Twenty-Eight Necessary
Osiris
I can see her shutting down right before my eyes, and I don’t know what to do about it. When she was on her knees for me I had her — I fucking had her right here with me, and now that the sex is over she’s pulling away. “Come home,” I repeat, knowing this is only going to start an argument neither of us want to have.
But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we have to have it.
“You say home like it actually belongs to you too,” she counters. She doesn’t sound pissed yet, just tired, but I can see it brewing in her eyes. “But those papers weren’t real.”
“I know,” I admit. “I didn’t think you’d let me stay otherwise. Would you have?”
We both know that answer, but it writes itself all over her face anyway and comes out of her mouth.
“No. I barely knew you.”
“Exactly. Where would we even be right now if I didn’t come here for you? We’d be dead on fucking arrival, Sienna. You talked like you gave a fuck when we were on the phone, but we both know you would have just given up on this eventually because of the distance. You know I’m right.”
She scoffs. “You mean because you were supposed to be in fucking prison in another state for the next decade? That? Yeah, eventually I thought it would reach a natural end and we’d move on.”
Her nonchalance only pisses me off, and has me shoving my cock away so I can pace a little. “Move on? You think that’s something I could have done while rotting in fucking prison?”
“You had Lock & Key and found me easy enough, you’d have found someone else. Anyone else. Instead you cooked up some insane fucking plot with your weird cellmate and made me look like a fool just so you’d have somewhere to go.”
Yeah, there it is. She’s pissed, but at least we’re getting to the bottom of why.
“You’re not a fool. We never thought that or sat around to laugh at you if that’s what you think. He just knew I wanted to be with you and had a good idea. That’s it.” I see that calling the idea good wasn’t what she wanted to hear and try to backtrack. “I don’t mean it like that. I just wanted to be with you and I told him — I told everyone. Loudly. In fact, Sonny kicked my ass trying to get me in trouble so I couldn’t get out and be happy with you.” I’m getting off topic. “Is it so bad I want you more than my morals?”
“It’s bad to lie,” she snaps. “You pulled it off so flawlessly how am I ever supposed to trust you? You have no concept of boundaries and you still don’t seem to understand what’s actually wrong here.”
“I do understand,” I argue. “I lied and that’s wrong. But I’m sorry that I lied, and I won’t do it again. Give me the fucking chance to prove it.”
The door opens behind us, and I move in front of her to block her body from her friend.
“What the fuck is happening?”
Sienna leans around me looking exasperated. “Same shit different day, that’s what.”
“Do you want me to call the cops?”
“We want you to go back to your room and leave us alone,” I respond impatiently. “This is my woman, she doesn’t need you to worry about her when she has me.”
“And how the fuck did you get in here, huh? What’d you break?”
I love that she has someone that cares about her like this, but at the same time... Maybe another murder charge isn’t the worst thing in the world. “I didn’t break shit. You’re the one that left the window open, not me.”
Lydia’s jaw drops. “Yeah? How many widows did you check before you learned that?” she screams at me. “Fuck this. I’m calling the cops.”
With a growl I spin around to meet Sienna’s eyes to show her how desperate I am. “Just come home and we’ll talk through it all. Stop being so stubborn.”
“Stubborn?” she blinks at me, all shock and surprise that almost instantly turns to rage. “I’m not stubborn, you’re a fucking idiot! I tell you I need space and what do you do? Break into my friend’s house and break into my house and all the other dumb shit you’ve come up with recently. What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like some poor innocent little victim who’s too naive to understand what you’re doing, but I know better. You’re manipulative and pushy and—”
She stutters then, unable to come up with another insult to hurl at me.
“And what?” I ask sharply before she can get there. “I’m not fucking naive, I know what I did was wrong and stupid. I know I don’t deserve you.” But excuse the fuck out of me for hoping I’d finally have something good in my life.
Of course I ruined it.
Of course I was given just a taste of what it might feel like to have someone of my own before it was ripped from my grasp.
No. No, I won’t fucking let it. “Get dressed, Sienna.”
I can feel my hands trembling and try to hide it because it’s taking everything inside of me not to toss her over my shoulder and take her myself.
“Do you want me to call?” Lydia asks, phone in hand, and I’m .3 seconds from grabbing it and flinging it so hard against the wall that it disintegrates, but Sienna puts herself between us.
“No. I can handle him, just go to bed. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“I swear to god if you harm one fucking hair on her head I’ll kill you myself. I don’t care that you’ve done time, I’m not scared of you.”
Her eyes say otherwise, but I huff a laugh at her expense and turn my attention back on the prettiest headache I’ve ever seen. “Handle me how?”
She ignores me as she shrugs her shirt back on and a pair of shorts, then points to the door. “I know you prefer windows, but use the door this time.”
Bossy ass.
I stop to wash my hands in the bathroom before she can close herself in, and stay in there while she cleans up with an annoyed expression. It almost makes me laugh, but laughing is impossible knowing that this conversation is going to either make us or break us. It has my stomach turning the entire silent drive home, and when we get back inside I swear she looks completely exhausted. I know that’s on me, but maybe if she’d stop running so much I wouldn’t have to chase her.
Maybe it’s time I stop bullshitting and cut to the damn chase. “Besides space, what exactly do you want from me?”
“You really don’t want me to answer that right now,” she mutters, pouring herself a glass of ice water.
I watch her movements closely, and hate seeing what I’ve done to her. It feels like every decision I’ve made has only pushed her further from me, and the tighter I hold onto her the more she slips away. I’m fucking lost.
“I love you.” I know that doesn’t fix everything, and I hope she isn’t taking it as manipulation because I just need her to know. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
But the way her shoulders slump... she seems to be even more drained now than she was five minutes ago. That isn’t the reaction I was looking for, even if her voice is much softer as she says, “I know you do.”
“Do you remember when we talked about being only children, and not sharing well?”
Nodding, she sets her cup down without drinking and leans against the counter. “Yeah.”
“Guess I let that selfishness make me a little crazy. I can’t stand the thought of you not being mine.”
“You made me feel dumb,” she admits, not looking at me. “I believed a couple of papers you two cooked up in some prison rec room. And every time I tried to get a little space to get over that, you showed up and turned me into a whore.”
“You’re not a whore. I thought if I kept reminding you how good we are that you’d come back to me, but I realize now that sex can’t fix what I’ve done.”
I don’t know what I’m doing, all those book dudes made it seem so easy. All they ever have to do is put the girl on her knees, praise her a little, and she’s putty. Real life doesn’t seem to work like that.
“Being good in bed doesn’t mean we’re good out of it. Good sex can’t fix bad blood.”
Nodding, I move a little closer while keeping a respectful distance. This level of talking seems to be working, but I’m prepared to chase her more if I have to. “I want to get back to when we were good out of it too. We were good together... right?”
“I don’t know. I thought so, but the whole beginning you were in prison and I didn’t think any of it would last and then you were here lying to my face every day. It was good, but it also wasn’t real.”
The distance between us disappears as I move in front of her to swipe my thumb over her cheek. “Do the butterflies in your chest feel real?”
She meets my eyes with a soft little gasp. “Yes.”
“Mine too,” I admit. “They have since the moment I heard your voice. I lied about parole, and I’m a piece of shit, but everything outside of that was real. The moments we shared when we pretended the world outside of us didn’t exist. You’re the only real thing I’ve ever truly known.”
“Then start over,” she insists. “Fixing this isn’t working because I suck. Just start over.”
Start over? From where? Should I hold my hand out and introduce myself like an idiot or...
Scratching the back of my head, I slowly back my way out of the house and knock.
It takes her a second, but she opens the door with a curious expression.
It’s better than anger or disappointment.
“Hi. I’m out of jail and I have absolutely nowhere else to go. The release date you saw on the site was wrong, and I served all of the time I was required to serve. I know we don’t know each other much, but I want the opportunity for what we have to grow. I’m not ready to give this up.” It’s hard to put all that shit out there like that, but not harder than living without her. Fuck pride. “Can I come in?”
There’s a split second where I think she might close the door in my face and tell me to fuck off. Twenty minutes ago she would have.
Maybe even two minutes ago.
But instead, she does exactly what I wish she’d have done when I showed up the first time — she flings her arms around my neck and whispers my name against my skin.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe into her. “I’ll do better. I promise.”
When she doesn’t let go, I realize this might be the last chance I get.
I will be better for this woman, because there is no world where I can ever let her go.
She’s fucking mine.