CHAPTER 18 #2
I don’t answer. I’m not sure he wants me to.
“Can you try to stand?”
Like I’ve got something to prove, I spin in the recliner, but as soon as my ass leaves it, I feel nauseous, and sit straight back down again.
Taking my arm, Carey guides it over his shoulder. “Just breathe. I’m not gonna let you fall.”
I want to tell him to take his sexy low voice and piss off.
He asks if I’m ready to try again, and this time I manage. My legs are wobbly, but they hold.
“You’re not gonna die on me, are you?”
“Not tonight,” I reply, just as solemnly as the question was asked.
At the back door I lean against Carey as I change out of my slippers, then he walks me outside to the lot.
With one hand around my waist, he unlocks the back door of my van with the other. “Get in.”
“You’re not my mother.”
He pockets the keys and uses both hands to spin me with enough force that I can’t reject it. “That’s right, but I can call her if you’d like. I’m sure she’d love to hear about how her son has been running himself ragged, skipping meals and living off nothing but caffeine.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you!” He pushes me back, hard, his strength laying me flat out on the mattress. “You’re gonna end up in the emergency room, you selfish sack a shit.”
I hardly recognize him.
With the last remaining light of the sunset behind him, he looks bigger. More dangerous than I've ever seen him.
I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore.
My mind runs hot and filthy, our time in the alley playing on a repeated loop. But now there’s the added element of being trapped inside a metal box with him preventing my escape. There’s nothing between us but the air and the still unspoken knowledge of exactly what we want from each other.
If he climbed in here with me right now I wouldn’t stop him.
He could do whatever he wanted.
Straddle me. Hold me down. Put his mouth on my neck as he forces my hands above my head.
I want—fuck.
I have no idea what the fuck I actually want. For him to stay? To go? To make a mess of us both until the sun rises again, then do the same thing every day for the rest of our lives.
I can tell that he doesn’t know what the hell to do either. Does he fuck me, or punch me? Hold me in his arms, or walk away altogether and never look back? In the end he just talks to me like a child. “Can I trust you to stay here and not go wandering off while I close the shop?”
“Where am I gonna go? You’ve got my keys again.”
He throws his arms up, letting them slap back against his sides. “Who the fuck knows with you?” Then he takes hold of the back door handle. “Open or closed?”
“Closed… How long are you gonna be?”
“Seriously?” His tone ratchets up. “For someone so hell bent on going at things alone, you really are a needy son of a bitch.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, what’s not fair, is you ignoring me all week. Treating me like a pariah you’re forced to have to be around. Keeping your distance like I’ve got the fucking plague instead of the man you’re possessive over. You don’t get to shun me, then prevent anyone else from ever getting close.”
I open my mouth but he just talks right over the top of me.
“I see every glare you give anyone who talks to me. You’re jealousy is so fucking strong, it reeks.
But one blowjob doesn’t make me yours. You aren’t special.
You’re not some god who gets to treat me like a fucking mistress in the shadows and think I’ll come running every time I’m drunk because I’m starved for attention.
I don’t need you. Guys or girls, it doesn’t matter to me. Everyone’s free game.”
Anger is radiating off him like a fever, and every word out of his mouth is a missile he’s been waiting for the chance to detonate.
I want to sit up, to lunge at him, to shout and deny it all. But I just lay here fisting the blankets as I stare at the van ceiling, winded by the truth in every single one of his words.
I’d rather him hit me than have to listen to the truth laid out like this.
I couldn't retaliate if I tried. I’ve already used every word in the English language in the past five days trying to convince myself that our hook-up meant nothing.
I wish he would just slam the door closed and walk away. Put a physical barrier, and actual distance, between us. But he just keeps standing there, taking deep, quiet breaths. Refusing to look at me. Staring blankly somewhere over my shoulder.
It makes me hate him for being so much stronger than I am.
For knowing me so well.
For being so fucking irresistable.
It makes me want to grab him and drag him down on top of me to show him just how powerless he is to resist me, because this isn’t a one way street. If it was, we wouldn’t be exactly where we are right now.
Carey stands there a little longer as the rage slowly melts off of him.
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be,” he says softly. “I’ve got a few calls to make.”
“To who?” I ask, suddenly able to talk, because he’s right. I am possessive of him.
“Your bookings for tomorrow and Saturday.”
My face creases. “Why are you—”
“Because you’re done for the week.”
“You can’t just cancel my—”
The sigh Carey lets out steels away every last piece of my rebuttal.
“I can’t do this anymore, Tek.” He reaches into his pocket, takes my keys, and holds them out to me.
“You need to make the call. Fire me now, or let me do my job. Shit’s changed.
I can’t just sit by and watch you run yourself into the ground and pretend it isn’t happening.
So what’s it gonna be? Do you want me to leave, or do you want me to take care of you? ”
I stare at the keys in his hand. My mouth is open but my brain is static.
It’s a huge question, and every possible answer feels like a trap.
The expectation mixed with fatigue in his eyes is like a punch to my already knotted stomach, and I realize the only way out is to surrender.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do now?” I ask, and even to my own ears it sounds absurd. I don’t even know if I mean here, tonight, or for the rest of my life.
He looks at me like he’s pissed, but his voice isn’t coarse. “For now, you’re going to stay right where you are, and rest until I’ve made those calls. Then I’m gonna drive you home.”
“Then what? I’m on house arrest?”
“You can drop the attitude, for starters.” He returns my keys to his pocket. “Then… on Saturday I’ll bring your van back.”
“You’re not keeping my van.”
“I am,” he says so matter-of-factly my dick pulses. “Then we’ll take a drive down the coast so you can be a miserable bastard in a different zip code.”
I feel less alone right now than I have in the longest time. Hell, I’m on the verge of letting him stay at my place and spoon feed me chicken noodle soup until I’m better. So I just scowl, and look away, hoping he’ll take the win and leave me alone.
“Pack warm, you’ll need it.” The van door creeks, and just before it shuts fully he tosses in; “We’ll be gone for two nights… It’s the least you can do.”