Chapter 8

"Okay." I steeled myself and took another swig. "So that was my ex-boyfriend, Mark. We lived together for four of the five years we were together in a shitty little apartment. I knew before we moved in together that we should have split, but I ignored the signs and decided that things would be better if we saw each other all the time. Stupid, right?" I took a sip.

"So Mark and I decided to move in together. We both had fairly decent jobs. I had just bought a car since mine had died. At first things were great, it was like we had just met all over again. It took about a year of living together for things to start hitting the fan. He would stay out all night drinking with his brother, then come home wasted after I'd already left for work. He called in to work at least two days a week because he hadn't been to bed yet. Like an idiot, his boss thought he was good enough to justify keeping him despite his unreliability. When he showed up, he did do great work. So his boss and I both put up with his shit." I sneered into my drink and took another swig.

"He had a really rough night and we got into a fight. He ended up smashing one of our kitchen chairs and I ended up throwing the pieces at him as I berated him. It was a two bedroom apartment, so we slept in separate rooms that night. The next day he apologized and we moved on. At some point he stopped having enough money to pay his half the rent, because what he actually earned after so much not showing up went towards booze or drugs for him and his underage brother. I started paying the rent and my car with my paycheck, but then groceries and gas went onto my credit cards..." I looked up at Zach to gauge his reaction and he encouraged me with a nod.

"He'd get his act together for a few months, pay my credit cards down, and all would be okay. Sometimes we went to parties together and things were cool then. One night we decided to take in a girl that got kicked out of her house. She was a few years younger than us and I figured she could take over my room since Mark and I usually shared his room anyway. By this point I had quit my job, thinking it was the job that made me unhappy, not Mark. So I had a new job and I had to be up at 5 am. The party was now at our place, since our new little housemate was involved. I would have to come out of the bedroom at 3 am to yell at them because I had to be up in two hours. Some nights I embraced it and partied all night with them, but still got up for work in the morning. It was the point where I came home to them loudly screwing in my bedroom with the door locked that I flipped my shit. I broke the lock on the door, kicked her dumb ass out, and Mark and I had the fight of our lives." I kept my eyes on my drink, spinning the glass in my hands and watching the liquid slosh.

"He spouted some bullshit about me not being fun anymore, and I berated him for being a drunken idiot. He grabbed me by the throat that night, and I gave him a black eye. We stalked off to cool off, but things never really got better. He started sleeping at his mom's house and drinking even more. I acted like he had moved out and packed up most of his stuff. I didn't see him for weeks at a time, but there would be evidence that he had been there and left again. Sometimes it was a load of laundry, sometimes it was dirty dishes in the sink. I figured out that he stayed at the apartment during the day and left at night to avoid me. One day I came home from work to find him wasted on the couch, waiting for me. We started arguing. He tried to hug me and I pushed him. He tackled me and forced enough liquor down my throat that I was drunk in minutes. I came up sputtering and pissed, then the alcohol and whatever he had laced it with kicked in. He held me down and forced himself on me. When he finally let me up, I kicked him in the dick and hit him so hard I split his lip. I chased him out with a baseball bat and threats of a call to the cops. I moved out of the apartment and notified the office in writing. Rent hadn't been paid in over a month, and I wasn't about to pay it." I paused as Zach refilled my glass. I hadn't looked at his reaction yet, and I couldn't now.

"I tried to stay nearby so I could keep my job, but he started stalking me at work. After about a month of him stalking me I cornered him in an alley and we fought hard. I broke his arm and he bloodied up my face. I had a nasty black eye to explain away for a while. At one point he hit my car with his on purpose and that was when I knew I had to get out of there. Without telling anyone where I was going, I packed up everything and left for Michigan. It has taken him almost a year to find me here." I finally looked up to find Zach on the verge of something. I couldn't tell if he was about to freak out or cry. He took my hand in his.

"I am so sorry that you had to go through that. No one deserves that. Especially you."

"Yeah, but you don't deserve my baggage either. I'm sorry you had to be there for that."

"I'm glad I was. I'm just regretting not fucking him up before I let the police take him." He squeezed my hand a little and released it. We chuckled together and finished our bourbon in silence. "I can't believe that asshole."

"I can. His mom was bipolar, and I'm pretty sure he was too."

"That doesn't excuse his behavior."

"No. It certainly doesn't." I cracked open one of the hard ciders. "Anyway, now that I've ruined your night…"

"No, you haven't. Thank you for sharing your story with me. Shall we do something fun and forget about that douche bag?"

"Sure. I brought a deck of cards and some munchies." I stood and headed in the direction he had come from with the drinks. He got up and came with me. His kitchen was clean but sparsely decorated. It didn't look like a bachelor lived here, more like someone without enough time to use the kitchen properly. The walls were off white, as well as the appliances. His cabinets and kitchen table were a medium maple shade and the counter tops were a nondescript gray Formica of some sort. I sat down at the table with my cider and pulled a bag of pretzels and a large bag of m&ms from a grocery bag. I popped both bags open, then with a mouthful of m&ms I set to work on opening up the deck of cards and shuffling them.

We played several rounds of war, some rummy, then reduced ourselves to playing go fish by the time we'd finished off most of the alcohol I'd brought. We were giggling like little kids and somehow go fish turned into slap jack. After a particularly boisterous slap over Zach's hand, he flipped his hand, gripped my wrist, and pulled me around the table to him. I stumbled drunkenly into his lap laughing uproariously. Strong arms steadied me and trapped me across his lap. I turned to look at him and a large palm cupped my face. He hesitated, like our first kiss, giving me time to protest. When I didn't, he didn't wait long to crush our mouths together. We pulled apart, our lips sticking together for a moment. He searched my face to make sure I was okay. The look I had must have assured him I was more than okay, because he kissed me hard again. I shifted so I was straddling him, forcing him to tilt his head back to continue kissing me. I wrapped both arms tightly around his neck and pushed our chests together. One of his palms spanned across my back and the other cupped my ass, squeezing tightly.

I moaned into his mouth and he chuckled. He shifted a little so he could pull my top over my head. I took the opportunity to remove his as well. We continued to attack each other's mouths, satisfied, momentarily for torso skin on skin contact. He unhooked my bra and I helped him discard it with our shirts on the floor without breaking our kiss. His hardening erection twitched a little beneath me. I put more weight against it, making him groan into my mouth.

We pulled apart and Zach sobered for a moment. "Is this okay?" He asked me worriedly, searching my face.

"It's more than okay." I replied, framing his scruffy cheeks with my palms. "He's nothing but bad memories to me. Help me erase a few?"

In answer, Zach grasped under my thighs and stood with me. I wrapped my legs around his hips as he strode back to the living room. He laid me on my back on his couch and removed his remaining clothes. I followed suit and shimmied out of mine and discarded them on the floor. He leaned over me, bracing himself with one knee between mine and a hand on the back of the couch. He had an intense look on his face. I reached up and pulled him down to me, spreading my legs to accommodate his hips. We fit together snugly and he entered me easily. We both groaned aloud.