HARDCORE: Storm MC(187)

“Oh shit…” he groaned as he slipped from me and collapsed beside me.



I ran my hand over his back, half dead myself.



“No workout ever did that for me,” I murmured, chuckling.



“I hope not,” he groaned into the pillow. “Then again, it could make gyms more popular.”



I laughed, still trying to catch my breath for the second time that afternoon.



Once we quieted down, he turned onto his back. His near-black hair was tangled, falling over his forehead. I brushed it back. He grinned, looking at me with half-closed eyes. He didn’t say a word, and he didn’t have to. He only needed to hold out his arms to me, and I sank into them. Before I knew it, I was sliding into sleep.





Chapter Fifteen



Lance





I held her in my arms, staring at the ceiling. I never felt so torn between being glad something finally happened and wishing it had never happened.



She was asleep, or else doing a really good job of pretending to be. She didn’t move at all, just breathed in and out slowly. Her head was on my chest. It was a good weight. It felt right.



It was so wrong. I hated myself for it. She was a good person. She didn’t need to get mixed up in my bullshit.



I couldn’t help myself. It seemed like we were supposed to do it. Ever since I first saw her, everything we did and said was leading up to it. Like breathing. I didn’t even have to think about it, just do it. That was what being with her was like.



I wondered if she felt the same way. I hoped she wasn’t one of the types who would want to stick around just because we slept together. That was the last thing I needed. Just because I had a kid didn’t mean I wanted to sit around being a family man. That wasn’t me.



Life had a funny way of changing fast. One day I was just me. Then I had a kid. Now there was a woman in my bed who I liked. I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better.



Then I looked at what I was about to do, and any sort of smile left my face. I was going to go after the woman I thought I liked years ago. Rae was a good person back then. She was like me—a little broken from a shitty family life, but she was a sweet girl. I saw a lot of her in Gigi, actually. I hadn’t thought about it before. She was patient, a good listener. We used to spend a lot of time just talking about life. She had a good heart. She was always the first one to reach out to somebody when they were having a hard time, or when they needed something.



What happened to her? The needle. Just one try, just to see if she liked it or not. I told her I didn’t want her to do it—I was younger then, and I thought I could tell my woman what to do. It only pissed her off and made her want to do it more. So she did. That was it. She was hooked from then on.



She had tried to pretend like she wasn’t. She had tried to hide it from me. There was no way to hide it since she was a totally different person on it than she was before. She used to be sharp, funny, she had energy. After she used she was like a shadow of that person. She didn’t care about anything or anybody. She would sit and stare into space—or worse, she would pretend everything was fine. She would try to act straight, the way drunk people tried to act sober. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so fucking sad.



I couldn’t help her. I finally figured that out after around five or six months. I couldn’t make her stop. Only she could. She would be okay for a week or two, then go back to it. I couldn’t live like that. I guessed she must’ve stopped after she found out about Gigi—the kid seemed fine, which was something I would always be grateful for. She had done the right thing, at least.



Jamie moved a little, and I stayed still to see whether she would wake up. She did. And she jumped up when she remembered where she was.



“Oh crap.” She looked down at me.



“Oh crap? What?”



She blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out like that.”



“I hope not.” I frowned. Was she gonna be weird like that from then on?



She looked around the room, then back at me. “Uh, should I go?”



“If you want to.” I shrugged.



“Do you want me to?”



I sighed. “If I wanted you to, I wouldn’t still be here with you. Would I?”



“I guess not?”



“Is that a question?” I grinned at the way she smirked at me. That was more like it.



She lay down on her side, facing me. “Did you get any sleep?”



“Nah. You were only asleep for a little while, anyway. It’s not that late.”



“But you wanted to get some rest. I’m sorry.”



I chuckled. “If it were that important for me to get some sleep, I wouldn’t have pulled you in here with me. Right?” I looked over at her, and she blushed again.