Eight Weeks Later
Sitting in my car, staring through my rain streaked windshield on the side of the road, I stare at a medium sized house. It’s white. Two stories, with a brick fireplace and a stone sidewalk up to the black front door. There are windows everywhere, and a single car garage. It’s older, the paint weathered and grass in need of a cut, but it’s adorable. Homey. Lived in. Memories were made here. Christmas’s and birthdays were celebrated here. Barbeques in the back yard during the summers and snowball fights in the winter. It’s a home.
The cute little house on second street belongs to King. He bought a house. It’s his home, a place to put down roots. A place to sleep at night. A place to live and a place to stay.
Just looking at it brings tears to my eyes. I can’t stop them, as much as I want to. I’m an emotional fucking wreck. It makes me so mad and so happy to see that damn house.
Damn, King.
I haven’t seen him in two weeks. The last time I saw him, he was sitting on my porch waiting for me, a big box next to him. A crib. He bought his baby a crib. I let him in and he set it up while I watched from the doorway. He bought us dinner and ate next to me on the couch. Then he left, and it killed me. I hated watching him go, and I wish I’d asked him to stay.
Looking at the house, daydreaming, my phone rings.
“Hello?” I answer, watching the house like it might get up and walk away.
“Where are you?” Remi asks, huffing into the phone. “You’re late.”
“I’m at King’s,” I whisper, feeling stupid for being here.
“Excuse me?” She coughs into the phone. “I think I misheard you,” she sputters, shocked.
Good God.
I can hear Lennon in the background, shouting, “Hurry up! We’re ready,” into the phone.
“You heard me right. I’m at King’s.”
“At King’s? He has a house? Are you, like, standing next to him?” Now she’s rambling, getting worked up, and it’s hard to keep up. “Since when does he have a house? Did you sell it to him? What’s it look like?”
“No, and I don’t know. I overheard my dad telling Twinks he bought a house.”
“Where is it?”
“Old town, second street.”
“Damn,” she breaths into the phone, sighing. “That’s the nice part of town.”
“I know,” I whisper, watching the house. Picturing him inside, living a life without me. It kills me. “It’s a really nice house.”
“Drive away,” she instructs sternly. “Stop doin’ that to yourself. He bought a house, so fucking what? He’s here to stay? Good. Stop torturing yourself.”
“You’re right,” I concede.
“Damn right I am. Now, put your car in drive and get over here. Tonight, we party.”
Putting my car in drive, like she told to me to, I pull away from the side of the road and give the house one final look before replying with, “We party tonight” into the phone.
I put King and his house out of my head. Lennon deserves a good night, and I’m going to give it to her.
“One ’ore,” Lennon slurs, practically falling off her stool, grabbing my arm for support. I hold her up. Barely.
Laughing, I shout, “One more,” over to the cute bartender, the one watching us, because Lord knows, the guy’s not going to understand a word Lennon’s saying.
He nods, grabbing a couple glasses from the shelf behind him.
Lennon gets her drink. Emerson gets her drink. I get a glass of ice water, with a little lemon on the side. No booze. No sweet, sweet booze for this girl. It’s sad, and a little depressing.
I can’t drink, but I can dance.
“My song!” I shout over at El and Remi, sliding my pregnant ass off the stool, heading toward the dance floor. My bump is a fun dance accessory. Man repellant at its finest. I could be naked and no one would bother. The bump keeps them at bay.
Twirling around Remi, my ass shaking to a techno bass, I feel a hand slide around my middle, grabbing my hip and pulling me back into them.
“Hey, dancing queen.”
Snorting out a laugh, I keep dancing. “Tags.”
Tags takes my hand, spinning me like any gentleman would. Letting me go and pulling me back.
Hands on my hips, my back to his front, he rocks with me, laughing when I bend over and pretend to grind on him. I’m having fun, enjoying myself. It doesn’t last long.
“Get the fuck away from my pregnant old lady,” King snarls, coming out of nowhere.
I want to be mad that he’s here. But he’s here. Still in town. Still in my life. “Jesus, King. We’re just dancin’,” I sigh, walking off the dance floor.
“You wanna dance, you call me.”
“If I want to dance, I call you?” I ask, confused. King dances? He dances with me. “So, if I call you with a dance emergency, you’d come?”
Scrubbing at the beard on his cheek, he shakes his head, eyes hard. “You got any emergency, you fuckin’ call me.”
I’m pushing my luck, testing my limits when I say, “A fashion emergency?”
King’s pissed and my words don’t help because he growls, grabbing my hand. “Any. Fucking. Emergency.” He punctuates each word with his body, crowding me.
“Out of gas? You call. Broke a nail, baby? You call me. You want some attention,” he growls, eyes cutting to Tags. “Some dick. You call me and only fucking me.”
He’s got a hold of me, his fingers wrapped around my wrist. Tight. Hard. Holding me close. I want to be scared. Hell, I’d take mad at this point. I feel none of it. I feel none of it because King’s got his hands on me.
In the middle of the dance floor, eyes full of fire, he tugs on me, pulling me close, bringing us face to face. “You want anything, need anything, you call me.”
“I call you.”
He grunts, liking my words, but I go and ruin it. “But what about Tags?” I know I’m playing with fire, but I’ve missed King. Missed his heat. Missed his burn.
“Not a goddamn thing about him. It’s me.”
“Yeah?”
Hand in his, he pulls me down a back hall, feet eating up the distance. “Fuck yeah.”
I want this. I need this. It’s King.