My breathing is out of control right now. I can’t think straight.
How did the boy I crushed on become this? A man in every sense of the word. Gone is the shaved head, replaced by a meticulously-styled mess of dark brown hair. He’s let his beard grow, just longer than stubble, and it suits him. He was tall and wiry back then, now he’s a wall of muscle in a dark suit that has to be worth more than a month of sales in my line of work. The top few buttons of his shirt are undone, showing a dark thatch of coarse hair that I want to tangle my fingers into as he presses me back into the wall, our mouths connecting, teeth clashing against teeth, tongues competing, the hard ridge of his cock against my tummy…
No.
My mind supplies the word and I step back, feeling the tears prick at my eyes. No, he doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to waltz back into my life and make me feel this way. I wipe the back of my hand over my face and it comes away wet. Fuck.
“You left,” I say accusingly. “You left and you didn’t say a word. I thought you cared about us, but it’s been six goddamn years. You didn’t care about me or you wouldn’t have done that.”
His face darkens, his gaze dropping to the floor. “You think I left because I wanted to? Scamp, I wouldn’t have done that to you.”
I laugh, half hysterical, the hurt flooding back into my brain like opening up an old wound. “You came by every day for two weeks. I thought we were friends!”
“We were friends. I liked you, you were like a little sister to me. I didn’t go away because I wanted to, I…” His eyes dart up and meet mine as he trails off, and I see uncertainty there.
“What?”
“Sorry, this isn’t something I talk about a lot. It’s not something I’m proud of.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, a nervous gesture I haven’t done in years. Something about being here, with him, is stripping away the years, revealing the scared little girl he knew. My hands go to my waist where my hoodie has ridden up, exposing a strip of flesh above the waistband of my shorts, and with the tip of a finger I trace the tattoo on my lower back, the one I got a week after his last delivery, still thinking he’d come back. But he didn’t.
“You got a girlfriend,” I suggest with venom. “Or married. Or you got bored of spending time with two girls so much younger than you.”
He shakes his head, drawing a deep breath. “I went to prison.”
***
Val
She’s like a cornered animal. Scared. Defensive. Alone. Suspicious of my intentions.
And she has every right to be. As far as she’s concerned, I disappeared out of her life without a word after being in it for a mere two weeks. If she thinks I haven’t thought about her and her sister since then, she’s wrong, but I thought I was protecting them from my own bad choices. When I came out of prison, I checked up on her, went back to the rundown house on Livernois where her father had me deliver a food package, the house I kept going back to in the two weeks that followed because I cared about what happened to those two kids.
But I never saw her or her sister again. Before I could go up to the door, I knew that taking my own shit there was the last thing they needed.
I thought about calling child services for them once, but the way Samos had it under control made me think twice. She wouldn’t have thanked me if she’d been separated from her sister.
“You could have called me,” she says as the scumbags that attacked her inch their way from the alley, cowering from my glares. Her fingers are still playing at the hem of her hoodie, teasing me with thoughts of touching her there, of trailing my lips along her hips, of stripping her clothing from her body and worshiping her with my mouth. “Or you could have got a message to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me after that. I thought it was for the best.”
“The best?” She spits the words. “I had no idea what happened to you. Do you know how many nights I cried myself to sleep, wondering if you were dead, if I’d ever see you again? I had nobody. You were the first person that ever showed me any kindness and you just disappeared.”
“Scamp.”
“Don’t call me that, please. Not unless you’re back for good. If you’re going to leave again, just call me Samos. I couldn’t bear to have my heart broken like that all over again.”