Page 25 of Unlocked Desire: Vol One

"I can't rest if I'm worried about you."

Jack smiled. He was so beautiful when he smiled; he appeared younger, almost happy. "You're not gonna let this go, are you?"

"No. Take me to the bathroom, lover. The first aid kit is there."

Chapter 5

JACK

"Fuck," I hissed as Joey dabbed the gauze laced with alcohol on my knuckles.

"You should have thought of that before you got into another fight."

I gritted my teeth, thinking about how that piece of shit had talked about my girl. "The fucker deserved it. He's lucky I didn't kill him."

Joey didn't say anything. Looking at the cuts and bruises, she gently kissed each knuckle before wrapping the gauze around my hand.

"Fuckin' perfect."

"Yes, I think I did a pretty good job, even if I do say so myself."

"I meant you, beautiful. You're fuckin' perfect."

"Why did you get into the fight?"

"Fuck." I got up and moved across the bathroom.

I couldn't handle being around Joey when she asked her question. She always pushed, wanting to talk about shit. I hated talking. There was no point to it. Hashing out the past wasn't gonna do any good, but that shit was embedded in me. I didn't want to talk about all the horrible shit in my childhood. I didn't need her fuckin' pity. I didn't like it. I just needed her love, and if she knew the truth, she wouldn't love me. Why would she? My own mother couldn't stand the sight of me.

"Whatever it is, I can take it." Joey walked up to me, placing her soft hands on my face.

All I wanted to do was bury myself in her and forget. That was what sex was with Joey: peace. It was the only place I ever found peace, buried deep inside her.

"But you have to tell me, Jack. We can't keep going on like this. We can't move forward until I know it all. I can't move forward."

"You're gonna leave me," I said, my voice so low that I barely heard my own words.

"I won't leave you if you tell me."

"You don't know that."

"I do because I love you."

"My mother told me she loved me too…until she didn't."

"Please," Joey begged, unshed tears pooling in her eyes.

I hated that I'd made her sad. I hated that my fucked-up past worried her.

I gently removed her hand from my face, not wanting her to touch me and withdraw once she heard everything. I couldn't handle that.

"My mother, the woman who was supposed to love and protect me, left me on my father's doorstep when I was four. My dad was a successful senator but a mean drunk. He got drunk one night and banged a sixteen-year-old waitress in the back of his limo. He stayed around for a while, bringing her flowers and taking her for expensive meals, all things that would make a girl from bumfuck nowhere feel like she was something more than she was. Then, as soon as my mom got pregnant, he up and walked away, only sending monthly child support checks in exchange for my mother's silence. I didn't see that man one day in my life until that day. She didn't even wait for him to open the door. Just handed me an envelope and drove off."

"But didn't your dad raise you? I thought he was neighbors with Lip's parents."

"Raise is subjective. He left me in the hands of my stepmother, who wasn't all there. She did things to me. She called it love, but it didn't feel like it."

Tears ran down Joey’s face, and her hands covered her mouth, trying to absorb the escaping sobs. I wanted to hold her, tell her it didn't matter, and I'd escaped that shit. That Lip had saved me and that she’d given me a soul.