by Celia Crown
Her body immobilized by shock as Dean curls his arm around her waist, yanking her to his chest before he moves her behind him. The woman trips and falls onto her face with an indignant cry of frustration, Schrader takes a moment to find his thoughts and locks his arms around the frantic woman who thrashes and claws at his arms.
“Let me go! I’ll kill that bitch!”
Laura had to use all her strength to prevent Dean from knocking Tory’s teeth out, her arms are straining in exertion as a man from Noir help subdue the erratic woman.
Dean pats Laura’s hands and she hesitantly let go with concern written in her eyes, he leans down and gives her a reassuring kiss. Laura feels a bit better knowing that he’s not going to tear the entire bar down.
He walks up to the woman who immediately became jelly in her man’s arms, hope flashes in her eyes as her leg bounces in victory. His arm shoots out, clenching her throat in an unforgiving grip. He squeezes so hard that the muscles in her throat shifts in positions as her guttural plea for mercy are drowned by her own gasps.
It’s the first and final warning.
He lets go as she wheezes.
“I’ll overlook this shit, but I will fucking kill you if you touch Laura.”
Her face crumbles with disappointment and a brief sign of fickle fury but it’s quickly wiped away from the warning glare Dean aims at her.
Schrader knows when to withdraw from a losing battle, he hauls the woman out despite her legs digging into the floor.
“I’m so much better than her! I can give you everything you want, you can have me too!”
Her voice fades out the door as silence falls on them, Dean turns back to Laura who can’t decide if she’s proud of him for taking this situation so well or upset that he’s not the least worried about the repercussion of another false accusation.
He must have read her mind as he threads his fingers into her hair, holding her neck and jaw at an angle for him to kiss her better.
“I don’t care what happens to me, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She whispers on his lips, “I want you to be safe too.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dean
Everyone agreed not to speak a word about this incident to Brenda or Nate, it’s their wedding and it should go off without a hitch.
That doesn’t mean nothing was done about it. When it comes to family matters, the pair of sisters is incredibly helpful as they are people with connections and influence. They have temporarily moved up Dean’s good people list until they inevitably do something idiotic.
He had overheard them talking when Laura went to use the kitchen for a glass of water.
“I didn’t do much, just asked for a little restraining order with a five-year prison sentence if that insane woman breaks it.”
“What favor do you owe that flamboyant politician now?” Honey’s brows are high up in her hairline.
Mavis shrugs, sneakily glancing around for Vlad as their conversation isn’t exactly approving in the president’s standards. “I don’t. I ask for a favor and they usually just do it for a free supply of specific medicines.”
“They have money to pay for it. The type of chemical drugs you make is usually within their price range.”
“It’s a custom job; family exclusive.”
Honey makes a face, “Why do you make them sound like automobile parts?”
Mavis’s blank face matches her equally impassive tone.
“Saying I use their DNA to specifically design medicine for their specific conditions to allow it to target their bodily functions to the chemicals’ maximum potential is a mouthful.”
Honey takes in the information for a solid minute before Dean swears he saw smoke coming from her skull.
“Yeah, that’s a mouthful.”
He didn’t mention that to Laura, not when she looks beautiful in her pastel pink bridesmaid dress; nothing too intricate but it’s enough to steal his breath away as her light brown hair falls gracefully onto her shoulders.
He can’t say the same about the pair of twins, they don’t have an ounce of grace in their behavior as they begin their bickering again. Kane and Vlad look at them like they’re goddesses, and they would drop to their knees to worship the two girls if it’s needed.
The entire bar has been redecorated with flowers, ribbons and veils hanging everywhere.
“You’re beautiful,” he said as Laura makes her way to him.
As a formality, every man in the room had been forced into a black suit. The clothes were a courtesy from Honey because she has a compulsion to be color coordinated even when her daily wardrobe is a mess.
“Thank you.” she smiles with pretty pink lips, “You look handsome too.”
He moves to her ears and whispers in his deep voice that has her weak to the knees.
“I want it on my bedroom floor.”
Laura’s face flushes and she lightly slaps his chest while a dark smirk plays on his lips.
As expected, the wedding goes off smoothly. Brenda has a gorgeous white dress on that brings out her chocolate complexion which Nate can’t take his hands off as the veil covers her face, Brenda has always been a beautiful woman and she is even more stunning.
Soft music and contagious smiles from the three daughters take out all the tension from everyone’s shoulders from the event earlier.
Dean takes a glance around the room, it’s vibrating with energy as everyone’s having fun. The bride and groom have their first dance, laughing and enjoying the moment to themselves.
He sees Vlad throwing Mavis a stern verbal no when she asks if she can drink the champagne from his glass. She pouts so hard that Vlad sighs and his iron resolve break so quickly that Dean wants to laugh. Vlad is known to be inflexible and ruthless, it’s why he is the best choice to take the new president title, but Mavis does have a face that screams innocence and a wounded animal. He watches Vlad holds the glad of alcohol to her lips, indicating how much she can drink because she looks like she wants to swallow the entire glass.
“I know you said no secrets but forgive me, father, for I have sinned.”
Dean can only imagine how much experience Vlad has in order to not react when the next sentence come out of her mouth.
“I mixed espresso and green tea, I think I’m hallucinating. Let’s kidnap a donkey.”
His president closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose and breathes. A new lesson learned: never let Mavis be drunk.
Dean cranks his neck to the other couple, Honey’s already downing the glass of nonalcoholic drink before Kane can see what she’s doing. The man gives her a deep and serious frown that compels her to look away guiltily. Putting the glass down on the counter, she wraps her arm around his waist and sheepishly begs for forgiveness because a disappointed Kane is an unforgivable Kane. He whispers something in her ear and her face lights up in flames as she awkwardly shifts her feet.
“Do you think I’m like that Anthropology book I have?”
“Collecting dust on our bookcase?”
A horrified expression is not a typical face the sunshine girl has, and it makes it more hilarious.
“It has company!”
“Yes, abandoned company.”
Speechless, Honey looks so distressed and defensive.
Dean’s eyes gravitate towards Laura and she’s gorgeous in her dress. Her bright amber eyes dance in the dimmed lights as she hums along with the soft melody. She’s captivated by the sight of Brenda and Nate gliding around the floor.
His heart thumps loudly in his chest while he wonders if he was like his brothers in the past with Laura. He can never visualize himself as anything but a violent and unhinged man, but he can envision being with Laura and be a changed man that is a better version of his past self. Be the better man she deserves.
He wants a future with her.
He wants to marry her, and he wants a family with her.
Dean’s content on just watching Laura the entire night,
tracing her fragile skin with his eyes as she focuses on the dancing couple. They sit beside each other, shoulders occasionally bumping into each other as she giggles at her sisters’ antics. She would turn to him and just speak in that gentle voice of hers about anything, and he takes in every word.
Most of their conversation carries to her sisters because they’re just a phenomenal topic with inconsistencies between extreme intelligence and stupidities.
The ceremony ended with drunk men, a tipsy Mavis, jittery Honey, and hilarity. The twin held onto each other like octopuses and their lovers had to pry them apart to go home but they make distressed animal callings that have the men sighing with a face of impassiveness.
Vlad walks out with a whining Mavis over his shoulders, Kane leaves with a hiccupping Honey in his arms. The bride and groom ran off somewhere, the rest of his brothers lay wasted on every surface of the bar.
Dean tilts his head down to see Laura looking at the phone for motels she can stay for the night. A light touch on her arm pulls her attention away from the device and locks eyes with him, her confused amber eyes blinks owlishly.
“Stay with me.”
For the night, for the rest of their lives.
He doesn’t say that, he lets her pick up on the subliminal message.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He’s never been so sure in his life. He can’t handle a night without her when Dean woke up in the morning with her cuddling into his arms. His bigger body shielding her from the sunlight and the coolness from his room, her skin was so supple that his cock stayed hard the entire night even after the mind-blowing sex.
Laura smiles at him, “Okay.”
He tucks a piece of stray hair from her face. Her lips are plump and sweet against his, it’s addicting and he’s drunk on the initiation for a deeper kiss from her.
Laura doesn’t want people watching them, he suggests they leave for the night because everyone in the bar is overly drunk. His brothers may have an impeccable hold on their liquor, but they decided to let go of their inhibition for the night.
They let go more than their guards; their pride is gone along with their shirts and their dignity got switched with humiliation when their voice begins a high-pitched karaoke.
Dean will have to pretend he doesn’t know them for the night.
Probably the next morning too. Hangover is not a pretty thing.
As cheesy as it sounds, their walk back to his house is quiet and comfortable. Neither of them said much under the bright moonlight as the crunching of snow under their feet are the only sound that can be heard.
She takes the lead and he follows, her amber eyes soaking every little detail the town gives as her smile never once falters. Whether it’s her pace or her silence, he immerses in their time together with the desire to steal her thoughts away with his kiss.
They make it to the house, hands lacing together somewhere along their walk and they haven’t let go when they step inside his home. The air of serenity settles with a haze of simplicity.
She fits in his home; her presence mingles with the blandness of his bare decorations. She gives life to the dead air of muteness, and Dean has never been more convinced that Laura is the love of his life.
And, she’s been this house’s occupant too.
There are things in his house that don’t belong to him; it’s not about the things that he didn’t have before, it’s about the things he would never buy in a million of years.
The mug of little apple designs, the white curtains with a layer of lace, and a yellow summer dress in his closet.
They are all untouched and kept at their best condition because touching them means desecrating whatever chance of remembering Laura from two years ago and anything related to the five years stolen from him.
He kept them at their original place; the mug on the kitchen counter, the curtains draping over his windows, and the dress taking a space between his clothes. He hasn’t moved them from the first time he walked into his home after his prison release.
One thing he did toss out was the milk. It’s been rotting and stinking up the entire house by the time he put his key into the lock. He’s lucky that the carton wasn’t open or else god knows what shit would migrate in the new environment.
He doesn’t drink milk, he can’t stand it. It’s something he hasn’t drank since a child and even then, he hated it. The taste was weird to him and those who said milk helps his growth will have to rethink their theory because he’s over six-foot-tall with thick muscles, and milk had nothing to do with his growth.
Dean remembers everything that was out of place in his home. There were towels and a toothbrush that doesn’t belong to him. He doesn’t use fruity ass shampoos or read books on how to make friends.
Maybe one of his dumbass brothers got that for him as a joke, but he wouldn’t keep that junk.
The next and more plausible explanation is Laura. The woman from the hospital and the woman from his dreams, and more than likely the woman he loved for two years.
Dean feels like things are happening too fast and his brain is struggling to catch up, it’s all too surreal and confusing. The missing pieces in his mind won’t connect no matter how hard he stares at Laura, the void taking over his memories is just as stubborn as his determination to remember.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Her voice lowers to a whisper as she comes into his space, lifting her face up in a small head tilt. The vast difference between them is apparent through her tiny hands wrapping in his bigger palms in an encouraging act, she holds them delicately while rubbing circles on the back of his scarred knuckles.
“You look scary when you think, like an angry porcupine.”
His mouth opens to answer her, but it stumbles into a hiss and a growl of pain when a strong headache takes over his senses. He instantly let go of her hands as a shocked gasp tumbles out of her when he squeezed her hands, he wasn’t mindful of his strength as the throbbing in his temple climbs higher.
Noises, faces, and smells. Like an old cinematic record, jigsaw puzzles, and sporadic films of disarray; every chapter of his life doesn’t begin at the fifth-year mark and it doesn’t end at the present, but it’s all there.
He just had to place them in the correct order.
Laura. His Laura is still the same beautiful woman, and he’s grateful she hasn’t given up on them even when it took her a while to come back.
It’s like reliving his life in a matter of seconds. He remembers everything; their first meeting to the last time they saw each other.
She was in town to shadow the prosecutor in his trial, he didn’t know that she was on the side that’s trying to put him in prison. He fell in love with her when he turned to look at the prosecutor, but he saw her instead. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her and she stared right back with the same intensity.
His bail was made and the first thing he did was to find her. He did and by some miracle, she didn’t fear him for putting a man in a coma or the violent side of him when the prosecutor wanted to set the bail much higher or have him on remand.
His trial wasn’t until the next month and the time they spent together as Dean and Laura was too quick. They dated, lived together, and spend every moment in each other’s presence. A fairy tale beginning and a tragedy at the end, he should’ve known he was too lucky to have someone so pure be his.
It was when he was found guilty and sentenced to prison for him to find out Laura was on the prosecution side. An intern and law student, he didn’t know what he thought about it when he sat in his prison cell. He got the news from some punk from the rival gang, Hell’s Angel.
The mystery had been solved. It all began when that Tory Kilian woman wanted to sleep with him and he wasn’t interested, and like the woman scorned she was, she made up lies about false rape accusations to her boyfriend. That lead to Dean putting him in a coma and his entire life going to hell.
As if prison time wasn’t eno
ugh punishment for him, the woman told a member of Hell’s Angel in the same prison the true identity of Laura. As expected at that time, he was furious, and he felt betrayed by the woman he thought had loved him.
When Laura came to visit him the next day, his temper scorched his words and he had taken her hands in his. His grip had been tight and painful, it was a way to convey his betrayal. Dean wanted to hurt her like she had hurt him.
“Was it funny?” Dean remembers his tone, it was cold and frighteningly low.
“Is playing with my feelings fun?”
“I should’ve known you’re like any other women. Never sincere. Always lying.”
He clearly recalls his next words because in the same breath he had broken her heart.
“I never want to see you again.”
Laura didn’t visit him anymore, and it took a group of men ambushing him and landing him in the hospital to see her again. He wouldn’t be Dean if he hadn’t given them an equal beating. He remembered the confusion and the strong need to hold her, but she was gone before he could wrap his mind around what had happened to him.
The tears cooling on his neck was the only indication she wasn’t a dream.
Laura stayed away from Nevada like he had wanted.
A mistake he can’t undo because of his foolishness. He paid for it, and so did she.
This is their new beginning. Dean will not let this chance go down the drain.
“I love you, lisíčhka.”
Little fox.
Laura chokes a teary laugh, she had wanted to learn Russian.
He remembers.
Epilogue
Laura
Seven Months Later.
Changes had been made in the last few months of her life.
Laura had changed from a full-time lawyer to a retainer lawyer for the hospital her sister, Honey works at. It was sad to see all her coworkers balling their eyes out and how they expect to get an eyeful of Dean if she were to come to visit them.
Dean went with her to her workplace to gather her things and he won over all the gossiping women in the office with his grumpy and growly attitude. No one cared as they stared dreamily at him.
