Don't Deny Me: Part One Read online

How many times do I let you break me, before I decide I’ve had enough? We spin and spin so much we’ve created our own gravity. Like no matter how hard we try, neither of us can break away. We are in orbit. Caught. How many times do I let you break me?

  I guess the only answer is, every time.

  —Alice to Mick

  * * *

  Dayna’s call hadn’t taken Alice by surprise, not after their conversation at Bernie and Cookie’s. They’d agreed to meet for happy hour drinks at some place Alice wouldn’t have normally gone to, but that Dayna had raved about. It had a tropical decor and fancy drinks that came in specialty glasses, which was about all it had to recommend for it as far as Alice was concerned, but Dayna looked so happy to see her that it didn’t matter about the creepy platoon of business guys ogling her as soon as she walked in.

  “Hey. Good to see you.” Dayna hugged her. “I got us a table over here.”

  Alice followed, careful not to make eye contact with any of the men circling the free buffet. “How’s the food here?”

  “Order from the menu, not that cesspool,” Dayna advised. “The chicken fingers are all right, but not worth having to deal with the bad pickup lines.”

  Alice laughed as she took a seat at the highboy table. “Good to know. Thanks.”

  They ordered drinks and a platter of appetizers. They chitchatted for a few minutes, until Dayna finally took a long, deep breath. Alice waited, but Dayna didn’t say anything.

  “Paul,” Alice said.

  Dayna nodded.

  “We might need more than one drink.”

  Dayna laughed, which was better than crying. “He said he can’t give me what I want. That he can’t go all in, whatever the hell that means.”

  The drinks came, along with the food, and Alice waited to answer until the server left. Then she lifted her glass. Clinked it to Dayna’s.

  “It just means he doesn’t have any idea what else to say that won’t make him sound like a giant douche bag.” Alice sipped cold liquor and picked up a tortilla chip laden with refried beans and salsa. “I mean, did you tell him what it is, exactly, that you want?”

  “I said I wanted him.”

  “And he can’t give you him?”

  “He can give me his dick,” Dayna said sourly. “That, he seems able to manage.”

  Alice laughed, not meaning to make light of what was Dayna’s obvious distress. But there was nothing but laughter to be had in a situation like this, because how else do you react to the absurdity of love? After a second or so, Dayna laughed, too.

  “I told him I didn’t need a marriage proposal. Just that if he was going to come over and fuck me on occasion that he should answer my texts once in a while, too. I didn’t even say we had to be exclusive.” Dayna paused to drink, looking thoughtful. “I mean, it wasn’t so long ago that even the thought of someone else touching me was enough to make me want to puke, but funny how it happens that when someone keeps hurting you in the same way how easy letting go starts to get.”

  “No kidding. Mick called me.” Alice dug into more food.

  Dayna shook her head. “And?”

  “And, nothing. He wanted to see me. I said no.”

  Dayna’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t!”

  “I did.” A strange sense of pride stung her for a second as Alice lifted her chin and shrugged. “There was just no good to come from that. Sure, we’d fuck around, I’d get off, he’d get off, but we’d be back to the same old shit as the first time around. Doors should close, remember?”

  “Maybe, but … how did you manage to do it?” Dayna drained her glass as the server reappeared. “Two more, please.”

  Alice shrugged again. “I don’t know, really. Just that seeing him that weekend was better and worse in a lot of ways than I’d expected, but … there is no more me and Mick. That’s the thing. It ended for a good reason. I mean, what ended it was bad, but it was a good reason to end it.”

  The booze had started tickling her already. Words tangling on her tongue. Memories flooding in. All the feels, filling her up!

  “Why did it end?”

  Alice sat back. “You don’t know?”

  “Nope.” Dayna shook her head and dug into the mozzarella sticks.

  “There were lots of reasons; aren’t there always more than one? But let’s just say that when I needed him, he wasn’t there.” Alice paused. “Nobody talked about it?”

  Dayna grinned. “What, you think we all gossiped about you?”

  “Maybe.” Alice thought about it. “Jay knows. I figured he’d have told Paul.”

  “Jay’s your best friend, he doesn’t talk out of school about you. And Paul and I didn’t exactly have what you’d call a relationship based on sharing and communication,” Dayna said.

  This set them both off into more peals of laughter. More drinks appeared, perfect timing. Also a pair of business guys dressed in identical khakis and polo shirts, even their smiles matching. And somehow, though Alice would’ve said the very last thing on her agenda tonight was going to be getting picked up by a slick-talking salesman in town for a tech convention, she found herself doing just that.

  His name was Bill. His friend, so clearly taken with Dayna that he could barely look away from her face, was Gary. The two of them were staying at the hotel attached to this bar, a fact they’d stated right up front, which made Alice laugh.

  “I’m not going to your hotel,” she told Bill. “You can buy me a drink, but that’s it.”

  Bill grinned. Gary had lured Dayna away to the next table so Bill could take her seat. Whatever he was saying to her was making her laugh. Good for her. Alice lifted her brow at Bill.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know you are. I could tell that about you right away. Serious.” Bill tipped his beer bottle at her and put on a solemn face. “Serious Alice.”

  Alice gave in to a laugh, but shook her head. She made a show of looking around the bar, then back at him. “There’s a bar full of young, single women. You pick the one who’s not interested in hooking up. I have to question your judgment.”

  “I might have poor judgment,” Bill said, “but I have very, very good taste.”

  He got bonus points for being charming, she thought. Dayna seemed to be having a good time with Gary, the two of them leaning close. And Bill was a good-looking guy. Smart and funny, straightforward about what he was going for but, despite that, not actually too pushy. Another time, not so long ago, she would have given him her number. As it was, with the party at Bernie’s still too painfully fresh, Alice couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for the thought of hooking up. Or dating.

  Because let’s face it, Bill was no Mick. Nobody was Mick. Nobody ever would be. But hadn’t she decided just a few nights ago that she was done with Mick McManus and his hold over her? Great sex aside, all the feels aside, no matter how sweet the berries tasted, if you knew they were poison, you left those bitches on the bush.

  Which is why when Bill asked her if she wanted to dance, Alice put down her drink and took his hand.

  * * *

  These are the flowers I cut for you before you told me that pink roses were a waste of a flower. I put them in a vase anyway, because I cut them and what the heck do you do with flowers once they’ve been cut? You put them in a vase with water on the kitchen counter and hope your girlfriend doesn’t sneeze herself into apoplexy over them before you can get her out of the house and take her to her favorite restaurant for a big steak dinner.

  I’m sorry, baby, that I didn’t know you hated pink roses.

  Let me make it up to you.

  —Mick to Alice

  * * *

  “She likes big romantic gestures,” Jay said. “You know. Say Anything type stuff. You’re gonna have to be John Cusack holding up the boom box outside her window. And really, man, it sounds like you need to grovel a little bit. Maybe a lot.”

  Mick took a long draw on the beer Jay had handed him. The other man had been rightfully reluctant to let Mick com