Damaged Goods

“Not usually, no. You’re the exception to a lot of my usuals.” Will pressed a kiss into the corner of my mouth.

  “How about I be the exception after round two?” My fingers were already curling into his back.

  He still lay unmoving inside me, but he didn’t stay unmoving for much longer though. “Like I promised you when it came to tonight.” His pace this time was slower, deeper, more purposeful.

  I sighed and gave my mind over to my body.

  “You lead. I’ll follow.”

  THE ONLY REASON I knew it was close to sunrise was because of the way I felt. Like the magic spell would be broken at first light, and the night I’d shared with Will Goods would be lost to those places in our minds where reality is obscured into fiction until one day we woke up, unable to recall if that memory was real or imagined.

  Everything I’d felt all night had been real. Every touch. Every emotion. Everything had been real. I was so sure of it right now, as I rested curled in Will’s arms after our latest encounter. I’d lost count some time after three¸ and all I could say was thank goodness for the box of condoms I’d purchased a few weeks ago at the grocery store on a whim, hidden on top of the curio where the only person who’d ever find them would be the one who actually cleaned the top of the curio—aka me. If it hadn’t been for that small miracle, Will and I would have been forced to get creative . . . at least even more creative than we already had been with the human body and several of the positions we’d worked our way into during our crazed, seemingly insatiable night of sex.

  I wasn’t sure who deserved the sexual endurance award more: me, a woman who’s been lucky to even achieve climax during half of her prior attempts, for managing to reach the level of orgasm I had again and again . . . and again; or Will for managing to stay so . . . committed every time. As far as commitment came, at least in those terms, Will had set the bar.

  “Liv?” His voice was back to normal. It was maybe a little hoarse from the amount of cries he’d muffled into the pillow we were presently sharing, but it wasn’t ragged from nearing or just achieving climax. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that?”

  I loved the simpleness of his question—the directness of it. Will didn’t play the games like so many of our peers did. He didn’t hide his true meaning behind a statement or the real question he wanted to ask behind the one he verbalized.

  “I don’t know, Will. I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Just give me a few days to figure it out, okay?” My answer might not have been the one he was hoping for—if he was hoping for a certain answer at all—but in holding to Will’s truthful nature, I went with the same trend.

  Will’s arm tightened around my neck gently as he drew my face toward him. He kissed my forehead and took a few long breaths, seeming to breathe a piece of me inside him with each one. “Whatever you need. However long you need.” Another kiss, followed by one more long breath. “You know where to find me.”

  “Oh, I know where to find you, all right.” I scooted somehow closer to him, brushed the tip of my nose along his neck, and committed his scent to memory. Not just any scent—it was the way he smelled after tonight, after being with me. After being with me in every way a man could be, but no man before him had been. It was a night of so many firsts that I’d lost count. “Beside me. On a living room floor scattered with old blankets, pillows, and our clothes lost somewhere in the fray. If I believed in bliss, I might even add blissfully happy.”

  Will’s mouth was still resting against my forehead, so I felt his smile curve into place. “See? I told you that you knew where to find me. And you don’t have to believe in bliss to feel it, Liv. It’s kind of like the wind. You don’t have to believe in it to feel it either. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s real.”

  Now I was smiling. “That orgasm coma must finally be wearing off if you’re back to your old philosophical self.”

  “What I’ve got for you, what I just experienced with you . . . ” Will huffed, shaking his head a few times. “Even if I lived five lifetimes, it wouldn’t be close to wearing off. Never. Ever.”

  I’d never felt it before, but the only thing I could compare what I was feeling to was a fluttering heart. “You’ve got a way with words, you know that?” I’d no more than said it when I realized something else. “You know, you’ve got a way with your body too.” And then I remembered something else. “You’ve got a way with your selfless heart and heroic soul too. So let me rephrase that . . .” I cleared my throat. “You, Will Goods, have got quite a way, you know that? Every last thing about you has got quite a way.” I knew no other way to phrase it. There was no other way I could express the human saint on steroids Will Goods was. I should have felt inadequate—comparing what he was to what I was—but instead, I felt quite the opposite. Almost as if his goodness was transient. Almost as if it was something to aspire to.

  God, what a little bit of wall lowering and a hell of a lot of mind numbing, dumbing, and blowing sex could do to change my thinking. It hadn’t changed my thinking totally, or in a one-eighty kind of way, but it had managed to remove the gray, tainted film I’d been filtering all of my thoughts through.

  “So?” Will asked as he tossed a blanket over our entwined bodies. “What is your favorite food?”

  I laughed out loud and didn’t try to stop either. If neither of my sisters had stirred after what had gone down earlier, they certainly wouldn’t wake from a laugh. “Picking up right where we left off? Five, six, or seven climaxes ago?”

  “I’m a man of commitment and resolve. I don’t let anything, five or six or seven—or I think I actually counted eight—climaxes included, detour me for too long or far.”

  Eight? That seemed impossible, but Will seemed like the kind of person who could actually manage to keep a tally during the all-night sexcapade that had turned my brains into jelly. Eight times? Damn, that explained why I felt so sore down there.

  “Waiting,” Will added after a few more seconds.

  I rolled my eyes, but I knew better than to go up against the man’s persistence. My sore muscles, along with other sore . . . things, and jellified brain could attest to how futile an effort that was. “Spaghetti and meatballs. There, now that you have my answer, what are you going to do with that titillating piece of information?”

  “Spaghetti and meatballs, eh? Nice pick. Solid, solid choice,” Will said in an appraising tone. “What kind? Any kind, or a special kind, like the kind they serve in some fancy restaurant back in California?”

  “The kind my mom used to make.” That got out before I knew it was coming. I couldn’t decide what to be more concerned about—that I’d just referred to Kitty as Mom, or that I’d openly admitted my favorite food was the spaghetti and meatballs she used to make every Friday night before the bad boyfriends and drugs really worked their way into her system.

  If Will was thrown by my answer or as surprised by it as I was, he didn’t demonstrate it. “Homemade noodles?”

  I shook my head. “Store bought. Whatever was on sale.”

  “Homemade sauce?”

  Another shake. “Again, whatever was on sale. The only thing homemade were the meatballs.” For some God-forsaken reason, I was about to get teary talking about some lame dinner Kitty used to cook back when she remembered that three little girls needed regular meals and care. If there were some kind of alternate universe, I’d just found myself smack in the center of it.

  “Those must have been some amazing meatballs,” he said, his voice softer as his hand went from sliding through my hair to rubbing my back.

  It was a measure of comfort I hadn’t known I’d needed until it had been given and received.

  “Why do you keep people at arm’s length?” His question flowed naturally and seamlessly into our conversation.

  My answer came the same way. “How do you know I do?”

  I could almost hear the birds chirping as the sun thought about making its reappearance. Our moment was about to slip away, and I wasn’t sure if
I deserved another. I wasn’t sure if what I’d just experienced with Will Goods was going to be the best life ever offered me. That thought made me sad, yet thankful because at least I’d had one. I’d had a high point, and it was one I could identify with unreserved certainty.

  “Fine. Why do you keep me at arm’s length?” he modified.

  We’d started the night with honesty; we’d filled in the rest of the night with the same . . . I would end it that way. “Because I’m scared.”

  “Scared of what?” His voice held the slightest undercurrent of desperation. He knew, as I did, that morning was coming, and it would stop for no one. Two lovers trying to navigate this world in the daylight were no exception.

  “Scared of becoming weak. Scared of becoming chained down. Scared of feeling too much. Scared of feeling too little.” I sucked in a tiny breath and braved the last part of the trip into the dark layers of my soul. “Scared of becoming my mom.”

  Will pulled me tighter until I couldn’t be any closer. “Your mom didn’t get to be the way she is because she let too many people inside, Liv. Your mom became who she is because she made poor choices and handed control of her life over to the drugs.” His words were hard, yet his voice was gentle.

  “Kitty is who she is because she’s weak.”

  I hadn’t talked about Kitty in weeks, at least not other than cursing her name or saying she was still on “extended vacation” when the random person in town asked. Bringing her up in such an intimate way, after experiencing the very definition of intimacy with Will, made talking about her easier . . . but also harder. Easier, because all of my defenses were down. I could talk about Kitty without the usual chip on my shoulder I carried into every conversation bordering on her. Harder, also, because my defenses were down. The pain of growing up as one of her daughters was much sharper without the numbing agent of ten-foot thick walls. The wounds seemed fresh, raw, gaping. I wanted them sealed back up, but I knew what would be required to seal them up, and I wasn’t ready for Will’s and my moment to come to an end. Not yet.

  “Even if that’s the case, what are you so worried about?” Will asked, interrupting my thoughts. “You’re strong. You’re so strong, and you don’t even see it.” This time, his hard words matched his voice. He obviously wanted me to catch every word of what he was saying because he spoke straight into my ear. “I’ve met strong people, witnessed plenty of heroic deeds, but you, Liv Bennett, you coming back to the place you hate more than anything else to take care of your two sisters who had no one else—their own mother included—is the bravest, single most selfless thing I’ve seen yet. And don’t you dare call me a liar, because I never have and never will lie to you. Never.”

  If I weren’t dangerously close to shedding some serious tears, I would have offered him a verbal reply. Since words were pretty much impossible to form at that point, I just nodded. I couldn’t even manage to do that without sniffling.

  After a few minutes of silence and several attempts to swallow the lump that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in my throat, I chanced a few words. “Sometimes I worry that all the bad things I’ve been around . . . all the bad I’ve seen . . .”—I swallowed that lump threatening to make its reappearance—“has worked its way so far inside me it’s become who I am. Or at least who I’m fighting nature to not be.”

  Will sighed. Not out of exasperation, but almost out of . . . sadness. “My mom told me a lot of things growing up, pre-pink elephant sightings. Most went in one ear and out the other, but a thing or two stuck every now and again.” His hand stopped rubbing my back and settled on the small of it. “We’re all born with some bad inside us. And we’re all born with some good too. A person doesn’t decide which of those has the greater force over them by trying to suffocate the one they don’t want to be. They’re both innate. They’re both always a part of us. A person gets to decide who they’d rather be by growing the one they want to direct their lives. You can’t choke out the bad inside you, Liv. I know you want to and think you can, but it’s impossible. Instead, embrace the good. Grow that. Feed it until the good towers a thousand miles over the bad.” Will sucked in a breath before continuing. “Here’s something my mom didn’t tell me—just something I’ve figured out all on my own . . . You can’t grow the good by keeping everything that is good at arm’s length. You can’t let the good inside you win the battle by refusing to take any in.”

  I waited a few moments for him to say something else, but when nothing came, I considered everything he’d just said. Because he’d said a lot. After a few minutes of my own deliberation, I came to that conclusion that a few minutes or even a few hours would not be enough to decide what I thought of Will’s ideas and if I bought into it or if I felt it was the biggest piece of shit to be wrapped up in a fancy bow and words. Yet one more thing to add to the Things To Contemplate pile. From this night alone, I had enough to keep me busy through the end of the year.

  Instead of giving him an answer to placate him, I went with humor. “Are you trying to tell me something, Will Goods?” I glanced up at where I knew his face was and lifted an eyebrow. When he chuckled softly, I kissed the hollow at the base of his neck before resting my head back on it.

  “Yeah, I’m trying to tell you lots of somethings,” he replied. “Something number one . . . Stop pushing people away. Me specifically. Especially after tonight and knowing what you and me combined are capable of.”

  My mind had lifted a hundred lightness levels now that we were back to smiling and laughing almost as much as we were talking. “And something number two?”

  “Stop being so afraid of making a mistake that you stop actually living.”

  Yet another wise proverb delivered as a wrecking ball.

  “Well what would you call tonight?” I replied, my humor still filling the gap. “Because, as mistakes go, this pretty much is the piece de resistance.”

  “Ouch,” Will said, shaking his head. “And that snappy little comeback leads me to something number three.” He paused long enough to pretend there was a drum roll thundering in the background. “Stop masking partial truths behind sarcasm.”

  “That wasn’t a partial truth I was masking with sarcasm. Sorry, for once—finally—you’re wrong.”

  “I thought I already told you—I’m never wrong,” he replied in an amused tone, shifting so he had me on my back and his chest was pressed into mine.

  “Fine. Even if that was true and you are never wrong, which I don’t buy for one second, by the way, if I was concerned about tonight being a mistake . . .” I shoved his chest until he’d rolled off me and it was my chest holding him to the floor. I looked at him without seeing him, but even the blackness surrounding us couldn’t keep me from seeing him. “Then it was the best damn mistake I’ve ever made.”

  He lifted his head to kiss me. It landed on the tip of my chin. “To the best mistakes we’ve possibly ever or never made.”

  “I’d toast to that if I had something to toast with.” I laughed.

  “Next time we’re together, with drinks close by, we’ll cheers to that.”

  This time, when he kissed me, his lips made it to mine. He probably only intended it to be a sweet, fleeting kiss, but I didn’t let him get away. My arms wrapped around his neck, and I held him close as I kissed him long enough that I forgot about what life had been like before this kiss or what life could be like after this kiss. I didn’t allow myself to get weighed down by the past or the future. Instead, I took Will’s advice and lived that kiss. His hand wove through my hair, and he encouraged me closer, holding me tightly so that even if I’d wanted to end our kiss, I couldn’t have.

  Then a door creaked open, and the sound of the shower bubbling and bursting to life did what neither of us were capable of—broke us apart. I rolled off Will and frantically searched the floor for clothes—his or mine, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t ready for the girls to know about Will and me yet, especially since I couldn’t put into words what Will and I were yet. If I co
uldn’t explain what was going on between us to myself, how could I explain it to them? The only thing they’d catch as I stuttered and hemmed and hawed my way through an explanation was that Will and I were nothing more than glorified fuck buddies. And despite not being able to assign a designation to what Will and I were, fuck buddies was the farthest title from the potential candidates. That I was certain of.

  “As much as I like your sisters, I don’t want them to find me naked . . . next to you . . . on their living room floor,” Will said from across the room. He must have been searching for some clothing too.

  “I second that,” I replied, nearly cheering when I found my cotton shorts.

  “Hey, here’s your shirt,” he announced before it landed on my face.

  I didn’t waste any time pulling it on. Whoever was up, Paige or Reese, might decide to wander into the living room while they waited for the shower to warm up. “How did you do that? Do you have some sort of bat radar or something?” There was no way I’d chance tossing him his shirt if I found it because, with my luck, it would wind up in the opposite corner of where he actually was.

  “I’ve got mad skills,” was his answer. “Other than just rocking your world in bed. Or . . . on your living room floor.”

  I shook my head as I slipped into my shorts. The man certainly wasn’t lacking for confidence. “Did you find your clothes? Because I’m coming up with nothing over here.”

  “I’m already dressed.”

  I jolted. Seconds ago, his voice had been muffled from across the room, and now it sounded like he was inches away, towering above me.

  “You do have mad skills. Plenty of them,” I added as I stood.

  His arms wove around me and pulled me close. It was crazy how no matter where I was, Will seemed to know it exactly. The absence of light was no significant deterrent.

  “I don’t want to go, but I know I can’t stay,” he said.

  “I want you to stay,” I replied, resting my head against his chest, “but I know you have to go.”