Page 33 of Lady Sings the Blues

“No,” is all he says, and I can see from his pained expression that she’s a rough subject to broach even today.

“Okay baby. You do what you have to do. Don’t worry about me.” He stares at me. “And quit looking at me like that. I haven’t grown horns.”

“No. But you called me baby. It’s the first time you’ve used an endearment. I like it.” Then he smiles. “And for the record, tellin’ me not to worry about you is like tellin’ me not to breathe.”

“Those might be the sweetest words anyone has ever said to me.”

For some reason, his words affect me deeply. I feel so stupid for giving in to the emotions. It’s all I can do to escape and I start to roll to get away. The roll gets me nowhere as his arm tightens around me to hold me in place while he silently watches my reaction. The tears just start to collect in the corners of my eyes when he clears his throat, and not from sleep, from his emotion.

I know it’s emotion with one answer. “I meant every word, darlin’.”

There’s a pause as we both continue to lay, watching one another before he gives my waist an affectionate squeeze and gets up to shower. I throw on his T-shirt from last night and head to the kitchen. Stupid smile perma-glued across my face. By the time he joins me the coffee is steaming in his mug and piping hot bacon and eggs just came to rest on his plate.

“You are really makin’ it hard to leave you this mornin’.”

“Well, I guess now that I’ve had your penis inside me, I don’t want you to meet some other woman while you’re out doing biker things, and forget about me. Not until I know if this is going to last.”

“Elise,” he says. So many words coming across in just my name. And I can guess every single one of them when he finishes, “one of these days you’re gonna believe me. I’m doin’ this biker shitforyou. So I can afford to take care of you. I’m yours. You’re mine. Bossman and Elise. Period. Nobody’s ever gettin’ in the way of us again.”

Except maybe him. But I don’t tell him that.

***

He left me finally. Our goodbye takes far longer and with three more orgasms than either of us meant it to, two for me and one for him. In the end, he had work to get done and I knew exactly what I needed to do today.

So now here I am walking through the cemetery gates. They placed him only three rows back in the family plot. I wish I didn’t have to be here. I wish I could go on pretending life is as it always was. Without him muddling my brain, the world starts coming into focus again. Mark, he confuses me. Makes me consider things I’m not sure I should consider because of his decadent, melty chocolate hold he has on me, which I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t fully understand. Maybe Ishouldn’thave come here. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time on a nice warm and sunny Kentucky day.

But I guess that’s what I’m here to talk about, Mark’s melty chocolate hold on me. That maybe if I talk I’ll get a sign or something telling me what I’m doing, giving in to Mark’s pull, is the right thing to do.

“Hey Lo,” I say to the headstone. “Most people won’t believe it, but I miss you. Even after everything you put me through. Those days with the three of us, you, me and Beau, were some of the best of my life. Oh—this is Elise. I guess I should’ve opened with that. Not like you have caller ID on that side.” I laugh to myself.

“So much has happened over the past five years, I hardly know where to begin. So I guess I’ll start with this.” I kiss the palm of my hand, laying it reverently on the rough surface of the monument. “I never stopped loving you. Our love might have changed, but it was still very much there. Even if we weren’t together anymore. It didn’t have to end the way it did. You can’t have shared what we shared and not retain the love, no matter what you thought.”

“Ain’t that sweet.”

My first instinct is to turn to the low growling of voice to see whose interruption I need to get angry about, but I don’t get the chance as his calloused hand grabs my neck from behind, shoving my face roughly against the pocked and grooved surface of the stone.

“What are you doing? Let me go.”

“Let you go? Is that any way to treat an admirer, Elise? Sweet, sweet Elise.” He pulls my hair at the nape while keeping my face planted.

“Please don’t do this. I have no money. I’m just here to bury my dad.”

“Butllshit. You’re here for more than that, you Hollister whore. First Logan, now you’re screwing Beau. ‘Course everyone knows you were doing that back in high school when you were only supposed to be screwing Logan.”

“I never screwed Beau. And I haven’t seen him since I’ve been back in town.”

“Liar.” He hisses, picking my face up and slamming it into the stone.

I whimper. “I’m not lying.”

He grinds his hard length against my rear. Grinding and grinding making me cry harder.

“I promise,” I tell him. “My boyfriend’s name is Mark.”

“You can’t be that stupid, so then I know you’re lying.”

“No. His name is Mark.”

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