AJ
Spring had finally fucking come. With it the ground thawed and my shopping center project started to pick up speed. Which was good because my demons were eating at my gut. I was being consumed alive, and I needed to keep myself busy.
Bess was back. She’d been back for a month, but I knew better than to push her to see me. I’d already made that mistake once or twice.
Throwing my truck in gear, my eighth cigarette of the morning hanging out of my mouth, its smoke coiling around me like my emotions were doing in my belly, I headed to the morning meeting. I couldn’t beg, but I had to see her. Just lay my eyeballs on her.
I knew she was going regularly to the early one. Fucking Shirley. God-fucking-dammit. I’d known that lady for a long time. She thought she could save every fucking soul. I’d had enough coffees at her diner counter to know, and now she had her claws in Bess.
I knew because she had told me as much.
It had been late one afternoon and I’d been fucking freezing from standing out on a site. I’d just smashed my cigarette out in the canister in front of the diner and made my way to the bar as I held my last breath of nicotine in, letting it out as I took a seat.
Who the fuck are all these people who say we can’t smoke inside buildings? Controlling assholes, that’s who.
“Hey, AJ, what can I do for you?” Shirley had asked me.
“Coffee, black,” I’d said.
“Please. Thanks, Shirl,” she’d said, mocking me.
“Don’t get all high-and-mighty with me, Shirley. I know you took my girl, turning her against me. God fucking knows what you’re filling her head with.”
She’d slammed the coffee mug in front of me and leaned her elbows down on the counter as she gave me that glare that mommas everywhere do so well. “Don’t you dare speak to me that way, Andrew Jon. Not now. Not ever. Maybe I used to be a pushover once, but no more,” she said as she pointed her finger at my face.
I lowered my head. I had a conscience—whether I let it show or not lately.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“You better be, boy. You had no business getting involved with that young lady other than helping her as a sponsor. What the hell is wrong with you? I should’ve stopped your sorry ass.”
“I know, but she’s my Bess. Anyone who meets her once knows she’s fucking special. And I could give her a good life. I get where she’s been.” I took a slug of my coffee, allowing it to burn its way down my throat, making its way to my acid-filled stomach.
Shirley shook her head, giving me a pitying look. “AJ, honey, she needs to find her own way. You can’t solve that for her, no one can. Not me or that man from out of town. This I know, doll.”
“What man, Shirl? What the hell are you talking about?”
I grabbed my forehead.
This is why she went to Florida. I had to stop this. Whatever this cat-and-mouse game was.
“You know what, Shirley? Never mind. You should mind your own fucking business when it comes to Bess too.”
I threw some money on the counter and hightailed it out of there.
That night I went ballistic when I got home, tossing shit around my house—a lamp, my side table, and a fucking framed picture of my parents—before I sat up the rest of the night smoking out on my porch. I couldn’t have given two fucks if it was freezing.
Early the next day, I blew off morning roll call with my crews to catch a glimpse of the little tramp.
Guiding my truck into a spot in the church parking lot, I saw her car and flung myself out of the cab. My heavy boots ate up the asphalt and I was in the church before I could take stock of what I was doing. When I threw open the door, reality came crashing down on me as heads turned and all eyes in the room focused on me.
Shit. I was using a meeting, doing the ultimate sacrilegious act, all to manipulate Bess. I could be hindering her sobriety, and even I knew that wasn’t what I intended or wanted.
Without saying a word, I turned around and walked back to my truck.
A cold wind whipped all around me, its mood about as angry as my own. It wasn’t quite spring, but winter wasn’t totally over. The air was damp and moist, a chill running through it. It hit my face and tears burned at my eyes.
From the wind. Yeah, right.
“AJ! Wait!” she called out from behind me and there she was, running toward me.
I froze in place, my feet glued to the asphalt as my throat clogged with emotion, something I wasn’t used to and didn’t like one damn bit. I’d tamped down my feelings for years before learning to live without them.
“Bess,” I said as she approached.
She didn’t hesitate; she came right in for a hug. A friendly bear hug.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
I held her close, unable to let her go. Eventually she pulled back, and I noticed she didn’t have her jacket on.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go sit in my truck where it’s warm.” I cocked my head toward it.
When we climbed into the cab, I turned on the engine and cranked up the heat.
Bess wrapped her arms around herself and lifted her shoulders to her ears as she tried to get warm. “Listen, AJ, I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you. I’m sorry for everything. I’ve had a lot on my mind, but what I did was wrong. I love you, but not like that. I need you in my life, and I hate to think I ruined that. But I feel like I did.” She stared straight out the windshield with her admission.
“Babe, you know I care for you a whole fuck of a lot, but I’m not ready to accept that you’re not hiding your true feelings for me. You’re scared of how good we can fucking be, and running. Like your mom ran from you.”
I shifted in my seat to face her and reached out to smooth back her windblown hair, taking in her innocent eyes and natural beauty. I wouldn’t use a meeting, but I would use her past.
She tucked her chin in her chest and stared at her Nikes as she said, “I met someone else. I know it’s not gonna work with him, but he made me feel something huge for the first time since I was little. Since before my mom left and everything got messed up.”
Hearing these words roll off her tongue was like a punch to the gut in a bad bar fight.
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t honest,” she said softly. “It just felt so strange and unique and everything in between, I wanted to keep it to myself.” She shot me a sideways glance, a small line appearing between her brows as she added, “Plus you and I had crossed so many boundaries, and I was so ashamed of the way I acted. You didn’t deserve to be taken advantage of like that. You’re right, I did run, but for good reason. From you. From him. From everyone.”
My mind whirled as I listened, struggling to find an argument that would make her stay.
“Listen to me,” I said, trying to keep the desperation I was feeling out of my voice. “You didn’t deserve for me to start any of this, but some things happen for a reason. Like us. I pushed my way in because I had to. There was something driving us to be together, but I should have seen you weren’t ready. I left myself wide open for whatever you did. My heart was on my sleeve, and now I need to tuck it back in. For a while, anyway. Because I’m waiting for you, Bess.”
She wiped her face. A tear had made its way down her cheek, making me want to pull her in and kiss her. But that wasn’t where we were. She wanted to be friends. Friends who’d fucked a few times.
She reached for the handle and popped the door open. “I’m sorry. I have to go,” she blurted before she ran back to her meeting.
And I fell off the wagon. All because of some sweet piece of cunt.