"I guess I deserve that," I admit. "I didn't mean for this to turn out this way. I just," I run my fingers through my hair and she watches me. "I don't know what I'm doing, Carly."
This softens her face a little, but she's still pissed.
“
Will you please come back to the car so we can talk?” I ask.
She looks around the parking lot and then at her feet before looking at me. I expect her to say no, but she doesn’t. She walks past me toward my vehicle without speaking.
I move to open her door, but she pulls it open herself and climbs inside. I stand there for a second before going around and opening my own door.
“
So, I’m here. Say what you’ve gotta say,” she says, her face blank and unreadable.
Now I have to save this.
"I've been alone for years and you have the right to know why I fucked this up like I did." I take a deep breath and start to tell her the things I hoped I'd never have to talk about again. “I was married, for a while.”
I don’t look at her because I don’t want to see her face, or more honestly, the disgust I know will be there after I’m finished.
“
I met Rachel in college. She was quite, shy, but I was loud and obnoxious so it worked out for us. I liked to go out, she liked to stay in, but she wasn’t one to make a fuss. We got married and I took that for granted. Eventually she got fed up with me. She started putting demands on my time, threatening that she’d leave if I kept on doing what I was doing. I’d been brought up a spoiled brat; my mom always gave me everything I ever wanted and I wanted everything, including women. I ended lots of nights with phone calls for Rachel to come pick me up from whatever bar I’d been kicked out of for fighting.”
I steal a glance at her now, but instead of the judgment I expect to be in her eyes, there’s a look of concentration.
“
Go on,” she says.
I take another deep breath and continue. “Not only was I reckless, but I was careless and Rachel found out about the last affair. It was with a friend’s girlfriend. It ended their relationship, that friendship, but it also changed something in Rachel. She told me she'd get even with me and she sure did. She fucked the guy I thought was my best friend. The one person I thought of like a brother. Hell, people even said we looked like brothers."
The memories come back to me, buying flowers on the way to see her in her hotel. She'd left me two weeks before, but that day she'd texted me, saying she wanted to talk.
"I went to the hotel where she'd been staying, thinking we were gonna at least attempt to work it out. I knocked on the door, flowers in hand, and waited. Finally, she opened the door, smiling. It wasn't the kind of smile that made me feel something for her. It was mean, purposeful. She stepped back and opened the door and I saw Caleb struggling to put his pants on. I threw the flowers I'd bought at her and walked out.
"I refused to talk to her after that. I went hog wild for a few weeks; women, booze, wasting shit tons of money at the casino in Charleston. Finally, my mom called and told me Rachel had been to see her. She hadn’t tried to call me, but she’d come to tell my mom that she was pregnant.”
“
So you have a child?” Carly asks. I still search her face for even a small amount of judgment, but see none.
“
No, Rachel
was
pregnant, but she was going to have an abortion. It damned near broke my mom’s heart. And mine. I’d planned on never having kids, but to find out that she was going to have the abortion without even talking to me…I didn't even know if it was mine.”
“
Well, it sounds like you weren’t exactly father material, Jack. I can’t say I blame her for not wanting a child in that kind of relationship. Or if she wasn't sure it was yours,” Carly uncrosses her arms, but doesn’t look at me. She looks at her hands and picks at her nail polish.
“
I
don’t
blame her, I blame me. I tried to get to her hotel before she left to go back to North Carolina to do it, but I was half-drunk and pissed off. That’s when I had the motorcycle accident. I had three broken ribs, a fractured collar bone, a broken leg and a severe concussion. I was in a coma for almost a week, but when I woke up, I asked for Rachel. My mom told me she’d gone back home without coming to the hospital. She'd called my mom to tell her that she'd gone ahead with the abortion and then she found out about the accident. She wanted to come back, to see me, but I couldn't fucking look at her. I know I pushed her away, that I broke her heart, but believe me, she returned the favor. That’s how I’m wired; to want what I shouldn’t and to do everything in me to fuck it up once I get it.”
I want to reach out and touch her hair, her face, anything, but I sit there waiting for her to speak.
“
I’ve spent the last few years doing a lot of soul searching, trying to unlearn all the things I taught myself about relationships and trying to become a better man. I don't blame Rachel, not really, but I let what she did harden me. It made me feel dead inside.”
“
So you’re telling me,” she starts, turning around to face me for the first time since she got back in my vehicle, “that this is why you don’t want to try and make something out of us? Because you think you’ll slip back into your old ways?”
“
Yes. I know what a fuck up I am, Carly,” I fight the urge to take her hand as I try to explain. “I know how I can get and I know that you’re better than that. I was fine with this life, with being alone, but then I saw you and I knew I had to have you. How I
wanted
you, but after I left the club, I figured it was for the best that you didn’t seem interested. Even when I thought about you all night, I avoided seeing you again and tried to fill my time with anything other than thinking about you. It didn’t work out that way, but I tried. I really did. And because I’m still so goddamned selfish, I brought you home and started another cycle of me hurting someone who doesn’t deserve it. I don't wanna hurt you; turn you into someone you're not.”
I try to get the words out, but all of it seems so pointless when Carly reaches out and takes my hand.
"Who says you get to choose what's right for me?" She holds my fingers in hers and I feel the smooth skin of her palm against the rough skin of my own. The perfume on her skin is something I know I'll never be able to get out of my head. "I'm strong enough to deal with a broken heart, Jack, but what I can't deal with is never knowing if you’re worth it."
"You're willing to chance a relationship with me? Even knowing how I used to be?"
"Every relationship is different, Jack,” she says, her eyes so serious and honest. “Different parts of us develop with different people. I like the you I'm getting to know. I like you a lot and I'm not ready to write you off because of who you
used
to be. Besides, I already broke my 'no sex on the first date rule' with you; who says we can't break all the rules?"
She leans her long body across the console and our lips meet in a needy kiss. I know she wants me, even with all of my fucked up hang ups, this girl wants me. Her hair is silky soft and I twist my fingers in it, not willing to let her go for a second.
Her tongue is hot in my mouth and I open my eyes. Her eyes are closed for a second, but then she opens them. They are so light, so beautiful.
I say the words I hope we both don't regret.
"Let's do it then."
Carly laughs and I'm instantly in love with that sound all over again.
"Stop being such a dick," she says, taking a sip of Jack Daniels from her teacup. We're sitting on the back deck at my house taking in the last hour of an unseasonably warm November day. It feels more like summer with the seventy degree temperature. The sun is already getting covered by rain clouds, but it's still warm enough to sit outside. I watch as Carly's hair blows a little in the breeze and I can already see it lying on the pillow next to me.
"Listen, I can't help it if you have shitty taste in music. I still can't believe you listen to fucking
Lady Gaga
." I shake my head at her as if I'm just disgusted.
"I do
not
have shitty taste in music," she pouts. "I like Pink Floyd, Oasis, lots of good bands. I just think she's good, whether you like all that kooky shit she does or not, you gotta admit, the girl can sing."
"You,” I lean in and kiss her, “wait right here. I'm about to school your ass.” I rise from the deck and walk inside, stopping to raise the window in the living room that looks out onto where we're sitting. My dad’s old record player waits in the corner and I sort through some vinyl until I find what I'm looking for.
I put the record on and make my way back onto the porch.
I hold out my hand and Carly rises from the steps and takes it with a grin.
Something in the way she moves attracts me like no other lover. Something in the way she moves. I don't wanna leave her now.
I pull her close to me and she laughs a little. I hum along and she nuzzles against me.
"Now
this
is music," I say as I lean her out and spin her around. She laughs and throws her head back as I pull her back to me.
"
Somewhere in her smile, she knows, that I don't need no other lover
," I sing to her and I know she feels it. My arms close around her waist and she lays her head on my chest. A cool breeze blows around us on the porch and the first heavy rain drops hit on the roof.
Her hair falls down her shoulders and I bend low and put my face into her neck. I rub my beard into the space between her neck and her shoulder and she giggles in my ear. It’s a deep, throaty sound and I’m glad it was me that brought it from her lips.
"I don’t need anyone else, Carly. Only you,” I say.
She smiles again and even though I've seen it almost constantly these last two weeks, it still gives me a funny feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.
"I need you, too, Jack," she whispers as she moves her fingers down my chest, down my stomach and cups my dick in her hand.
"But the rain is falling," I say playfully, "and The Beatles are playing. Are you sure you wouldn't wanna dance out in the rain?" I make to lead her off the steps into the rain, but she lets go of my hand.
"I said, I need you right now," she says. Her hands move down her own body this time, to the bottom of her light sweater. She pulls it over her head and tosses it onto the porch. The sight of her as she pulls her jeans down and stands there only in her panties and bra pulls me back up the steps. I can see her nipples stiffen from the exposure and my dick stiffens in response.
I scramble up the steps to get to her, then tangle myself in her body and we kiss our way through the screen door. I vaguely hear
Maxwell's Silver Hammer
start up on the record player, but all I can think about is how my dick is throbbing and the way Carly's body feels in my arms.
“
Can I taste you?” I whisper in her ear.
She smiles again; those perfect lips can't hide how excited my words have made her, and nods. I kiss her, our lips moving constantly as if the kiss is the only thing keeping us alive. Maybe not alive, but
feeling
alive.
I trail my hands up her ribs and unhook her bra. Her tits are free and I take my time, sucking each nipple until she closes her eyes and moans something incoherent. I bow to my knees in front of her and kiss down her stomach, into her panties. I bury my face in her, letting the smell of her excitement travel through me.