Ty

The smell of home cooked Stew and apple pie hits me the second I walk into Lizzie’s and I feel my face crack in the first smile I’ve had all day. My life has turned to hell in a handbasket since the night I put Rox in my bed and it’s so bad even my mom stopped trying to call and told me to stop being such a little shithead.

Granted, I’m not exactly good company lately but it isn’t what you’re thinking. Okay maybe it is a little bit of missing Rox and wanting her so badly I’m constantly on edge. Who can blame a guy when seeing the woman of his dreams in his bed turns out to be a one time thing that makes me want to cry like a girl.

I almost did cry when Stinker got into my room and ruined the sheets where Rox’s scent lingered. I was so desperate I shoved my nose into them, despite the smell of that fucking mutt trailing through and making my nose bleed, but not one trace of her floral scent was left after the atomic stink landed.

The major reason for my mood though is that I’m currently working on a deal that has me in contact with Alfred Gline, the father of my ex Cindy. The man is an asshole, god how could I forget what an asshole he always was and his partners aren’t much better at that.

The problem though is Cindy herself. It’s been years since she broke my heart and left me feeling like a freaking monster and yet one look at her today brought up every old feeling I never resolved.

It’s pathetic because having a woman you loved more than anything tell you to get plastic surgery…hurts. It hurt so much…

When I was sixteen I was involved in a head on collision with another car while driving home from my midweek study group. I’d just started driving the week before and mom and dad got me this sweet little sedan to cut my teeth on. Second hand, nothing fancy because according to dad I needed a fixer upper just in case of eventualities. Read, he was too cheap to get me a Mercedes because he thought I was s shit driver.

The accident happened so fast though I can’t to this day tell you why it happened or what it entailed. All I know is that one minute I was on my way home and the next I was hit so hard the seatbelt snapped my collar bone and broke two of my ribs.

The world spun, righted and then went crazy all around me as metal screamed and my own yells pierced the night air. I must have blacked out at one point, probably after the car flipped the last time and hit my head on the steering wheel because when I finally did come to, it was to the sounds of people screaming while I lay trapped in a car that now resembled a crushed soda can.

I was literally stuck inside what I later found out was a ball of metal and glass. I’d have been okay, would have kept my shit together until emergency services arrived to cut me free. The pain was more than excruciating but it was alright, no, what got me was the fact that gas was pooled everywhere. Under me, soaking into my clothes, heck, even my hair was drenched, the gas burning my scalp where it touched me.

And then…fire. I will never forget the moment I saw that spark and the flames burst to life around me. To this day….

I still have nightmares occasionally about the heat and terror. Feeling the pain in my ribs and chest as I struggled to free myself to escape the fire all around me.

I screamed so loud when it hit my cheek witnesses at the scene later told dad they thought it was a woman trapped in the car.

The end of that tale is that I survived with a surprising luck because I wasn’t burned anywhere else but my face. A little singing on my right shoulder but with the skin grafts it’s all good as new.

My face though. It took months to heal and even longer for me to come to terms with the aftermath of that accident. I would never be the same cocky little shit who used his goodlooks and charm on the girls who used to trail after me like giggling idiots.

Where before I could smile and have a girl melting me for, I now had to see their looks of horror when they saw the red, raised pucker that is the right side of my face.

Got so bad mom and dad let me cut out of school early because I worked my ass off to gain extra credits. I completed a lot of my last year of school online and graduated at seventeen, just to avoid prom and all that other teenager bullshit that mom was gushing about.

And spent the next three years of my life working my ass off on construction sites with Blay and the others. Turned our first million at the age of twenty and never looked back.

Until the day I met Cindy at a company party and lost my ass for her perfect blonde goodlooks. It was lust at first sight and love not too long after. We spent all our free time together, fucking, partying, everything a rich boy with time on his hands could do to prove to his girl that he was all man and more than just monstrous looks.

For two years I pampered her, spoiled her, gave her everything her heart could possibly desire and more and I truly thought she was my one. It was so bad I hardly saw my parents because mom hated Cindy and dad…he wasn’t all that enthused either.

Eventually it got to the point where I proposed and despite mom’s doubts got my parents to accept that I had found the woman I wanted. And I was happy. Not just happy, ecstatic and thankful because I truly did believe she loved me and saw passed the scars on the outside to the man within.

Until she started broaching the subject of surgery. I would have seriously considered it and ignored the hurt her words inflicted, I’m ashamed to admit. I was so in love I told myself she wanted me to do it for me, for my own well being and state of mind.

Until the plastic surgeon confirmed what I’d been telling her all along; surgery is not and never will be a possibility for me after the trauma my skin suffered and the limited improvement that could be made on the area.

I had two options, let it go or have surgery and risk two very big scars running down the side of my face from just beside my eye all the way down to my jaw.

Cindy….was not pleased and I finally realized that for her, it wasn’t possible to love a man as…flawed as I am. It broke my heart and yes, decimated my pride when she left me without a backward glance.

I haven’t trusted a woman since or been with one for that matter, besides one woman I met in Austria at a benefit party. We were both slammed that night and lonely and I guess I was just so horny I couldn’t find the will or pride to care about what she thought of me.

Waking up in the morning, knowing I hadn’t even given a thought to her opinion, likely wouldn’t have cared one way or the other made me wake up and finally fucking see myself for the first time since Cindy walked away from me.

I was pathetic. Broken. Hiding myself away from people and licking my wounds while pretending I didn’t hurt and didn’t care. It was so bad I hardly talked to my folks, making excuses, working too much to see them because my pride was shattered and admitting my foolishness hurt almost as much as facing the fact that I’d been with a woman who found me revolting.

It took a long time for me to come back from that. My friends were always there though, supporting me, never letting me fall into that dark place were booze and darkness took away the pain I felt.

Slowly I fought to be the man I was. I will never be confident or forget what others see and part of me hates Cindy for that, for making me feel like less, but I’m not about to hide in the dark forever just to spare myself stares and the looks some people give me.

So I put one foot in front of the other and kept moving and I was doing great, building myself back up and moving on from my failed relationship. Hell, I was even okay with being celibate for so long.

Until I looked up and saw Rox.

Atomic explosion!

It was like getting kicked in the chest and having my heart restart. One look at all that beauty was all I needed to be hooked in like a heat seeking missile.

To say that I fell in instant lust is not true because it was oh, so much more. I wanted her body, her smile, her thoughts. I wanted each and every moment with her to be about her and immersing myself in her.

And if I’d been different, whole, unmarred by time I probably would have gone for her guns blazing, every cocky inch of me intent on charming the pants off Roxy Crocker.

But I am me. I am marred and the truth is, I refuse to open myself up to that pain ever again, so no matter how much I want that woman, no matter how obsessed I am with the need for her, all I will ever allow myself is friendship, the chance to be part of her life from afar.

As much as I hate to admit it, Cindy changed me all those years ago and I will never be the man I was before. I don’t want to be. I was naïve and foolish, believed that people would stop seeing the outside because I tried so fucking hard to make them see me, the person, not the burn victim.

What Cindy taught me is that believing in unconditional love is a crock. People see your outside first and always will. Not that I think Rox is shallow or anything, it’s just that for me, she is way too good and beautiful to get stuck looking at my face every day for the rest of her life.

“Hey man. You okay?”

I start and look up at Joe where he’s coming down the hall, his innocent face lined with concern, making me realize I haven’t moved since walking in the front door.

“Uh, yeah.” I mumble clearing my throat. “Sorry, guess I just zoned out there for a minute.”

“No worries man. Sometimes you just have a bad day yeah?”

I like this guy. Most people would look at him and see the round faced, huge as hell mama’s boy who sprouts hair from every pore and doesn’t stand a hope in hell of attracting a hot woman.

What I see when I look at Joe is a man who loves his family and friends and has enough balls to stand up to their constant ribbing. I see a guy who doesn’t care that he’s part werewolf and is unashamed of the fact that he still lives at home and probably beats off to the new meat catalogue every night.

Joe’s a good guy. Sweet. Sometimes oblivious. A lot dense some of the time. But he’s real and honest and doesn’t see anything but who you are.

He’s my ideal, as fucked up as that may sound because I wish to hell I could be like him and not give a damn what people think.

“Bad day.” I snort, shaking my head. “Try baaad fucking day.”

“Been there man. What can you do right? Just have to keep going and push through the shit till you get to the good stuff.”

I snort again because at this point I don’t think I can see anything good about this situation. I have to close a deal and liaise with Cindy for at least the next two months. Closely. While feeling all the good and bad shit that comes along with her on a daily basis.

Because, and this sounds so fucking pussified, even to me, I never got closure. I never got to talk to her and understand why after so long together she finally wanted me to change. I never got to hear how she could stand touching me, pretending to love me when she hated the way I looked.

Mostly, I never got to deal with the fact that I loved her, desperately and so deeply that I never quite got over her. And yeah, I will admit, as terrible as it sounds I never got to hurt her the way she hurt me.

All I did was tuck tail and run when all was said and done. I drank, man did I drink, and drowned it all out to the point that by the time I sobered up and pulled myself back together, everything I felt was shoved into a box way deep down inside where I couldn’t feel it.

“Ty?”

“Yeah, uh, sorry man.” I mumble when Joe calls to me again.

“You ready?”

No. No I am not. I’m not ready for any of this. Not this need I have eating at me for a woman I can’t have. Not this pain that’s bursting forth inside for a woman I once loved.

I’m not ready at all but as I pull myself back together and walk to join people that have become my family, I know that being ready or not won’t stop any of it. And that scares me.