Arranged love

“That’s what makes me a bastard.” He shouts again while angry tears run down his face. “Because I wouldn’t be strong enough to let her go.” He takes in a deep breath, and we hear her sob.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

He spins around, and his shoulders fall when he sees she’s been listening. She gets to her shaky feet and runs to him, arms open, and wraps them around him. “Don’t leave me. Please … please don’t leave me,” she cries, clinging to him for dear life while his arms stay at his sides.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, so much pain evident in three little words. Closing his eyes, he repeats. “I’m so sorry, April.”

“No.” She pulls away, placing her hands on either side of his face. “Don’t. Don’t you ever be sorry.”

“It’s my fault,” he goes on, shoulders shaking.

“No-”

“If you hadn’t met me, then you wouldn’t know the pain I put you through. The baby…”

“No,” she growls, getting angry with him for blaming himself for something he had no control over. “That’s not true.”

“I didn’t take a drink,” he tells her, shaking his head quickly.

“I know.” She nods, sniffling, trying to pull herself together.

“I haven’t done any drugs …”

“I know, babe. I know.”

He lowers his face, placing his forehead on hers. “I … love you,” he chokes out.

She lets out a sob before licking her lips. “I love you.”

His legs give out, and he falls into the chair, and she goes with him, straddling his lap. He wraps his arms around her, softly rocking them back and forth.

“Grave!” I hear Titan call out, and the front door slam shut. “April!” He rushes into the kitchen to find us and comes to a stop.

I stand from the table and turn to face him. His wide eyes search mine and then my face. His look of concern turns to panic, and I realize I’ve been silently crying. “What happened?” he asks. “I’m sorry I missed your call.” His eyes go to the broken windows. “What-?”

“It’s okay,” I tell him, pulling myself together. “Everyone’s okay.”He throws the glass of scotch, and it shatters one of the windows, glass flying everywhere. I watch April’s body shake as she slides down the wall, pulling her knees to her chest, still covering her mouth and nose while she sobs.

“I woke up today.” He angrily wipes the tears from his face that have started to fall. “And for the first time in a while, I still wanted to get high. Seeing her wasn’t enough. Because I’m fucking weak.” He gives a rough laugh. “That’s why I bought this bottle.” He tosses it up, catching it with his right hand. His skull ring clanks against the glass. “I thought one bottle won’t hurt. That if I had a couple of glasses, maybe it would help me sleep. Knock me out and keep the nightmares away. It was like I was in the dream, watching myself stop at the liquor store and buy it.” Holding it up, he scrunches up his face, and then he chucks it at another window, breaking it as well.

The sound of the glass shattering makes me flinch.

“That’s another thing that makes me weak.” Slamming his elbows on the table, he bows his head, gripping his hair.

“No, you’re not,” I tell him, clearing the knot in my throat. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

He snorts, his hands dropping. “I’m a bastard. What I said to Mia at dinner the other night-”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“What I said to her up at Kingdom-”

“Grave, it’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”

“Stop making excuses for me,” he shouts at me. “You would always cover for me when it came to Mom and Dad.” He throws his arms out wide. His watery eyes now glaring at me. “There’s no one left but you and me now. So just stop pretending that I’m not a fuckup.”

Silence falls over the room, and I take in a shaky breath. “You’re not-”

“I just thought making others feel pain would make me feel better.” He interrupts me, softening his words. “I-I just want to feel nothing.” He chokes out the words. “And April. She deserves better. For the first time since I met her, I thought of walking away from her on my way home from work tonight. Giving her a chance at something better. What she deserves, but nothing-” He slams his fists down on the table. “Nothing short of death would make the pain of losing her go away. And that’s another reason I’m so fucking weak.” He lowers his voice. “It’s like Dad always said-love makes a man weak.”

I flinch at his choice of words. He paraphrased them, but it’s exactly what our father meant. “He was wrong.” I reach out for him, but he shoves my hands away and jumps to his feet, the chair scraping across the marble floor. “Grave-”

MIA

I OPEN MY heavy eyes to the dark room and sit up. “Dillan?” I call out, thinking I heard something. Picking up my cell, I see it’s almost four in the morning.

Pushing the covers off, I get out of bed and enter the bathroom. I hear the shower running before I see it. Bones stands under the sprayer, his back to me. Both hands on the wall, head down. It’s dark in here. He doesn’t have any lights on, just the few under the countertops, giving the large room a soft glow.

Reaching up, I remove the Kingdom T-shirt I wear and slide the underwear down my legs before opening the glass shower door. His muscles tense as he lets the water run down over his inked body. I can hear his heavy breathing over the shower. I place my hand on his back, and he jumps, spinning around, and I take a step back.

He stares down at me, and I frown when I see his eyes are bloodshot. “Dillan-”

Reaching out, he cuts me off and pulls me to him. Without saying a word, he lowers his lips to mine and kisses me. Fervently. Taking my breath away.

His hands slide into my hair, and he tilts my head back, his mouth dominating mine. I want to be mad at him after what I found out today about him and Emilee, but I have no right to be. He had a life before me, and I can’t change that. I think that’s why I focused more on our upcoming fake engagement rather than what I really wanted to talk about.

Pulling away, I suck in a deep breath and open my eyes to look up at him. “You okay?” I ask softly, running my hands down his slick back, feeling how tense he is while the showerhead sprays it.

He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. I already know the answer, and it’s no. Something is wrong. Instead, his eyes roam over my face and neck. They drop to my chest, and he licks his wet lips.

“Talk-”

His lips come down on mine again, cutting me off, and he spins us around, pushing my back to the wall. His hand drops to my thigh, and he lifts it up, wrapping it around his hip. Then he’s sliding into me without any foreplay. It hurts, forcing me to cry out into his mouth.

I pull away from his lips to suck in a breath, and he buries his face into my neck, not caring. He starts to fuck me, hard and fast, shoving my back into the warm tiled wall as the water comes down over us. And I let him take whatever he needs from me. He’s hurting. I can feel it in the way his fingers dig into my thigh. The way his breathing picks up and the fact that he refuses to look me in the eyes.

I wrap my arms around him and squeeze. “It’s okay,” I tell him, not sure what he needs, just knowing that I want him to know I can give it to him.

He doesn’t let up. He slams into me harder, and my breath hitches. He drops his hand from my hair to my other thigh and lifts that as well, both of my feet now off the shower floor.

I wrap them around his narrow hips, hooking them together, trying to hang on to his wet and slippery body.