“I have to go, I have to bury my brother,” I tell her. She grabs a bag for herself and starts packing.
“Bexley,” I say not wanting the words to come out, but knowing I have to.
“Don’t,” she warns.
“Bexley—” I go to say again, and she slams her lips on mine and pulls away just as fast to finish packing. I don’t argue with her again and go straight to the airport.
It doesn’t matter which way you choose to love, love in the way that’s best for you. Love hard!
~T.L Smith~
He sits there staring out the window. We arrived back at his home and had a car pick us up straight away. I ask him where we’re going and he doesn’t answer, just sits there lost in his world. I know he wanted to say to me back there. I’m not dumb, he wanted to tell me he was sorry, that he had to go back. And not just back to his home, but back to his life. The one he wanted to change to be with me.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he says as we stop out the front of his parents’ home, both of us sitting in the car.
“Have your feelings changed since twenty-four hours ago?” I ask him, he shakes his head. A swell of relief surges through me.
“No, they haven’t, but Bexley, I can’t escape this life. It will always bring me back, and it’s not what you want.”
“I want you,” I tell him trying to make him see reason.
“This is me,” he says pointing outward in the general area.
“Let’s just not make any plans until we get through this week,” I say reaching over picking up his hand and kissing it. He lets go and climbs out, coming around to my side and grabbing my hand and walking inside his parents’ house. His mother is screaming when I enter, and his father is sitting there looking at her, but not really listening. They stop when Zeke slams the door shut behind me, making me jump.
“Did you know?” his mother walks up to him screaming at him now. Zeke nods his head and she slaps him, then walks off.
“What happened?” Zeke asks, walking into his father.
“I don’t know, you’ll have to go the clubhouse,” his father says looking deflated.
“You told her?” he asks his father.
“She had to know, I’m paying for his funeral, I was the first contact. It’s time we stop shielding her,” he says and notices me for the first time attached to Zeke’s side. He forces a smile and nods his head then walks away.
We don’t stay long and he drives me back to his house, the one I thought he’d sold. I give him a puzzled look when he opens the door and everything looks the same.
Did he lie to me?
“Quinton, I gave it to him,” he says explaining my unasked question. I nod my head and he walks to his office. This place carries bad memories for me. This is where I arrested him. “Just go to bed, Bexley,” he says, not looking up while searching through his files.
“Are we going back to this, Zeke?” I ask him standing my ground, he doesn’t look at me straight away.
“I don’t deal well with emotion, you should know this by now. I’ve been trying, but right now, I need space,” he says, and I don’t know if he means space from me, or just time to think.
****
I lay on the bed for hours. Hours of him not coming, hours of not hearing from him. Wondering what I should do? When he walks in looking deflated, he kicks his shoes off, and then the rest of his clothes follow. Climbing in next to me, he pulls me to him, then kisses my shoulder.
“He fucked up bad, I can’t leave again, Pixie,” he says sounding so depressed. I don’t voice my concern, I just lay there wrapped in his arms, wondering what tomorrow will bring.
****
The next day comes fast, most of it I don’t see him. He’s gone before I wake and I’m left alone. It’s not until later that day he walks back in the door looking run down and tired. He has blood on his hands, his face is masked. If I didn’t know him so well, I wouldn’t go near him. He looks scary with an evil glint in his eye.
“Zeke?” I say and he walks straight past me not saying a word, heading for the shower. I stand there shocked at first and decide to follow. He’s in the shower, head against the wall with hands on either side. The blood rushes off of him turning the water red and then disappears down the drain. He doesn’t move when I push the curtain back and step in. I’m clothed, in only shorts and tank top. I wrap my hands around him, hugging him from behind.
“I don’t want this life for you,” he says, not moving.
“I want this,” I say and squeeze him. One of his hands drops and he covers mine with his. The blood washed away, my mind can’t even ask him why there was blood covering him though I guess it has to do with Quinton.
“Marry me?” he asks, turning around to face me.
“I can’t have kids, Zeke, I have no equipment down there for that. It’s all gone,” I say wanting to make it clear to him that it can never happen for us. I’ve come to live with the fact and he shouldn’t have to if that’s what he wants. My mother had cervical cancer, so did my grandmother. I was advised it was safer for me to have everything removed before it took my life as well. I had cancer, it’s all gone now.
“I said, marry me, Pixie,” he says turning around and pinning me against the wall.
“Yes,” I say to him. He wants me, just me. Against all that has stood before us… it’s just us.
“I come with all this, Bexley. I’ve tried, but it’s all my responsibility and it won’t leave me,” he says brushing my hair from my face. Watching my lips carefully.
“Not all of it,” I say hoping he did get rid of the other businesses.
“Not all, just the MC. I can’t rid myself of that, it’s mine.” His lips slowly come down to touch mine and I let him. He stops all of a sudden and walks out of the shower, leaving me there yet again alone. I don’t move, and when I hear the door close, I look at it and see him naked with a ring box, he steps back into the shower. Rolls the case around in his palm and looks at me.
“I don’t do happily ever after, but I do, do, right now. I didn’t do women, once was all I needed, but then they weren’t you. I didn’t do love, it wasn’t for me. But you made me see it, and feel it. And it’s all yours,” he says taking the ring from the box and sliding it onto my finger. I don’t look at the ring. Instead, my eyes are trained on him. His face when he talks, the passion in his eyes, the way he watches me. “I did it all wrong, but I’m all kinds of fucked up, you already know that. But now, you have me anyway,” he says winking stepping forward and wrapping me in a vice like grip. I look over his shoulder at the ring. It’s a ruby, covered with diamonds surrounding it.
“It’s red,” I say surprised, but also loving it.
“The devil loves red,” he says and I smile. He gets me, and that’s all that matters.
We loved with a love that was more than love.
~Edgar Allan Poe~
She swings around the dance floor with my father, her black dress hugging all her curves on her beautiful body. We’re married, I didn’t want to wait long. It’s been two months since I put that ring on her finger. Two months of planning and organizing for this day. The moment she stepped down the aisle in her black wedding dress with a red sash wrapped around her hips, I knew I’d never want another woman.
She is it.
No one can compare.
My sight is blocked by my annoying friend, who’s dressed in all white. In a dress to be exact, and I stifle a laugh when I look her up and down. She smacks me hard in the gut.