Panty Snatcher Page 4

  Normal. What is normal, really? Is anyone actually normal? What constitutes a normal life? I would ask him to define this further for me, but why waste my breath, my voice, or anymore of my time?

  Five years.

  Five years, I have lived in a bubble of ignorance with this man.

  My college sweetheart, Robert. Oh, the pedestal I had him on. Five years together, loving, trusting, and building a life, a future. Five years—it just plays over and over in my mind. I spent all of this time living in the clouds of having a happily-ever-after with him, all while he was busy spreading his seed far and wide around the Houston area. Apparently, he didn’t get the memo that we were in a monogamous relationship.

  When not one but two of my coworkers popped up pregnant within six weeks of each other—both of them by my boyfriend—I had to face some facts.

  The first: there wasn’t something in the water. Nope, there was something going in them, but it wasn’t the water, it was my boyfriend. I tried to joke my way around the realities. In the end, it was simply him not keeping his dick in his pants. It wasn’t the moon, or some other shift in the tides, it was him.

  The second: Robert and his mistresses are the blame. While he swore they were temptresses with the pull of their voodoo and pheromones, in the end, he played his part in it. As much as I wanted to hate my so-called friends, it wasn’t completely their fault. It does take two after all. Add them my list of things to face. Yes, plural, both of them. These women are, in fact not my friends, since they knew the man they were sleeping with was living with me. How they could even look me in the eye and consider us friends while having copious amounts of sex with my man … well, it’s beyond me.

  Also add, I was hopelessly in love with the douchebag. I feel stupid. I feel broken. The pity-party is done. I am ready to move on. I want to blame them, put a Band-aid on this, and find a way to move on like it never happened.

  Only, it isn’t about them in the grand scheme of things.

  No, this is about my realities. This is about my failing relationship. They were just a small part of my cold dose of reality. The little things I had seen over the years and pushed aside, then made excuses for, were indeed signs I should have read more clearly. Now, after spending months trying to sort out the mess of my relationship before determining it was time to let go, I am numb.

  In the five years we were together, he was only faithful approximately one year. Honestly, I am possibly being generous in giving him that much time. My stomach churns thinking of how many others there were.

  Sex addiction, he calls it.

  Stupidity, irresponsibility, selfishness, immaturity, greediness, and any other way I can describe his inability to own up to his mistakes is what I call it.

  The box grows heavy in my arms. It’s a physical reminder of the weight of this relationship that is slowing me down. I hear him whining my name as I continue down the steps of what was once our front porch and walkway to the front drive, all while ignoring him.

  Making my way to the overly full moving truck waiting for me, I move the box to my left hip so I can inspect my packing. Sighing, I set the box on the ground to free my hands to move a few things to make the space I need. One more box. Once I get this last box inside the truck, I will pull down the door, latch it, climb in the driver seat, and drive away from this life.

  Far away.

  Okay not like another country far, but there’s going to be enough distance between me and him that I can hit the reset button on my life.

  Like a dog seeking a bone, Robert is on my heels, still digging for a crumb. The more he talks, the more he sounds like a little yappy mutt nipping at my calves, looking for any sign of attention.

  It’s over. Deuces. Peace out. I fold. I tap out. My white flag is waving. Moving on. Hello, giant moving truck in the driveway! Buy a clue, mister! God, I want to scream at him.

  Turning to face him, I roll my eyes at the sight of tears pooling in his. “Enough,” I bark out harshly.

  “Macky, you can’t be serious.”

  I put both my hands up Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune style. “See this? This is a moving truck. When you cheat, the prize for this puzzle is your freedom.”

  “The doc says, with a twelve step program, I’ll be okay.”

  I laugh in his face. “What doctor is this? The one online? It’s over, Robert.”

  “Macky, come on, baby. I can’t afford the house and shit without you,” he pleads, the truth finally washing over me.

  Wow, I should be surprised. I should be livid. A piece of me is, but something inside of me simply needs to have this over. The reality is I’m nothing but a paycheck to him. Not a partner, not a lover, and probably not even a friend. Nope, I am merely a meal ticket. Staying won’t change anything, but it will degrade me further.

  Thankfully, I have come to terms with our situation. The tears have all been shed. The anger has simmered. All the mixed emotions have twisted like a bad tornado on a path of destruction leaving my shattered heart and life in the rearview. Now it’s time to rebuild, reform, and regain my dignity amongst my pride, my confidence, and every other aspect of my life.

  Reality bites sometimes. Too bad I didn’t know all of this five years ago. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, they say. Well, it sure rings true right now.

  I feel like a sad love song. He’s had the best of me, and now he doesn’t want the rest of me.

  “Robbie, you’ll figure it out. Find a new conquest, and maybe she’ll support you. Or I don’t know, man up, sort your life out. Hell, get a second job. Honestly, with all that child support, you’re gonna need it, pal.”

  I slide the two boxes over, making just the space I need. Bending down, I heft the box up and shove it in place. I sigh in frustration as I climb on the bumper and pull the door down on the truck.

  In all of this packing and loading, Robert has done nothing to help me. No, all he has done is whine and beg. If he would shut up and go away, I would have been long gone and on my way home by now.

  “Marry me, Macky.” He doesn’t ask, he states, which only makes me laugh sardonically as I jump down.

  “Do you really think that would change anything? You’re delusional.” I don’t look at him. I just shake my head at the audacity this man has. I turn my back to him, climb in the box truck and slam the door on his crying, cheating face. I don’t look in the mirror to see him watch me leave.

  Life is in front of me and it’s time I tackle it on my own.

  ***

  The eight-hour drive from Houston to Gardendale is quiet and uneventful. I’m good with this. I could use some calm right now. This wasn’t an easy decision to make.

  I tried to stay in Houston. I tried to stay with him. I guess you could call it fear of the unknown. Weakness is how I tag it. I also own it. I was drowning in all the bad for a while. Now, I’m focused on moving on.

  In the end, the decision was made easier by my coworkers constantly having catfights over him—fights they didn’t quietly keep to themselves. No, they shouted them far and wide as they bickered over everything: who he would end up with, who would get more child support, who would get more emotional support. Everywhere I turned, his infidelity slapped me in the face. He isn’t all that in the bedroom, so why they were hell-bent on being the one he chose is beyond me. He has given me a handful of orgasms over the years, but nothing Earth shattering.

  “I love you dearly, but you come with a lot of stuff, Kenzy,” Jessika, my childhood best friend, states as she pulls open the flaps of yet another box of books sitting in my living room.

  When I pulled in last night, she helped me tirelessly unload every single box until late into the evening so I could return the truck keys to the night drop box and avoid another full day charge. Now she has returned to help me unpack the load and settle into my new life.

  “Not all of it will stay. I promise, some of it will go back in storage. I haven’t seen most of this in so long that I want an opportunity to sort through it.” />
  Living with Robert, I had stored most of my personal things for the last few years in his garage. When we bought the house, he did it saying he would cover the mortgage, and I would have free reign along with the expense of the design. Believing and daydreaming, I made what was technically his house into our home. The individuality of each of us was washed away, and it truly became a home that screamed a couple lived there. He was a part of a ‘we,’ yet it didn’t stop anything from happening in my own bed, on my beautiful, Egyptian cotton, mint green sheets.

  Being back in Gardendale, Texas again after being away the last ten years is nice. Moving and unpacking, not so much. I have spent my time away from my hometown going to nursing school on a scholarship in Houston and then working at a hospital there. I have a new job as an intensive care nurse at a hospital in Odessa, which is a thirty-minute drive away, but in a much larger facility than what we have locally.

  Jessika recently ended things with her fiancé and moved into a new apartment. I signed my lease for the one bedroom, one-bathroom apartment across the breezeway from her. The space is tiny yet will work perfectly.

  My shifts rotate at the hospital. When I break it down, I most likely will spend more hours there than here. When I am at home, it will be to sleep and do laundry. This leaves me no need to have something overly elaborate.

  Walking through my front door, there is a small kitchen directly to the right. The space is basic—a sink, stove, refrigerator, countertop microwave, and cabinets. No dishwasher, which is going to suck, but the place is cheap enough. The bar area is for eating as there is no real dining space.

  To the left of the entry door is my bedroom. The four plain white walls house my queen-sized bed and one dresser. Off the bedroom is the bathroom. It reminds me of a small hotel restroom: a toilet, a bathtub/shower combo, and a small counter with a sink. Nothing is fancy or overdone.

  Just beyond the kitchen is the living room. There is enough room for a couch and a chair, though not a full living room set. I lined the right half of the main wall with one of my two bookshelves, putting the other on the wall to the right of that in the corner. Rather than have the space crowded, I bought a loveseat and a chaise lounge. After some debate, Jessika wins and we place the chaise by the bookshelves, diagonal to the corner, making a reading nook. The other half of the room houses my loveseat, a small coffee table, and a television, one we are hoping we can figure out how to mount to the wall.

  It doesn’t take long for us to unpack all my Houston items. Then, Jessika and I go to my storage unit. When my single mom moved to live with my aging and ailing grandparents four years ago, she put all of my childhood belongings here. We bring all the boxes over, trying to get my life going.

  “This one is yours to unpack. You’ve really saved everything,” she states as she moves on, opening the next box.

  Sitting down beside her, I look into the box of memorabilia, finding my high school yearbook. I giggle as I pull out the annual. Opening the cover, I smile as I see my teenage doodles.

  “You know he’s still here in Gardendale, right?” Jessika asks, looking over at me.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Maverick.”

  Looking at the focus of my scribbles, I see the many ways I signed his name and mine together in overly girly, bubbly handwriting in my book of memories.

  Maverick Slade Collins and MaKenzy Norelle Davis, together forever

  Mrs. MaKenzy Collins

  Maverick and MaKenzy

  Hearts used to dot the I’s and clouds around our names only added to the fluff of my high school scribbles. I was definitely living in the clouds.

  Maverick was the popular guy. As a football player, hot, and every teenage girl’s fantasy, he never knew I existed. I was the nerdy girl with braces, a little curvy, frizzy hair, glasses, and no sense of style. Jessika and I have been each other’s only friend since around sixth or seventh grade when suddenly what you looked like mattered.

  We both went to college and blossomed. She is a gorgeous brunette with a thin face and strong jawline to pull off the pixie haircut she wears. Once pudgy, she is now trim and fit. Given her profession as a fitness instructor and nutritionist, she works hard to keep her size-four figure. Her washboard stomach does make me jealous, and I am sure many others.

  My body is shaped more like that of a pear, and my black hair that wants to puff into a wild bush on top of my head is tamed only by anti-frizz serum and an hour every day with my hair straightener. My B-cup breasts are obviously nothing to brag about. My flat stomach isn’t fat, though definitely not defined, and starts the path to my hips and ass that puts me in a size twelve.

  Jessika and I look nothing like we once did. She has learned to embrace her small frame, and rocks skinny jeans with the best of them. I have learned that a pushup bra can do wonders, and to slim my hips, I wear straight-leg, dark-wash jeans, no flare, and certainly nothing of the painted-on skinny variety.

  That’s us: two laid-back, Texas girls getting established in life. We both graduated from college and recently have had our hearts broken. Her fiancé of two years couldn’t hold down a job and had no motivation in life to do anything for himself or her. She paid for her own damn engagement ring. Feeling used got old, and she is now moving on.

  I see where she signed our senior year. Best Friends Forever, even when we’re old and gray haired. Twix and Cookie, you and me.

  Old and gray-haired, huh? She should have signed it alone together. I’ll be the bag lady, and she can be the cat lady.

  “Snap out of it,” Jessika’s voice rings out, taking me away from my thoughts.

  “Sorry, I was thinking of how far we’ve come since high school.”

  “And Maverick.” She smiles at me.

  “He’s probably bald, overweight, and an asshole.”

  “He’s still here. I see him almost daily at the gym. Sweetheart, he may be bald, but it’s by choice with a razor, not because he’s lost his hair. He’s far from overweight, unless you want to talk about muscle weighing more than fat. That man is ripped. He works for Titan on one of the oil rigs.”

  She is gushing so much I can’t stop the laugh I let escape. “How do you know all this?”

  “I may have taken a peek at his client file.” Her smile is filled with devious intent.

  “You’re telling me all of this … why, exactly?”

  “Just conversation.” She winks.

  “Conversation, my ass. He was a high school crush who never knew I existed, moving on.”

  I didn’t move home to fall into some fantasy of my youth. Reality bites and Maverick Collins is not part of my future.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Maverick

  “Where ya going, Tapper?” The short-haired beauty in the bed beside me calls out as I stand to slide my pants on.

  “It’s been real, Aimee. Got shit to do, though. I’ll be seein’ you around.”

  She reaches out, her manicured nails scraping down my back, running over the waterfall of scratches she left there less than an hour ago. I like to be marked if it truly is out of passion. What I don’t like is a clingy chick trying to stake claim to something that certainly isn’t hers.

  In order for a man to have consensual sex with a female, she has to open her legs or get on her knees to tip her ass in the air. Bottom line, for a man to have sex with a woman, she has to expose herself. She has to open the entry to the hole, a rabbit hole that I am not one bit hesitant to fall right into, or slam into as the case may be. Willing women are always waiting for me to ‘tap that,’ but somewhere between the build-up and their orgasm, some of them lose sight of what we really share.

  Case in point, Aimee here. She made sure she marked me damn good. Honestly, balls deep, I love the pinch of pain as a woman’s nails draw down my back. To take a chick to such an edge she is grasping at anything she can dig into and even then she can’t hold on—pawing, clawing, and so lost in the explosion building she can’t get a grip literally—makes those marks
earned. Scratching me just so tomorrow night someone else will know you were there—yeah, that shit just doesn’t fly with me.

  “Come on, Tapper. One more time, baby,” she drawls out as I grab my shirt off her floor, pushing it over my head.

  “You know the drill.”

  “Do you ever think about settlin’ down? We’re not getting any younger.”

  Looking over my shoulder, I take in the disheveled mess of a woman in the bed behind me. Her hair is short in one of those bob style haircuts. She is a curvy woman with hips and ass. While her tits aren’t voluptuous her ass is all the cushion for the pushing. I’m an ass man, always have been. The sheet she is holding up covers her small breasts while her shoulders and neck are exposed, showing a nice shade of pink as she blushes, trying to hold my attention. Her face is a smear of makeup while her eyes hide nothing, and her hair is sticking up all over. She is the epitome of a satisfied woman right now. Is it really too much to ask that she take the gift of euphoria and ride that high while I leave?

  “When the right woman comes along, she’ll knock me on my ass, and I’ll know it. You’re a good fuck, but you don’t knock me on my ass.”

  “You could be missing out on a great woman by not giving anyone a chance for more than a night or two.”

  “Not big on speeches, and you should know that. It was a good time, Aimz. Have a good day. See ya.” I exit her room and apartment without looking back.

  I wasn’t kidding; I have shit to do today. I also won’t be calling her again … ever.

  I work long hours and have a hard job. When I have time off, I need to catch up on laundry and life. My job takes dedication and focus. Everything else must be closed off in my mind, except for the rig and the moving parts of the drill as we work. The night was fun, but now the time for regular life is here. Playtime is over.

  ****

  It’s been another long damn day with more shit to do when I get home. Since Mom passed away two years ago, I have had to help my dad more and more. He hasn’t been feeling good today and needs me to pick up a few things at the grocery store for him after work.