“Xander was at your house, and you were doing nothing, huh?” I asked.
“We were just talking, you know. He was at the club, talking junk about how good he was at Mortal Combat Eleven. I invited him over to play with me, and believe it or not, we were sitting there playing when Ned and his wildebeest showed up.”
“I can’t believe it. You and Xander?”
Jayne smiled wickedly again. “Don’t write too much into it. It’s just gaming. People do it all the time.”
“Uh, huh,” I said and peered over my coffee mug at her accusatorily. My friend wasn’t telling me everything about Xander, and I would wait until she was ready to talk.
“Good morning, ladies.” Bruiser walked into the kitchen, wearing his black Wranglers an
d the white t-shirt that had been underneath his blouse, with no shoes on. His clothes were wrinkled, and that was because as he stripped out of them last night, he threw them into a ball on the floor.
Jayne shockingly stared at him and said, “Bruiser?”
“Good morning, Jayne,” Bruiser replied and walked over to the cabinet, pulled down a mug, and poured himself a glass of coffee. He then turned around, leaned on the counter, and stared at me with his piercing brown gaze.
I hauled my eyes to the kitchen wall, suddenly taking a keen interest in the wallpaper on my kitchen wall. I refused to look at Bruiser or Jayne.
?
Van
“Jackson, I’m going to get your new products uploaded today. I guarantee you that you’ll be looking good by tomorrow,” I said reassuringly to my longest and most valued client.
“I sure hope so. We’ve been waiting for two weeks on this launch, and I don’t want to have to postpone it again. I’ll give you a call in the morning for an update,” he sounded as if he still believed in me, though his tone was a little rocky, wavering like everything in my life had been doing lately. There was always one area where I had unrivaled success, and that was in business. Now, even that was slipping through the cracks of my reality.
“I’ll be looking forward to your call, Jackson.” I hung up and closed out his account from my computer screen and pulled up Raven’s Facebook page. I stared at her picture for what seemed like minutes, but in actuality, it was hours.
I went to her house last night to talk to her about her single “Love Me Again,” taking over the charts. I had purchased another thousand downloads just to make sure it stayed in the top spot, but even before I made that purchase, it had been holding its rank. People were buying and loving her music. The reviews were all favorable, and I was so glad for Alise.
I wanted to congratulate her in person and ask her out to dinner. I peeked into her living room window, watched her walk into the room, turn on light music, pour a glass of wine, and light a few incenses. I took a couple steps toward the front door and saw a set of bright headlights pulling into her driveway. I stepped back into the shadows and waited to see who it was.
Bruiser ran up to her door and started banging on it. When Alise opened the door, they immediately started arguing. I was happy to see her take a stand against him trying to control her life. I was tired of him being in the way of us getting what we both needed, what we deserved. Each other—as she had said when she crooned in her most beautiful voice, “forevermore.”
When she told him she didn’t need his services anymore, I almost erupted in my pants. “That’s right, my Alise. Fire him so that we will have no more interruptions as we allow our new love to blossom,” I said as I watched her stand up to the big, bad bully that Bruiser thought he was.
Bruiser pushed his way into her house, and I went back to the window to see what he was doing to her. If he was there to attack her, I was ready to be her savior. I had some wire in my pocket that I would happily wrap around his muscular neck.
What I saw next was two people looking passionately into each other’s eyes. That confused me. Alise was arguing with him, but the way she looked at him reminded me of the way my Raven used to look at me before we made love. Anger burned deep down in my soul. My deep-rooted love for Alise shifted at that very moment. I took two steps away from the window and fell against the house. I suddenly felt weak. She had betrayed me.
I walked around to the backyard, pacing back and forth until I figured out what I was going to do next. Alise’s shower came on, and she started singing. I rested my ear against her window and listened as the sound lulled me into a state of calm.
“It’s supposed to be us, my Raven. Us. Give me something I can feel again. I need to feel you just one more time. Do you know how much this means to me? Raven…”
I released my cries into the wind. Alise had taken away what was supposed to be my forever when she looked at Bruiser like that. My Raven would never look at another man the way she just did. Alise selfishly had ruined my hope of reuniting with Raven’s spirit. I floated around aimlessly for the past year, hoping for something, anything, to restore me. Now, I had no hope. I had to do something about that.
The singing stopped abruptly, and so did the shower’s spray. I stood, leaning against the songstress’s house, letting the cool breeze of the night hit my face. What was to become of us from here?
“Oh—” followed by a series of moans shook my very core. I couldn’t see into Alise’s bedroom, but the sounds of lovemaking were succinctly clear. Over the next few hours, she moaned. He growled. It sounded as if they were ravishing each other, and I listened to the sounds of their lovemaking until I couldn’t take it anymore. I stumbled away from there, walking through neighbors’ backyards, headed to my truck that I had moved two blocks over.
Inside my vehicle, I raged over the clear betrayal I had just witnessed. “How dare he think he can take her from me. How dare she think that I would let her go.”
I looked into my rearview mirror and didn’t notice the man staring back. My eyes were dark and uncaring, and I looked like I hadn’t slept in weeks. In truth, I rarely had the pleasure of rest. I probably never would. As long as my soul was floating about the earth with no Raven, I would never sleep. Never sleep until she was back with me, where she belonged.
Chapter Nine
Bruiser