Sneak Peek of Inciting a Riot (Riot MC Novel 2)
No, no. Not again! These were my thoughts as I wandered around one of my favorite places to spend my disposable income. Those shouldn’t have been my thoughts as I examined the shiny display of Pandora charms while I stood inside the cool, plush interior of Jared, the Galleria of Jewelry in Jacksonville. Yep, the high-quality jewelry store with the ads proclaiming, “He went to Jared’s!” Well, my now ex-boyfriend, known as cheater number ten going forward, went to Jared’s. That was how I came to see Bradley (aka number ten) with another woman at the engagement counter!
Men suck. They are the worst. It's too damn bad Lady Gaga got it totally right when she sang “I'm born this way,” because I really wanted to turn to women. But, it just didn't appeal. Besides, women were just as capable of cheating as men, and there was nothing to say lesbians didn't find themselves faced with the ultimate betrayal just as I did right now.
My real issue was the repetitive nature of this shit. My first “boyfriend” in eleventh grade was the brashest of cheaters, or so I thought at the time. I would learn later that Ben taking me to prom but spending the bulk of the night slow dancing, which is to say groping, with Nancy Blackburn was the tamest of cheating scenarios. No less hurtful, but tame. College was fun that was until the cheating happened again. Call me crazy, but twice does not a pattern make. I graduated from college, and again found myself on the receiving end of a cheater’s deception. Adulting is hard and cheaters are just more gunk gumming up the works of the machine that is life.
Then there was Cary Sullivan. He was a bad boy at heart. When I met him, he had recently been discharged from the Marines and was a recruit or prospect for a motorcycle gang. They call it a club, but semantics are meaningless to me. Cheaters teach you that. “We never ‘said’ we were ‘exclusive’, baby.” Cheaters were vocabulary masters when they were caught, though cheaters almost always called it “being found out” or “discovered.” As if they were rare fossils on an archeological dig.
Once Cary was initiated, he earned the “road name” Vamp. Short for Vampire, I supposed. He never said. Of all the cheaters, Cary hurt the most. Not sure why. Okay, that was not true. I was in denial. Truth was….I fell for Cary. Not Vamp. Cary. That road name happened the same day we ended. It wasn't a fizzle. It wasn't a clean break. It was an epic explosion. Nuclear….and I was still cleaning up the debris littering my heart.
I was debating on which charm I could add to my current bracelet without ruining it or causing a major clash. Before I noticed Bradley, I was torn between three charms, a little pink pave strawberry charm, a tropical sea glass charm with swirls of white, aqua, purple and green; and a Disney charm that said “Believe.” Well, seeing another fine-ass example of a damn cheater, my mind was made up. Believe, it would be. I didn’t care if it violently clashed with the poinsettia charm, coiled sparkling snake with green eyes, and the vintage silver F charm already in place on my open clasp bracelet. I needed that charm to remind me to always Believe. Not believe in Disney style fairy-tales of goodness, but in the inherent bad within all men. Yep, number ten. I could always remember Vamp was the fourth cheater, because when I caught him, he was with not one, but two other women. At the same damn time! And one of those sorry sluts had the gall to say, “Ooh. She’s hot. C’mon, chickie, there’s room for more. I know I can make it worth your while, even if Vamp doesn’t.” The woman who was sitting astride Vamp looked at me and hollered, “A foursome. Yeah! Get your clothes off.” Needless to say, I did not make their threesome a foursome. For the next six years, I attempted to get back on the dating bicycle. Each time, it seemed I was thrown off, not by a bump in the road, but by a cheater on my road. Bastards. All of them.
I’m not shirking any of my own responsibility in this serial cheating business. I mean, after all, I picked ‘em. Well, in the first three instances I picked ‘em. The first two, I can forgive myself. I mean, eleventh grade, I was sixteen and stupid. We’re talking stupid with a capital S. And for that matter sixteen. I hadn’t been kissed. I was so shy; I put the ‘shhh’ in shy. I was kind of pretty, and occasionally boys were brave enough to flirt with me. But these boys had girlfriends, so nothing ever came of their flirting. Or maybe the die was cast from that early time period. See? Stupid. I didn’t even think about the fact that I was flirting with taken boys, so even in a minor way I was helping to perpetuate potential cheating. At sixteen! Gah.
Anyway, I asked a boy to prom. Yep. My mother told me not to do it, but my God it was March. Prom was in May. I wanted to go, so badly. So, I picked Ben from the marching band. Asked if he had a date. He said he did not. He grinned at me, but he did not see my asking him to the prom coming his way. Thinking back on it, I don’t know if he said yes because he was surprised or if he was showing me pity. I was just over the damn moon that my gumption got me a date. Plus, Ben insisted we go out in the month or so leading up to prom, in order to get to know one another better. It also didn’t hurt that I had proved my overbearing mother completely wrong. Being confident and forward enough to ask a boy to prom was the best decision I had made, and I was walking on air in the days and weeks leading up to prom. That air gave way when I saw Ben and Laura on the dance floor groping each other with their heads closing in for a kiss, and it was a rough landing coming back down to the ground.
I didn’t know what my problem was. Like I said, I’m slightly pretty, not stunning. Hell, if I were stunning, then I would have known what popularity felt like. I figured part of my problem was that I was on the fence. I was nerdy, but I wasn’t full-on smart nerd. I was receptive to everyone. I could hang with nerds, dweebs, the stoner set, and on occasion, jocks and cheerleaders gave me the time of day during classes. I wasn’t fooling myself though. I was no Renaissance-man social butterfly flitting between cliques. The stoners and jocks only tolerated me because I was smart and helpful. By helpful, I mean, if a jock suddenly wanted to sit next to me in geometry in order to peek at my test, I never said boo. I normally tried to forewarn them that geometry was no more my subject of choice than theirs, but I figured it was their funeral for choosing to cheat from my test. See? I allowed for cheating on tests. I should have known I’d be physically attracted to nothing but relationship cheaters.
In college, the smart boys I hung with were always friendly and funny. A year, two, sometimes even three would elapse before they would build up the nerve to ask me out. I never wanted to endanger our friendship, and further, none of these guys had the physique I was looking for in a guy. So, I’d let them down gently, and we’d remain friends. However, as guys are prone to do, they eventually found girls who were very receptive to their advances. These girls would meet me, “the friend,” and before I knew it, the guys told me they had to focus on their girls. I mean, I know some chicks believe Nora Ephron’s declaration that men and women cannot be friends without sex entering the equation and those chicks believe it as though it is the Gospel. I just don’t buy it. Yet, these girlfriends of my guy friends saw me as a threat. That much was clear, and subsequently I found myself without some of my favorite guys. I had to admit, because those chicks forced me out of the picture, those same nice and lovable guys likely never cheated. Hmmm.
My stupid spell lasted until I was twenty. That was when I stopped pursuing guys.
Cheater number three led me to do things sexually that I never knew about. He was only my second sexual relationship, so it stood to reason that I wouldn’t know my legs could be draped over his biceps while he thrust into my sex. It was awesome. Ultimately, number three was like a sexual pre-algebra class that prepared me for sexual advanced algebra with Vamp. I suppose if it hadn’t been for my experiences with number three, then I never would have been Vamp’s cup of tea.
Crazy as it sounds, if I hadn’t found Vamp in the throes of a threesome, I think we might have gone the distance. At least I liked to delude myself that way sometimes. I fell for him hard, and I was pretty sure I never got over it. I may not have learned how to spot a cheater from a glance, but I did learn early on that a woman cannot change a man. Vamp wanted variety and he wanted that variety simultaneously. Fine. He’d just have to do it without me in his life. However, even after six years, I hadn’t come as hard as I did with Vamp. Not in any way, shape or form. Not from myself and definitely not from guys like the bastard Bradley. The sex with Vamp was just that good.
Besides the sex, the only other thing I missed most about Vamp was riding on his bike. Oh, the freedom. And the speed. Yum. I missed that so much that I had looked at trikes at the Adamec Harley-Davidson dealership one Sunday afternoon. I knew I wasn’t brave enough to handle two wheels on asphalt. The first time I saw a trike, I thought now that’s a machine I could handle. But who was I fooling? I didn’t want to drive a trike, and I damn sure didn’t want to drive a motorcycle. I wanted to ride. I craved sitting behind a warm, broad back clad in a leather jacket or leather cut and hugging on that man’s waist with the wind roaring in my ears and my hair stinging my face as it whipped around me.
But, back to the guy at the diamond counter. I learned a long time ago that trying to do a sister a favor and inform her about the cheater on her hands, nine times out of ten, backfired. Just because I learned the rules didn't mean I still didn't break them, though.
My cousin Diana also agreed with not telling a woman her man was a cheat. Diana managed to get off the cheater merry-go-round when she married her husband Duane, but she was cheated upon plenty during her high school years and into her twenties. Much like me, though neither of us seemed eager to admit to such a thing. In fact, Diana said to me, “Better to let them dig their own grave and then watch them trip into it face first.” That being said by Diana, her impromptu plan against the latest cheater seemed to be not only genius, but flawless.
I had an admittedly unhealthy addiction to the whole Pandora bracelet fad. It was unhealthy because it was expensive. It was made only slightly less expensive because Diana worked for Jared’s, which meant, during a good month I could finagle an employee discount from Di. This made me happier than I could state, but it didn’t make my jewelry craving any healthier. As a single gal, it seemed unhealthy because it was practically a constant mental reminder that only I could buy my jewelry. No special man would do it for me. No kiddos to beg daddy to take them to the fancy boutique where they could find a bauble to add to mommy’s bangle. Yet, that reminder was also a security blanket. I was self-sufficient. If I were pressed, I’d admit that I was even proud that my baubles, bangles and beads were all acquired by my own doing. Most of the time I thought of it as a wearable little scrap book that cataloged my life, but standing inside Jared, The Galleria of Jewelry, I really was feeling my mental instability because of high-end jewelry.
I told Di why I wanted the ‘Believe’ charm. Given Di’s disdain for cheating, she had her own ideas for digging a grave in which Bradley could trip into face first. It was Saturday morning, working toward noon, and customers were streaming in and out, more streaming in than there were streaming out. Even so, Diana had only eyes and attention for me, and I gave her a grin.
Diana winked and said, “Talk is cheap, actions speak.” She moved to the end of the Pandora counter and said, “Follow my lead, Cuz.”
Diana left the separate Pandora counter space and authoritatively prowled into the area housing engagement rings, anniversary bands, and anniversary jacket bands. She semi-crouched in order to open a locked drawer located in the middle of the space. My cousin withdrew a small plastic bag with a white piece of paperwork that looked like a restaurant order slip stapled to it.
She straightened herself, tossed her dirty-blonde hair over her shoulder while casting a surreptitious look at Bradley and then practically threw her voice his way as she said, “Yes, Ms. Ingram, here’s your engagement ring. Newly-sized and everything.”
From the corner of my eye I saw Bradley give me a deer-in-the-headlights, but still very pissed-off look. Tee-hee. Before I could thoroughly congratulate myself, I heard an all-too-familiar voice from my past say, “Well, congratulations Rainey.”
SHIT!
The mention of the name Rainey set my blood to boiling. The person saying that name being the ultimate catalyst: Cary Sullivan, or, should I say, Vamp. Little did he know, the moment he became Vamp and engaged in three-way sex was the moment I dropped Lorraine or Rainey. as he liked to say time and time again. Yeah. Rainey, short for Lorraine, every bit of it screamed innocence to me. Nothing about me was innocent after Cary became Vamp, and for that matter, I didn’t want to be innocent after Cary became Vamp.
Of all the ways for a genius plan to go wrong, this had to be the worst. Vamp and I had more baggage than the Las Vegas airport and more unresolved issues than both houses of Congress combined. Truly. Don’t ask me how, because God knew that when Vamp and I were involved there was a snowball’s chance of me corralling him to a place I wanted him to be, but miracles can happen, because I managed to get him and his buddy Cal to the sidewalk outside of Jared’s in record time. I had just opened my mouth to explain the matter when the thick double door to the jewelry store swung open fiercely.
Bradley stomped toward me with fire in his beady blue eyes. In an effort to head him off at the pass, I said, “I’m not engaged, but you’re a God damned cheater! You colossal asshole.”
Bradley had narrowed the gap between us and said, “You’re not engaged? I’m supposed to believe that shit?”
I poked a finger into his chest. “You don’t have to believe jack. No wonder you always had to cut and run from my place around eight thirty or nine. Early morning meetings and driving in from the beach taking too long, my ass. You left me to go to her place or maybe some other unsuspecting woman’s place.”
A female voice said, “Ohmigod! I’m sloppy seconds?”
I leaned to the right and saw the fiancée-to-be standing behind Bradley with tears in her eyes. It had happened to me so many times, I was able to save the tears for when I got home. Nevertheless, I tried to soften the blow for her. “At least he’s putting a ring on your finger.”
Her brown eyes narrowed to give me a harsh look. “You think I believe any of that shit now? He always told me he was working late. Never dropped by to see me until after nine at night. Working 'til eight or eight-thirty he’d say. Only time I’d see him in the daytime was Saturdays or Sundays.”
Sucks to be us, I thought but didn’t say. My cousin came out of the store and sidled up to me to whisper, “Honey, gotta have the ring back or I’ll lose my job.”
I handed her back the bag with the ring. Bradley had turned around and was standing in front of the fianceé-to-be, pleading his case. As Diana left the awkward huddle she looked at them and said, “Not my circus, not my monkeys. However, woman-to-woman, talk is cheap while actions speak.”
The other woman smiled at Diana. Then she gave Bradley a scathing look and bitch-slapped him across the face. Turning on her heel, she stalked off to a car and left.
Bradley turned on me. “What the fuck? Did you have to do that? Shit. You’re a real fucking cunt. What am I supposed to do now? I got no ride.”
This guy could not be believed. “You got no right to use that language with me. I was the one who was cheated on. You dug your own grave, jackass. I don’t care how you get home. Call a fuckin’ cab. You can walk as far as I’m concerned. Whatever you do, quit yer bitchin’.”
I went back into the jewelry store, and Diana rang me up for the “Believe” charm. Cal and Vamp came back into the store, and Cal nudged my shoulder when I was done signing the credit card slip.
“Lorraine Ingram. You’re a sight for sore eyes, woman. You need us to take care of that douchebag out there?”
I sighed and looked into Cal’s friendly hazel eyes. He was a stunner, but too old for me. I had girlfriends who married men eight, even twelve, years older than them. I could never seem to maintain a conversation with a man that much older without feeling weird and having fleeting thoughts of Freud and Daddy issues. Immature of me, maybe, but true nevertheless. So, I thought the world of Cal, but he would always be in the friend zone.
“You don’t need to bother. He’s a pissant anyway. I was just happy to save another woman the hassle of getting married to a cheater. And for what it’s worth, I go by Frankie now, not Lorraine.”
Cal arched a dark blond eyebrow at me and said, “Well, you change your mind about the pissant, you let us know. Riot’s always happy to take your back if you need it.” Cal chucked me under the chin like I was a little sister to him and added, “Mean it. You take care.”
A burly black man in a suit bee-lined for my cousin behind the counter, where Cal, Vamp, and I were standing. He glanced at me, and then gave my cousin an infuriated look.
“What was all of that, Di? Did I just lose a hefty commission because of your little cousin here?” he grumbled.
Diana gave him a resigned smile, but before she could say anything I said, “One of these two men here are after some jewelry. I have no idea what they’re looking for, so the commission might not be so big, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about the drama too, but consider it an attempt to lower the divorce rate, okay? That poor woman didn’t need to tie herself to a cheater. No woman does.”
I noticed Cal gave the man a chin lift and tilted his head to the necklace section on the opposite side of the store. The two of them sauntered off to examine necklaces or watches. I felt eyes on me and turned to see Vamp was still leaning into the glass counter with his vibrant blue eyes boring into me. It was something I used to love about him, the way he could look at someone like he had a sixth sense and was peering right into their soul. Plenty of people would squirm with discomfort because of the intensity of it. He’d do that to me before sex and it made me feel like the most important woman in the world. Now though, I could really do without the intimidation tactic.
He blinked and asked, “You go by Frankie now?”
I nodded. My full name was Lorraine Francis Ingram. When I left the Riot MC compound that night six years ago, I needed an immediate change. Cary calling me Rainey was ringing in my head, and I decided to go by my middle name, but what woman wants to be called Francis? Franny wasn’t a viable option either, but Frankie seemed fitting.
“Since when?”
I turned my head slightly to the side and then back to him. “What does it matter? This is the first time I’ve seen you in six years. Hope life is treating you well, but I’ve got to go.”
I hauled myself up into my Mazda CX-3 and pulled out of the Jared’s parking lot. Jared’s was located at the St. John’s Town Center in Jacksonville. The Town Center was an outdoor mall in the latest trendy area in town, and was sprawling with shops and eateries galore. The digital clock on my console read 11:45, so I decided a crappy morning deserved cheesecake. I turned right and motored over to the Cheesecake Factory. Seeing as it was lunchtime on a Saturday and there was only one location of the Cheesecake Factory in all of Jacksonville, there was a small crowd milling about outside the restaurant. I decided to forego the wait, and just eat at the bar.
I was alternately looking down at my phone and stabbing at my chicken-avocado salad when the barstool next to mine slid out quickly. Just as quickly, I noticed jeans-covered male legs were perched atop it. I tilted my gaze upward to see Vamp’s eyes shooting a non-verbal challenge my way.
With a shake of my head, I asked, “How’d you know where I would be?”
His eyebrow arched, and his eyebrow ring shifted with it. “Watched you drive out of the parking lot. In your own world, as always. Slung a leg over my bike and followed. I’ve been outside pacing, and generally scarin’ the piss outta the other patrons while I decided if I should let it go or not. Didn’t wanna scare any more little kids, so I decided to come in here and get the answer to my earlier question.”
I put my fork down on my salad plate with a clatter, crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back in my seat to give him a disbelieving glare.
“What question would that be?”
His lips quirked slightly at my show of attitude. I forgot about that. He loved it when I would “throw ’tude his way.” I mentally noted to dial back my attitude, so as to get rid of him quicker.
“How long you been goin’ by ‘Frankie’, baby?”
I closed my eyes to keep my temper in check. Vamp had always been a flirt. He’d call any female “babe” but it was only the pretty ones he’d call “baby.” During our nuclear break-up he kept calling me “baby” and I had shrieked at him to never call me that again. Saying it now, he had to know it would set my temper off, and I suspected he did that on purpose.
Blowing out a sigh, I said, “Six years. Okay? The day you became Vamp, I became Frankie. Happy now?”
He looked away from me and then back to me. “I’m sorry.”
I held my silence and gave him a look. He was looking at me like I should understand something so I asked, “For what?”
“I really fucked it up that time. I knew it was your heart on the line, like that song from Mumford and Sons?”
“So you’re telling me it took an alternative rock song to give you a conscience?”
Vamp didn’t exactly nod, but the look in his eyes was agreement nevertheless.
I chuckled. “Unbelievably classy. Thanks for that. At least something made me chuckle today. I’ll have to send Mumford and Sons a thank you note.”
Vamp let my smart-aleck response slide, but he put a hand behind my neck, and I looked at him. I had buried deep my feelings about his inherent male allure. The concept that bald is beautiful‒ Vamp was walking, talking proof of that. He had early-onset male pattern baldness, but he embraced it and routinely shaved his head. His eyes, angular nose, and high cheek bones were accentuated in a delicious way because of his absence of hair. It was just him. Completely Cary Sullivan.
“I’m sorry. Really. I mean it. And what Cal said, about that fuckhead who did you wrong? Seriously, you give the nod, he’ll learn a lesson he won’t ever forget. Ever. Got me?”
I got him all right. I spent over a year of my life with Cary while he was prospecting with the Riot MC. Those brothers liked trouble in a big way. If someone wasn’t raising hell with them, they’d raise hell for themselves. I had bandaged and iced many of Cary’s wounds during that time. He’d always come home and say, “Baby, don’t worry. Besides, you should see the other guy.” Every time, I’d dismiss it as typical post fight guy banter. Until I went to a club party at their clubhouse and it was found out a hang-about was also hanging about with another MC in town. The brothers rained down blows on that guy mercilessly. As a prospect, Vamp only got a few punches in, but his hands still needed ice and one of his knuckles needed wrapping. He spouted off his tried and true line, but because I actually had seen the other guy, I knew he was telling me the truth. Remembering that party night, I realized that Bradley was certainly a royal dick, but he didn’t need that kind of beatdown because of it.
I gave a weak smile. “Thanks for that, but it really isn’t necessary. With any luck, he’ll learn his lesson for next time. And thanks for the apology. I…”
I trailed off because I was stupidly thinking of telling him that I thought about him a lot over the past six years. He didn’t need to know that, and I didn’t need the humiliation of admitting that to him.
So, I lamely finished, “I appreciate it.”
Now Vamp gave me a weak smile. He pulled my head toward him and he kissed my forehead. I felt the contradictory nature of his soft supple lips and the hard metal of his lip ring. Just like six years ago, that lip ring was something else.
He stood up and whispered, “Take care, Ra -, I mean, Frankie.”
* * * * *
Four weeks after the blow-up with Bradley, I went out to Ragtime Tavern, since I live at the beach. I was eating at the bar. It was late on a Monday night; month-end was closing in on me, and I work for VyStar Credit Union as a home-loan officer. My paycheck depended on me being certain my pending loans were on target to close by the end of the month. I had been working until seven at headquarters, which was on the Westside, so by the time I got to the Jacksonville Beach restaurant, it was close to eight o’clock. A man wearing a light-blue plaid long-sleeve button down shirt and navy blue trousers sat down next to me. When the bartender asked him what he’d have, he ordered a vodka tonic and another glass of wine for the pretty lady here.
I looked at the bartender and said, “The lady respectfully declines.” Then I turned to the well-dressed business man, and I looked into his brown eyes. He had a well-trimmed beard and mustache surrounding his thin lips. Straight brown hair hung slightly over his forehead as though the hair gel he used had stopped working. It was an attractive look, and a tiny part of me wanted to run my fingers through it in order to put it back in place. His eyebrow was arched and before he could say anything to me, I said, “I appreciate it, but I’m not available.”
He said to the bartender, “Bring the glass of wine anyway.” Turning back to me he said, “It’s just a glass of wine.”
So, over ‘just a glass of wine’, I met Mark Stillman. Apparently, he worked as an engineer for a local company known as RS&H. He talked me into dinner three nights later, and we had a decent time at River City Brewing Company on the St. John’s River downtown. He walked me to my car and gave me a fierce goodnight kiss. When we broke, he asked me to meet him for dinner on Sunday.
“I don’t think so.”
He traced my jaw with his finger. “Why not, Frankie?”
I pressed my lips together and then said, “Sunday’s my day to do nothing. Zero, zilch, nada.”
He tipped my chin up toward him. “C’mon. Make an exception to the rule. You’ll have all day to do nothing, and then you can have dinner with me.”
I really wanted to decline. He was pushy, but in a gentle way. I didn’t know why, but I relented and agreed to dinner with him Sunday. “Where should I meet you?”
“How about I pick you up at six-thirty?”
Sunday evening, Mark came by but he did not actually pick me up. He brought over PF Chang’s to-go and a very good pre-chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. Dinner was good, and we had a make-out session on my living room couch. Things were really getting good when my house phone rang. Mark let me up to get the phone, and I was in such a state from making out that I didn’t even check the caller ID. I should have checked, because my mother was calling. My mother could talk and talk and talk. I knew a couple of ladies with moms who had similar dispositions, and they just put their phones down and went on about their business. My mom would not stand for such a thing. She constantly had questions to ask to make sure I was paying attention to her. After about ten minutes, I finally got her to hold on and I apologized to Mark.
“My mom is relentless on the phone. I shouldn’t have answered and I’m sorry. Rain check?”
His thin lips pressed together to the point his face looked like nothing but facial hair, but he finally said, “Yeah. Rain check. Definitely.”
He pecked me on the cheek and I locked the door behind him.
The third date was completely unplanned. He called me at 7:45 the following Tuesday night. He asked if I was home, and I said I was. He knocked on my door about twenty minutes later. We had both already eaten dinner. He had a six-pack of light beer. He came on strong that night, but since I had offered a rain check, I let the pushiness slide. He was a decent kisser, and making out quickly turned into removing of clothes. We moved to my bedroom, and I came to find out that Mark was a semi-decent lover. I wasn’t entirely disappointed. I always had to keep my expectations in check. My time with Cary, now Vamp, genuinely had ruined sex for me with most men.
After sex, we had dozed off, but with two beers in my system I woke up around midnight needing the bathroom. When I came out of the bathroom, I found Mark gathering his clothes from the living room.
I put on a short satin robe and watched from the doorway to my bedroom. When he was putting his second leg into his dress pants, I said, “Leaving so soon?”
He looked over to me and said, “I’d love another go, Frankie, but I have a seven a.m. meeting. Shouldn’t have let myself doze off, but you wore me out. You free Thursday?”
“I might be. Can’t say for sure. Just have to wait and see.”
Come Friday morning, I was feeling like nothing more than a booty call to Mark. No dinner date, no let’s watch some TV, none of that for me. He came by Thursday night around eight. No sooner did he have the door closed than he had his hands all over me and was kissing me with reckless abandon. We had sex twice, and by the time I woke up Friday, he was long gone. And he left my front door unlocked. I lived in a sleepy neighborhood in Neptune beach, but still, I was accustomed to a man being more concerned about my welfare.
Saturday afternoon, I was working an open house at a 1920’s remodel in Riverside. My best friend Reggie is a realtor with Watson and every so often I work an open house with him. The thing about open houses is that an open house rarely centers on selling the house that was open. It was about garnering more leads for buyers who were looking for homes and possibly potential sellers who also needed to buy another home. It was very quid pro quo for the two us. I was able to get more applicants into my pipeline to keep my boss happy, and Reggie was able to get his new customers pre-approval financing for whatever dream property he would finally show them.
The asking price of the property was over $400,000. Needless to say, there were not many people walking through the doors who were of the means to buy the property. However, the curiosity factor of such a huge house on prime real estate meant Reggie and I both had burgeoning lists of potential customers. We were almost an hour from shutting down the open house when a very pregnant blonde woman walked into the kitchen where I had my loan information laid out at the ready. She was followed by a man wearing a forest green polo shirt and khaki pants with brown wing-tip dress shoes. His hand was placed possessively on the small of her back. I looked up to the man’s face, to see he was Mark Stillman.
I was debating whether or not to dig a grave for him to trip right into. The look I got from Mark was a cross between surprise and dismay. I smiled at the woman who was clearly his wife, even though Mark never wore a wedding band. Believe me, as many times as I had been cheated upon, I knew to look for wedding bands and indentations in ring fingers from a suddenly absentee band. Obviously, Mark habitually did not wear his hardware on his ring finger.
I gave a cheery smile to the wife and asked, “So, your first child? I take it you’re looking for more room with a little one on the way?”
She gave me a weary smile and said, “Technically, it’s our first. Though it’s the fifth time I’ve actually been pregnant. We’re so grateful I’ve been able to carry our child for eight months.”
Four lost pregnancies. I didn’t have the heart to lay it on this woman that her husband was a scum-sucking cheater. I asked if they had financing in place already for their next home. The wife indicated that her husband was an engineer, and they were well-known for having all their ducks in a row.
Mark and his wife left, and I mentally dubbed him number eleven.
I packed up my VyStar folders and loan applications about twenty minutes after Reggie had closed the open house while he was pulling all his signage from the neighborhood. When Reggie returned, I went to my vehicle to load up my stuff. I had shut the back door on my SUV, and felt a presence to my right. I looked up to see Mark giving me a stern look.
I walked up the grassy strip in-between the road and the sidewalk. Looking into Stillman’s beady, brown eyes, I said, “Your secret is safe with me, asshole. But we’re done.”
Mark grabbed me by the arm and jerked me slightly forward. “I’d thank you for not saying shit to my wife, but we’re not done. Before I found you, I hadn’t had sex in close to six fucking months. She’s so fucked-up about this baby, I don’t know when I’ll get any regularly. You and I are good together, so you’re gonna keep seeing me, or I’m gonna report you to your boss for having an affair with a customer.”
“The hell you are! You’re not even getting a loan through me.”
“No, but I’m a VyStar customer, and I’ll still have your job if I want to.”
I was opening my mouth to retort when I saw it. Like any unexpected mayhem, I couldn’t fathom what was happening. I watched in horror as Mark’s tight, large fist swung at me. The strike to my face turned my head to the right with a force I couldn’t believe. It was so unexpected, I lost my balance. Some recess of my mind seemed to know that I was going to fall to my right side. My right hand extended out to diminish my fall. I felt searing pain in my palm where it scraped on the sidewalk as I fell down. I hoped that would be the end of it. I had never knowingly met a man who beat women. I had no idea what to expect, but I saw his brown wing-tip dress shoes approaching my face on the ground.
Please, don’t kick me in the face! It’ll affect my job. These were my stupid thoughts as he approached. He let out a growl and I saw one of his feet leave the ground. Then I heard the foot slam down and blinding pain radiated from my fingers and hand, straight up my elbow. I cried out. I heard the high pitch, but it sounded strangely quiet to me.
“We’re not done, Frankie. Don’t you forget it. You will give it up to me any time I want it.”
His feet stepped back and I thought that would be the end of it. Then the foot that hadn't stomped on my hand pulled back, and all of the air left my lungs in a whoosh. The intense pain from three different parts of my body had me seeing stars. Then the asshole went and kicked me in the ribs, again. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Mercifully, everything went black.