by K. S. Adkins
Twirling Woody, I say nothing but offer him a smirk that says, I win. The look he gave me on his way out was one of revenge and determination. Locking up behind him, I toss Woody behind the bar and head out back to see Axle and Shane each sitting on a milk crate. Shane’s head was lowered and Axle shook his own letting me know the kid was not okay. Careful not to rile him up further, I kept it simple. “From now on, you stay upstairs. You go home, I can’t protect you.”
“My dad,” his words steeped in pure misery. “I can’t believe he hit you.”
“Your dad comes near you or me again, I’ll do more than whack him with Woody.”
Looking up at me the fear in his eyes nearly dropped me. “He’s a cop, Drew.”
“He’s no cop,” I manage, barely. I was so fucking angry I couldn’t see straight out of my good eye.
“Cops protect, they don’t harm. At the end of the day, he’s just a man. We all have lessons to learn. Some of us do, some of us don’t. He’s the latter.”
“Drew…”
“My house, my rules. You learned your lesson, Shane and because of that, you have a place here. For as long as you want it. I’ll keep you safe, I swear it.”
He was off that milk crate hugging me tight when Axle caught my wince. “Thanks Drew,” he whispers.
“You’re a good kid,” I whisper in return.
“How about we finish that lesson?” Axle said gently pulling him back.
Leaving them to it, I went upstairs to ice my face.
“Something’s got to be missing in your life to want to buy this dump,” Foxy laughed. “So what’s missing?”
She was… but I didn’t say that. I couldn’t talk about my past with Foxy, with anyone.
So I went with, “Not sure, but I’m hoping I’ll find out.”
“You loved and lost,” he guessed shaking his head in pity. “She sure did a number on your ass.”
“Nine,” I nod. “There’s a number.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Yeah well, I did and I still have shit to show for it.”
Shane wasn’t ready to fight. He was needing to talk. And while I was not a counselor or even close to being versed in this shit, the least I could do was listen. Though, I was hoping he made it quick because Drew was in pain and I needed to tend to her. No way was I leaving her to deal with it alone. She was tough, no two ways about it, but a man took care of his woman, always. Maybe she wouldn’t see it that way now, but in time she would or I’d make her. I didn’t mind her taking the lead some of the time. But she wasn’t taking it all of the time. Nine long years I missed out on her and I wasn’t missing any more. If that meant putting my boot down, so be it. You are so full of shit…
“Him and my mom are real religious,” he confesses looking away in shame. “Spare the rod, spoil the child. He’s been beating my ass since I could walk. What does she do? Nothing. Not a God damn thing. I could be bleeding on the floor and she’s just stand there quoting bible verses praying for my soul and shit. I’m a cop’s son,” he says kicking the crate. “You know what they do for a cop’s son?”
“No,” I answer honestly.
“Nothing,” he spits on the concrete. “Because they don’t even know. They don’t know ‘cause if I even tried saying shit, he’d fucking kill me for spilling family business. Nothing much scares me,” he says meeting my eyes and in his I saw helplessness and terror. “Except him.”
“Neither Drew or I are going to let – ”
“The night I came here, I saw this chick, she was hot and she started flirting with me so I bought us drinks. A lot of drinks,” he sighs closing his eyes. “I got drunk, too drunk and you know what happened when she told me no? I turned into him.”
Shane was close to a rage and he needed to dial it down so I asked him, “How’d Drew handle that?”
Letting a laugh escape he faces me and with love on his face he said, “She twisted my arm behind my back, led me out front and when I tried taking a swing, she kicked my ass. And you know what? That’s the first beating I ever deserved.”
“Then what happened?”
“I went home happy, believe it or not. Because what she said about women, what she did to prove her point, made sense. Then he saw me smiling after getting my ass handed to me by a girl and lost his mind. Fearing more pain, I told him what happened and he had her arrested. I refused to press charges but he forged my signature, the asshole. He had her arrested, fucking arrested. Feeling bad about that, I came back the next day to apologize and explain. All she said was, I respect a man who owns his shit. Then she offered me a job.”
I respect a man who owns his shit…Yeah, that was Drew. The woman spent nine years despising me but the second I owned my shit, she let it go, right up until I opened my mouth that second time.
“I have a woman inside I need to see to,” I say going for the door. “Let me get her settled and then I want you to take her up on that offer of using her place.”
“I don’t want her living on her boat,” he tries objecting. “Even if it is a bad ass boat.”
“She’s not staying on the boat; she’s staying with me.”
“Does she know that?”
“Working on it.”
“You two go way back?”
“Met her when I was your age.”
“What happened?”
“Fucked it up.”
“She’s the first person to take a chance on me,” he says sadly.
Slapping him on the back I said, “Me too,” before heading inside.
The door to her apartment was open and I stood there watching her pack a bag. When she noticed me our eyes caught and I saw how swollen her face was. “Come here, Drew.”
Slowly she does and when we’re toe to toe she takes a deep breath and lets it out. “How bad?” I ask her.
“I’ll make money from it that’s for sure,” she tried smiling but her God damn jaw was too swollen. “Too bad he didn’t tag both eyes.”
“You don’t have to be hard all the time,” I remind her. “You can trust me, you’re safe with me.”
“No, I’m not.”
It was time to take a play from Shane’s book and own my shit. “What I said was out of line. I was jealous, fucking full of jealousy. I can’t handle the thought of you with another guy and seeing him touching you put me someplace I don’t want to visit again. I’m already carrying some serious guilt for what you thought I did to you…”
“Listen,” she sighs. “You may have said the words, but I let them change me. That’s on me, Rico Suave’. Not you.”
“Wish we had that morning back, I wouldn’t have answered the door.” When she smiled it wasn’t in happiness but in sadness because she was remembering that morning too. I remembered the look in her eyes when I came back in but I thought she had doubts, regretted sleeping with me. I never in a million years would have let her leave had I known she’d heard words that I could have easily explained. I cost us those years, I put the sadness in her eyes.
“When you left I thought it was because you regretted being with me,” I explain gently. “I was giving you a day to think about us then I was coming for you. I was coming to tell you that I wanted you for myself but you were already gone.”
“I was already yours,” she says matter-of-factly. “I wanted you to be mine too and then I heard –”
“I want to get back to that,” I interrupt quickly. “We were special, Drew. No woman has ever taken your place in my heart.”
“Axle… I—that was a long time ago.”
“That wasn’t a no,” I grin down at her.
“That wasn’t a yes either.”
She was close to shutting down on me again so kissing her nose, I ask her, “You hungry?”
When she nods, I take her hand, lead her downstairs and the first order of business was feeding her. The Hole could wait.
“To be in there,” Darius said squeezing my ass as he thrusts.
Arching my back to take him deepe
r I remind him, “You are in there.”
“No,” he says tapping my chest. “To be in there.”
Out of habit, I shut down and once he came, I tossed his ass off my boat.
I followed it up with a text the next day letting him know he had two choices.
Fuck me or fuck off. For a baller, the guy was very upfront about his feelings. Always had been. We started out as friends, good friends, and when I should have said no to sleeping with him, I didn’t. Sometimes the self-imposed loneliness got the best of me and I made stupid decisions. Darius was never supposed to be anything more than a fuck. However, early on he made it clear that he wanted more from me. I figured he was spitting game to get in my pants and never once took him seriously. Until that last time… The man either thinks he can change my mind or likes punishment because he kept coming back for more. It was wrong of me to let him.
At the restaurant, he sat directly next to me so he could touch me, constantly, blatantly. It was overwhelming, confusing and…sweet. It was the sweet that would take some getting used to considering I’d removed that particular emotion from my wheelhouse nine years ago. But the Axle I remember was always sweet, ridiculously so. Until him, I didn’t have much experience with sweet, romantic gestures or playful behavior. Granted I had been young at the time and used to the bar mentality but it’s like I had been waiting.
Turns out I was waiting.
For Axle, to change my mind.
He did change it and without much effort either. And because I didn’t have previous experience with relationships, I ran away instead of demanding an explanation. In the end, I broke my own heart.
Then, because I was stubborn, I spent the next nine years protecting it by not investing it.
Now I sat here completely unsure of what to do. I’ve never been the person people stare at because I was sharing a booth with a guy when the seat across from us was unoccupied. But people were staring and it was wigging me out.
With a plate full of food, a glass filled with pop, and a shiner and a half, even I was envious of, I literally had nothing to say.
Axle’s appearance back into my life was either fate or a cruel prank and I didn’t know which. I hated being on the fence. It wasn’t something I wanted to make a habit of either. So when he breaks the silence by saying, “That cop is a real threat,” I simply shrugged. “Are you listening to me?”
“I’ll admit he’s not very bright but he’s also not so dumb that he’d go around town shooting at me. And if he was, he wouldn’t miss.”
“That’s why they’re called warning shots,” he counters.
“Whatever,” I brush it off wanting to move on. “I’m pretty sure he got the message today.”
“And if he didn’t?”
“Then I’ll deal with it.”
“Setting yourself up to take a hit was not dealing with it, it was stupid. Especially when I was right outside. Seeing that shit fucked with his kid too, Drew.”
“That’s your opinion and I also don’t remember asking for your help.”
“What’s with the fresh delivery of concrete? Do I even have a shot before it hardens?”
“Enough with the metaphors, captain obvious,” I groan and then push my plate away and announce, “I lost my appetite.”
“Yeah,” he says angrily. “Me too.” Then to prove a point, he gets up leaving me sitting there, alone. Throwing some cash on the table, I was just outside the door when my name was called. “Fuck my luck,” I mutter under my breath. Not even bothering with a fake smile I nod and say, “Hey, Calvin.”
Calvin, like the others, was occasional. Actually, he was only a few times a year. Darius would be the only dick I’d call regular, which reminds me that until Axle walks away, I’d have to put him on the back burner too.
Wrapping me up in a tight hug that I don’t return he asks me, “Got plans tonight?” Why now, after all these years, being pussy suddenly bothered me wasn’t something I wanted to think too hard on. The truth was, it was my own doing. I didn’t get invested so Calvin skipping the pleasantries to fuck shouldn’t irk me, but it did.
“Yeah,” Axle says suddenly tearing me out of his arms securing me in his own. “She does.”
“I was speaking to Drew,” Calvin argued, no doubt wondering who he was and why I was allowing it.
“I was speaking for Drew,” Axle retorts not caring who Calvin was in the least.
Ignoring Axle, Calvin notices my face and was about to ask what happened to it when I snapped, “Enough!” at both of them. “Calvin, I do have plans but thanks.” And to Axle I sneered, “You’re a fucking pain in the ass, Rhodes rash.”
Pushing beyond them both, I started off on foot then hailed a cab leaving the pain in my ass where he belonged. Behind me.
Heading to the marina, I turn on my phone to check my messages and when the only thing waiting for me was work, I shut it back off after telling Shane to cover me. When he asked what was wrong, I actually said, “I have cramps.”
God, when this was over and he was gone, I needed to get a life. A real one.
Complete with annoying girlfriends and maybe a puppy to boss around.
Since the drive to my boat took some time with traffic, I closed my eyes wondering how after years of keeping things uncomplicated they could get complicated so quickly. When no answers came, I stared out the window pondering how I missed the leaves changing. Fall was fast approaching though the weather hadn’t changed much. It was still mild but it was also getting darker, sooner. I always hated saying goodbye to summer. It never lasted long enough.
I never took full advantage and I always mourned its passing telling myself I’d do better next year.
When we arrive, I tip out the driver and nod at the gate attendant. Passing the pool that was closed, the main bar no one was in, and stepping onto the dock that was empty too, I was halfway to my slip when Axle scared the hell out of me by bringing me to a halt. I have no idea how he beat me here but it was time to take control back.
“How do you keep getting past security?” I ask snagging my arm out of his grip.
“If you’d put my name on your frequent fuck list, I wouldn’t have to bypass security.”
“Do you want me to hate you, horse fellator?”
“On the way over I figured out a way to avoid triggering my temper,” he grunts and out here on the water the sound carried. “How about giving me a list of places I can take you where I won’t run into your fuck buddies?”
“Can’t,” I shrug as if his words didn’t hurt but they struck true. “I failed long hand in high school.”
“Fuck you for making me feel this way,” he jabs my chest.
“Fuck you too,” I jab right back. “You don’t get to give me shit for what I’ve been doing for the last nine years. Especially when I wasn’t doing you. Like you’ve been a saint, Axle?”
“Yeah Drew, I was pretty close considering I was married for seven of them.”
I felt like he’d punched me in the gut. I was also pretty sure I even stumbled back too which was pathetic.
“Married? You were fucking married and you’re just telling me this now?”
“You never asked,” he says crossing his arms over his chest. “Didn’t love her. She wasn’t you. Divorced her ass and ran right into yours. I may not be a saint but unlike you, I don’t fuck for the sake of fucking.”
“Well I don’t marry for the sake of marrying!”
“You also don’t take your own advice and learn lessons either,” he says spewing his anger at me. “Like I don’t see what you’ve been doing, cock burglar. Treating men like mercy fucks hurts no one but you. You think it’s you using them? Wrong. It’s them using you. That’s not what you were to me, then or now. You can stand there and tell me you’re cool with just being pussy?”
Unable to stand there and listen, I turn away but he cuts me right back off. Standing on a dock made moving around him difficult but tossing him in the river would be easy. “You’re a bad ass
, you’re hot. You have money and did good for yourself but even I can see you’re empty. Take work away and you have nothing. My wife was nothing like you. She was quiet, conservative and safe. A school teacher, third grade, loved kids. I thought safe was smart. It wasn’t, so I cut her loose. You wouldn’t like her. But you know what? When I told her I was done, she fought for me. She said she’d do anything to be what I needed. She wasn’t a fighter but she fought,” he sneers in my face. “You didn’t fight; you didn’t do shit. I offer up everything I am to you and you place another order for cement. All I ever wanted was a shot with you but you ran nine years ago and you haven’t bothered to stop.”
Refusing to cry in front of him, I held my ground but asked myself which hurt worse. Knowing Axle had been with one woman for years and not loving her? Or my sleeping around holding love for no one, not even myself.
“The girl I remember would have something to say,” he pushed knowing silence wasn’t my strong suit.
All I had was, “I keep telling you, I’m not the girl you remember.”
“You think finding your file was an accident?” he says grabbing me by the shoulders. “You think Foxy selling me his place was? My divorce? Because I don’t think it is, Drew. We have unfinished business, a second chance to get this right.”
“I was hurt enough the first time around,” I screech which was very unlike me.
“It was a fucking misunderstanding!”
“My heart doesn’t know that!” I shrill using both hands to shove him back. “It didn’t then, it doesn’t now! I know I’m just pussy! I don’t know any other way to be! So fuck you for marrying her when it should have been me!”
Covering my mouth with both hands because I couldn’t believe I said it, he whispered, “There’s my fighter,” and I lost it.
“No,” I say pushing away from him. “You don’t get to rail on me then, do this. I may give my body away but you gave your heart away. You have no right to judge me. No fucking right at all!”
“Think about my ex-wife walking up on us right now,” he says this softly but I reacted loudly. My intake of breath was so swift had he not been holding me I may have detonated. “You look ready to commit murder, Drew. So maybe consider how I feel seeing the shit I saw. Do not think for one fucking second, that I wouldn’t fix the hurt if you’d let me. I just told you I never gave my heart away, it’s still yours if you want it. Just fucking man up and take it.”
