Page 15 of Imperfect Player

More than I want to. More than is rational.

Either way, I’d walked out the door with Everly’s personal cell number added to my phone. Her work cell and office number too. Just. In. Case.

Sitting on the balcony now, my eyes on the dark, cloud filled sky above me, I can’t help but be reminded of the dark cloud that looms over me.

The feeling of worthlessness. The inability to love or accept love. The fucking devastated mess my parents left me in when they walked out on me twenty-two years ago. Parents that left their son because he wasn’t worth giving up their lives for. He wasn’t worth the shit they had to go through in order to take care of him.

It was too hard. Too much.

And he wasn’t worth it.

I don’t remember a whole lot about that time—after all I had only been eight years old. I do remember those words though. Vividly. I remember how they made me feel. The shame. The anger. The sadness.

I remember my dad leaving first. He ruffled my hair then walked out the door. The ruffling confused me. It was a stark contrast to the words he had just uttered to my mother. How he didn’t want to be a father. How he was tired of it all. How I wasn’t worth it. The ruffling made no sense. Still doesn’t.

Regardless of the words or the ruffling of my then-shaggy hair, he left. Gone. Never looked back.

I remember thinking that at least I had my mom. At least I wasn’t alone. I’d be good. The best little boy anyone had ever seen.

And I was. Or at least I’d tried to be.

Tried and failed.

It was less than two weeks later that my mom left too.

Her excuse was just as lame as his. She couldn’t do it on her own. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

I felt her on that one.

Neither parent wanting you. Not being good enough, no matter how hard you try. Being abandoned.

Yeah, that’s not how it was supposed to be either.

Once they were gone, then came the foster families. Families. Plural. One after another. None keeping me longer than a few months. None willing to adopt me.

It’s been a long time since I thought about this shit, rehashing the feelings that my parents left me with and the fucked-up head that I’m still working on. Living with might be a better description, because as soon as my ass was out of that rehab facility, I quit working on it.

I quit drinking too, but that I didn’t pick up again. The fucked-up head shit? That never really went away.

Here it is rearing its ugly head. Why?

That’s simple: because for the first time in my life, there’s a who. A person that I’m interested in beyond throwing a baseball at or sticking my cock in. A person who makes me feel things I’ve never felt before. Things that I want to feel again. Need to feel again.

My ray of sunshine.

Everly Mann pulled some sort of voodoo magic on me the other night. Enough that my incessant thoughts about her resulted in me texting her last night.

Lucky for me, I’d stopped while I was ahead.

Looking at the screen now, I groan.

Me: Come over. I want to see you. I want you. I want to know what you taste like on my tongue, feel your lips wrapped around my cock. I want to know how you sound when I slip my cock inside you.

Every single word is true. Every single one inappropriate to send to a woman like Everly. Especially considering she’s currently employed at the agency I’ve signed with.

Thank fuck I didn’t send it.

The thing is, I like Everly. The party that I had dreaded going to turned into one of the best nights I’d had in a long time. All because of her. I like her and I want to spend time with her, but I also know better. I know she deserves better. I know that I won’t be able to resist her.

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