Ugly, Perfect Read online

  It frustrates me too.

  "I know right?" I say and fall on my bed. I rented a small studio apartment off campus that my parents pay for as long as I don't get bad grades or complain. I secretly think they are content with my sister and I staying away so they can work more. They call, tell me they love me, miss me but never ask when I am coming home.

  I doubt I will ever go home, not to Friday Harbor anyway. Kendal was a constant nuisance since the minute I moved here. He calls all the time and demands I take him back. I think he has come here a few times because he knows too much, things even Kyra doesn’t know. He never shows his face though and I think it's because he knows D is in my life.

  "Wait, you are wanting to have sex and love and all the mushy shit that's not logical? Who are you and where is my best friend" She laughs as I roll my eyes and reach for a bottle of water from my fridge and toss one to her.

  "Yes, I am dying." I think of the video calls where he dirty talks me through an orgasm I give myself, recently I started to do the same for him. Every time he comes he tells me to look at him, and even in a video screen that buffers, his eyes and voice still undo me and I always come again.

  I don't tell Kyra this though. I have learned over the last ten months to be as vague as I can with the whole Dante thing. I know far more than she thinks I do about the club and his job. We share everything, unless he has a gag order from Roz his Pres of the Knights of Thunder.

  He assures me that the things he does for the club matter and not telling me will ensure I am safe. Only those that sit at the table know I exist. It bothered me at first because I felt like a secret, but even Nick assured me it was for safety. He told me that all the Old Lady's are in the dark too for the same reason. It was the first time I was referred to as an Old Lady, I both hated and loved it.

  I am honest with myself though, and I don't want to know what he does. I have looked into his club and it doesn’t say much about illegal stuff, a few things here and there, but they are definitely not an outlaw club. Whatever D and Nick do is off the books and off the table for discussion. I worry all the time something will happen, but I don't know what that something is.

  "You need to tell him you need his dick Mal." She says it so easily I can't help but laugh.

  "That's not really our style Kyra." It is our style. I have said that and a million more things to him, and him to me. Then, he visits and it's like he refuses to go farther than fingering me. He let me give him a hand job last time, but he was irritable after and things have been weird since. I gave Kendal a hundred hand jobs when we dated so I don't think I suck at it, it is something else and I don't know what.

  When we talk at night, in the dark of my room over the phone as he drives, he is my D. He is honest and misses me and wants me. It's in those moments he pulls his tractor trailer to the nearest rest area and talks dirty to me until we both get off.

  He drives for Rocky Logistics as an over the road driver in a route that keeps him coming home to me every few weeks, and home to Indiana every week. He took it to stay with me, I know he sacrificed it for me. There have been times that his visits were cancelled due to club business, but he makes every effort to see me when he can. I have offered in my time off at school to come to him, but he refuses to let me spend money on flights.

  I miss him, like one misses their sight or limb. I look to the clock on my wall and know he will be here any minute. He got into Boulder a few hours ago but had to stay at the yard as they unloaded and docked his truck. He is picking up a knew truck in Schererville on Monday, so he gets to stay Saturday night and leave in the morning.

  As if summoned by my thoughts I hear him knock on my door. Every time he knocks I feel the worst fear before opening the door, that he won't be there or that he will have to leave, but my world rights when I open it and see my man.

  As I do every time, I jump into his arms and take in the smell that is D and tears prick my eyes. He is and will always be the most beautiful man I will ever know. His long brown hair tucked under a black skull bandana, black shirt and his KOT cutt and blue jeans. I feel his warm skin, the brush of his whiskers on my neck and my name on his lips. "Emjay…" He says and I know he is home.

  ***

  We head back to my apartment after dinner with Nick and Kyra. Over dinner D hardly spoke and continued to stroke his thumb over my hand that he held most the time. Every time I looked at him, he was watching me and would smile. I could feel his love in that touch and with that smile. He was different tonight than his usual joking self. We laugh all the time, but since his last visit almost four weeks ago we have talked and talked and talked, and I love it as much as our laughter.

  As we get to my apartment, I take both his hands in mine and walk backwards to the bed in hopes we won't need words. He stops me though as I try to pull him to me. "Mal, we gotta talk."

  He never calls me Mal unless he is mad at me or has bad news. His eyes are sad though, there is no anger in him. I would know if he was mad and this is something completely different.

  "Okay.." I say and my voice sounds small. When he strokes my bottom lip with his thumb I feel weak by the gesture and its meaning.

  He never struggles to find words, he never sugar coats either so watching him fight for words is terrifying. My heart is in the pit of my stomach and I feel tears wet my eyes. "Tell me, whatever it is baby, tell me." I reach for his neck to reassure him with a kiss, but he flinches at my touch.

  "Rocky Logistics is closing." He lets me go and steps away from me until he is against the counter and scrubs his hands over his face. "I've known for a while this was coming and I have been looking everywhere for a route out this way and there isn't any over the road jobs to guarantee me here as much."

  "Meaning?" I ask because I know by his posture there is more.

  "Meaning I would come through every couple of months and even then it isn't a guarantee." He looks as sick as I feel. This is bad, very bad.

  My mind is racing, every possible option flashing in sequence. I step towards him and take his hands again. "I'll come to Indiana. I will transfer at the end of the semester and move."

  He is shaking his head no. "No Emjay, you love your professors here, you have your summer internship and you are already for your transfer to UW, go Husky's and all that shit after next year. You can't give that up for me."

  I shake my head no. "I would rather have you than a cool professor and the internship is more of a teaching assistant thing and I can do that at any school with my grades. I can still go to Seattle because you are in Washington all the time."

  "No." He says it so final, no argument and no reasoning.

  "Yes!" I say and feel my tears fall. "I love you Dante." A sob breaks free as I tell him the truth and his eyes become harder.

  "Don't do that shit! Don't manipulate me with that!" He yells and pushes me away from him gently, turning his back to me. I grab him, wrapping my arms around him, resting my forehead between his shoulder blades as I cry.

  "I'm not manipulating you D. I love you. So, so much. I can't breathe when you aren't here. It's like holding my breath until you come home."

  "This isn't home Mallory." He pulls my hands from around him and steps from my hold as they drop to my sides. "This isn't my home and it isn't yours. You have dreams of being an author and you can do it Emjay. You are so fucking talented and I am not stopping that." He looks at me then, his eyes are sad but they are also cold. He is resolved. "Do you understand me? I am not getting in the way of it Mal. I am leaving and you are finishing school. You need to understand that because there isn't a deal I am willing to make."

  I see it then. He is resolved. He is already gone and he is only here for goodbye.

  "You don't want me?" I ask because I need to hear him say it. I won't move on if he doesn’t.

  "I want you more than anything, but I can't have you. I can't watch you give up and settle for a life you don't deserve. You think that being an Old Lady won't interfere with what you want in life?
Tell me how many authors wear cuts with their old man's name on them?"

  "I don't care." I cry even harder as he lists reason after reason for why he is leaving me.

  "Well I do and this isn't only about you. My club is on my ass for being gone as much as I am and …" He scrubs his face again and looks at me. "I already took a job back home that's local. The guy does business through the club and the offer was too good to pass up. This has been coming Emjay, for a while now and you refused to see it."

  I want to fight and scream and cry but all I have is the pain in my heart guiding me. "How am I supposed to let you go?" I look at him through my wet lashes, unashamed of the tears flowing from my eyes. "You may be able to walk away and not look back, but I meant it Dante. I am in love with you, it isn't that easy for me."

  "You think it's easy for me? It isn't, but you're young and haven't seen enough to know I am right."

  Now I was pissed. How dare he make it about my age? "Do not act like now, all the sudden when it is convenient to say my age is the issue. Fuck you and that logic."

  "You're age is a factor Mallory! You're still a virgin for fucks sake, you have no idea what life and death and fucking and making love and living and surviving are! None of it, you're naïve to think this could work!" He was waving his arms as if he were crazy, and he was. He was nuts to think what he thought. How could he? It was like he didn't know me.

  "First off, I know enough about life and death and living and surviving, blah, blah, blah. Second, I am not a virgin D! So I am pretty sure I know what fucking is and making love!"

  He looked at me when I said I wasn't a virgin, and he looked like he wanted to laugh. "I have had my fingers inside of you enough times to know that you are too tight to be anything but a virgin and second, you come to easily and it’s a giveaway."

  "You sound, so remarkably stupid right now. Please, just shut up." I say and if it wasn't for the anger rushing through me, I might blush from what he said. "I have had sex. I lost my virginity when I was seventeen to Kendal, so shut up."

  He looks at me, in a way he never has. It is anger and hurt and lust and need and I feel goose bumps cover my entire body at that look. "You're not a virgin?"

  He is honestly asking no fight in his voice at all. "No. I am not. I have both fucked and made love though I am pretty sure my version of making love is different from yours because I didn't love Kendal. I have only ever loved you."

  He rushes me and pulls me into his arms and kisses me. We have fooled around and made out, he has gotten me off and I have him. In it all he had never kissed me like this though. He was breathing heavy and my lips were burning when he pulled his mouth from mine and cupped my face in his hands. "I love and hate that equally. Can't stand knowing he got it, hate knowing I didn't, but I love knowing it's no longer an issue."

  Was he serious? The asshole!

  "What? Like I would let you now? Knowing you don't want me?" I am more offended and hurt by that than anything he had said tonight.

  "No, I have no intention of getting you in bed. I have been fighting it for a few months because I thought I would be taking it and knew I was going to have to leave. If anything, I regret being decent and should have pushed inside of you every time I could have."

  There was a bite to his words and I think it was the first time I ever felt like I could hate him. He shattered my version of him in that instant. Gone was the first love polish and in its place was the truth. He was just a man. "Leave" I say and fold my arms over my chest, unable to look at him I turn my back so I won't see him leave.

  "No, Emjay I have until Sunday and I want to be with you. I can't end this in anger, it will kill us both."

  I turn my red swollen eyes on him. "You want to stay to fuck me senseless for two days and disappear! I am fine without the show, I would rather it end here in heartbreak instead of trying to make it a beautiful goodbye. This is ugly and perfect and I am ok with it.

  "I'm not here for sex and you know it. I have never tried to get it, even knowing I could have. I haven't tried with you or anyone else for that matter. I could have a thousand different times with any woman I want. I am here because you deserved the truth. You deserve to know that you were never once used. That I trust you more than anyone on this earth. You deserve my goodbye."

  I moved before he could touch me and I opened my door. "I don't want it. Just take it out the door with you."

  "Em"-

  I cut him off before he could say whatever he felt he needed to. "You are leaving or I am."

  He stared me down, waiting to see if I would cave in, but the thing about soul mates? They know you as well as you know yourself, and D knew that I had found my resolve too. He reached for his cutt and stopped to stand before me as I looked anywhere but at him. He cupped my chin and forced me to face him.

  "I love you back Emjay. I always have."

  He left and I would forever be forced to see his eyes as he said it every time I closed mine.

  ***

  It was after two in the morning when I heard a knock on my door. I knew it was him and I was lying to myself if I wasn't immediately in tears knowing he was back. I needed that goodbye. We both know I did.

  I opened the door and within seconds he was on me, lips everywhere, hands everywhere as he kicked my door shut and drew me to the bed. He was stripping me as I stripped him.

  No finesse.

  No questioning.

  We both knew what our goodbye was.

  Naked beneath him, choking on my tears as he kissed them from my cheeks, I felt his hands capture my face. "Be with me Mallory, here and now. Just us baby."

  I nod and he kisses me, then I felt him inside of me. In one fluid motion he took something from me that was virginal. I loved him, deep and painful and brutal, I loved Dante Kole. I felt every kiss, felt the wetness from his sweat as his body moved with mine. I felt every peak as he took me over the edge time and time again. I could only smell and taste him as he pressed harder inside of me with every thrust. "Closer…" I whispered against his neck, his hair formed a wall around our mouths as we kissed.

  "Yeah luv, I need all of you Emjay." He spoke against my lips as his body tightened above me, and released the instant he pulled free of me, lips on mine as he released.

  For hours we lay there, entangled in my sheets, the scent of our love making surrounding us until the window changed from midnight to a soft purple. I didn't want to blink and risk sleep, scared he would be gone when I woke. But, as the purple faded to pink I lost the fight and fell asleep against his chest and his arms around me.

  Chapter Six

  Present Day

  Seattle WA

  I grabbed my phone on the last ring before my voicemail picked up, pausing after my hello, to look at who was calling.

  "Are you fucking kidding me Emjay?" D was pissed and I had no clue why.

  "I am standing in my living room in a towel. Can this wait ten minutes?" I say try to dry my arms, impossible as my long blond hair drips causing a puddle on my hard wood floors.

  "Put me on speaker." He growls and I roll my eyes and do as he asks. I take the phone with me to dry off and dress.

  "Okay you're on speaker. What you mad about?" I wrap my hair in the towel knowing he isn't gonna let me blow dry it anytime soon.

  "You have made me sound like the biggest dick Mal. Do you really see it like that?" He sounds genuine for sure, but had he listened to me when I asked at the beginning of the project for his input, I meant more than songs and simple yes and no answers.

  "I asked you to give me your side and you wouldn’t. I barely know what you thought back then, I barely know now! So I wrote how I felt."

  "Oh!" He says all surprised. "So you felt like shit all the time or just in the beginning?"

  I laugh which I know pisses him off more. "I didn't feel like shit. Sure when you lost the Boulder job it was hard, but you're crazy if you think your reasoning wasn't painful."

  He is silent and I know he regrets calling ins
tead of texting. He can ignore me if he doesn’t like being put on the spot over text, but he called. So now I wait him out until he sucks it up and responds.

  "You know my real reasons Mallory." Oh he is definitely uncomfortable now. He only ever calls me Mallory if he needs my understanding. I am always referred to as Luv or Emjay. Calling me Mallory has me wondering his thoughts like usual. Maybe he knows that the truth is so much worse than the story he gave me, maybe he feels guilt about it still? Maybe he wants me to leave the lie out and only tell the truth but I know him and he accepts it even though he still hates himself for it, knowing I still hurt over it.

  He would never allow me to protect him in this.

  "You want me to leave the lie out?" I ask, even though that's not it. I don't know what has him bothered.

  "No… Luv no. I know what I did. I own it. I just hate your memory of that weekend. I saw it different. I felt it different too."

  "So what then? Why call me all mad and shit when you don't have a clue what writing it is doing to me?" He hates when I do this. Hates when I pull up that pain, hates that I still feel it. But, he loves knowing how deep he is etched in my heart. We are a fucked up version of love, D and I.

  "What is it doing to you?"

  See? He needs to feel my loss and my pain so he is reminded that it was real. That we are real and he can't escape it anymore than I can. "Need me to say it? It hurts remembering these things. It opens it up all over again. I was young back then, naïve and stupid to think it would work. It doesn’t matter now though, we both know what comes next."

  "Can I write the last night?" I am fucking floored at his request.

  "Seriously?"

  "Yeah. There are two very different opinions on that goodbye Emjay. I want mine to be heard too."

  "Is this because you are scared that whoever reads it will think you're a bastard?" I feel like shit for asking that because he is the only person I know, that truly doesn’t care what people think.