When he grabbed my shoulder gently and spun me around, I didn’t even fight it. I just let him maneuver me until we were standing almost nose to nose. Whatever he saw in my expression must have caused the reign on his temper to dissolve, because within a second, he was tossing his beer bottle across the room where it shattered against the living room wall.
I didn’t even flinch at the movement.
“Where the fuck have you been, Callie?” he roared in my face, searching my eyes and obviously not finding what he was looking for.
“I went for a drive.”
“You went for a drive?” he parroted.
“Yeah. I went for a drive,” I answered him, my voice never changing from the monotone I’d used since I walked through the door. I crossed my arms under my breasts and his eyes shifted down my body, taking me in.
“What the hell are you wearing?”
He frowned at me, taking in my hard-soled slippers and flannel pajama pants before coming to rest on my breasts. His jaw was clenched, but the veins in his neck had disappeared, indicating that he’d calmed down a little.
“I’m wearing the same thing I was wearing when you pushed me out the door,” I reminded him, refusing to meet his eyes. I was so exhausted after the hours in the car and the emotional drain of the evening that I didn’t even have the energy to give him the fight he was so obviously looking for. I just wanted to go to bed.
“What?” he whispered in disbelief.
My eyes snapped up to his, but the apology I saw in them wasn’t enough for me.
“I tried to find a sweatshirt or something in the car, but there wasn’t anything in there,” I told him quietly, the bravado I’d been feeling finally leaving me. I crossed my arms higher on my chest, blocking my breasts from view like I’d done as I’d picked up the groceries at the store that night, my cheeks flushing a little as I remembered the cashier’s leering gaze.
I tried to step away from him, but his hand slid up my shoulder and behind my neck effectively holding me in place.
“Baby…” he whispered gently, trying to pull me forward into his chest.
“I just want to get some sleep, okay?” I told him, finally pulling out of his reach. “It’s been a long night.” I shook my head once and then moved toward the hallway. “I got you some TV dinners that you like. I wasn’t sure if you’d had dinner.”
I heard him make a noise in the back of his throat, but I didn’t turn around. I kept walking toward our bedroom, only pausing for a second when I heard his fist punch the kitchen wall.
He didn’t come to bed for another hour; I knew because I hadn’t been able to fall asleep. I’d been so tired when I got home that I could barely keep my eyes open, but the minute I’d crawled under the blankets, I was wide awake.
I didn’t know how to navigate this new territory we were entering. Our interactions had always consisted of me cowering in his shadow, and now that I knew I couldn’t count on him for protection, the entire situation had tilted on its axis. I couldn’t trust that he would protect me—that was clear. But it wasn’t as if I had completely stopped trusting him. I knew that he would do his best to live up to his promises; however, I could no longer lean on him for my security. I had to find my own security.
In order to do that, I had to distance myself from him as much as I could.
I tensed when I heard him crawl into bed next to me. I wasn’t sure if I should tell him that I was awake, or pretend to sleep so I didn’t have to deal with anything else that night. But when he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled my back against his front, he must have known I was awake, because he started speaking in a quiet voice aching with apology.
“God, Sugar,” he groaned into my shoulder, “I shouldn’t have pushed you outta the house like that.”
“It’s okay,” I told him, even though we both knew it wasn’t.
“No. I fucked up.” His head shook briefly. “I just wanted you to use that fuckin’ car I bought you. I wanted you to get outta the house by yourself, so I knew you could do it when I left. Do you understand? You gotta be able to stand on your own two feet, Callie—I’m not gonna be here most of the time, and you have to be able to fend for yourself.” He squeezed his arm around my waist and kissed my neck as if the whole episode was over.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that. Thank you? Please throw me out of the house in pajamas again the next time you need toilet paper? All is forgiven?
I settled on the safest bet and whispered, “I understand,” before closing my eyes and trying to relax my body.
But I didn’t fall asleep for hours.
Because I didn’t understand.
Chapter 27
Callie
I woke up the next morning ready to put the whole mess behind me. A good night’s rest had always helped me put things in perspective. I was already feeling stronger as I got out of bed and got ready for the day. I should’ve known that I was going to have to suck it up and take care of myself at some point, and I probably would have figured it out for myself, but the hardest part of the night before was having that truth thrown in my face without warning. I hadn’t had time to prepare.
I ran it over and over in my head as I took a shower, and by the time I was drying off, I knew that Grease had been right. The fact that he was leaving was something that I’d pushed to the back of my mind so I didn’t have to deal with it. We only had days left before he had to leave, and if I made myself think logically, I knew that I had only been postponing the inevitable.
I really was on my own.
It was silly to depend on him for everything.
We were going to one of his friend’s houses for a barbeque that day and I was a little nervous about it. I wasn’t afraid, I knew Grease wouldn’t put me in danger, but the thought of meeting a bunch of new people who knew I was living with him was disconcerting. I didn’t want them to think I was taking advantage of him.
The morning passed uneventfully while I puttered around the house sorting laundry and washing dishes. I’d expected there to be tension or something when I woke him up but there wasn’t. It was like every other day we’d been together, except for the fact that I didn’t let myself stay near him too long. I didn’t want to come across as needy again, so for the most part, I stayed out of his way.
As I walked through the apartment, I could feel his puzzled gaze on me, but he never said a word, so I just smiled whenever we made eye contact. I hoped that he was noticing my change in demeanor. I wanted him to realize that I wasn’t going to hang on him anymore. First, I wanted him to know I got the message and second, I needed to ensure that he wouldn’t kick me out for real the next time.
We were getting ready to step out the door when I realized I couldn’t find my phone in my purse. I ran back into our room without saying a word, but I couldn’t see it anywhere so I called out for help.
“Grease, have you seen my phone?” I bellowed, flipping the comforter and sheets down the bed in case it had fallen between them.
I was just about to kneel down on the floor to check under the bed when he walked into the room and the air felt electric.
“You don’t call me Grease,” he told me adamantly, meeting my eyes from the doorway.
“What?”
“You don’t call me Grease. You call me Asa,” he answered, stepping into the room. “You and your grandmother are the only people on this earth who do.”
I wasn’t sure what the big deal was, so I just nodded my head and started looking for the phone again. I’d dropped to my knees on the floor and was starting to bend over to look under the bed when I heard him curse behind me and lift me up by my armpits.
He tossed me on the bed and I bounced once before coming to a stop with his body covering mine.
“I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m saying to you. You’re the only one who calls me by the name my mother gave me, Callie. The only one. You say it when you’re frustrated, and when you think something’s funny, and whe
n you’re coming all over my hands.”
My breath caught at the fire in his eyes, and as he shifted against me, my heart started to race.
“You can be pissed as hell at me, call me a dick or an asshole. You can scream at me, throw shit, and stomp around the house.” He nuzzled my neck as he spoke, and my hands lifted involuntarily to his hair to anchor him to me.
“But if I hear you call me Grease again, I’m going to spank your ass,” he whispered, gripping one of my ass cheeks in his hand to force my hips into his.
God, I’d been thinking and overthinking things in my head for the last twelve hours, and all I wanted to do in that moment was get lost in him again. I wanted to get to that place where the only thing that mattered was where his body was pressing against mine. I made a noise and tilted my head back to give him easier access to my throat, but it didn’t give me the response I was looking for. Instead, he planted one of his fists on the bed and used his other hand to pull his phone from his back pocket. He flipped it open and pushed a button, never looking away from my face, and I felt my breathing speed up as he started to slowly rock his hips into mine.
“Hey, man. We’re not gonna make it today,” he growled into the phone, his voice deep and guttural. “Got some other shit that came up… yeah, I’ll let you know.”
He closed his phone with a snap, and I heard it thud against the carpet as he threw it off the bed, but I was too busy looking at him to see where it landed. He leaned back onto his knees and was pushing my shirt up my stomach, licking and biting at me on every inch he exposed. When I finally had enough of his teasing, I reached down and tore it off, going for his vest next and pushing it off his shoulders.
We wrestled and rolled until our clothes were strewn across the bed and my chest was heaving with exertion. Asa was a huge guy. I knew he allowed me to push him around the bed because he easily weighed a hundred pounds more than I did. But he let me scratch and bite at him, taking everything I gave him as my frustrations poured out of me. His skin turned red across his chest, and there were fingernail marks covering the length of his back where I’d scratched him as he kissed me. I’d also left a fat hickey on his neck and a bite mark on his shoulder—almost as if I was marking my territory.
We ended upside-down on the bed, my bare feet sliding under our pillows, but he made no move to right us. He was too busy staring between my legs as his fingers rubbed and pulled and pinched at my flesh. His eyes were so dark they looked almost black, and his eyebrows were furrowed in concentration as he suddenly stopped, causing me to whine out my annoyance.
“What’s my name?” he asked me gruffly, moving his hips back as I tried to reach him.
“Huh?” I was in a fog of arousal and didn’t understand why he was talking instead of touching me.
“Who am I, Callie?” he asked again, rubbing his fingers softly across my skin. “What do you call me?”
“Asa!” I cried out as his fingers finally hit the spot where I needed him.
“That’s right, Sugar. Say it again,” he demanded as his fingers started up a rhythm that had me squirming.
“Asa. Asa. Asa,” I murmured over and over. I didn’t care at that point; he could’ve asked me to call him Sergei the Snake and I probably would have screamed it.
By the time I came back down from my orgasm, he’d shifted us on the bed so we were cuddled under the blankets. It took me a few minutes before I realized that he hadn’t come. Normally, when we were messing around, I’d use either my hands or my body to get him off, but I’d been so blissed out I hadn’t even tried. I reached down to the waistband of his boxers, running my nails across his skin the way I knew he liked, but before I could dip my hand inside, he grabbed my wrist and pulled it back up between our chests.
“It’s fine, Callie,” he told me sleepily, “that one was all yours.”
I lay there for a few minutes thinking over his words when I finally decided to ask him a question that had been bothering me for days.
“Why won’t you have sex with me?”
He choked a little from surprise, and then situated himself more comfortably next to me with his arm curled up under his pillow.
“We’ve had this conversation,” he told me bluntly, closing his eyes as if to end it.
“Yeah, but that was before. We’re practically having sex already, what’s the big deal?” I asked. His logic was completely asinine in my opinion, and I was wondering how he would try to explain it.
“Callie,” he huffed out in annoyance, but when he opened his eyes and saw how serious I was, his expression changed. “It’s gonna happen. Probably sooner than later. But, fuck, I’m leaving in two days. You’re gonna have a hard enough time with me gone, living your own life and going to school and shit. I’m not gonna take it all and then leave you, baby.”
“Pfft! You act like I’m asking you to marry me or something. Don’t act like you don’t sleep with chicks and then bail all the freaking time,” I scowled back, completely irritated with his explanation.
“You and I are different.”
“What the heck does that mean?” I raised myself up on one arm and had to push his face up to look at me when he seemed to be mesmerized by the breast that was peeking out of the blankets.
“It means that you’re living in my house and sleeping in my bed. Those other bitches aren’t relationships, and I don’t give a flying fuck what they think about. I don’t care before I hit it, and I sure as hell don’t care after.”
My jaw dropped.
“That’s a dick thing to say!” I exclaimed, my eyebrows practically touching my hairline in surprise. “What the hell?”
“Callie, don’t look at me like that, Sugar,” he scowled, “those chicks know the score. Not one of them is looking for a happily ever after, and when I’m with them I treat ‘em with respect.”
“Oh, yeah. You sure sound respectful.”
“Like I said, they know from the beginning they’re only getting one thing.” He sighed in exasperation, “How the hell did we get on this conversation?”
“I was asking why you wouldn’t fuck me, even though apparently, there are loads of women that you will.”
“Baby, I ain’t looking at nobody but you. Alright?” he said as he leaned forward to give me a soft peck on the lips. “But we’re waiting until I get back.”
I lay there silently as he fell asleep and thought over what he’d said. I knew logically that he was trying to look out for me, to keep things as easy as possible as I made my transition to living alone.
I was just afraid with the unspecified status of our relationship; he wouldn’t have a problem with having sex with someone he didn’t care about.
I was suddenly glad that I left reminders of me all over his body.
Chapter 28
Callie
Asa left me for the first time on a Monday morning.
We’d spent the weekend lying around the house, watching Westerns and debating music. Yes, Westerns. I’d been expecting the old-fashioned John Wayne movies, and there were a few of those, but he’d also introduced me to Lonesome Dove and Tombstone. Those two had me at the edge of my seat, giggling and biting my nails. The longer we watched, with Asa’s running commentary, the more I realized that he didn’t watch them for the men in the white hats—he identified with the men in black.
A few of his friends stopped by the house on Sunday, introducing themselves as Echo, Chucky, and Michael. Asa seemed more relaxed around them; it was a side of him that I’d never seen before. He laughed more often. It was a quiet rumble, but it was there, and it was a beautiful sound.
Their visit also seemed to make him breathe a sigh of relief. He was worried about leaving me on my own, and I knew that it was causing him to lie awake at night while we both pretended we were sleeping. I wouldn’t have known the extent of his worry without witnessing his relief when it eased a little. He’d wanted to be sure that I had people in my corner when he left, and he’d set out to make sure that happened.
br /> They were all rough around the edges, and no one I’d want to meet in a dark alley, but my association with Asa made them treat me as if I were one of them. After sizing me up for the first thirty minutes of their visit, they’d relaxed into a type of big brother mentality, teasing and joking with me as if they’d known me for years.
But none of them ever touched me. Not even to put a hand on my shoulder or to brush past me on their way to the kitchen.
It was almost blissful, those last couple of days, and I could have lived that way forever.
But reality had a way of reaching out and pinching you—a sharp reminder to pay attention.
I woke up Monday morning to Asa tracing his fingers over my back, running them down to where my sleep shorts rested on my hips and back up to the nape of my neck. I lay there for a minute, dreading the day, and pretending to sleep. I didn’t want him to leave.
He didn’t let me play possum for long, though, and as he rasped that he knew I was awake, he tilted his head and bit the side of my neck. It instantly made my blood run faster in my veins and I tried to roll over to face him, but instead he wrapped his arm around my hips and pulled me in against him so we were spooning.
“Don’t wanna get outta this bed,” he grumbled into my neck, his hand sliding up my torso until he was holding one breast in his palm. “Don’t wanna leave you.”
He continued to run his hands over my body as I bit my tongue so I didn’t beg him to stay. I’d tried to get him to move in with me permanently, but the conversation hadn’t ended well and I hadn’t brought it up again. He was loyal to the men in Eugene and couldn’t imagine moving away from them—and he got pissed whenever I’d mentioned it. Also, I was trying to be less needy. I didn’t want him changing his mind about me because I didn’t get my shit together, so instead, I hid it.
I hid the fact that I wanted him near me every second, I hid that leaving the house alone still terrified me, and I hid the fact that I was afraid the minute he left, I’d finally break into a million pieces.