CHAPTER 4

6 years ago

I couldn’t take my eyes off her…

Crystal stood at the entrance to her house, wearing the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. I knew it would fit her perfectly. I have had enough time to study her every curve to pick up the right dress for her. Stanley told me about one hell of a shopping tour the two of them had a few days ago, and I suddenly wanted to see all those dresses she tried. Just to get a chance to spend a little more time with her.

“Nice,” I said, approaching her.

She turned around to the sound of my voice and grimaced, just like she always did at the sight of me. “I don’t remember inviting you to my graduation ball.”

“I don’t need your invitation. Besides, you could at least be a little more polite to someone who made this day even more special for you.”

She frowned, trying to understand what I was talking about.

As the realization hit her, she shook her head in disbelief. “You are kidding me, right?”

With a knowing smirk on my face, I stepped closer. The smell of her vanilla perfume filled my nostrils. I leaned forward and let myself take a deep breath; my nose rubbed the curve of her neck.

“Delicious as always.”

She stepped back, her cheeks flushed.

“Why would you buy me a dress?”

“Didn’t you need a dress for the ball?”

“I did, but you didn’t need to buy it.”

“I wanted to…”

She swallowed as she looked me in the eye, too ashamed to repeat the words she wrote in a text message the day she received my present. She liked it, but thanking me was obviously too much to do for someone she’d been hating for as long as she could remember.

I needed to say something, anything, or I would send to hell the rules that I had been following for so long and kiss her right there and then, in front of her parents.

“Doesn’t your hero deserve a kiss for such a beautiful present?” I asked.

To my surprise, no perky response followed. Instead, she stood on her tiptoes and placed a small kiss on my cheek. I felt like the ground shattered beneath me. It was the most innocent, yet the most exciting thing that had ever happened between a girl and me. I felt like I was sixteen again, excited about going on my first date ever. Only I was not sixteen anymore, and tonight was not my date night. What a shame.

“Thank you,” she said after a short pause. I could swear I saw the glimpses of excitement in her eyes. Did what she just did affect her as much as it affected me?

No freaking way…

“You are welcome. You look stunning, by the way.” I took a step back and gave her another head-to-toe look. “My little Sissy has grown up into a breathtaking young woman.”

I didn’t realize I said it out loud until my eyes met Crystal’s. A hurricane of emotions filled her gaze. But what surprised me most of all – there wasn’t a sign of anger. As a matter of fact, she looked like she liked the way I called her. My little Sissy…

“Ready to go?” Stanley asked, showing up from nowhere. “Liam? What are you doing here?”

Not that I was afraid he would find out about my present, but I thought that a little lie wouldn’t hurt anyone. Funny thing, when it came to Crystal, little lies were becoming normal. First, I tried to fool myself and pretend I wasn’t attracted to her. Then I lied to Stan, pretending I started to come for dinner to their place more often because I would kill for a steak his dad was so good at cooking. And finally, I lied to Crystal, acting like a dick, when all I wanted was to tell her how crazy I was about her.

She spoke before I could tell another lie, “Liam came to congratulate me on my graduation. How nice of him, right?”

“Indeed,” Stan replied. “Wanna go watch the official part with us?”

“Um… I need to be somewhere else actually, but I hope you guys have fun.”

The traces of disappointment touched Crystal’s features. Which was another thing about this short meeting that surprised me a lot. It couldn’t be what I thought it was, could it? She couldn’t be attracted to me, or I was screwed in more ways than one…

***

Present Day

Drops of hot water bounced against my skin, rolling down my shoulders, my back and my torso. With my palms pressed against the shower wall, I lowered my head and closed my eyes, letting the water wash away my one hell of a day. I never expected my karma to be easy on me, but even less I expected it to turn my life upside down and lock me in a marriage that didn’t mean a damn thing to me. One thing was to become a father, I always loved kids. But falling asleep and then waking up side by side with a woman I didn’t love was something completely different.

Liz’s words came to my head. Have I made the right decision by putting an engagement ring on Kim’s finger? What if I rushed things? What if there was a way to turn it around and do what was really the right thing to do? The problem was that I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong. I was the last person in the world to give definitions to both. As reckless as I had always been, I never thought that one day my life would get complicated to the point where I would no longer belong to myself, unable to hold control over my present and future.

Kim came back into my life two days before the night I went to Stan’s family lake house. We used to date some time back, things were easy between us. We met a few times a week, had fun and amazing sex, and then went separate ways, each living their own life. Then she left for New York to get a degree in Economics, and even though the only thing she had been good at counting was money in her wallet, it never stopped her from getting one of the managing positions in her father’s media company. She knew everything about the social life of Pittsburgh and never missed a single event that involved reporters with flashing cameras in their hands. Despite her passion for glamorous pictures in the magazines, she was one of the best people I had ever met in my life: supporting, understanding, easy going and beautiful among other things. I bet there were many men who would kill for being me now – a guy who was going to call her ‘wifie’ in less than two months. And if it wasn’t for another girl who kept haunting my dreams, I would probably consider myself as one very lucky bastard.

The day Kim returned to the city and came knocking at my door, I realized how much I missed having fun. I got stuck in my work and studies, and no matter how much time I spent observing women’s tits and other parts of their bodies, there wasn’t anyone I would want to spend the rest of my life with. Or at least so I thought.

And then, Crystal came to the lake house…

She was the last person I expected to see there that night. She was also the only person I wanted to be with at the moment. The second I realized she was about to kiss me, my inner world exploded. My mind turned off, and I let my instincts lead the way.

I was so lost in her; I didn’t think about the consequences of what we were doing, of what I was doing. I let go everything that had been stopping me for years and telling me I had no right to cross the line where I knew I would most likely lose one of my best friends forever. The girl in my embrace was all I wanted and needed now.

The scar I felt beneath my touch scared me.

Even without seeing it, I knew it was big and not so pretty. Without thinking, I pushed her hoodie up and cursed mentally, suddenly feeling like I wanted to hide her from the entire world, lock her in my embrace and never let anyone or anything hurt her again. But she had a different idea about our plans for the night.

She ran away.

I didn’t try to stop her. First, because I could feel that it was not the best moment to ask questions, and second, because I was afraid she would never want to talk to me again.

Which was exactly what happened next.

We hadn’t seen each other up until tonight, when my future wife and I came to the fashion show. I didn’t see anything happening on the runway, because all I could focus on was Crystal. She was sitting on the opposite side of the runway; our eyes met more than once, but as soon as it happened, she quickly looked away and never let her gaze hold mine even for a second longer. I wondered if that was because she was ashamed to remember the kiss that she initiated, or because she, just like I, couldn’t stop thinking about repeating it.

“Baby, are you okay?” Kimmy asked from behind the shower door.

“I’m fine. Will be out in a minute.”

I opened my eyes, not sure how much time I’d spent in the shower, thinking about everything that had happened to me during the last couple of months.

I took a bottle of shower gel and poured some onto my palm. Something was telling me that tonight was not going to be the first night I would spend lost in my thoughts.

About ten minutes later, I walked into my bedroom where Kimberly had been waiting for me. She was lying in my bed, wearing one of those sexy outfits her closet was full of.

“Don’t you think it’s better to postpone bed games until the baby is born?”

She smiled seductively. “My doctor says the baby is doing well and there’s no reason why I should postpone sex life until later. Besides, don’t you like the view?”

She pulled her transparent back top up and took it off over her head, leaving nothing but a pair of matching G-string to cover her body.

I was obviously out of my mind, but the view didn’t make me feel a thing.

“Come here,” she said quietly. “You can even touch me if you want.”

Her belly was still flat and nothing but the shape of her breasts gave away the fact of her pregnancy. She was as beautiful as ever, and I once again thought if I was doing the right thing by binding my life to hers. Maybe if I talked to her and told her I couldn’t love her the way she deserved it, she would be able to find a man who would appreciate her collection of nightgowns and make her truly happy.

But then again, I couldn’t imagine my son or my daughter growing up with a different father, sharing the moments of their life that I wanted to be a part of.

I shut off my inner battles and went to bed, hoping the next morning I wouldn’t feel like the scum of the earth.

***

Six years ago

“How’s the party going?” I sent a text message almost three hours after I watched Crystal leave for her graduation ball and I couldn’t wait any longer to see her again. I went to Springs, parked not far away from the entrance and waited for her to respond.

“Boring.”

“Wanna have real fun?”

“With you?”

I smiled, reading her message.

 It wasn’t hard to imagine her doubtful face. I had seen it many times.

“Why not?” I typed back.

“No, thanks. I know what kind of fun you love having and I love the dress I’m wearing too much to let you ruin it.”

Damn… It was not exactly the fun I was going to offer her having, but the very idea of taking the gorgeous dress off her made my thoughts go wild.

“I should have sent you an empty box…”

“Don’t be a pig, Liam. At least for once.”

“I was actually going to ask you for a dance, if you don’t mind… You owe me one.”

“I don’t owe you anything. I have already thanked you for the dress, remember?”

“Hard to forget… But I still want a dance.”

She didn’t respond for more than five minutes, but when I saw another message from her flashing on the screen, I knew I won.

“Where would you like to dance with me?”

“Come and find out. Waiting for you at the entrance.”

She took her time gathering her courage to show up. Somehow, I knew she was hesitating. Personally, I preferred to not think about how selfish it was to let my curiosity or whatever it was win and come and take her away from the rest of her classmates. If what I felt was going on between us was true, I needed proof, the sooner the better.

“Never thought you were a coward, Sissy,” I said, watching her walk to my car. Her dress danced beautifully in the streetlights, shining like melted gold in the sun.

“For your information, I have never been a coward.” She stopped in front of me, leaving a decent distance between us. Her dark-brown hair fell down her shoulders and back and all I could think about was how amazing she would look with them spread on my pillows…

I smiled. “Then I guess it’s time to start the real party.”

“I’m still not sure if I like the sound of that.”

I opened the passenger door, walked to stand behind her and whispered into her ear, “You will love the sound AND the taste of it.”

She turned her head to look at me and I found her lips millimeters from mine.

“If you are going to get me drunk, I’m not going anywhere.” Her words were quiet and unsure. Her eyes as if accidentally slipped to my lips, and God, damn it, I needed all my nonexistent self-control to not pull her glorious lips to mine.

“Are we leaving or not?” She asked, now looking me in the eye.

I waited for her to get into my car, then shut the door behind her and got back behind the wheel.

We drove in silence, but out of the corner of my eye, I kept watching her. She looked a little tensed, and no matter how many times she was going to tell me that she wasn’t a coward, I knew that right now she was a little scared of leaving her graduation party with me. Not because I was a bad guy, rather because she wasn’t as pearls-and-pale-pink-lip-gloss goody-goody as everyone thought she was. I knew her well enough to not believe that Springs-classy-look shit. She had a cute little devil living inside her, and I couldn’t wait to get to know it better.

 

About twenty minutes later, we parked at the back door of Storm and she immediately recognized the place.

“Oh, no, I’m not going in there.”

“We are not going inside the club.”

“Then what are we doing here?”

“Wait and you will see.”

I got out of the car and waited for her to do the same.

“Ma’am,” I offered her one hand, knowing that wearing a dress like hers it wouldn’t be easy to get to the place where I was planning on getting my dance.

She took my hand and we walked to the back door of the club. I knocked and greeted the guard, named Rob.

“Can you give us a key to the roof?”

He gave Crystal a curious look. And I guess I knew why. The roof was like a sanctuary for Kameron, Jeffrey, Stanley and me. Starting back in high school, we came there to celebrate something important, or simply when we wanted to drink beer without being caught by the adults. We made a great team of friends. At times, I really missed our school years, when everything seemed to be so much easier and more careless than now.

When Crystal and I went up the stairs, leading to the roof, she asked, “Why this place in particular?”

I opened the door and held it for her to go first.

“It’s one of the best places in the world. Just look at the view!” The club was a two-story building, all the other buildings around it seemed to be a lot higher. But we could listen to music coming from the inside of the club and sometimes get free beer, sent by the barman, Konor, who was also an old friend of mine.

We sat on a bench, facing the night city.

“You are right,” Crystal said, smiling. “The view from here is amazing.” She leaned against the back of the bench and added, “I have a favorite place too.”

“Where is it?” I asked, taking a seat next to her.

“You know that place. You have been there many times.”

I thought for a moment. “The lake house?”

She nodded. “I always loved going there.”

The night was getting windy, so I took off my sweater and gave it to Chrystal. “Take it.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

She took my sweater and put it over her dress.

“Can I ask you something?” She said.

“Go ahead.”

“Why plastic surgery? Did you simply want to be like your father?”

“It was one of the reasons…” I never told anyone about what made me choose my specialty. Not even my father knew why I decided to follow in his steps. Somehow, he was sure I would go for music; I had always been crazy about guitars and drums. “One day, around seven years ago, my mother and I went to one of the orphanages for kids with different health problems. As a member of the city charity council, she was supposed to visit places like that to see if there was anything the council could help them with. Some of the kids we met that day had been sent to the orphanage because their parents couldn’t stand the idea of having kids who were not physically perfect. There I met a boy whose face had been deformed by the fire. His parents couldn’t afford plastic surgery for him, so they sent him to an orphanage.”

“That is awful…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But the boy never said a single bad word about his parents. On the contrary – he said he could understand their reasons. Which was nonsense to me. I asked him if he ever wanted a doctor to operate on his face and try to make it look better. He said yes. If he could earn enough money to have an operation.”

“How old was he?”

“Twelve as far as I remember.”

“Which means he should be around my age now. Do you know anything about him?”

“I know everything about him. My father operated on him a few weeks after I met him. When I came back home, I told my dad about the kid and he said he wanted to see him. He called the orphanage and scheduled an appointment for Noel, that is the boy’s name. After he examined his skin, he said he would try to fix what the fire had done to his face. And he did. He performed several operations, and now Noel’s skin looks a lot better. It’s not perfect, but compared to its original state, it’s very close to perfection.”

“Your dad did it for free, right?”

I nodded. “He still performs free operations at times. I help him find the patients and the cases that I think deserve special attention and we study them together. Then, if dad decides that a patient is operable, he offers his professional help.”

Crystal studied me for a long minute, maybe longer. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. But I could see something changing in her eyes. I could feel it.

“You are full of surprises, Doctor-to-be,” finally she said. “Who would have thought…”