Love Hurts (14 page)

Frankie couldn’t back down. It wasn’t in him. “There might not be a next time. With Rose hanging around, tonight might be your last.” Frankie went for his beer but was clipped on the chin by another swift sail of his brother’s fist, his beer tipping but not spilling.

Sam was already out the door before Frankie could even the score. He set his beer down, letting out an irritated grumble. Dylan touched his face, recoiling as soon as she saw the veins protruding from his neck in rage.

“
What was all that about?” She put her hand on her hip, waiting for an answer. “Why would your brother tell you to leave his girlfriend alone?”

Frankie was not in the mood for this. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the bar stool, Dylan riding his heels all the way to the door. “Are you going to answer me?”

“
Nope,” he snapped.

“
Why not?” she asked, chasing behind Frankie as he headed for his car, he didn’t have the fortitude to answer any questions from anyone. He was livid.

“
Because I don’t have to provide you with an answer to anything that I do.”

Dylan stopped walking, standing at the end of the sidewalk. She watched Frankie unlock his car. Before he climbed him he shot her a look. “Like I told you before, don’t waste your time on someone like me.”

Dylan felt her ego crumble into a million pieces as Frankie pulled out of the driveway, tires squealing. Maybe she was the stupid girl Frankie always said she wasn’t. But she couldn’t forget about him. Ever since the day she met him she was hooked, completely mesmerized by his dismal attitude toward the world. He was more than a bad boy. He was bordering on evil. And the more bad that oozed out of Frankie, the more she was drawn to him. He was like a sick form of torture that she secretly had to have.

Visitors

Greta was four years old when she knew she wanted to marry a prince. Four years old when she knew the life written in storybooks was the one that she wanted. She admired fairytale princesses. And she really believed that her life was destined to turn out that way.

But her life didn’t. Instead, she met a man who was anything but a fairytale. He was the nightmare. He was the witch in the woods with the venom. And his toxins penetrated her. They slipped right through the exterior evading her skin. And she never was the same again.

Her fanciful idea quickly turned into a delicate menagerie of dark and evil thoughts whenever she was with this man. She lost herself in believing he could be that prince. She held out hope that somehow he would transform right before her eyes. But he never did. And Greta soon came to realize she had no prince—she didn’t even have a knight in shining armor.

Greta could have survived a million nights of suffering if it weren’t for her kids. And she had three of them. She didn’t want her children turning into an evil person like her husband. And when she finally gathered up the strength she needed, she ran far away with what life and relationships she had left. And there weren’t many. Her children all detested her in their own ways. She believed she turned her only daughter into a victim like herself, and that soon she would repeat the cycle.

She made a lot of mistakes. Now she was trying to get over them and live what life she had left making peace with her choices.

“
Can I get you anything to drink, ma’am?” The flight attendant asked Greta.

Greta gently shook her head no. Her soft tresses moving over her eyes and hiding her expression, no one knew she was a mother of three grown children. Or that the relationships she had with them were so screwed up that she barely ever spoke to them at all. She had no one. Mostly because that’s the way it had to be. She had to live a discreet life. And she accepted that.

Her eyes fluttered before she closed them all together. The outside world disregarded by her. She had an awful fear of flying. But there she was on her way to see Sam, her oldest son.

Sam paced back and forth in the airport. To say he was tense was an understatement. He hadn’t laid eyes on his mother in a long time. But now he was desperate. The last time he seen his mother he was barely eighteen. So many years had passed and so much had changed he didn’t know what to anticipate.

He once was her son, the joy in her day. One of the reasons she smiled, and now that no longer existed for her. And he didn’t know what to call their relationship anymore.

Sam’s stared off into the crowd until they were nothing but a haze, a worthless bunch of people that to him only made everything even more real. He looked to the wall to wall windows, staring out at the approaching lights and the hustle and bustle all around. Sleek silvers, crisp concrete and bustling arrays of people going to and fro, were making their way wherever they needed to be.

Sam wondered how life was so trouble-free for everyone around him, the man talking bubbly on his cell phone as he thumbed the paper without a care in the world. The woman across from him busily feeding her baby as if that was the only thing that mattered. Or the couple yards away smiling and holding hands making their first journey to Europe. Life just happened for them and they enjoyed it. While Sam was stuck trying to figure out how to just have one.

She hadn’t changed, his mother. Her svelte frame underneath her tan knee length jacket still brought up nostalgia for Sam, her honey blonde hair, swaying more than bouncing along as she walked, her steps so solid and yet so delicate. She recognized Sam the moment she saw him. Her pale complexion not hiding the soft crimson hues in her cheeks, or how the color grew in enormity the moment she smiled at the sight of Sam. Her fair eyebrows raised, and the soft blues of her eyes caught the light making them glitter like a million diamonds set ablaze.

“
Baby,” she said in a murmur, wrapping her arms around Sam tightly, their height difference a little off even with her high heels on. She squeezed him tight, it had been some time since she had her hands on him and she didn’t want it to end.

“
Hi, Mom,” Sam said from the awkward clutch she had on him. His body stiff as a tree, his nerves rattled. It was a lot to take in. Seeing her warm smile and fleeting blue eyes was a bit overwhelming for him.

He let her break the hold first. She pulled back really getting a good look at him. She ruffled his hair, taking in every feature of her boy.

“
You look good,” she said, her eyes skidding from his eyes to his smile. That crooked smile that always melted her heart. He had a way as a child to turn it on and make her forget anything that he had done. But she could see in his eyes that he wasn’t quite the same. Something was upsetting him.

“
So do you,” Sam insisted, evoking a kiss on his cheek from his over emotional mother. She smelled of honeysuckle just as she always had. He didn’t see that ever changing.

“
There is a hotel five miles from the airport. I already booked a room. Of course I used an alias,” she started, as they began walking. No luggage for her to pick up, she wasn’t staying any longer than a couple hours. And everything she needed could fit squarely in her purse.

This wasn’t news to Sam. His mother never stayed anywhere longer then a night. She was still after all these years hiding from his father. Maybe it was a bit silly for a woman to fear a man after so many years. But not their father, it made all the sense in the world. He wasn’t just a man.

“
That gives us time to have some supper and talk a little,” Sam told her. They effortlessly spoke back and forth about nothing. Leaving all the more personal discussion to the hotel where nobody could listen in.

“
How is Ellie?” Sam said, once his mother buckled her seat belt. “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

There was a short silence. “One year.” Greta looked at her son, hoping for a response. But he simply glided the car down the expressway acting as cool as a cucumber about her lack of visiting.

“
How is she?”

Greta bit at the inside of her cheek apprehensively. She hadn’t any kind of answer. She didn’t know how her youngest was. “Oh you know, same old Ellie.” She patted his leg before returning her hands to her lap where she fidgeted with her rings a bit anxious to be inside the hotel already.

***

Frankie rolled over in his bed, running his hand along the table for his cell phone. He checked the time and then shut his eyes tight, hoping he would just fall back to sleep. The room was still beside that bothersome hum that no mattered what never went away. Every few minutes the sound of a car sounded outside the window as it passed by his apartment.

Three swift taps echoed on the other side of Frankie’s door. And before he could react Blanca let herself in. She stared around the untidy apartment, peering through the shadows to where Frankie’s body lay under the covers in his room.

Her gleaming heels stomped over his dirty laundry and wooden floorboards to make it to her destination, Frankie’s bedroom. Blanca balled her fist, and with one fast punch swung Frankie’s door all the way open.

“
Why are you in bed?” She demanded. It wasn’t common to find Frankie in bed in the middle of the evening. By this time he had zoned in on naive victims in a bar someplace close to his apartment.

“
I was sleeping,” he said low. No emotions or agitation clinging to his voice like usual.

“
It’s nearly seven,” Blanca informed him, jabbing his phone to life to prove she was correct on the time. She took a seat on the side of his bed. She studied Frankie’s body, crossing her legs carefully. “You don’t look to good. Bar fight?”

Frankie sighed, sitting up. He was naked and didn’t care who knew it. “No. I got this from Sam. He decided to come into the bar the other night and throw a temper tantrum.”

Blanca drug a fingernail across Frankie’s chest like a carving knife, leaving a raised red stripe behind. Her eyes glued to her handy work. “Let me guess, it had something to do with that Suzy home maker I met at dinner.”

Frankie took hold of her wrist. “Yeah, he wants me to kill Rose so Delaney doesn’t find out about his past. And he is so pissed off about it all he is just running around doling out punches.”

Blanca’s lips curled up into a conniving smirk. “Come on Frankie, I know you better than that. And I know Sam too. You pushed him. You made him do this.” Blanca tugged at the blankets until they were down by Frankie’s knees. She smiled at the sight, her mind only on one thing. She didn’t care that Frankie was having sibling rivalry issues. She just wanted Frankie’s body to torture her in that fun yet sadistic way he was known for.

“
Think what you want. I tried to help the guy out. Which, I don’t even know why I bothered. I might as well go find Delaney right now and put the little bitch out of her misery. Because we all know it’s going to happen one way or another.”

Blanca raised an eyebrow, running her fingernail against her bottom lip lost in deep thought. Her eyes swiftly clouded, producing a threatening glare. “What is it with you and pathetic girls?”

Frankie rolled his eyes. But Blanca didn’t find it amusing at all. She pushed him down, dropping her knee between his legs in just the position to make any man uncomfortable. Frankie’s hand immediately grabbed the back of her leg, dragging her into a safer position.

“
You’re a psychopath,” Frankie told her. Blanca simply nodded in agreement, carefully biting down on Frankie’s bottom lip. She closed her eyes as his hands encircled her throat, daring her to try anything funny. Frankie without difficulty fought against her subtle attack, kissing his way out of it. Soon they were in a wild lip lock that had his heart going at an outrageous rate of speed.