Different Roads (14 page)

"Deal," we said at the same
time.

I watched him stride toward his truck
and he turned to glance over his shoulder at me, "I'm going to go take a
nice, long,
cold
shower. I'll be over in about an hour. Hope you're up
for the challenge."

I hopped in my Charger and headed home.
The
off limits
list was long, but there were plenty of other things I
could do to ensure he would cave so that I'd win the bet. Having Damon
Blackwell as my personal slave for a whole week might be worth it. My inner nympho
jumped for joy with anticipation.

As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I
threw my keys onto the counter and slipped out of my boots. Shelley heard me
come in and peeked around the corner. Her hair was wrapped up in a towel,
"Tim and I are going to a kegger. We'll probably stay there for the night.
Just in case you want to have company over or something," she informed me with
a knowing grin.

Suddenly, I regretted the deal Damon and
I had made. Having him to myself with no chance of Cowbell Shelley interrupting
was almost enough to make me call off the challenge. I rolled my eyes and said,
"You're timing absolutely sucks, you know that right?"

She pursed her lips into a confused
pout, "What?"

I blew out a noisy breath, "Never
mind," I said and headed toward my room to pick out an outfit for phase
one of
operation
seduce Damon
.

After the shower I rolled on some of
that pheromone stuff I bought at a Pure Romance party, making sure to dab some
on each of my pulse points. I pulled my hair back into a braid and slipped into
a tight black top which showed just a hint of cleavage. I tugged on a pair of
tight jeans and put some eye liner and mascara on to accentuate my eyes.
Shelley walked by my open door just as I was admiring myself in the full length
mirror.

She stopped, backed up, and let out a
soft whistle, "Damn girl, if he keeps it in his pants longer than five
minutes after he gets here, I'll be shocked."

I turned and smiled broadly at her,
"You think so?"

"Hell yeah!"

Damon
walked in later with a smirk on his face, a six-pack in one hand, and a bottle
of tequila in the other.  I grinned and shook my head. Come to find out having
a normal evening at home with Damon was possible; it just wasn't a lot of fun.

            I
should mention that normal with Damon equals boring. When he's not talking
about what he'd like to do to me between the sheets or bragging about how good he
is in bed, there's not much left for us to talk about.  We have a few things in
common; we just weren't able to carry on a conversation about any of them.

            "Where's
Cowbell Shelley tonight?" Damon asked, not taking his eyes off the movie
we were watching.

            "She
went with Tim to some kegger," I told him.

            "I
was supposed to go to a kegger tonight, too," he said.

            "Oh,"
I responded.
We should have both gone to the kegger. Me with Shelley and Tim,
and you with whomever.
"You could have gone." He nodded but
didn't add anymore to the longest conversation we'd had since his arrival.

            After
two hours of awkward stretches of silence looming between us, he clicked off
the TV and twisted to face me on the sofa, "So. This was...
different
,"
he said. He paused before adding, "Did I win yet?"

            I
tucked a few stray strands of hair behind my ear and stared down at my hands,
"Let's call it even? You didn't win. I didn't win. We'll just agree that
it can be done?"

            "Fuuuuck,"
he laughed and blew out an exaggerated sigh. "That was the longest two
hours of my life."

            "I
know, right?" I smiled and offered him my hand to shake on it.

            "You
know what Jaq? You're a lot more fun to hang out with when there's sex, or
booze, or both involved," he grinned.

            "Me?
You can't even carry on a normal conversation when you're sober and not trying
to get me horizontal," I said with a scowl.

            He
shrugged and yanked me into his lap, his eyes flashed dangerously dark and he
said, "Let's do what we do best then."

            And
we did. He spent the night. Probably because I thought it would be rude to tell
him to go home afterwards, even if I wanted him to. Since I had no excuse or
reason to ask him to leave, he stayed.

            Bright
and early Saturday morning, I nudged him with my knee, "Hey you up?"

            He
growled when he spoke, "Again? Jesus Jaq, are you some kind of
nympho?" He rolled onto his back and leered at me, pointing to a very
obvious hard-on making a tent of the blankets.

            My
mouth dropped open, "What? Wait. That's not what I meant you asshole!"
But I didn't protest too much when he pulled me on top of him.

            After
he left, I showered and decided to bake some soft pretzels while I waited for
Shelley and Tim to get home. I was sitting at the table drinking a Diet Dew
when they came in. Shelley glanced at me and then peered around the room as
though she expected Damon to still be lurking about.

            "You
alone?" she asked.

            My
forehead creased into a frown, "Yes?"

            "You'll
never guess who we saw at the party last night," she said. Tim walked in
behind her and shot her a
shut up
glare. Her mouth formed into an O and
she sighed. "Never mind."

            "What
the hell? You can't leave me hanging like this," I shouted after her as
she darted out of the kitchen toward her bedroom. I gave Tim a questioning look
and he shrugged before telling me he had shit to do and made a beeline for the
door.

            With
Tim gone and Shelley sequestered in the bathroom for a marathon length shower,
I rolled and cut the pretzels while my mind spun a hundred miles per hour about
who they'd seen at the party. I figured it had to be Seth. I knew that when she
decided to fill me in on who he was with, it would be like taking a hard right
hook to the gut.

            Finally
she came into the kitchen, rubbing her hair with a towel. She smiled sheepishly
when she noticed me staring at her and said, "I probably shouldn't have
even brought it up."

            "Yeah
but you did, so now you have to tell me the rest of the story," I said
quietly.

            She
plopped down on one of the chairs and peered at me out from under her wet
bangs, "We saw Seth and he was with one of his psycho ex-girlfriends,"
she admitted.

            I
got up and opened the oven to check on the pretzels before responding, "I
heard he was seeing one of them again." I was surprisingly calm. Guess it
was because Damon had mentioned it to me before, and it wasn't a complete shock
to me.

            "Well
he's a moron for that," Shelley sighed. "Besides, Damon's
hotter."

            I
leaned against the counter and shook my head, "Damon's hot. I don't think
he's hotter than Seth, but he is hot."

            "Well
at least you're having sex again, that has to help take your mind off
things," Shelley offered with her skewed logic. "I bet he knows how
to make a girl come six ways to Sunday."

            "Pfft,"
I snorted. "He's not bad. But the thing is... with Damon?
That's all
there is
, mind-blowing sex. If I had to depend on him for intelligent
conversation? I'd be so fucked."

            Shelley
gave a one-armed shrug, "There are worse fates, you know."

            She
was right, but at the moment, I couldn't figure out what those worse fates
might be, "I suppose." I pulled the golden brown pretzels from the
oven and sat them on top of the stove. "It would be nice to get the whole
package for once, ya know?"

            "What
do you mean?"

            "I
mean a guy who's good in bed," I held up my hand and folded my index finger
to indicate one quality, and continued counting them off as I went along.
"Can carry on a semi-intelligent conversation, easy on the eyes, faithful,
honest. You know, those things."

            Shelley
giggled, "Good luck with
that
. Let's not forget rich, gainfully
employed, nice car, good with his hands." She wriggled her eyebrows at me
to emphasize 'good with his hands.'

            "Now
you sound like a dating site ad," I laughed.

            "There
is always
that
option," she said.

            "Sure.
That'll happen," I shot her a narrow-eyed glare, "About the same time
you join the convent."

            Though
I downplayed how much it hurt knowing Seth had moved on with his life, it was
killing me inside. I still loved him and nothing I did seemed to ease the
emptiness he'd left inside of me. Sex with Damon was a temporary fix at best.
Even though Seth had been gone from my life for awhile now, I still couldn't
get over the twinge of pain I felt every time I woke up next to Damon and
wished it was Seth.

The
more time I spent with Damon, the more apparent our differences became. I admit,
he fulfilled a certain hole inside of me. Not just sexually, but in some
strange and twisted way, he made me feel wanted and desired. Every woman wants
to believe she's attractive and that men want her, no matter the reason behind
the attraction. I was no different.

            Some
men are like a bad drug, no matter how badly you want to break the habit, you
just keep going back for more. It's like the old adage that says that being in a
shitty relationship is better than being in no relationship. I'd been warned to
stay away from Damon for one reason or another, but did I care? Hell no.

            Damon
and I had been dating off and on -- translate: hooking up -- for about six
months and his moody, brooding behavior came and went. Some days he was sullen
and withdrawn and I knew better than to press his buttons during those times.
Other days he was happy and his sense of humor was infectious. My best strategy
around him was to pay attention to my spidey sense and tune into which one of Damon's
personalities had shown up for our date.

            Would
the night be fun, filled with laughing and partying and end up with
mind-blowing sex? Or would I have to keep my eyes open, my mouth closed, and
walk on eggshells around him all night long; fearful something would send him
into a rage?

            When
he became verbally abusive, the best thing for me to do was just keep my mouth
shut and not fight back. Normally, he refrained from laying a hand on me, but
there were a few times he yanked out chunks of my hair or punched me in places
no one could see.  

            Most
of the time, whenever he got pissed, the anger was directed at some inanimate
object like punching his fist through a wall. His crazy, out of control angry
side wasn't pretty, and in fact, it was terrifying at times.

            The
first time it happened, he flew into a rage because of a freaking door ding on
the driver's side door of his pickup when we came out of the movie theater. I
walked up beside him and tried to calm him down by downplaying the damage,
"It'll be fine. I can get one of the auto body techs at school to fix it
for you."

            He
grabbed me by the hair and shoved my face into the door, "Have them
fucking fix that too while they're at it. I mean if you're going to blow some
dude so he'll fix my truck, make sure he earns it." I rubbed my forehead
and blinked back the tears stinging my eyes. Somehow, I feared crying would only
add more fuel to the fire. I started to walk around to the other side of the
pickup and he yanked me back. I couldn't even look at him.

            "Let
me go Damon, let's just go home," I pleaded quietly.

            I'd
never seen such hatred in his eyes as I did that night. I walked around and
crawled up into the cab. He got in on his side and slammed the door so hard it
rocked the truck. We just sat there for awhile and he drummed his fingers on
the steering wheel. I thought maybe he intended to wait for the driver of the
car next to us to come out so he could beat the shit out of that unsuspecting
person.

            The
ride home was silent. He pulled up in front of the house and left the truck
running and in gear. He stared straight ahead into the night through the
windshield of his truck and didn't even look at me when he said, "Sorry Jaq.
See ya later, okay?"

            I
bit the inside of my cheek and reached for the door handle, "Yeah see
ya."

It's Saturday afternoon and we're supposed
to go to his three-year-old nephew's birthday party. He was a half-hour late
picking me up, which is always a red flag right off the bat. His eyes were
wild, pupils dilated, and I could just tell he was definitely on something. He
was agitated and antsy when he arrived, and I knew I'd have to be careful not
to unwittingly ignite his fuse. Especially around his family at a little kid's
birthday party.