Igniting the Wild Sparks (61 page)

“Funny.”

“You look like shit. Don’t you work today?”

He looks
up. “No. They’re not exactly happy with me right now since I made the police blotter in the paper.”

“Oh. I see you have a busted lip. Is that from Hadders?”

“Yeah.” He frowns and ruffles his hair.

I nod at his arm. “Are those scratches from her or Cara?”

His frown deepens. “They’re not from Cara.”

I laugh. “Ooh!
Those
scratches are dick-centric, right?” I love it. I have the upper hand now. 

Crossing his arms, he snaps, “Will you shut the hell up?”

I happily shake my head. “Hey. I can say whatever the fuck I want, Wilder. So, don’t even start.” He sighs, but doesn’t say a word. He knows I’m right.
Gotcha by the balls, coach.

I prod,
“What about your hands?”

He flexes his fingers into fists.
“That was me.”

I move on with my questioning.
“Are you going to keep coaching our team?”

“Uh, that’s up to Hadley. I think I should probably sit out a couple games. I honestly don’t want to be there if she’s
not
going to play anymore. It’ll be too rough for me.”

“So…if Hadley stays but wants nothing to do with you still…”

“I’ll quit. Ricky will stay. Cara’s gone.”

“Won’t you still see
that bitch at work?”

He grumbles,
“Yeah, but nowhere else.”

“Except maybe in a
bathroom stall, right?”

Looking up, h
e pleads, “Stop.”

I
giddily laugh. “Nope. Anyway, I have no idea what Hadley will do yet. I’m guessing she won’t play this Saturday.”

Wilder
nods and sighs before asking, “Where is she? She’s not at her apartment. Her car is, but…”

“Oh, I see you’ve
tried visiting her.”

He stares at me, which is awkward, and then quietly admits,
“Yeah.”

I cross my arms and try not to laugh at his useless attempt to see Hadley. I crook an eyebrow, asking,
“Make a scene?”

Shrugging, he
looks away from me and over his shoulder at the weeds. I hear him mumble, “A little.”

“She’s safe
.”

Like he’s a cat watching one of those red lights on a wall, h
e looks back to me fast. “Is she with you?”

“Leave her alone, Wilder. I mean it. You’ll drive her even further away.”

He nods again. “I will. I just want to know if she’s…”

I snort. “Okay? No.” He glances
to the ground, gnawing on his lip. “Oh, and here’s a friendly heads up, coach.” Wilder looks back up and I say, “Morticia is after your ass. She’s on her broom and she’s gunning for you. She’s definitely not as cuddly as me.”

He sighs. “Fuck. I expected as much.”

I push off the railing. “Well, anyhoo. I’m hitting the road. Like I said, give Hadley some distance. Maybe it’ll all work out, but only if you don’t push too hard. Oh, and don’t go around sticking your dick into open containers for Christ’s sake.”

“
Fucking knock it off, Rodwell!”

My entire body shakes with laughter. “Not a chance in hell. This is kind of fun.”

“Thanks.” His dirty look gradually lightens when he sighs. “Really. Thank you for helping me. I need her back. I’ll do whatever it takes. I want to marry my Becks. That’s the truth.”

“I just hope I’m not making a colossal mistake
the way you did. I guess I won’t since my zipper doesn’t have an Express Lane sign above it.”

He frowns and I laugh. Shit. Maybe
I’m
the asshole.

“How is she doing?”

On the phone and looking out my office window, I watch an old man across the street fighting with a newspaper machine. The old bastard finally kicks it and flips it the National Bird. Another satisfied customer.

“Morticia, she threw her phone at a wall. Smashed it to bits.”

“Shit.”

“It deserved to go out with a bang.”

“Has that asshole been calling her?”

Never
missing an opportunity to harass her, I ask, “The phone? I just told you it’s deceased. It’s not calling
anyone.
”

“Ass Rod!”

I laugh. “Oh, yeah. That’s kind of why she threw it, but then she cried because she won’t be able to talk to him if she wants. I feel so bad for her.”

“She doesn’t need to be talking to him
!”

“Morgasm, he wants her back. He seems truly sorry for what he did.”

“You fell for it? Of course he’s sorry now! He was caught! Do you think he’d really tell Hadley what he did with Cara if he wasn’t caught?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

“No, because he would’ve lost her anyway! He wouldn’t have told her!”

“He’s a fucking mess!”

“So is Hadley! That’s all we should be worried about right now!”

“I know, but if they want to get back together, that’s up to them! Let them work it out!”

“Why? So he can fuck around again? I don’t think so! He told me he wasn’t fucking Cara!” I hold the receiver away from my ear as she continues with her tirade. “He’s nothing but a liar and a cheat! I’m going to let him know he doesn’t have a chance in hell with her!”

When she pauses, I slip in,
“I warned him he’d better not screw up again because this is the
last
time I help him. Then, I told him if Hadders wants to move on without him, he needs to let her and I’ll support her, whatever she does. I think I even married her off to the mail guy or Rory with the limp in the cafeteria. I forget. Doesn’t he have a peg leg?” I spin my chair back around and say, “Just leave them alone. Be there for Hadley!”

“
You’re
not leaving them alone! This isn’t fucking
Love Connection
! I can’t believe you’re taking that fucker’s side!”

“I’m just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt! He’s sorry for hurting her. He thought they were breaking up and he wanted to forget about the pain. He made a mistake. I
know he loves Hadders. I want to believe him.”

“You believe what you want.”

Yeah. At the risk of my life and my hearing. Fuck.

Wednesday night, Hadley finds my liquor collection. Well,
a few warm cans of beer, some wine coolers, and half a bottle of the Captain, if that constitutes as a collection. At least she’s out of bed, I guess.

She
offers me a glass of something questionable that looks like milky gasoline and smells like the shower at the gym. I smile at her and set the glass down. When I’m around her, I don’t drink much. I always feel like I need to watch her for some reason. Especially tonight. I don’t want to be sloshed and she does something stupid.

I hear her in the kitchen messing with the ice as I hang my leg over the side of my chair, next to the couch, and flip through the channels. She finally takes a seat on the couch next to my bed pillow and blanket, and drinks her concoction. A lot of them. She keeps return
ing to the kitchen to make more, and each time, she sways and stumbles a little more. I don’t know if I should’ve let her get drunk, but then again, why the hell not?

Engrossed in some stupid cooking show where they’re cooking raccoons, I’m pretty sure, I’m caught off guard when I hear
her slurred voice in the kitchen.

“Oh, you’re home! I didn’t mean to bother you! Are you and your penis busy?”

Shit!
I jump up and see she has my phone.

“Hadders!” I s
hout, making her jump and bang her arm against the counter. She giggles at me, but then frowns at the phone.

“So what if I’m drunk? Are you? That would be funny. You can drunk-dial
me
next!” She snorts and I roll my eyes. I swear she gave me that habit.

She sullenly asks,
“Do you miss me?”
Oh, no.

“You do?”
This isn’t good.

She snaps, “Does your cheating dick miss me, too?”
Yep. Just as I thought.

“What? I noticed when Cara had it in her mouth, it was a little…lacking. Why? Was she not good at it?”
Son of a bitch.

“I mean, it’s not like you have a
whole
lot to offer, but I’ve seen you a lot harder than
that
before. What’s that famous saying? It’s not the size of the canoe but the choking of the stream?” I burst out laughing.
Fuck. That’s funny.

I ineffectually try to take the phone from her, not really wanting to, but she teeteringly dodges me. I easily give up and go back to the chair. Let
Wilder deal with it. He has it coming, so to speak. Shit. Sometimes I make myself laugh.

“It reminded me of that one New Year’s Eve when we were staying at Ricky’s and you tried to fuck me, but you were so drunk you couldn’t really get it up.”
Wow.
“You kept humping my leg to get harder because I couldn’t get the condom on you. You finally gave up and passed out. I had a bruise and you had a dick burn from that.” I laugh and grab the remote, turning down the volume. This is better than any show on TV. By far.

“You weren’t drunk with Cara, so what was your problem? Are you getting old?” I snort and shake my head.

“What? Why would
I
make you harder? I don’t get it.” I laugh at Wilder for having to explain
that
one.

She’s quiet as she lets him talk. “You
say
you love me, but you got even a
little
hard for her! You said
I
only get you hard! I swear I even got you hard at Mass! I don’t understand!”
Oh, fuck.
And here we go speeding downhill.

I go back out to the kitchen
as she says, “I don’t believe a damned word you say! You can fuck your whores as much as you want now! They can have your fucking limp dick! You could never get me off with your cocktail wiener anyway! I faked
all
of my damn orgasms with you! So, ha!”
Damn.
I kind of feel bad for Wilder. She sounds like a sailor on leave, stuck at an abstinence rally.

“I thought I’d let you know, I’m leaving town for a while.”
What?

“Well,
I
need to move on and I need you to leave me alone! Maybe I’ll go to Vegas, find a cute circus performer and give
him
a blow job! A
real
one!” I could’ve been that circus performer without a dick to suck. Similar to my life now. Either way, fuck you, karma.

I snatch the phone from her and hang it up. “And that concludes your phone time for tonight, young lady.”

“I’m done.” She turns around and wobbles. “Oh, I don’t feel so great.”