hitting me already, that shit hurts,” I growl, gently prying her fingers from the luggage and setting it aside to grab her shoulders.
My luck, Finn walks in just as Edie starts crying and I get a fulminating glare for my audacity before he hugs her to his chest and looks back at me.
“Running away to lick your wounds?”
Yes.
“No. One of the greenhouses was destroyed when a storm blew in. The guys couldn’t get to them all fast enough in a safe way, so now I have to go home and fix it while figuring out how to supply the crop I lost to the restaurants who pre-ordered them. So no, not running, just finally facing facts and moving the hell on,” I growl, hating myself for the lie.
“You should have told her about Angie man. You had all this time to come clean and tell her everything and you just…what the hell were you thinking?” he asks with so much disappointment it hurts.
“I wasn’t. I just had this thought in my head that she’d fall for me and it would work itself out. I didn’t want to hurt her.”
“What do you think you did on Thursday, man? And what’s with the hurry to get hitched? You need to give the woman time, not do what you always do and just throw around orders like we’re all on your Goddamn staff, asshole.”
I get it. Believe me, after I got home and drank about half a bottle of Indie’s favorite whiskey I stopped to think about what I had said and done and it made me groan with self-disgust.
“I wanted to test her, I think, and see if she’d choose me instead of her family this time.”
Mom seems to just deflate and falls into her seat with a moan, her eyes closed against the tears and disappointment she no doubt feels.
“Markus, baby, don’t take this the wrong way, but you are a complete and utter idiot. I went wrong somewhere if that’s what you were thinking. Boy, if that girl had chosen you over her loved ones instead of accommodating you all, you would not love her as much as you do. Don’t you get it, kid? She would have chosen you years ago but you never gave her the chance and now that you want to, you don’t have much of a leg to stand on considering that you chose us over her and the happiness you could have had.”
Hell. She’s right. Who the hell am I kidding with this shit? I was a selfish asshole and I think part of me wanted to hurt her and punish her for moving on without me because the truth is I never did.
I got married, yes, but that whole thing was a front. Two friends helping each other out of a bind when I realized my job wasn’t going to cover legal fees and everything my family needed.
I was just too overrun, too tired and so empty without Percy that I had the idea of giving up at one point. Then Angie stepped in and made me an offer I could not afford to refuse.
In exchange for pretending to be the father of her kid, she’d help my family and take some of the pressure off while I went back to school and sat the bar.
I still worked and fed my family that last year, but the house she let them live in was very much welcome, and I even got to take Edie to the doctor when she started showing signs of diabetes.
It
sounds one sided but I swear it isn’t. See the real father was a rich asshole from Vegas who would have taken that kid away from Angie and never let her see him. With me on the scene he never stopped to even question what had happened and why she’d left him.
I was her shield. We were friends and I even see the kid every year when it’s his birthday. Did I like doing it? Hell no. There should only be one Mrs. Marks, and that will be Percy.
I did it for my family. I chose them. I never once thought about how she must have felt when I just left her alone. And now, after ten years I’m back and I think I have the right to ask her to choose me and just abandon the people who picked her up after I hurt her that way?
I really am a bastard and a prick. Woody was right when he called me and threatened to murder me. I don’t deserve a woman as good and sweet as Percy.
That’s why I’m going home and letting her go.
“Mom, what I said to that woman was unforgivable and we all know it. Hell I wouldn’t talk to me either right now if I had a choice. So yeah, I am going home and I’m going to leave her alone like she wants, because I love her enough not to make her life miserable. Now, stop crying and at least give me a hug. I’m going to miss the three of you.”
Her smile is watery as she kisses my cheek and hugs me tight before a blubbering Edie comes to say good-bye.
“I’ll drive you to the airport and catch a cab home after we return your car. Come on, asshole, at least let me see you off,” Finn gripes, smiling sadly.
“No Bon Jovi in the car.”
“Aw come on. What’s wrong with Bon Jovi?” he complains as I toss my bags in the back seat and get behind the wheel.
“I don’t want to listen to his bullshit when I feel like hell. You’ll be mopping me up off the floorboards and I need to get home before I remember that I know how to cry.”
“What a baby.”
“Only for her. Now shut up and find the Britney Spears album.”
Chapter Twelve
THE NAUGHTY ONES: The Complete 5-Books Series Page 45
