Standing in the lot next to my car, I watch King stuff his bag into the saddlebag on his bike. He’s leaving. I knew it, felt it. I didn’t want to, but I did. I fucking knew it the moment he told me he’d see me later. His soulless eyes gave him away.
I watch him pack to leave, my heart breaking.
He doesn’t see me, but he feels me.
Looking over his shoulder, he looks me in the eye and I get nothing. No emotion. No regret. He’s not sorry.
“Were you gonna tell me?” I ask him, walking toward him, my arms wrapped around myself. I’m not cold, it’s a shield. I can’t let him do more damage than he already has.
King doesn’t answer me, which is all the answer I need. He wasn’t going to tell me. He was going to leave, disappear without a word, and that is worse than him leaving.
“I must mean a whole fucking lot to you if you weren’t going to say anything,” I quip, looking down at my feet, readying myself to look at his lying face.
“I can’t stay,” he tells me in way of an explanation. His voice is rough and cold, talking to me like he doesn’t know me.
I scoff, head shaking at the shit that just left his mouth. He can’t stay? Then why even come? “You can’t stay?” I laugh, a cold, hurt sound. “You want me but you can’t stay?” Makes a lot of sense. “I don’t fucking get you.” He’s so hot and cold. Up one minute and down the next. All over me one day and gone the next.
He doesn’t even look at me, he just walks away to the edge of the lot, and I follow. He’s not getting away that easily. “Good. Glad you don’t get me.” Good? He’s so blasé, staring off into the woods. No emotion. I’ve spent years dealing with King’s distant demeanor, his cold stare and icy words, but this is a whole new level.
“One minute you’re all caveman ‘woman, mine’ bullshit and the next you’re out of here? I don’t understand you.”
He chuckles darkly, rubbing at his chin. “Not much to understand, Samantha. Not lookin’ to be tied down. Not lookin’ for an old lady.”
“That’s rich,” I mutter sarcastically. “Didn’t seem that way when you were throwing your cut over my shoulders the second another guy looked my way, or knocking Tags out for touching me.”
“I don’t share pussy, and baby, your pussy’s good.”
His words cut me to the bone, and I know that’s what he wants them to do. He wants to kill me with his words.
I’m not sure what it is or why I snap, but I’m so fed up with his uncaring bullshit that I say, “You’re hurt your mom gave up when you were eight, and still, years later, you push away anyone trying to get too close. You’d rather hurt me than get hurt yourself.”
I hit him where it hurts. I may only know the story secondhand, but I know it, and I know it’s his crutch.
And it works. My words hit.
Spinning around so quickly I don’t see it coming, King’s got me shoved up against the side of the club, his face inches from mine. “Me being an eight-year-old reject doesn’t have fuck all to do with you,” he growls, his blue eyes icy, colder than I’ve ever seen them. “You’re fun. Hot as fuck with a tight ass, and an even tighter pussy, but baby, that’s it.”
I laugh. It’s manic and unhinged. I feel my sanity slipping. “That’s why you keep comin’ back, because I have a tight pussy?” He’s fucking insane, lying to himself and to me.
“Pretty much.”
Pushing away from me, he paces, pulling a pack of smokes from his cut. Shaking out a cigarette, he puts it between his lips and lights it, inhaling deeply.
“So that’s it? You’re gone?” I shout, throwing my hands around like a goddamn lunatic.
Nodding, he stares out into the woods, his back to me. “I was always leavin’, Princess,” he tells me, a cloud of smoke circling his head. “Don’t act shocked.”
“Shocked? I’m fucking confused.”
“Shouldn’t be. You know the score.” Shoving a hand in his pocket, he moves farther away, putting space between us. Building distance. Creating miles.
He wants this to end, so there’s nothing I can do or say to make him stay. Begging? Pleading? None of it will work, and I won’t be that girl. He doesn’t want me. “Okay.”
King was never going to stay, and that’s on me for believing differently. I should’ve known better. Should’ve kept him at a distance like I had every other time, but this time I slipped up. I let him get close and it’s my fault.
“This is the last time we do this,” I tell him, meaning it. I’m not for ultimatums and forced hands, but I’m also not interested in repeating the pain, living through the hurt and the shit again. King and I are done. I love him, but it’s not enough.
He just nods, agreeing with the words I’m saying.
“You come back around the club, you stay away from me.”
“I’m not comin’ back.” His words are painful, excruciating and crippling, but they’re real and honest.
“Good.”
I hate that this is how we end this. After all these years and all this time, this is how this shit goes.
“Good,” he growls, stalking toward me. I can’t move, rooted to the gravel, watching him, committing him to memory. Inches from me, King grabs me. With a rough, tattooed hand, he grabs me around the back of my neck and pulls me in, kissing me hard. His lips are soft but demanding, punishing me. “Take care of yourself, yeah?” he says, kissing the corner of my mouth.
I want to cry. One kiss breaks me—ruins me.