Page 13 of Unbreakable
I loved Dylan. Dylan loved me. I didn’t doubt that. But he got into a place where negative feelings were inconvenient, invalid, unacceptable.
“We have to set an example for the kids, J,” he’d said. “They’ll fall apart if we fall apart.”
But the problem was, I was already coming apart at the seams, and I wasn’t allowed to do that.
“Mama, are you sad?” Bella asked. I’d been standing in one spot, absently stroking a baby dress.
Lacey’s warm hand met my shoulder, her voice quiet. “I know it’s hard, Jeanine.”
I pressed my lips together to stifle my tears. “We’re lucky in so many ways.” My voice wavered. “We got to stay in one place for so long when so many families move constantly. But I wanted to stay there forever.”
My words broke, and without asking, Lacey hugged me. She scratched my back with her perfectly stylish talons of nails, and I noticed just how gone I was. The thought of having to keep up fake nails while juggling three kids in a new city made me so overwhelmed I wanted to sit in the floor of Target and just blend into it. “You’ve got this, mama. We’re here for you.”
But that was just the problem. What if I didn’t have it?
SIX
DYLAN
THEN
“That’sthe woman I’m going to marry.”
Chapman Beatty and I walked into the dive bar with live music in Santa Monica, and I was spellbound. We were having one of our nights out to explore L.A. We’d decided to diversify our going-out locations, having seen all the scenery, AKA hot women, Manhattan Beach had to offer. I needed to stop shitting where I slept and see other parts of the Los Angeles world. Chappy was happily dating a very kind woman who I couldn’t believe put up with his shit, but he was willing to be a wingman for me.
And upon walking into this bar, I got exactly what I was after.
A scantily-clad woman with legs for days sang some dramatic Celine Dion ballad on stage. She looked like a naughty version of Snow White: shiny dark hair pulled up in the back, cherry red lips, and when she flashed those peepers up, deep blue eyes that bordered on some version of turquoise. Her corset-style black top revealed a tantalizing strip of skin and a tiny blue jewel glittering in her belly button. Her waist nipped in just so, and it looked like a great resting place for my hands. Add that to hertiny black shorts, black boots, and trim hourglass figure, and she was easily the stuff of dreams.
I, at age twenty-five, was in love.
Instantly. Upon laying eyes on her.
Chappy and I settled in at a high-top table for two, which I noticed could have room for an extra stool. I planned my approach: I’d talk to her as soon as she got off the stage and tell her I loved the way she sang.
Because I did.
She sang with such conviction, both playing with the song’s drama and somehow acknowledging that sheknewit was dramatic and ridiculous with her tone. For a dive bar, this was some fancy karaoke, with a live band backing her up. I’d have thought it was her personal concert if it weren’t for the sandwich board sign to the right of the stage indicating sign-ups and specifically saying “live band karaoke.” She worked the stage, singing directly to the keyboard player and dancing around like it was her jukebox musical, and we were just living in it.
The way she belted out the line about nights of endless pleasure sent a chill zipping up my spine. Every hair on my arm raised and I had to fight a shiver, lest Chappy would give me infinite shit. What the fuck was going on that some woman singing a soft rock song was wrecking me?
Halfway through the song, she descended the steps from the stage and danced her way through the bar. My heart picked up, wondering if she’d stop at our table.
I had on a hat because I fell victim to the delusion that I was a celebrity and would thus get recognized in public. That was before I accepted that people in Los Angeles could give two shits about the hockey players. Not only did everyone feel important, but everyone cared far more about the actors on the screen, not the people who pushed a puck around.
But here was this woman, so close to me, circling our table and singingto me, with a voice so powerful that I could feel the air vibrating. She dropped the microphone from her lips, meeting my gaze.
Her speaking voice was buttery smooth. “Okay if I touch you?”
I nodded, probably a little too enthusiastically.
She slid herself across my lap and looped one arm behind my neck.
The puzzle pieces clicked into place. She fit.Wefit. I knew you weren’t supposed to touch strippers and that probably extended to women singing in bars too. But she asked if she could touch me, and there’s some assumed touching back, right? We were already touching, and I had to keep her from falling off my lap. My left hand held her waist, and my right held her thigh.
It was perfect.
She smirked and kicked her leg up before crossing it over the other, making our embrace tighter.
