Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1) (22 page)

His eyes opened slightly, to slits, and he smiled. He rubbed his hands over his face a few times and the smile widened. “I feel so good, man,” he said.

My fists curled over his shoulders, clenching the thin fabric of his jacket. I jerked him off the chair and manhandled him into the bathroom. Zander sang a drunken version of ‘itsy, bitsy, spider,’ as I tossed him through the tight doorway.

His singing was only interrupted when I tossed him down in the bathtub filled with ice cold water.

Zander jumped, his eyes opening wide in the shock. He opened his mouth scream but I slammed my fist to his jaw and knocked the scream right out of his mouth.

Water splashed.

He was way too big for the tiny tub, his limbs flailing everywhere, water falling with each jerk. He fought to get out but I fought back, slamming fists into his gut to still him and catch him off guard.

We had never fought.

Never had too many words crossed between us.

At first I had been trying to help him. Now, I was hurting him and I didn’t care. Rage had taken over and I didn’t realize I was seeing red until I reared back and caught him in the side of the face with another punch and I liked the way the hit felt. I wanted to do it again and did. I couldn’t stop, crazed and loving it, I couldn’t stop hurting the only person who would die for me at one point in time and I would’ve died for him.

It wasn’t him I was fighting.

I was fighting myself.

Finally, ever so finally, the mirror between Zander and I was complete. I didn’t know where I began and he ended, or vice versa. He lost himself in drugs and me in women.

We were both losing our lives and wouldn’t dare do anything about it.

The fall from grace had been too fun.

Zander managed to catch me in the eye with a lucky hook. My left arm shot out, an instant counter attack to his hit that damned near knocked his head off. His nose broke instantly. More water sloshed under his heavy body as he fell back into the tub. Blood was nowhere at first then it was everywhere.

Zander tried to breathe but it sounded wet and haggard. His red eyes glared angrily at me as he held his nose. The blood seemed to be pouring. The clear water in the tub was a crimson all of sudden.

It seemed like hours that we were in the bathroom. Zander held his nose and looked at me with a very blurry stare. With me, watching him in an inch of water that was all over my bathroom.

Zander hadn’t been what I would call a smart man. He let life live him instead of him living life. He rolled with the punches, rolled with the way things went and picked up bad habits as he went and blamed it all on circumstances, like he was picking up souvenirs on a bad trip.

Zander was a man who strolled through life with only a few requests: leave him be and let him have his lubricant to life because it was a hard fuck no matter the position you tried.

But, I never wanted that perspective for myself. I wanted to be apart of the flow. I wanted to be part of the Rogue.

We both wanted different things out of life, but still ended up with the same results: no where but downhill.

Zander wasn’t a philosophical talker.

Never had he said something that you had to remember.

And he changed that with a few sentences.

He cleared his throat and more blood flowed because of it. “Tristan,” he breathed my name, “you look down on me for putting a syringe in my arm, but I didn’t look down on you for sticking your dick in another man’s wife.”

His hands curled over the rim of the tub and pulled himself up to a sitting position. “We aren’t different,” he said, “Do you know that? Our drugs of choice aren’t the same but we’re both addicts and we’ll both die from the addiction.” He pointed at me with a bloody finger. “But, I didn’t look down on you, and I didn’t look at you like you disgusted me, like sharing the same room was a problem.”

Instantly another stream of blood moved through the cracks of his fingers. His eyes were watery from the broken nose but I got the sense that if the nose had been fine, tears would have been there.

Zander dropped his hands away from his face. The bone had been broken, his nose was now crooked. I had ruined his flawless face. And somewhere in me, where the murderer that had been awaken when we went to Miami, had found this satisfying.

“You hate me,” he said.

“It’s okay to hate me,” I told him.

He shook his head. “I told you that I never would.” He gave a sad smile. “I guess when I walk out your door I’m not welcome here no more.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“Tristan, we aren’t good men.”

My eyes closed, my mouth opened but I still breathed through my nose. “No,” I heard myself say, “we aren’t. I’ve been trying to tell you that.”

Zander crawled to his feet, holding his nose the entire time. The more he moved the more the blood flowed.

He said, “Well, I believe you now.”

If I was a bird I would fly away… only to return home again

I collected the broken remains of the coffee table and put it all by the door to be thrown away in the morning. It took hours cleaning everything; wiping down the blood in the bathroom and disinfecting it. Truthfully, the bathroom had been cleaned, cleared of any remaining blood within thirty minutes, but I couldn’t stop myself from going over inch of the bathroom, wiping away until my rag unraveled in my hands.

I was trying to clean away the bad choices I had made. There was something still here, ugly and bad and I was doing everything I could with a soapy rag and bleach to get rid of it.

My life had been simple; just a downward spiral that I was comfortable with, but now everything was upside down and I was walking on my head.

I had been sitting on my couch, staring a bottle of liquor and an empty shot glass. I had consumed much but the familiar fuzziness just wouldn’t come. The haze of lost control, and my inability to care, just wouldn’t assert it’self, take my hand and take me to the land of numbness.

I dropped my head in my hands. I gripped my hair and closed my eyes as I tried to fight swell of emptiness.

A sob burned its way through my chest. I was going to cry and I didn’t want to. Not now, not ever. I wanted to be strong and get through this, but there was an underlining message to it all.

It all felt like the end now and I had done it to myself.

I had planned to walk away from Dominique, but I had been fooling myself. I was like a thread in her robe. She tugged me once and I came out in strings.

Lulina had the same effect, but she just didn’t tug at me, she yanked and pulled and I was at her feet and at her mercy.

But now…

Now… Everything was swirling. Everything was coming to its meeting point, to the head and it wouldn’t be pretty at the remains once the explosions started.

My father would kill me for what I had done.

For what I willing did.

And there was no thinking around that, or trying to lie myself out of it.

My hands were shaking as I ripped away the plastic to a pack of cigarettes. My fingers could barely hold the cigarette to my lips as I lit up.

I inhaled deep and blew out softly, watching the smoke move and I fell in love with it. My hands were a little surer now as I undid the button to my cuff. The shaking in my hands was all the way gone as I rolled the sleeve back exposing my arm.

I took the cigarette out of my mouth, turned it in my fingers so the burning ember was pointed down.

I inhaled once as I hovered the cigarette over my arm.

I winced once as I felt the burn of the cigarette of my skin. My eyes closed and tears slipped down my cheeks.

I was not a cutter, but I just wanted to have a pain I could identify and control. 

***

I lifted my head when someone knocked on my door. I stared at the locked door, confused at what time it was or the day. It seemed like had been frozen for an insurmountable time.

It was Ally.

Ally…

She looked ridiculous in her choice of clothing – an oversized, red dress that must have been her mother’s. She had attempted make up and failed. It was only then that I realized how low I had sunk. She would never be the same because of me. She would most likely get pregnant at a young age and ruin her life and I had started her cycle to a very miserable life.

“Can I come in?” She had lowered her voice to sound husky and grown up.

I leaned my head against the door and exhaled in relief at the cold I felt against my burning forhead. “We can’t do this anymore, Ally.”

She pouted, and I guessed it was another attempt to be sexy. “I’m not going anywhere, Tristan.”

And I knew that. I was too tired to try and change her mind because she was going to get her way.

I started to open the door wider for her to come inside when Lulina’s voice filtered down the hallway.

“Playing with children, Tristan?”

Lulina sauntered up in a long skirt that had a very alluring split on the side. Her top was no more than a push up bra that showcased a very paid for cleavage.

Ally’s face dropped at the look of the woman. If she had thought she looked good leaving the house in her mother’s dress, she had been greatly mistaken and she saw that now.

Lulina barely looked at Ally as she stepped in front of her, her arm pushing Ally away and to the side.

“Tell her to go away, Tristan,” Lulina sweetly demanded.

“Go away, Ally,” I repeated.

“Tell her not to come back, Tristan.”

“Don’t come back, Ally.”

When Ally’s tears began, they didn’t stop. Her face erupted in pain and she slowly backed away from my door. I wanted to cry too as a wave of sadness seemed to creep up out of nowhere and spread through me like cancer.

A tear slipped down my cheek. I quickly wiped away and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was man, and as a man, you had to be strong and never cry.

But all men cried at some point.

Men cried harder than women did. We cried in way of girls and whores and booze and failed angry relationships after the trauma that caused it all.

Lulina smiled at me. “Tristan?”

I said nothing.

She was not here for me to speak.

Ally had disappeared back into the safety of her own apartment, and now that Lulina had marked her territory, she was ready to get just what she claimed.

I still had the door perched open just enough to allow someone in. Lulina ducked her head under my arm and disappeared inside of my apartment.

***

Lulina pushed me towards the couch. The back of my knees hit the cushion and I fell against the seat. Her hands were tearing at my zipper.

Luckily, I snagged the bottle of liquor off the floor. My head tilted back as I put the mouth of bottle to my lips. Lulina was in my pockets, pulling out a condom. 

I had no buttons to rip this time around – thanks to her daughter - so Lulina ripped at my undershirt, pulling it up all the way to my arm pits.

I barely noticed as I was gulping away at my drink.

Lulina pulled my mouth away from the bottle and I felt her rough kiss and her warm possessive tongue. Her teeth latched onto my bottom lip as she growled.

Her fingers dug into my shoulders. “I’m gonna ride you hard like a horsemen would a horse, Tristan. You hear me? Giddy up.”

I went back to drinking, wishing the world would speed up and grow black. I barely even blinked when she latched the condom on and shoved me inside her.

I didn’t even care, but I did smile as one single thought surfaced: I would have felt better if Lulina held her hand over my mouth as she forced me to fuck her.

*

I was in bed, my hands immobile at my sides. The drinking had not done its job, that much I knew. I didn’t feel the familiar buzz of a drunken dream where I lived life on autopilot.

But I had accomplished the numbness, and I had one more accomplishment under my belt.

I felt empty.

I felt absolutely nothing. I didn’t feel used, which I had been – twice in the span of twenty-four hours – or tarnished, which I had felt and couldn’t get away from in the last two years, or broken, which I had felt like for my entire life. 

Lulina sat on the edge of my bed, spraying perfume on. She pulled her panties over her knees, stood up and slipped them over her hips.

“I would’ve of liked to admit that I haven’t missed you, Tristan, but I have.”

“Is that so, Lu?”

Lulina nodded, running a hand through her hair. “It’s nice to have back what we had to put on hold.”

“We didn’t have anything before and we don’t have anything now.”

She responded, “Oh? Has something changed in the last few hours?”

“A lot has changed.”

She smiled, titling her head back as she gave one more squeeze of perfume to her skin. “You’re lucky I’m not a jealous woman,” she said, “I would have taken offense to smelling another woman on you.”

The bed shifted as she crawled on all fours towards me. She threw a leg over me and lowered down so that she was inches away from my face.

“Tell me, Tristan, did you not take the hint at dinner yesterday?”

“What are you talking about?”

A polished finger nail ran over my lips. “You think I don’t know where my daughter went yesterday, Tristan? You may have lied to her but you can’t lie to me. What you and her don’t have, but you and me do, is history.”

She lowered her head and kissed my lips softly. “I know everything about you.”

Lulina tried to kiss me again but I turned my head away.

“Tristan,” she breathed my name, “Do you ever think about all the women you fucked because you’ve missed me, wanted me but couldn’t have me because your brother was too busy having me instead?”

I stared past her to the ceiling with its mold and cracks. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“But, I do. I want you think about every face, every moan, every dollar you spent trying to replace me. I want you to think about all you’ve suffered in the sake of loving me.”

She dragged her finger over my chest again, her nail digging into my skin harder this time. “Tell me about Katie. We’ve never talked about her. She was close to filling my shoes, wasn’t she?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I shook my head ‘no’.

“No?” Lulina laughed. “You mean to tell me that goddess on two legs, with those baby blue eyes and long blonde hair, killed herself over a man who was in love with another woman.”

“I’m not a good man, Lu.”

Lulina leaned on her elbow. She propped her head on her hand. She drooped her lip and pouted. “I guess I had a little to do with that.”

I licked my lips, feeling the dryness. I tried to swallow and felt the ball of tears in my throat. “If you hadn’t fucked me when I was nine, I may have turned out different.”

“All your faults aren’t my burden, Tristan.”

“No,” I said, “but maybe if I wasn’t so wrapped around your finger, waiting for you to love me, I could have focused on other things in my life.”

She nodded enthusically, “You mean like your place in the family?”

“I don’t really know, Lu?”

“Well, I do know, Tristan. I’ve always been honest with you, and I’m telling you the truth that you were the one who made bad decisions. You went after women you couldn’t have.”

“Only because a woman I couldn’t have went after me.”

“But,” she said as she smiled, “Things are different. I’m not married anymore and enough time has passed.”

“My father and Papa would never let that happen,” I told her.

“I don’t care about what they think. You do, though. You’ve always tried to please them. Trust me, you may like the man you’ll become if you stopped trying to be the perfect little Rogue son.”

“I want you to leave, Lu.”

“But, I’m not going anywhere.” Her palm rested against my heart. “And you know that. I’m right here under all this skin, all these hurt feelings, all the women you’ve been with, all the booze you drank.”

Her tongue tickled the skin under my bottom lip.

“Tristan, you’re mine.”

“I’m your daughter’s.”

There was a flash of anger. Lulina recovered well, the deep lines in her forehead subsiding. “Dominique is your father’s Tristan.”

“But we –“

“I know what you two did,” she snapped. “Everyone knows what you two did, well, except for Almond.”

I rubbed my head, confused.

Lulina continued. “My daughter was due a show of favor from your family. She made one request – while you were running away – and asked that if she was to be married to a man whom she did not love, then she would have the choice to lay with a man who she did.”

My voice was growing softer and softer, my strength leaving me in droves. I could feel the hollow space inside and it was growing, gaining speed.

“Dominique isn’t stupid, Tristan. She may be fond of you, but she knows whats important.”

“She said –“

“And she may very well love you, but she understands that she has to be your father’s wife for her to get the reigns in the family, or for her own father not to wage war because of what was stolen from him. She may have screwed you, but that’s all it was.”

My eyes closed as I pinched the bridge of my nose again. “I don’t believe you, Lu.”

“I’ve always protected you, Tristan.”

“You don’t even love me. You never have.”

“But I do. I was trying to protect you from my daughter. You wouldn’t listen, but I knew you wouldn’t. Your dick has its own mind and its own wants and you can’t help but crumble at its will.”

I opened my eyes and looked into Lulina’s hazel eyes. “Leave,” I said.