Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Ronan
Elias pushed and strained. Keeping a grip on him was something I could no longer do. He reached out his hand, pulling me upright. The man who stood in front of me was barely recognizable. His bright blue eyes, which once held an innocence to them, were darker now.
He was all hard edges and clean-cut beauty. His short strawberry-blond hair stood out next to those dark robes, and underneath, I could see he was packed full of lean muscle. The memories of him I often thought about were not agreeing with the person in front of me.
The images were distorted with Elias’s maturity.
Fuck me…trying to comprehend how beautiful he was now felt impossible.
“How dare you,” he said, his quiet tone still shaking and mingling with rage.
The unbreakable Elias Cross was…unraveling.
“How dare you, Ronan. You can’t waltz back into my life and lay some claim to me like you own me. I haven’t been yours for ten years! You are right in the fact that I do belong to a man. One man…and that man is God.”
I couldn’t help but grind my teeth in response.
His God…
Pfft…Will your God relieve that ache in your cock, Mon Pur?
“Do you really believe that Elias?” I challenged, cornering him against his small box of whispered confessions. “Is that what you told all those people you fucked in your failed attempts to get over me?”
He was seething, a fire burning so bright in the depths of his eyes that it made me throb for him, desperate to taste those flames.
“Get out,” he growled, his voice cracking with anger and pain.
I knew I’d hurt him all those years ago. I’d watched the boy crack in two, felt his pain, and shared his heartache as he broke. We were untethered souls drawn to one another, and the hell I endured my entire life was worth it as long as it meant I got to taste him. He had been my sanctuary ever since we were young.
* * *
The strike landed against my cheek, sliding over my busted lip.
“You little bitch! When I have yo mama underneath me, you stay the fuck away!”
I wiped the snot away from my nose, and the blood and tears staining my shirt sleeve. My stepfather was never going to stop, and my mother was either too stupid or too scared to put an end to it.
She was yelling at me now, her shrill shrieking just as loud as her screams of pain were moments before.“Get the fuck out! Ronan, don’t you ever come back here!”
My stepfather snarled, shoving me against the wall, anchoring me by my sore throat. “Oh no. This fucker is coming back. I don’t need you fucking that little shit that follows you around like a lost puppy.”
He glanced out the window behind me, his vicious stare reaching toward the direction of the trail Elias usually traveled. I knew Elias wasn’t there. It was raining too damn hard, but dammit…my heart rate tripled for a split second. The thought of my best friend, my Elias Cross, being outside broke my heart. Elias was the only light in this hell I called my life.
“You hear me…” he screamed at me, spit flying into my face. “You will not make me and your mom look like lepers of this community because you can’t keep that dirty dick in your damn drawers! I will kill him if I see you go anywhere near him again.
I flinched, the words stinging worse than his grip. Elias was everything I couldn’t have but everything I wanted.
“What? You think we didn’t notice? You ain’t no son of God. Fucking faggot.”
“Get him outta here! I need my hole filled, Daddy!”
Without another word, I was discarded like trash out of the trailer door with a boot up my ass.
“Fuck you!” I spat on the ground while glaring at the white, beaten-up door. It was pouring rain, and I needed to find some shelter.
Pulling my hoodie over my head, I tucked my cell underneath it and began scrolling through my contacts.
Elias’s name was the first to pop up, and my heart broke even more.
We couldn’t keep playing this fucking game. He knew I loved him. I knew he loved me. The tension between us was painful. The only people we were fooling about our connection were ourselves.
Worse, now my step-douche was threatening to kill Elias. I couldn’t live with myself if the one person I ever truly cared for was hurt because of my fucked up family. I had to do the right thing for him.
I had to let him go.
It hurt too much to hold onto a rope that I knew didn’t have an end.
Maria’s name flashed across my phone screen, and I sighed. The prima donna, the perfect woman, was attracted to me. Her advances were only becoming more and more intense each time I saw her, but what made it hard was that she was Elias’s sister. I was kind to her because of Elias’s love for her, but I couldn’t tell him of her affection for me. It would hurt him.
Maybe this was the only way to save him…and she could get me out of this downpour.
I swallowed the bile threatening to rise in my throat as I punched in a text, bitterness settling deep within me.
When her response popped up, so did my guilt and self-hatred.
“I’m sorry, Elias,” I said, turning my face to the sky, hoping the rain would wash me clean.
* * *
My mind was jarred back to reality with the direct shove of Elias’s firm grip.
“I said leave, Ronan Saint Clare,” he demanded, shoving me away harder as tears streamed down his soft, freckled face. “Don’t you know Maria isn’t here?”
I deserved that, but hearing the words still made me feel sick. Anger replaced my lust, and I threw my hands up in defeat.
“Fine. Be a good boy for all your loyal drones, but remember at night, when you’re aching for me to be inside you, that I’m the only one who can please you. Not your fucking god.”
His breath hitched, and he shoved me again with his full strength, moving my body out of the confessional area until I stumbled down the first set of stairs.
“I will pray for you,” he said, towering above me, perching on those steps like an angel ready for war. “You and my sister.”
I didn’t bother telling him that the only time I’d so much as spoken to Maria was that night, but it didn’t matter. I could see the metaphorical wall surrounding him become erect and grow taller, darkening his heart further and blocking me from his mind.
“You know what?” I said, my words echoing up the stairs and throughout the church. “You call all these people sinners, but have you looked in the mirror, Father?”
He stiffened, his chest rising and falling. “You are the biggest sinner of us all. At least we admit to our sins, our feelings, and desires. You? You just hide behind your god and lie to everyone around you. Including yourself.”
Before he could deny anything else, I slammed the main entrance door open and forced my body to move away from the man I loved.
Walking out of the chapel doors made me feel cold. The warmth I felt from being so near to Elias again was draining from my body with each step back to my truck. I knew this would be the outcome when I was stupid enough to show up here, but I couldn’t shake the pain regardless of how much it hurt to hear and feel his rejection.
I deserved this.
It was my punishment for my sins. I’d chosen society’s acceptance over my best friend all those years ago. And now, he’d chosen another man over me.
My cell beeped, and it was my fucking mother.
Sighing, I brought the device to my ear. “Yeah? What’s up, Ma?”
My erratic, hair-brained mother was sniffling on the other line. She sounded high off her ass, and I could barely make out the words over the snot-wracked sobbing.
“He really did it this time, Ronan. He hurt me really bad. I can’t move m-my arm. I need a d-doctor. I know you ain’t got no reason to care…but pl-please, can ya help me?”
Was this a trick? Did she just want to steal from me again? Knock me over the head and take my truck like last time?
“Where are you?” I said hesitantly, unable to get it through my mind that this fucking woman was a lost cause.
Regardless of her being a damn leper, she was my responsibility, and if I didn’t help her, no one would.
“I’m at the house! Pl-Please hurry ‘fore he comes back!”
I hung up the phone, pinching the bridge of my nose and trying to stave off the headache forming in my temples. With one last wistful look at the doors of the tall, beautiful building and the man inside it, I hopped into my truck.
In a defeated breath, I whispered a verse from the bible, turning the engine on and banging my hands against the wheel. This verse was one that I felt to my very bones.
“As a dog returns to its vomit, so too do fools repeat their folly.” [Proverbs 26:11 NIV]
I was the fool that constantly returned to the hell I tried so hard to escape.
It didn’t take long to get to my birthgiver’s house. She was holding what appeared to be her injured wrist in a bloody cloth. I couldn’t look at her. She was so fucking pathetic. Her graying, dark hair was greasy. What teeth she had were yellow from the drugs or shadows of what once was there.
“Get in the truck, Miranda,” I ordered, reaching over to open the passenger door for her.
She scurried in, and the smell of vomit, blood, and urine permeated the small space immediately.
With a sigh, I rolled down the windows and pulled out of the piece of shit trailer park that was somehow still standing despite the abuse and misuse.
She gawked at me and pointed to my blood-covered hand, marred with gashes and bruises.“What the fuck did ya do to your mitt, boy?
I shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care.”
That damn confessional booth partition was thicker than it had looked, and my knuckles were screaming at me about it.
Tightening my wounded fist, I knew it was going to leave a scar.
Pausing for only a second to center myself, I glanced at Miranda’s place one more time. I was grateful Elias had never seen this place. It was a shameful piece of shit home.
Elias and Maria came from money, not millionaire-type of money, but his family did all right. Based on his soft robes and pristine white collar, I had a feeling he was just as wealthy now, if not more.
Thankfully, I wasn’t hurting for money anymore. I ran from this fucking ‘drug ring’ that I lived in the minute I was able. I may have sold my body to every fucking person in the state of Utah, but It was worth it to be free finally. I didn’t give a shit about my body anymore.
Our body wasn’t the sacred temple people wanted to believe in. We were breakable and weak. No matter how many hours I threw at the gym or working on my cars would change where life began for me.
God, Elias’s body, though…one look at Elias had my fucking knees buckling, like when I was that dorky playboy teenager way back when. Time had only changed our appearances. We were both hardened in too many ways, but no one could escape time and its effects.
“You look good, Ronan,” my mom said, her cracked-out eyes unable to focus on one particular thing. “Real buff and bad. Like your daddy.”
My teeth nearly cracked. “I look nothing like that fucking man.”
My mother recoiled at my tone, and I sighed. “How is the job I got you at Doxen?”
I applied to so many jobs for her over the years that I’d lost count. She hadn’t kept a single one. She never sobered up enough to show up or stay longer than a few weeks. Her ability to even survive all this time was a wonder.
“Why’d you get me a job with Roy, the cockhead,? He don’t act right! He always lookin’ at my boobs. “I don’t need no job treatin’ me like they did. They ain’t right. I left that asshole, and I ain’t lookin’ back. Not Ever.”
I made a face, not having any interest in my mother or her damn tits.
“Ma…he’s gay. I doubt he gives a fuck about your…uh—body.”
She didn’t seem convinced. “No. I’m tellin’ ya, just like you like ‘em both. He don’t have his head right, neither. He gave me looks. I know what I saw.”
Miranda looked like every other crack whore in this trailer park. If Roy had given her looks, it would probably have been no different from anyone else. She carried the unsteady gaze of wondering if she was going to bite you.
“Roy isn’t bisexual. He has a husband. Just ignore him. You can’t lose that job, Miranda.”
She grimaced. “Bisexual. Ugh, what did I do to the lord to deserve such a confused son? You are so handsome, Ronan. You could land any gal out here, but you gotta go sticking that thing where it don’t belong.”
She poked at my crotch, and I stiffened, grabbing her fragile arm in my grip. She was so frail she could break with one wrong move. Dan didn’t have to hit her hard to snap her bones. I had to be careful not to do the same.
“It’s none of your business who I choose to be intimate with,” I warned, dropping her hand on her lap.
She sighed and turned her body to look out the window.
“Damn shame that what I made is goin’ to waste away in hell,” she mumbled, but I ignored her.
I’d lived my entire life in hell. What was different about dying in it?