Bad Situation Page 3

  4

  Brick

  The clouds roll away, and the sunshine filters back through the clearing skies. I pop the door of my BMW open and feel the warm summer breeze against my arm. I push my shades into my hair as I exit the car with a sense of confidence I’ve been lacking lately.

  The bitch is back in town, and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to win. She says she’s changed, but I know it’s only a matter of time until we’re back on the merry go round of pointy knives, where only one of us will emerge the victor. In my victory, I will finally claim what’s rightfully mine.

  I hold my shoulders high as I stroll down the sidewalk of the artsy NODA district. It’s a cool, hip neighborhood that’s reminiscent of a small town right on the outskirts of downtown proper. Away from the pretentiousness of the city, I’m free to be whatever I choose to be here—even if that’s being a pretentious asshole. So… Not much different than in the city.

  In this part of town, nobody cares who you are. All they care about is living life to the fullest and having a great time. It’s a lifestyle I could get behind, if I were interested in slumming with those beneath me.

  As with anything I do or say, there’s a purpose to why I’m here. For whatever reason, this place allows me to clear my head and think, and I’m going to need one hell of a scheme to overcome this bad situation I find myself in.

  I pull the door of the Fat Pig open and step inside the dark, dive bar. There’s a pool table right next to the entrance, and then a bar that runs along the opposite wall. In the back, there’s another door that leads to an outdoor terrace.

  I take a seat at the bar, and at the early hours of the afternoon, I’m only one of three people sitting here. To my left is a man I swear I’ve seen on my Facebook page recently—he’s buff and scruffy, with a groomed beard and a man bun growing like a chia pet at the top of his head.

  Lord, I can’t wait for this fad to fade out, because if it lingers around much longer, I’ll be forced to don a bun of my own, and nobody wants to see Brick fucking Valmont with a fucking man bun.

  The bartender approaches—a bombshell of a blonde woman who just rolled off the line of a tit-factory. My cock shifts in my jeans as I imagine taking her right here on this bar.

  She crawls onto the bar and shifts her legs so they wrap around my hips. She guides her hands to paw at my shoulder, taunting and teasing me. My hand glides under her tight jean skirt and I wrap my fingers around her thin, black panties. She bites into her lip, and fucking goddammit, I must have her.

  I push her onto her back and climb atop the bar first, and then finally onto her. With a quick rip, I tear her panties from her body. She’s biting her lip again as I fumble to unbutton my jeans, and then pull them down in one quick motion. Then, without warning or foreplay, I’m inside of her.

  My bare cock thrusts into her tight, warm pussy and she’s too lost in the throes of ecstasy to scream, instead she weakly pants my name, ‘Brick… Fuck me harder, Brick…’

  “Can I get a whiskey sour,” I ask the bartender as I straighten the hardness in my jeans.

  “Sure thing,” she says with a perky smile, followed by a bite of her lip—just as it were in my imagination. “But first, I’m going to need to see some identification.”

  “Why?” I lean across the counter. “You want to know where I live?”

  She flashes a wide grin. “I want to see how much you weigh.”

  “You’re a terrible flirt,” I point out to her, thinking perhaps I should take her under my wing.

  “I’m not flirting with you.”

  “C’mon now,” I say and dig into my back pocket to fetch my wallet. I retrieve my ID and slide it to her, but point to my height. “In case you were wondering, that’s my dick size.”

  “In micrometers?” She purses her lips and slides my ID back to me. “You poor thing.”

  Before I can respond, she turns away from me and raises herself onto the tip of her toes, trying to reach a bottle of whiskey that has been placed by God himself just a little too high. Her denim skirt hitches up her backside, exposing a thin pink G-string. My cock twitches again, going from soft to hard in an instant.

  Most of my blood rushes to my shaft, but what’s left drifts into the part of my mind that celebrates creativity…

  She’s bent over the counter of the bar as I thrust into her. With one hand, I steady her hips. With the other, I pull her pink panties to the side. There’s something about fucking a woman like this. It drives me wild.

  I push her skirt further up her back and get a beautiful, pure look at her perfect, taut ass. I watch my own dick as it drives into her wanting pussy, and it might be ego, but the sight of my own cock gives me the greatest satisfaction.

  I’m distracted by the front door of the bar swinging open. A girl, looking like the twin of the nameless girl bent over in front of me, enters the dark den of the bar with the sunlight shining bright behind her. Two for one? This is my lucky fucking day.

  I turn back to the bartender and I freeze in an instant. Her hair has faded from a bleach blonde and into a rich shade of dark brown. I’d recognize this hair anywhere. I pull away, and stumble over my stool as she turns around.

  “C’mon,” Apple purrs. “Don’t you wanna play?”

  Fantasyland gives way into the real world as I stumble backward on my stool, landing hard on my back against the hard wood floors.

  “Oh my God,” the bartender shrieks and comes running around the bar. She throws her hand to assist me up, and I take it. She guides me to my feet as I try to regain my bearings. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah… Where’s my whiskey?”

  * * *

  I shake my head violently as I push through the back door of the bar and exit onto the cloud-shaded patio. I’m aware I have an addiction, but up until a few years ago, I figured all men shared my constant desires. I figured all men fantasized about fucking every pretty girl he laid his eyes on.

  Once I knew I had an addiction, I did nothing about it. I planned to do nothing about it, because it was harmless. But now that I know, through the most interesting of circumstances, that I love Apple, there’s a deep dwelling of pain in my gut whenever I look at another woman the way I always have.

  I take a sip of my whiskey and drop into a plastic white chair. And she’s there, right in front of me, with her perfectly straight hair that manages to curl ever so lightly at the base. Her heavenly blue eyes sheen with the reflection of sunshine, even though it’s cloudy with a certain chance of rain outside.

  Tyra fucking Young.

  I stare too long, and she catches me. An angel such as herself could never bring herself to frown, or show visible signs of disdain. Instead, she forces a friendly, warm smile. Underneath her perfect façade, I know it’s an act. It has to be, unless there’s an undercurrent of truth when Apple testifies that the rest of the world are not on our level of constant games, and constant manipulation. They’re not always scheming, and playing games. That’s what she says.

  I don’t think she knows one way or the other.

  All I know is I’m captivated by Tyra’s smile. Apple believes I’m fascinated by Tyra’s virgin pussy, or by her perky tits. She believes this because it’s what I lead her to believe. In reality, I’m fascinated by her innocence, and not the faux innocence that inundated the entire of Cece’s being. No… This is real innocence, and I want to touch it, and smell it. I want to feel it and embrace it. I want to wrap my fingers around it and tug on it, and feel the silky smooth texture of purity.

  More than anything, I want to destroy it.

  Being the genius I am, I dream up a plan and move quickly to set it into motion.

  “Hey Tyra,” I say, mustering my most sheepish tone of voice.

  “Hey Brick,” she says back and turns away from the girl that’s sitting down at the table behind her. “What are you doing on this side of town?”

  “I come here often. It’s nice to get away from the bustle of the city.” I push my
hands into my jeans and swerve nervously on one foot. “You?”

  “I actually moved off campus.”

  “And you moved here?” I’m shocked at her choice of relocation. There are far more suitable neighborhoods in Charlotte for a girl like her.

  “It’s close to work, and I kind of love the whole NODA vibe.”

  I’m bored now, so it’s time to shift gears and get to work. “Look, I know there were some misunderstandings.”

  “Save it,” she snaps, but her resolve quickly fades back into a warm smile.

  “Ouch.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Then how did you mean it?”

  “The past is the past, and I’m not even sure I have a modicum of an understanding about what transpired.”

  “Not to drag skeletons out of the closet, but care to share?”

  Her tongue passes along her lips with a hint of apprehension, like she’s not prepared to be dragged back into my bad situation. “Your friend told me about you, and how you’re supposedly this terrible man.”

  “Sometimes I am,” I say softly, slipping into the dangerous habit of speaking my mind, a constant detriment and weakness to the games I play.

  “Sometimes you’re not. On occasion, I saw someone underneath the bad-boy façade.”

  “Really?” I perk up and pull my hand from my pocket.

  “I should really get back to work.”

  “You’re working?”

  “Interning.”

  “Same thing, right?”

  “It’s a part time gig at my father’s practice.”

  “Good to know. If I ever murder someone, I’ll come running.” Now, I know I’m not likely to murder anyone in the near future on purpose, but there are a few mishaps involving accidentally running into Jensen with my car that aren’t too far out of the realm of possibility. Knowing my style, I’d be distracted by an orgasm as I come down the throat of some thrill-seeking freshman. That’s a valid excuse in all fifty states.

  “It was nice seeing you, Brick,” she says, and I’m not sure if there are traces of resent or honesty in her voice—they both sound the same to me.

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “I’ll see you around?”

  I answer her with a simple smile, and a nod of my head. I’ve got this poor girl right where I want her, and soon, she’ll be relegated to my hall of fame. She’ll be the shiniest trophy in a field of gold statues.

  And as my prize for my stirring triumph, Apple will be my mine.

  * * *

  After I exit the dark bar, I step to the corner of the building where the outdoor terrace lines up against the brick exterior. I lean against the brick and listen in on Tyra and her friend’s discreet conversation.

  “Who was that?” her friend asks quietly.

  “Some douchebag I used to know.”

  “He doesn’t seem like your type.”

  “Thus the key phrase, I used to know.”

  5

  Apple

  I rub the sleep from my eyes as I make my way into the living room and flip on the lights. After a six-hour nap, I’m still left feeling exhausted. These past thirty-six hours have been complete hell.

  Jensen and I have engaged in our fair share of arguments, but they always amounted to nothing more than a molehill. They were hurdles that were easily jumped over. Without context, our argument on the top of the mountain was about nothing at all—just another molehill. With proper context, it was about so much more, and still at the same time, nothing big.

  The truth is that it was easier to leave this life behind when the ideas of Jensen, and being in love were new. With time, those feelings of joy faded into something darker. Regret isn’t an easy burden to carry, and it’s even more difficult to overcome. Remorse digs deeper than regret, plunging its filthy hands into the deepest caverns of your soul.

  I can move on, but my memories don’t have the same testament of strength. I’m reminded about the lives I’ve shattered and destroyed, and I know even when I wish I didn’t, I don’t deserve happiness.

  That truth eats away at me, tearing my heart apart like a stale slice of bread. Crack by crack until I’m cracked in half.

  I scan the living room and take notice of half-filled boxes. Before I had drifted off to sleep, I managed to pack about half the shit I still care about. Everything else is tainted with memories. It’s like hearing a song at a funeral, and never being able to hear it again without instantly going back to that specific wrinkle in time.

  My beautiful chair—my throne—carries the same heavy weight as some random funeral song. It cost me a small fortune—the most expensive thing I own next to my car—and I’m torn about whether I should keep it forever, or drag it out into the middle of the street and burn it college style.

  It’d be my ode to a going away party, where I would be surrounded by strangers with nothing on their mind other than to party and to watch the world burn. Because sometimes, we all just want the world to fucking burn.

  Just when I think I’m in the right state of mind to begin the arduous feat of packing again, there’s a knock on my door. I ball my hand into a fist as I rush to the door and rip it open. “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit,” I shout, but end up red-faced when I’m not staring down Brick, but rather Jensen.

  He’s dressed down in nothing but basketball shorts and a white tee. This must be one of his, not so serious days as opposed to; I ruined my life and career for you kind of days. Kids, this is why you don’t sleep with your teachers.

  I’m shocked, confused, torn, apprehensive, shamed, dazed, and in case I forgot to mention it, shocked to see him standing at my door. So shocked that I don’t say a word.

  “You really left,” he says without flinching a muscle.

  “You really came.”

  He cracks a half smile. “You really didn’t give me much of a choice. Wherever you go, I go.” He exhales and chews into his lip. “I woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone.”

  Yeah, that was rather shitty of me. But I knew if I told him, he would have never let me walk out the door. He’s a smart man. “I left a note,” I say, as if I believe it would’ve been enough to appease him, but there should be bonus points for trying, right?

  Didn’t think so.

  “Yeah.” His half-assed smile erupts into a panty-dropping, but also heart-stopping grin. “Notes kind of seem to be our thing.”

  “Don’t fucking remind me,” I huff and pull the door all the way open, and signal with my hand for him to come in. He shouldn’t need an invitation, but there’s an uncomfortable distance between us.

  “Have you seen Brick?” he asks before I can even close the door.

  “I’m not going to answer that question,” I answer flatly, not prepared to go down that rabbit hole yet.

  “Why is it so hard for you to talk about him?”

  “Because I don’t want to fight.”

  “If the mention of him signals that a fight is imminent, then don’t you think that’s a problem?”

  “Problem? You’re here for thirty seconds and you want to talk about a problem?” I shake my head and head into the kitchen. I’m going to need a stiff drink, so I reach for a bottle of whiskey and pour a quick one.

  Jensen follows me into the kitchen and catches me as I turn around. “Whiskey?”

  “I’m out of orange juice, and Champagne doesn’t taste the same without it.”

  He towers above me, and I’m so close to resting my tired head on his chest, but instead I push past him and head back into the living room.

  “You’re ignoring me.” He leans against the wood frame that divides the kitchen and living room. “What are you expecting to find here?”

  “For starters?” I take a sip of my drink. “I’d like to collect all my shit before it ends up sold for three hundred dollars on Storage Wars.”

  He nods, but continues to study me with his dark eyes. He wipes a finger across his lips and cros
ses his arms. “I could have a truck here tomorrow morning, and we could be gone by sunset.”

  “I have unfinished business here.”

  “With Brick?”

  “Stop,” I warn him softly, shake my head, and drop onto the couch. “It’s not about Brick.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  I finish off my drink and set it down onto the antique coffee table. I lean forward and cradle my head in my hands, caressing my face as I try to put two and two together. It’s hard to enlighten someone, when you yourself are in need of enlightening.

  “Fine,” he huffs. “Just promise me you won’t see him.”

  I peek out the space between my fingers to catch a voyeuristic look—he’s firm in his resolve with a laser focus directed at me. I drop my hand to the side as I stand up. “I can’t promise you that.”

  He throws his head back against the wooden frame, and lets out a long, frustrated sigh.

  “I’m sorry, and I wish I could find a way to make you understand.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” he says, without looking at me. He’d rather focus his attention anywhere else, almost like the sight of me disgusts him right now. “I don’t understand what he has on you. I thought I did, and I thought you broke free from him, but now, I don’t know.”

  “That’s exactly my point,” I raise my voice, “but it’s you with the problem. You can’t think straight when it comes to him.”

  Then, his eyes are back on me and I can’t look away. “I see him for everything he is. I am thinking with one thousand percent clarity.”

  “Really?” I scoff, even though I know I don’t have the right. But what I want from him, and from Brick, isn’t rational. I have to navigate the conversation for the both of us to get the result I need—an understanding, even if it’s built on a crumbling foundation of bullshit. “It seems to me that you’re jealous of him.”