So. Long.: Bad Boy Next Door (66 page)

TEN

I take one step and flop backward onto the bed. With both
hands over my face, I giggle.

Damn
that felt good.

The pussy eating he did was great. But the look in his eyes
when I opened the door and told him I’m going to bed—fucking priceless. Teach
his ass to think he can smooth-talk his way into getting laid.

Asshat.

He can pack up his cock and carry it back to Hollywood for
that shit.

As I stare at the ceiling, trying to relax enough to sleep,
that last conversation I had with Buck before he took off runs through my head
on a loop.

He pulled me into his arms, held me close, and dropped a
kiss at my temple. “You’re eighteen now, you don’t need me anymore.”

“I’ll always need you, Buck.” The pain in my chest was
enough to double me over. It was all I could do not to drop to my knees, but
that would be truly humiliating, and I’d already tasted enough humiliation to
last a lifetime.

He held me away from him and looked me right in the eyes.
“Look, you and me, we’re on separate paths. It’s not like it was before. We
always knew this wasn’t going to last forever.”

“But it could, Buck. Couldn’t it?”

His face went through a myriad of expressions—happiness,
confusion, anger—finally settling on determination.

But then his eyes hardened. “Look, Lou. We were never
meant to stay together. If we do, it’ll be a nail in the coffin of my career. I
have to leave. You go to college and use that scholarship you worked so hard for.
Someday you’ll thank me for this.”

Thank him? For ripping my soul to shreds and lighting a
match to it? Not likely. It’s been damn near five years, and I’ve never felt
gratitude for what he did. Not once.

Evening brings a cool breeze and the longing to get outside
and enjoy it while it lasts.

But Buck’s next door. Do I really want to deal with him if
he comes around?

Fuck him. After last night, I doubt he’ll show up over here
again anytime soon.

Bastard.

Letting myself out of the house, I slide my flip-flops onto
my feet. I slowly make my way to the north side of Aunt Delores’s place,
instead of going south toward the Buckners’.

My ankle still aches, but if the military taught me anything
it was to push past the pain. I tramp through the unkempt path through the
little strip of trees that used to separate the Dubois’ from the Fontaines’
place—my mom’s place.

Aunt Delores and Uncle Manny bought my old house three or
four years ago. My childhood home, if anyone could call it a home, still
stands—if the term
stands
is used loosely. It’d be more accurate to say
it leans…collapses…disintegrates at a low rate of speed—too slowly, in my
opinion.

I push clingy weeds from my path and cross into the clearing
that surrounds the decaying single-wide trailer where, more times than not, I
spent the night hungry, alone, or scared. Or all of the above.

I wander to the place under the Bois d’Arc tree where I
first met Aunt Delores. I was thirteen, and she had a basket filled with warm
blueberry muffins and a smile.

She walked into the yard with her basket over her arm,
picking her way through the brambles and brush.

I carefully scrambled down from the horse-apple tree.
But, even though I was careful, one of the three-inch-long thorns still caught
my top as I made my way from limb to limb. It tore the fabric and sent a streak
of stinging pain through me. I jumped down, holding my side.

The woman rushed over, set her towel-covered basket on
the ground, and knelt beside me. “You all right?”

An angry scratch leaked droplets of blood from my hip to
my ribcage. I dashed the tears escaping from my eyes. “I’m okay.”

Her kind eyes were the bluest I’d ever seen. “Darlin’,
that doesn’t look okay to me. Let’s tell your momma, so she can fix you up.”

She turned toward the rickety front steps.

I latched onto her hand, pulling her to a stop. “No. No.
Momma’s not home right now. I know where the bandages are, I’ll fetch one.”

She narrowed her eyes for a moment. “Well, I’ll admit,
I’ve been watching the road for your momma or daddy to get home. I want to
introduce myself to my new neighbors. And not thirty minutes ago, I saw that
brown car right there pull into your driveway. You sure your momma’s not home?
Maybe your daddy’s here.”

Busted.

I stood to my fullest height, five-foot-four the last
time Buck got out his Pop’s tape measure. I looked her in the eye and swallowed
the lump forming in my throat. “I lied. I’m sorry. Momma’s home, but she’s
sleeping and doesn’t like to be woke up. I ain’t got no daddy.”

“Next time, just tell me the truth. If we’re going to be
friends, friends don’t lie to each other.”

I bit my bottom lip, twisting my fingers behind me as I
nodded.

She offered her hand. “I’m Delores Dubois. And you are?”

I placed my hand in hers. “Lou.”

“Well, I’m just tickled to meet you, Lou.”

She went home, but returned a few minutes later with some
ointment and bandages.

After she fixed me up, I said, “Thank you. Momma woulda
whooped me good. She’s told me not to climb that tree at least a hundred times.”

She patted my cheek. “Then why climb that one? Especially
when there are so many other good climbing trees around?”

I shrugged. “I like that tree, it’s the safest.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she laughed. “I don’t think so.
Look at your side, Young’un. How can you say it’s the safest?”

“No one would ever follow me up it. I like to practice,
just in case I ever need to get away from someone.”

She nodded as though she understood.

We sat under the weeping willow and ate muffins. She told me
about her husband, Manny, and how they’d bought the old McIntire place that sat
between us and the Buckners’. She made me laugh at the stories she told about
her nieces and nephews. Then she invited me to visit any time I wanted.

Delores Dubois was the second person who ever made me feel
important.

Buck was the
first
.

As though materializing from my thoughts, Buck steps around
the corner of the ramshackle trailer house.

He stops, a perplexed expression on his face.

I ask, “What?”

He shakes his head as he crosses the overgrown yard to me.
“Nothing, I just wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

“Oh? You mean you weren’t
stalking
me?”

“Fuck, Lou. You have the lowest possible opinion of me about
everything
, don’t you?”

I cross my arms. “Pretty much. It didn’t exactly help that
you went all caveman on me at the club—”

“Okay, maybe I was out of line—
maybe
.”

“And then you thought you could just come over and slink
your way into my bed.”

He lets out a loud huff. “Well, you left me with a raging
case of blue balls, so I think we’re even.”

My eyes narrow and I poke him in the chest to emphasize each
word I spit. “I left you?
I
left YOU? You left me first.”

“What the fuck? I wasn’t going to leave. I got you off and
was planning to do it again, and again.”

“I’m not talking about last night, you jackass. For months I
fucking waited for you to miss me. To call me. To
come back
to me.
There’s no way in fucking hell you didn’t deserve every excruciating second of
blue balls you had last night, and then some. A whole lot more of some. You got
into my pants and couldn’t wait to take off the very next day.”

Tears prick the backs of my eyes. “You and I made love that
last night. I was naïve enough to think it would make you want to stay. But I
guess it meant something different to you than it did for me. And since then,
I’ve seen you all over the gossip shows and in the fucking papers with a new
girl every week—fuck, almost every day. Looks like
hit it and quit it
is
your MO. So I guess I’m no different than any of them.”

The muscle ticks at his jaw. “Those girls all knew the
score. I didn’t lead any of them on. I
didn’t
lead you on. You and I had
planned for things to go just the way they did for
months
.”

He grabs my hand, yanking me to him, circling my waist with
his other arm. “You were supposed to be heading to college.
Supposed
to
be starting a new life. Moving on. Getting out. Both of us were.”

I look away. “Well, I didn’t go to school, and you never
called. But I did get out. You did too. So I guess none of it matters now
anyway.”

“It matters to me. I did what I did to help you. I never
meant for it to hurt you. Never.”

I push out of his embrace. “Well, it did.”

Tugging my T-shirt into place, I limp toward the tree line.

“Shit. I’m sorry about your ankle, Lou.”

I shrug. “I’ve had worse injuries. Pain is just weakness
leaving the body, right?”

Ever since the first time I heard that saying, I’ve wondered
if that includes pain of the soul? If so, mine must be made of steel, forged in
the fires of suffering and heartbreak.

He takes several strides to catch up with me. “Can we start
over? I want to be friends. I’ve missed you, Lou.”

I stop, putting my hand flat on his chest, halting him. “
Friends
?
Yeah, that worked out so well for me the last time. Look, I’m not going to fuck
you or anything else, Buck. So run along. I’m just not interested.”

His jaw drops a fraction, but he recovers quickly. “You
know, maybe I’m not as bad as you’ve convinced yourself I am. Maybe—damn it,
Lou—maybe I
do
want to fuck you. Is that so wrong?”

ELEVEN

I can’t win for fucking losing with her.

Lou backs away, throwing her hands in the air as she turns.
“Whatever. Look, I’ve got to get off this ankle so it will be good to go by
tomorrow. I start my new job and I need to be ready. And I sure as hell need
the money more than I need to stand here talking to you, because
that
doesn’t
pay.”

She stalks away, leaving me with my dick in the dirt again.

Fuck.

I head back toward home.

When I step out of the trees onto our side of the property
line, Thug Two waits, arms crossed, frown firmly in place.

“Fuck, man. I hired
you
—why is it I that feel like a
kid who just got caught sneaking out?”

He shrugs.

Thug One appears out of the dark. “Hey, Boss. It would
really help if you’d let us know where you’re going.”

I wave him off as I trudge toward the house.

Thug One jogs to catch up. “Sir. You should know, I just
warned the paparazzi to keep their distance. I caught one with a telephoto lens
slinking along the fence at the road.”

The first couple of times you catch paparazzi taking photos,
it’s a little exciting, flattering even. The eightieth time you find them
lurking around, willing to cross all socially acceptable lines, trying their
damnedest to get a shot of your cock hanging out when you take a leak at the
corner of the house, or a picture of your bare ass on a private beach that you
paid huge amounts of money to rent just so you
could
run around naked
if
you want to—not so flattering, not so exciting.

Now it just pisses me off when they follow me. Find me.
Stalk me.

I thought I knew the price of fame—no one gets it until they
are
famous, but by then it’s too late.

* * *

I let myself in through the backdoor, holding my breath,
hoping Tuffy doesn’t start barking his fool head off. As I creep through the
kitchen, only the ancient clock on the wall acknowledges my presence with its
tick-tick-tick keeping time with each step I take.

Tuffy’s getting old. Must be going deaf, poor boy.

I round the corner and a shock of white shining in the pitch
darkness of the hallway pulls me up short.

“Tuff, what’re you doing?” I kneel to take his fluffy head
in my hands, scratching him behind his velveteen ears the way he always liked.

He sits, his back leg scratching at my hand as he grunts and
groans, pushing his ear against my palm. He rolls to the floor, presenting his
belly for a scratch. His soft fur is about as well-kept as Nan’s silvered hair—of
course, considering they both visit their respective hairdressers every other
week, it’s not surprising.

He lets out a whine and a little yodel.

“Shush. You’ll wake Pops and Nan.” I drop to my ass and pull
Tuffy’s head into my lap. “At least you smell better than the day we found
you.”

Lou and I walked along Silo Road, picking up cans. She
needed—what was it? Oh, a new backpack for school. Nan tried to give her one of
my old ones, but her momma wouldn’t have it. Said she wasn’t taking charity
from snotty bitches who look down their noses on her. As far as I could tell,
Nan never did any such thing, but that was Lou’s mom.

Lou and I figured if we earned the money by recycling
aluminum cans, that wasn’t charity.

We dragged our half-full garbage bags of cans through the
grass as we trudged along the side of the road, the sun beating down on us. A
whimper is followed by laughter.

Lou didn’t hesitate. She plunged off through the trees,
following the sound.

We dropped our bags a few yards into the woods, jumping
over brambles and brush as we went deeper. I almost ran Lou over when she
stopped. I grabbed her shoulders, and we stumbled to the edge of the line of
trees.

Lonnie Fisher laughed as he pitched a rock at a
sad-looking lump of fur huddled on the creek bank, half in and half out of the
water. The pup yelped when the stone struck its back leg. Its eyes darted from
Lonnie to Darren Bledsoe standing on the far side of it, then at the creek
rushing behind it.

Lonnie, a sophomore, was a year older and still bigger
than me. He was a helluva lot bigger than Lou. But that didn’t slow her one
bit. Before I could get hold of her, she thrashed through the last clump of
weeds, rushing Lonnie. He never saw her coming.

With both hands, she shoved him into the creek. “You big
bully!”

Darren pointed at Lonnie, laughing like an idiot.

I pushed Lou behind me. “Get the dog, Lou. Let’s go.”

Lou ran to the pup. “I got you. It’s gonna be okay.”

Darren stepped into the water, like he was going to stop
her from taking the puppy. She waded to him and jumped a bit like she was going
to head butt him, faking him out. He fell on his ass with a splash.

She nodded. “Good. Stay there.”

Lonnie dragged himself to the bank, muddy to his elbows,
his eyes hard as stones. “You can’t leave with that dog. He’s mine.”

Lou turned her body, as though shielding the sopping pup
from Lonnie. “No, he’s not. You don’t deserve him.”

Lonnie climbed from the creek, dripping and red in the
face. “You little bitch whore—just like your momma.”

My fist balled and my gut hardened.

“Lou, run.” I glared at Lonnie. “Don’t talk to her that
way.”

He laughed. “Oh, and what are you gonna do about it? Her
momma’s a whore and Loula Mae’s gonna be the same thing. Everybody knows it.
Maybe someday I’ll make her
my
whore.”

I jumped at Lonnie, taking my best shot at his face.

He grabbed my shoulders and tried to throw me aside. I
dug in my heels, gripping his arms and wrestling him to the ground. But he
managed to flip me over and punched me in the eye. Pain flared through my
brain.

I managed to get him off me and stand. We exchanged a few
more punches before he got in another headshot, knocking my scrawny ass to the
ground. Lonnie and Darren ran after Lou.

I staggered up and darted into the woods after them. I
ran and ran until my side hurt and my lungs burned. But I couldn’t find Lou
anywhere.

I eventually sat on a stump, head in my hands.

God, please don’t let Lonnie find her.

A few minutes after I gave up, a whisper floated to me on
the breeze. “Buck. Buck. Look.”

I turned this way and that, trying to find her, but still
I couldn’t see her. A little branch bounced off my leg. I twisted to see where
it came from. There she was, up a tree, grinning like a possum eatin’ peaches. She
waved at me with the puppy’s paw.

I stood.

She tucked the pup under one arm and worked her way down
the limbs.

She dropped the last few feet, rolling into the leaves,
puppy sprawling over her belly. When it licked her chin, she giggled and
reached for my hand, pulling me down to join them.

I edge out from under Tuffy.

He lets out a small whine, his tail thumping the hardwood
floor.

I step over him and head to my room. Too bad Lou’s never
half as happy to see me as she is to see Tuffy.

A throat clearing behind me pulls me up short. “Buck?”

“Yeah, Pops?” I reach around the door frame and switch on
the light.

Pops holds out a handful of yellow sticky notes. “Someone
named Adrianne keeps calling.”

I clench my teeth. “You mean Arianne.”

“Adrianne—Arianne, whichever. She really wants to talk to
you. Must’ve called here at least thirty times today.”

“Fuck.”

“Who is she?” Pops scratches his forehead.

“Arianne is…lesson one-oh-one in
don’t mess around with
the producer’s daughter
.”

If I’d known when I met her that she’d be so clingy, I’d
have skipped that pussy. Problem is, I didn’t know, and now I’m stuck between
my dick and a hard place because she doesn’t want to retract her claws and let
me loose. No matter what I tell her.

“So, someone you shouldn’t have taken out?”

“Met her on set, the movie before last. Didn’t really know
who she was when we first…”—fucked—“went out. But it didn’t take long to figure
out she was the producer’s daughter. He’d brought her along because she’d never
been to Italy.”

“And you two didn’t hit it off?” He quirks an eyebrow.

“
She
thinks we did. Now, I’m fucked, because there’s
a leading role I’m trying to land with Razor Wire Productions, who her daddy
now works for—correction, her daddy now runs. Hazards of working in a small
industry.”

He tucks the stack of messages into my hand, folding my
fingers over them. “Well, good luck with that, Son.”

I nod. “Thanks, Pops.”

Good luck. I need more than luck to get rid of this
particular boil on my ass.

The phone vibrates in the seat next to me. I pull into the
parking space and pick it up.

I slide my finger across the screen. “Stephens. What the
hell are you up to?”

“Hiya, Fontaine. I haven’t heard from you since you left.
Thought I’d see what my favorite Marine’s been up to.”

“Shit. I was never your favorite, just the one you never
bagged.”

He chuckles. “All right, you got me. But I always liked you,
even though you never sucked my cock.”

“You have to have a cock to get sucked, Stephens.”

“Man! Still busting balls.” I can hear his grin through the
phone.

“Some things will never change. Hey, I’ve got to go. What
did you need?”

“Well, my buddy Russell and I are taking a road trip. We
both took two weeks leave, and we’re going to Florida. You’re in Louisiana,
right?”

“You stopping in to see me?”                  

“Fuck yeah, we are!”

“Text me the deets. I’ll try to make sure I’m off work for a
day or two.”

“So, you don’t mind my friend crashing at your place too?”

“I’ll have to check with my Aunt. It’s really her place, but
I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Oohrah. Let me know if there’s any problem. Otherwise, I’ll
see you then.”

“Sounds good.” I hang up, smiling.

It’ll be good to hang with Stephens again, and this Russell
guy—I don’t know him, but he’s a Marine. Marines are my people. I’ve missed my
people.

Why the fuck did I get out? Maybe I should re-enlist.

Doesn’t matter right this second though. That’s a decision
for another time. Today, I have to do what needs to be done to help Aunt
Delores right now. No matter how much I hate the thought.

I suck in a deep breath, knowing this is stepping backward,
right into the role that everyone I grew up around expected me to play all
along. My stomach turns inside out.

Well, fuck them. They can just kiss my ass. I’ll take care
of those I love, no matter what.
That’s
the thing that separates me from
my mother.