So. Long(242)
The weeds outside rustle. I hold my breath. Tuffy pokes his head through the gap in the rusty underpinning.
“Hey, you.”
He wiggles into the space with me, licking my chin.
I sniffle and scratch him between his ears. “What’re you doing here, Buddy? Shouldn’t you be napping in your cushy bed?”
A shadow falls over the opening. “Tuff? You in there?”
“Fuck.”
Buck peeks through the weeds. “Lou?”
I push on Tuffy’s rump to get him out of the space. Pulling up my shirt tail, I wipe my eyes. Hopefully it isn’t too obvious I’ve been crying.
“Lou? Is that you?”
“Yeah. Gimme a second.”
I crawl out on my hands and knees, and before my backend is even all the way out of the crawlspace, Buck grabs me beneath my arms and pulls me to him.
“Unless you want a knot on your forehead to match the one on the back of your head, you’d best let go.” I push against him.
“C’mon, Lou. You wouldn’t assault an injured man, would you?”
I scramble to my feet. “You bet your ass I would.”
“About Arianne—”
“I don’t want to hear about her.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand plenty, Buck. No matter what you’ve said, you want your cock wet by two women. But that’s not me. I won’t be one of them. I get it though. You’re paying me for sex. I can’t exactly expect you to be faithful. It’s fine. But we’re done. I’m done.”
He grabs the sides of his head and grits his teeth. “Ugh. Just listen for a second, would you?”
I wrap my arms around myself. “Fine. You have sixty seconds.”
He reaches for me, but I step back.
“She was in the bathroom with me because she snuck in. I wasn’t showering with her. That’s how I slipped and fell. I jumped out of the tub onto the tile and lost my footing.”
I wait for a sign that he’s lying. But he doesn’t look away; he holds my gaze and he seems completely at ease, though not too much so.
I gnaw on my thumbnail. “You’re sure? Because it’s really okay. I mean—no hard feelings. You go your way, I go mine. We did it before. We can do it again. Hell, we will do it again.”
He pulls my hand from my mouth, kissing the backs of my knuckles.
“No. We won’t do it again. I love you.” He drags me into his embrace. “Arianne was just a blip on life’s radar. I told you before, I put up with her for this long only because of who her dad is. I don’t care about her. She’s nothing but a pain in the ass.”
A loud bang echoes through my chest. I whip around, expecting someone with a pistol. It’s just Arianne, clad in designer jeans, stalking to us in high heeled wedges, ankles wobbling as she traverses the uneven and overgrown yard.
Arianne has an old pot she must’ve picked up from somewhere in the debris field surrounding the trailer. She slams it against the crumpling siding again, her face pinched.
“Buck Wylder, how could you?”
He runs his fingers over the crease between his brows, shaking his head. “Here we go. I’m going to fire the fucking Thugs—they’re useless.”
She lobs the pot at him, missing by a yard. “After all we’ve meant to each other. How can you just throw it all away on some—some prostitute you’ve been paying for—for services?”
“Shit.” My toes curl in my sneakers as I shove my hands in my pockets, heat coming to my cheeks, even though the last thing I should be is ashamed in front of this bitch.
Buck rubs the back of his neck. “Arianne, you don’t know the first damned thing about Lou and me, or our relationship.”
She props her hands on her hips, giving me the once over, her lip curled. “Don’t try to deny it. She just said it. I heard her.”
Buck throws his hands in the air, turning away from her. “Fuck it. So what? It’s none of your fucking business, Arianne. I don’t want you, so it doesn’t matter.”
She tiptoes to him, her hands smoothing up his back.
“Stop.” He shrugs her off, spinning to face her.
“You don’t mean that. Or you won’t.” She turns her eyes on me, crossing her arms, a smug grin replacing the sneer of a moment ago. “I’m pregnant with our baby, Buck. You’re going to be a daddy.”
Buck’s color drains away as he shakes his head. “No. No way. No fucking way.”
My mind spins, I blink as though that might make this whole thing go away. Baby? Their baby? My core goes into a sudden deep freeze. Oh, Lord. Why? Why this?
I shuffle backward, trying to hold my shit together long enough to get the fuck outta here. “You two have a lot to discuss. I’m just going to go.”