“I really appreciate your kindness. But I’m a mess and you deserve more than I can give. I don’t even know you much less your world.” She speaks softly and I wonder if she even believes herself.
I cup her chin so she can look in my eyes. “Jo, you are stunning. Take my breath away beautiful. The way you love your son, it’s fucking everything. I’m not a boy, I’m a man. As a man, I see something worth effort, I’m going to put in that effort. And baby, just one kiss and I know you’re worth it all. Just give us a chance, one day at a time, one minute at a time.”
She blinks but doesn’t speak right away. “Dean, I appreciate,” I don’t let her speak further as I crash my lips to hers. Only when she softens under me do I pull away.
“No more Dean, I appreciate shit, Jo.”
She smacks my chest, her flesh to my leather cut, but not hard, just a mild chastise. “You can’t kiss me to shut me up. What I was trying to say.” I lean down to kiss her again, but she shifts her head at the last second giving me her cheek, “I have been in a not-so-great place with my ex. I have made some poor choices. Choices that have impacted my son. While I find you attractive and yes, you can kiss me like I’ve never been kissed before. I think this is a bad idea.”
I laugh, “Jo, the bad ideas sometimes turn out to the be the best fuckin’ things in the world. Just give me a chance, I’ll show you.”
Eight
Josie
Maybe I’ve had it all wrong all along. This situationship might be perfect!
* * *
Two days and nothing more.
Brett has been quiet.
I should be happy. I should be relieved. To some extent I am taking this moment of silence for the peace I haven’t had in a very long time, but I can’t fully embrace it. I want to feel free. I want to breathe without the tension inside. I want the anxiety that he’s lurking somewhere to go away. I want to stop wondering when he’s going to pop back up. Because deep inside me I know he’s not done with me. I want to have a life without this fear.
Only I’m not relieved. No, I’m all twisted inside because the biker next door is well, an anomaly. How can he kiss me senseless one day and then nothing more? Truthfully, it’s not exactly nothing. It’s all complicated.
He slept on my couch that night. Before I even remotely woke up, he was gone with nothing, but a fresh cup of coffee made with the creamer I love, and a note informing me to be aware of the “motorcycle at my back” to and from work. Look twice, save a life, but mostly so I don’t panic, that is what he put in the note. Nothing else. Just a cup of coffee and a note informing me I’ll have a Hellion around. Not a call, not a text, not another sound from him since.
To be honest, the whole thing freaks me out. More than Brett and the threat he poses, I’m mixed up with Dean in something I don’t understand. The last thing I need is any kind of additional distractions. My life is a mess, I need not add to it.
As if nothing changed, I went to work, came home, rinse and repeat the next day. Still not a call, text, or a drop in. What I’m expecting or waiting for, I don’t actually know.
I should be happy.
I shouldn’t care what Dean does. He has his life I have mine. The last thing I need is any kind of entanglement. It’s ridiculous the way I feel. Why do I miss him? I don’t even know the man.
Lost in thought, I jump when Sara comes in my office.
“Girl, what is wrong with you?” She asks sitting down in the chair across from my desk after placing a coffee in front of me. “Country Boy is all about me working from this office for a bit. Since I came in late due to a conference call and Raff is parked out front literally sitting on the curb in front of his bike, I need some details. Country Boy doesn’t get involved in my job. He knows I travel across the state and enjoy it. He’s asked me to stick close to home and specifically to work here. That isn’t common of my man, especially without an explanation.”
“Um,” I reply unsure what to even tell her. How can I even get into this when I don’t really know what is going on. More than anything, though, I’m thrown off knowing he’s here in the parking lot but hasn’t said a word to me. “Dean is here?”
Sara smiles this shit eating grin she gets whenever she gets excited that something is going her way. “Raff won’t tell me why he’s here. Country Boy won’t tell me why I need to work from this office even after I gave him the best blow job of his life,” she shrugs her shoulders, “his words not mine.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. When I got hired, my first supervisor was an idiot. How they were hired, I have no idea. Sara came in for a training, realized the entire division was a shit show and she stepped up. Without extra pay, she came in and taught us all from the beginning in the correct way to document and report. In the early days, business was the focus, and I thought she couldn’t relax if her life depended on it. Then I learned the real Sara. She’s sarcastic, funny, loyal, kind, giving, and the total package. We have been close friends for three years or more now, which is the only reason she would dare say something like that at work.
“I might be the problem,” I tell her honestly.
She draws her brows together, “sounds like you got some ‘splainin’ to do.”
I nod, “I’ll give you one guess.”
“Brett,” she rolls her eyes. “Babe, why didn’t you call me? You know I’ll help you hide the body, be the alibi, whatever is necessary.”
This is Sara, she is a girl’s girl. She isn’t a backstabbing woman with some competition complex that can happen in female friendships. She’s been my rock at work and at home since coming clean about things with Brett even before I left him. Every move, she’s helped me pack. Every night I’ve been afraid, she’s answered the phone to talk me down. The cars I’ve had to buy, the phones, she is always looking out to help me get the next one on a decent deal.
“Brett is always the problem. How is Raff involved?”
