by Kylie Walker
“Okay.” He walked her to the door. She put her stiletto heels back on and grabbed her purse.
“It’s time for me to do the walk of shame into my own apartment now,” she said.
“I don’t get it,” he said and shook his head.
“My roommate will probably give me a lot of shit,” she said and chuckled. “You know since I’m still wearing the same dress from yesterday?”
“Oh, right.” He laughed. He didn’t understand why women gave each other a hard time about stuff like that, but he tried to play along. They shouldn’t be ashamed of enjoying sex. “Kiss me again.”
She gave him a sexy smirk and obliged. He felt like the breath was knocked out of him every time she touched him. That kiss continued on far after she had pulled away.
When she said goodbye one last time, and he closed the door behind her, he was left feeling a void in his heart that he didn’t know how to fill with anything other than alcohol. He didn’t like to hit the hard stuff anymore.
He stuck to beer. It was safer for a guy like him who had struggled with addiction for a number of years. The beer didn’t give him as much of an edgy buzz. He was able to control himself better. If he started drinking liquor, he didn’t know what might happen, but he didn’t want to find out either.
He also didn’t want to stay locked away in his apartment all night alone while he felt out of sorts. There were only so many times that he could jerk off in the shower while he imagined her legs wrapped around his waist. He could use a drink or two, and there was a bar connected to the lobby of the apartment building he lived in.
He changed his shirt into a blue polo but kept on the same jeans he had been wearing before he fucked Abigail’s brains out. He grabbed his keys and his cell phone and walked down the hallway outside of his penthouse suite to his elevator.
When he got downstairs, he sighed with relief to realize that the bar was not as packed as he had assumed it would be. It wasn’t really a sports bar. It was catered more towards the stuffy rich people that lived in the building with him.
He had seen men smoking cigars and drinking brandy’s around a table while they chortled and discussed politics and how amazing they found themselves. It was comical to Lucas. He liked to hang out at the bar and watch the bartender work. He preferred to fly solo on nights like this, and he was in the mood to blend in and not get recognized while he eavesdropped on other people’s conversations.
Lucas sat down at an empty barstool and propped his elbows up on the counter. The bartender had a knowing look registered in his eyes as if he had seen Lucas around before. “What can I get for you tonight, buddy?” He asked as he wiped down a set of wine glasses.
“Just your best beer on tap,” Lucas said and handed the guy a twenty dollar bill.
He didn’t feel like starting a tab tonight. He only wanted to enjoy one or two beers before heading back upstairs. At least the booze would help him settle down a bit and get him ready to be lazy for the rest of the evening.
The bartender poured Lucas a glass of the establishments finest and took the twenty off the counter. “Keep the change,” Lucas said.
“Thanks, man.” The bartender seemed a little more enthusiastic to serve Lucas after that.
“No problem,” Lucas said and took a glorifying sip of the refreshing liquid. It was cool as it slid down his throat and splashed into his belly, hitting him with an instantaneous warm feeling that ran through his veins.
He was just settling in to relax when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
“Lucas?”
It was a woman’s voice, but not just any woman’s voice. It was one that he recognized, and one that made his blood turn to ice in his veins. Fuck!
He slowly turned around after hesitating for several seconds. His heart pounded. His skin crawled. When he looked behind him, he was face to face with his ex-girlfriend, Christy.
Chapter Eight
“CHRISTY?” LUCAS ASKED in a hushed voice and stood up immediately. It was just his natural instinct when dealing with her.
Christy was the most unpredictable woman that Lucas had ever met.
“Hey.” She shifted her weight awkwardly as she glanced around the ritzy bar that she clearly didn’t belong in.
She was wearing sky blue leggings and a purple, long-sleeved top, undoubtedly to hide all the heroin needle injection marks all over her body.
“What are you doing here?” He asked. He was still trying to figure out how she could have gotten into his apartment building without a keycard. Anyone who wasn’t a resident had to be called in after dark because the doors from the outside automatically locked after a certain point.
“I was looking for you,” she said and gave him a sexy grin.
He gripped her by the arm. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not?” She looked offended.
“This is my home,” he said and as he stared down at her. Anger hummed over his entire body.
“You live at the bar?” She asked with a smug and sarcastic look on her face. She snorted as if she were the funniest person ever.
Her blonde hair was cascading over her shoulders. If she wasn’t a heroin addict, she might just be ethereal and pretty, but she had already ruined herself. Her eyes were bloodshot and hollow. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was using right now and had shot up right before coming to his apartment building.
“You know what I mean,” Lucas said with a groan and glanced around the bar as if he was paranoid that people were watching them, but much to his relief, no one seemed to care what he was doing. The patrons were unusually sparse tonight anyway.
“You are trespassing on private property,” he told her.
“I am not,” she protested. “This is a bar. “Why don’t you buy me a drink, big shot?”
Her subtle dig wasn’t lost on him. She had told him before that she hated how he had ditched her once he’d become rich and famous. He had tried to explain to her on multiple occasions that wasn’t the case that he simply left her because he wanted to get clean and set his life on a better track.
“I think you need to go home now Christy,” Lucas said firmly and glared at her. How many times was he going to have to enforce his desire to never see her again?
“Don’t you want to have a little fun with me tonight?” Her attempt to flirt with him was making him uncomfortable. She tried to skirt her hand up and down his arm, but he pushed it away.
“No,” he shook his head. “This is ridiculous Christy. We broke up a long time ago. I’ve moved on with my life, and honestly, you should too.”
Christy’s lips curled into a snarl. “I don’t want your pity.”
“There is no us anymore. It’s time for you to get out and stay that way.” He growled.
“Says who?” She asked sourly. She wouldn’t give up without a fight. She had always been that way.
“Me.” His tone was defiant.
Christy looked crestfallen, but he knew it would take far more rejection to get her to leave him alone. She was nothing if not persistent.
He was also worried about her making a scene in the bar if he continued to tell her to go away. “Come on,” he said and yanked her by the elbow, but not so forcefully that it would draw attention to them in a negative way.
“Are we going upstairs to your penthouse?” She asked with a hopeful ring to her voice.
“Of course, we’re not.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t want me anymore,” she said and stopped walking to jerk her arm out of his grasp. “We used to be so good together.”
“No.” Lucas shook his head adamantly. “We were a drug addicted train wreck together.” He felt like a broken record with her. She’d say the same things, and he’d respond in kind. No matter how many times he told her no, she never seemed to understand or remember.
He took a moment to really assess her demeanor. “I mean look at yourself, Christy. You are strung out right now.”
“I am not,” she
fired back, but he knew better, and so did she. She knew that he would see directly through her lies, so he didn’t even know why she was attempting to trick him. She couldn’t even stand up straight.
“Come on,” Lucas said. “I’m going to take you home.”
He didn’t know what kind of hole Christy might have crawled out of, but he hoped that she wasn’t sleeping on the street under some park bench.
“No.” Christy pouted her bottom lip like a sullen child not getting her way. “I want to go upstairs to see your apartment.”
“Why?” Lucas asked and knitted his eyebrow in confusion.
“You know why.” She playfully swatted at his arm and gave him a wink that sent a chill up his spine.
“Christy—”
“Don’t deny me the honor of seeing what Mr. Big Shot’s fancy apartment looks like now,” Christy said in a mocking tone and began swaying back and forth again as if she was teetering on the brink of insanity.
“Stop. This is ridiculous.”
How did she always manage to strip down his layers and make him feel like the same drug addict criminal he was before. It was a constant fear he had, going back to that life, and it would be his worst nightmare to walk down that path again.
He couldn’t believe he still had to deal with Christy. It was as if the universe wouldn’t let him forget where he came from. The fact that she was standing in front of him was a constant reminder that he couldn’t escape his past no matter how hard he tried. The sins of his past would continue to come back and haunt him.
“Let’s go,” Lucas said in a more insistent tone.
“I want to go upstairs,” Christy all but demanded. Her eyes were cold, dark and hollow. To Lucas, they were completely lifeless.
“That’s not going to happen,” he told her with a deep sigh, but he felt like the weight of the world was still resting on his shoulders. “Now come on before you get yourself into more trouble than you already are.” He felt like he had to reprimand a child.
Lucas started to walk with Christy in tow. She was puttering along behind him. She was stumbling over her own feet. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “How high are you?” He hissed.
“What?” Christy was so strung out that she couldn’t even focus on him. Her eyes attempted to lock in on his, but they were going in the opposite direction.
He didn’t want to put her in his car. He was afraid that she might throw up in it or worse, but he didn’t have a choice. Hopefully, she was high enough that she wouldn’t even remember their encounter.
He was sickened that she even knew where he lived. He was certain that she was probably stalking him, or else she never would have known that information. It wasn’t like his address was listed online.
“Can’t we just go upstairs for a minute, so I can go to the bathroom?” She begged. Her eyes were pleading with him, but he had seen that look a million times before. He refused to bend.
He shook his head. “No way. I’m not going to let you shoot up in my home. There are no drugs there anymore, and I want to make sure it stays that way.”
“I’m not going to shoot up,” she fired back. “I really have to pee.”
“You can pee when you get home,” he said, debating on whether to take her back into the bar so she could go to the bathroom so that she wouldn’t piss all over his car. Knowing her, she would do it just to spite him. He knew that she was probably just full of shit anyway.
“You’re an asshole,” she hissed as he led her to his private garage.
“Then what are you doing following me around?” He asked.
He unlocked his garage and glanced up and down the street to make sure no visible paparazzi were following him either. When he was certain that the coast was clear, he slipped Christy into the car and climbed into the driver’s side. He took a deep breath because he needed a few moments to gather himself to make this journey.
“Do you still live across the train tracks?” He asked and gave Christy an expectant glance.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She gave him a smirk and licked her lips in a sensual way that made his blood curdle.
“Come on,” he said and shook his head with disgust. “Stop trying to be sexy with me. I am not interested.”
He refrained from telling Christy about Abigail. He knew that it was a terrible idea to even bring up Abigail’s name. Christy was the persistent type that would inch her way even closer into his life if she knew that he was interested in someone else.
“Don’t you want to take a hit and fly with me?” Christy asked in a dreamy voice as draped her body all over the passenger seat.
“No,” he said and set his jaw, clenching it so tight that it began to ache.
“You are no fun anymore Lucas,” she said and playfully swatted at his knee.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, utterly repulsed. His skin was crawling.
“Oh, come on baby,” Christy cooed at him.
Her blonde hair looked oily as if she hadn’t washed it in several days. It was a complete contradiction to the beauty of Abigail’s shiny, silky hair. Lucas didn’t even know what he had been missing out on until he met her, and now he couldn’t get enough.
Once they got out on the open road, Lucas floored the gas. He couldn’t wait to get Christy out of his car as quickly as possible. The further he sped out of the posh neighborhood where he lived; the houses began to look more run down. There weren’t as many trees, and there were a ton of stray dogs and people walking down the street and riding bicycles.
Lucas watched a prostitute as she worked the corner in a skimpy hot pink mini skirt. A cigarette was dangling out of her pouty, red lipstick smeared lips. He shuddered internally as the woman glowered at him through the window as he walked past.
“That was Trixie,” Christy pointed.
“You know that woman?” Lucas was appalled.
“Yeah...” Christy said and leaned her head back against the headrest.
It wasn’t long before she was out completely, snoring and reeking of booze that stunk up Lucas’ car. He would have to get the inside detailed now. He glanced over at her sleeping in the passenger seat. Once upon a time, he had been attracted to her. He had even fucked her brains out on numerous occasions while they were both high as kites.
He wondered what Abigail would think of his background. He decided that he didn’t want to find out. Christy was a reminder that he had chosen the right path, after all, to get clean. It seemed like a million years ago and in a distant life that he actually participated in doing drugs. It was almost as if that had been his life in some kind of alternate universe, but it didn’t belong to him. He felt detached from Christy and everything he had known from his past.
In the dark, he couldn’t make out the street signs. Christy was completely out of it now. “Great,” he mumbled under his breath and gripped the steering wheel with frustration. “Now how the fuck am I supposed to find her house?”
He remembered it being across the train tracks on Morton Street, but there weren’t enough street lamps to illuminate the signs at the entrance to each street.
“Christy?” He nudged her with his index finger. “Christy, which street is yours?”
He internally laughed. Like she would ever be able to tell him in her wasted state of mind. He was going to have to figure it out on his own. Then, by some kind of stroke of luck, he saw a landmark that he recognized. It was an old firehouse that had painted white and turned into a barber shop on the corner. He knew exactly where to drive from there. Christy’s street was one road down from the barber shop on the left.
“Thank God,” he whispered to himself as he pulled into the shabby driveway where Christy had lived with multiple roommates at the time that he was with her. He assumed it was the same kind of set up now.
There was one light on in an upstairs window, and there was a soft blue glow flickering from the downstairs living room which he assumed to be a television on. He prayed that he wouldn’t have to endure an e
ncounter with any of her roommates and that they would all be so strung out that they wouldn’t notice him when he walked in with Christy roped around his neck.
He shut off the engine and glanced over at the woman sleeping in the seat next to him. Once she woke up, all hell would break loose again. He was too damn tired to deal with this shit tonight, but here he was. He hadn’t really had a choice. Even if he’d stuffed her in a cab, she’d have never been sober enough to give the cabbie her address.
Bringing her up to his apartment hadn’t been an option. It was out of the question. But he couldn’t have just left her out there on the street either. He wasn’t a total asshole. He wanted to make sure she got home safely, regardless of how much he wanted to cut ties with her illicit activities.
“We’re here,” Lucas said a little louder and with a little less patience than before. He nudged her harder in the shoulder. “Christy. Wake the fuck up.”
Christy coughed in her sleep and groaned as she shifted her weight in the seat and attempted to make herself more comfortable in the car.
He rolled his eyes and sighed. This was going to be hell, but he was going to have to carry her into the house if he wanted to get her out of his car.
“Okay man,” he told himself with a little pep talk. “The faster you get her inside that house, the sooner you will get to go back home.”
Wishful thinking on his part, but he had to give himself a mental boost to get through this next part. He walked over to her side of the car. The crickets were chirping in their usual nighttime serenade. The gravel driveway crunched under his shoes.
He opened the door and assessed Christy laying there, slumped. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out. He attempted to get her into a standing position, but her knees kept bending and her legs continuously buckled.
“I don’t want to carry you into the house Christy,” Lucas said, but she was way too out of it to hear him.
She was too far gone into her buzz to care about anything. He knew that whatever she had taken must have had a staggered effect on her because she seemed to be in worse shape now. It was a miracle that she had wandered to his part of town without getting hit by a car or something.
