Page 99 of Dirty Ink

This would destroy me. That I could not heal from.

I was hunched over on the edge of the couch, feet tapping madly, fingers digging into my skull, when the door opened. The little bell rang and I looked up. It was like seeing Rachel at the bottom of my stairs all over again. I was shocked. I was scared. I was flooded with hope, drowned with lust, choked with anger, paralysed by terror. I couldn’t believe she was there, actually there.

I must have looked like a madman. Eyes bloodshot and wide. Whiskey on my breath. Crumpled clothes torn at like a shifting werewolf under a full moon. But then again, Rachel looked like a madwoman, there in the open doorway.

Her hair clung to her paled skin like river weeds. She dripped onto the floor, breathing heavily. She didn’t seem to care at all that the door was open or that gusts of wind were sending in rainwater around her trembling form.

“Look,” she said as I stared at her, “if we’re going to make this work we need to talk. Really talk.”

I barely comprehended her words. “Make this work.” Make what work? What was she talking about? Why wasn’t she closing the door? Wasn’t she cold? Wasn’t she freezing? Wasn’t she chilled to the bone? Why weren’t my arms around her?

Rachel sucked in a trembling breath, her chest still heaving.

“Mason,” she said as the rain roared behind her, “we need to talk about what happened in Vegas.”

Mason

Then…

It had to be something spectacular. And unique. And sweet. And dazzling. And brilliant and sexy and intriguing. It had to be theatrical and it had to be from the deepest depths of my heart. And funny. And irresistible. And like nothing at all ever before.

It had to be like Rachel.

“Fuck!” I growled, balling up another sheet of paper and hurling it over the edge of the balcony at Rachel’s apartment. “Fuck, fuck, fucker, fuck me, goddamn fuck, fuck.”

The chair I’d been leaning back on crashed to the concrete. I pushed myself up, tossed the notepad on the little glass patio table, and stalked back inside. At the mirror in the living room, I stared at my reflection and tried to speak from the heart.

“Rachel,” I said, an alright start, I supposed, “I know it’s only been…damn, I don’t even know how long it’s been.”

I tugged at my hair and shook my head, muttering, “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. She’s not going to say ‘yes’ because you got the dates right. Keep going.”

Breathing in deeply, I tried to calm my thrashing heart and tried again.

“Look, I know it’s been short, our time together, but when you know, you know, you know?”

I bellowed at the ceiling like a maniac and stormed toward the kitchen. “When you know, you know, you know?” What kind of bullshite was that, you feckin’ eejit? The refrigerator door clanging noisily against the wall as I pulled it open. I grabbed a beer and popped it roughly on the edge of the marble island. I downed half of it before gasping at the air.

I needed to calm down, I told myself, palms flat on the counter, back heaving as my head dropped. I squeezed my eyes shut. A million different possibilities shifted through my head like sandstorms. Bits and pieces. Flashes that stung my eyes. Do I take her to a nice restaurant? Too typical. Do I stand up on a table in a nice restaurant? Rachel might like that. But it didn’t scream “romance”, screaming my proposal to her as I was dragged away by security. But maybe that was the exact kind of romance that Rachel would love. She’d probably hold an old lady at knifepoint just to get dragged away with me. We’d fuck in the back of the cop car. Red and blue lights whirling. Rocking on the strip. Batons banging against the plastic divider as the Vegas lights bathed her bare tits before my mouth did…

I pressed the ice-cold beer bottle to my forehead. Fuck, I loved that woman. Loved her more than anything. Loved her more than I thought was possible. Like I was mad, feverish, sick. Loved her like she was the impossible made possible, the unreal, real, the dream, a reality. Loved her like she alone was worth loving.

At first I was going to ignore my phone. I heard it ring from the bedroom. Buried somewhere under the sex-stained sheets. I had more important things to do before Rachel got back from her performance later that night. Proposing marriage to the woman you just met took hard work, you know? But I decided in the end to at least check it in case it was Rachel.

Maybe the rest of the show got food poisoning and the show was cancelled.

Maybe there was a pipe burst in the theatre and the show was cancelled.

Maybe the electricity on the Strip had gone out and the show was cancelled.

Maybe a tornado was heading for the city and the show was cancelled.

Maybe Rachel couldn’t stand to be apart from me the way I couldn’t stand to be apart from her and had demanded that the show be cancelled right then and there with a stomp of her little foot and a sexy pout.

I almost tossed the phone back onto the bed when I saw the Dublin area code. But I saw the name as I was extending my hand, fingers ready to unfurl. My palm moved slowly back toward me. I stared down at my phone as it continued to ring. Maybe I already knew then. Maybe I already knew what would have been impossible to already know.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Mr Donovan?”

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