Spirited Ride (13 page)

When she came home two days later to find him gone with not even a goodbye, Gina had told her that he would call. When a couple of weeks passed with no word, she was worried sick and ready to leave for Nashville when Gina had offered to go find him.

She’d promised to call as soon as she found him. Four days later, Gina had returned telling her that TJ had moved on… musically and romantically. It had been a pain like no other… but now it felt like something was missing. Why wasn’t he being honest about the woman he’d left with?

“I’m not sure there could ever be anything more between us, TJ. We simply don’t trust each other anymore. How can we even think of anything more than just sex when we are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop?” she asked.

“I hear what you are saying and in some respects you are right about that. How could we be successful the second time around when we have all this baggage that we didn’t have the first time… when we failed? At the same time, the fact is that your body still makes me into a mad man after all these years. I could exist on nothing but the taste of you for days… How can I still want you so badly if there’s nothing but distrust between us? There has to be something else there besides wariness.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Like love. I still love you, Sherri. I always have… always will. No matter how badly you hurt me sometimes… I can make myself not trust you, I can make myself not touch you but I can’t make myself stop loving you. I’ve tried and I failed at that worse than I failed at keeping our marriage together,” he replied.

It was time to sink or swim. With a whisper she said, “I still love you too… God help me, but I do.”

The next thing she knew the towel was no longer wrapped around her. He had taken its place. Unlike the angry passion of the last time they’d been together, this time there were no words spoken. No orders given. No one in control or being controlled.

Instead there was all-consuming touching. Kisses that made her heart skip a beat and her body sticky. Shared looks of ecstasy between them that seemed to be the truth in their words.

He was still in love with her and she loved him right back. All the fighting and hate filled words were defeated with that one confession between them.

The following evening as she manned the bar, she was surprised to see Chris Anderson come in and sit on one of the stools. Knowing he must be aware that she and TJ were together again or at least sleeping together, she approached him with hesitation.

Setting a napkin, some silverware and a menu before him she said, “What brings you in here?”

“Look, I know you’re back with TJ and whatever we had is over. I’ve accepted that fact. However, I hope that you still consider me a friend and know that I only wish the best for you,” he started. “I just think you need to back up from this thing with you and TJ and take a good look at the situation for what it really is.”

Feeling her defenses spring to life she crossed her arms and said, “We are just talking right now… that’s all. Not that it is any of your business.”

“I respect that. I just need to know that you are aware that he is also just
talking
to Gina as well. Tell me that you know that the two of them are… and that you don’t think that you are the only one and I’ll leave it be. You won’t hear another word about it from me,” he said, waving his hands as though giving up.

“You are lying, Chris, and need to get the fuck out of my bar… now!” she said.

“I’m not trying to be mean, or win you back, but I’ve seen and even heard some things that I thought you should know about. That’s the only reason I came in here tonight,” he said.

“Out…” she spat and pointed at the door while taking his silverware and menu back.

With a look that said she was stupid for not at least hearing him out, he got up and walked out. She threw the menu and silverware behind the bar and seeing that she’d already made a scene, headed back to her office.

TJ and Gina?
That feeling that there was something more that she was missing in all this came back with a vengeance. If she were to leave and go to his house right now, what would she find? Was she just taking the first opportunity presented to her not to trust him or was this about preserving what was left of her pride, dignity and heart?

“We can handle things, if you need to leave. It’s less than three hours before last call so we’ll be fine. It’s already thinning out in here,” Lindsey offered from the doorway.

Less than half an hour later she got an answer to the questions whirling around from Chris’ visit to the bar, when she found Gina’s car parked outside of TJ’s place. It was just after eleven at night and along with Gina’s car being empty, all the lights were off in his apartment.

She felt like a sharp knife had just sliced open her heart all over again. That part of her wanted to go and bang on his door and demand to know what yesterday had been about. Especially since the very next day he was already sleeping with someone else.

Why couldn’t he have just been honest and told her that she would likely be one of many should she decide to continue sleeping with him.

Instead the last remnants of her pride and dignity drug her back home with them where she sobbed herself to sleep. She stayed in bed well past noon the following day waiting for the pain of being used yet again by TJ to overwhelm her and drag her to the depths of hell.

When that didn’t happen she finally checked her phone for messages and found a voicemail from Chris. She called him back and he asked if he could stop by after work to show her something.

She managed to feed herself, shower and dress before Lindsey showed up to get the last of her things. She was still there when Chris stopped by. He brought an envelope with him which he handed to her while Lindsey made herself scarce in the spare bedroom. The envelope contained picture after picture of Gina at TJ’s apartment.

Each new picture depicted Gina in a different outfit, getting out of her car which was parked in front of his apartment or walking up to his front door. Obviously, yesterday wasn’t the first time they’d been together.

Anger enough to make Sherri want to hit something flowed through her. She wondered if they’d been hooking up as far back as the first time when she’d caught them at his apartment.

“I’m sorry, Sherri. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you but damn it! Someone had to!” Chris said quietly.

The bitch had lied to her that day when she’d said that she was just attempting to keep TJ from bothering Sherri. Exactly how far had Gina taken the task of keeping TJ away from her? Had it included sleeping with her ex-husband… the man she was still legally married to? The man she still loved?

As if merely thinking about TJ was enough to conjure him out of thin air, she watched as his car came to a screeching halt alongside the curb out front. Within a second he was out and headed to her front door at a run.

He didn’t even bother to knock. Instead he was in her front living room and punching Chris in the face repeatedly before she knew what had happened.

Even though TJ was thinner than Chris by a good bit, anger, adrenaline and indignation were on his side. Within seconds he had Chris pinned to the floor of her living room. Then he pulled a gun out from the back of his pants and aimed it at Chris’ head.

“Tell her the truth fucker! Tell her now or I’ll spend more time in prison than you ever did slinging dope,” TJ yelled at Chris. Lindsey came to the doorway of the living room and was talking on her phone.

“I didn’t do anything…” Chris choked out around the grasp TJ had on his throat.

TJ hit Chris again, bloodying his nose and then said, “Fine… I’ll find the shit myself. It has to be somewhere in this house…
my fucking house!
If you move I promise I will at the very least beat you within an inch of your life.”

Lindsey disappeared for a moment only to return a few seconds later. Just as TJ was about to loosen his grip on Chris, Lindsey stepped into the room. She approached the two men cautiously and held out a bag of what Sherri thought were drugs of some sort, to TJ.

“I found it in my bedroom just now while I was packing. It’s not mine, though, I swear to God. I called Chuck because I didn’t know what to do,” she said hesitantly.

“I know that… he’s the one who called me after you told him that Chris was here now. You did the right thing, Lindsey. This piece of shit has been using
my grandmother’s house
to store his shit,” TJ ground out.

“I didn’t notice it when I first moved in here but I’m pretty sure it must’ve been here the whole time because I would have known if someone had been in my room or if anything had been moved around. It was in the very back of the closet behind this old mirror,” she said hesitantly, handing the bag to TJ. “I asked Chuck not to call the police because I don’t want Sherri to get in trouble for it and I know that there’s no way it’s hers. When I heard what you said to him when you came in, I figured this must be what you were out here talking about.”

“That’s fine, Lindsey. I understand your loyalty to Sherri for helping you out but I no longer feel that way about her and I care even less about what happens to this piece of shit,” TJ said, grasping the front of Chris’ shirt and shaking him a couple of times for good measure. “I’m calling the cops my damn self so if you don’t want to be here when they come, you might want to just get your things and go.”

He wasn’t sure who he was angrier at… Chris or Sherri. The look of shock on Sherri’s face which, replaced with anger as she looked at Chris, told him that she’d been clueless about the drugs. How she’d missed it, he didn’t know, but either way… she’d risked his childhood home by bringing home the asshole in the first place.

Once Lindsey was out the door, he looked down at Chris and said, “What else do you have stashed here, tell me and I may just allow you to walk out of here alive.”

“That right there in your hand isn’t chump change…” Chris stammered. “That’s all that I had here… I swear.”

“Well a drug dog will sniff out anything else. I just want to know how long you’ve been using my house as a place to store your shit?” he asked. When Chris didn’t answer quickly enough, he chambered a round and pointed the gun back at him.

“Since I started dating her. When she broke it off with me, I had no way to get back in to get it, especially back there in the spare room. Especially with you hanging around all the time,” Chris quickly explained. “I thought she’d eventually call and want to get back with me so I could at least get it without breaking in.”

“So you’re a lousy lay and a bad boyfriend to boot. Why were you with this stupid fuck, Sherri?” he asked, glancing up at her.

He watched Sherri’s eyes until they landed on a pile of scattered photographs of Gina. The one closest to him depicted Gina in front of his apartment and he immediately understood.

Not only had Chris been a bad boyfriend but he was also a liar… every bit as big a liar as Gina. Sherri could have hurt him less by punching him in the balls than she did with the look of distrust and anger shining on her face when she turned back to gaze at him again.

Obviously some things between he and Sherri were never going to change. Maybe loving her really wasn’t enough to see them through their problems.

How could they possibly stand a chance if every time someone questioned his whereabouts or who he was with, she immediately thought the worst? Was this an indication of how their fledgling relationship would hold up?

“Did you take those pictures?” he asked Chris. “Were you and Gina hanging out near my apartment?”

This time Chris was quick to answer, “Gina and I were seeing each other briefly and then all the sudden she just refused to even talk to me. I followed her a few times just to see what she was up to. One day I found her parked outside your apartment. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she didn’t want anything to do with me anymore because you were the man she loved. Then she offered to help me get back with Sherri so that she could have you. I knew it was over between Sherri and me… but I needed to get my stuff back. So I was just going along with Gina in order to get it. I plan on moving out west in a couple of weeks. This was supposed to be a quick in and out deal and then I would be gone.”

Finally someone beside himself to spell out what a world class bitch Gina truly was to Sherri so he didn’t have too.

Unfortunately it had come a day late and a dollar short because whether it was Gina she believed more than him or Chris or someone else…. The result was the same.

She might love him but she didn’t trust him at all and that meant their second chance would end much as the first one had. He shouldn’t care but found himself stealing a glance at Sherri to judge her reaction to Chris’ confession.

The stunned expression on her face made him want to go to her and hold her close, assuring her that it would all be okay but what was the point?

Someone else would just come along in the future to create suspicion in her mind… because along with having been unwilling to support his goals all those years ago, she also obviously still had serious doubts about him… along with little faith and no confidence at all in his character.

“Today just may be your lucky day, pal,” he said standing up carefully, keeping the gun pointed at Chris. “Take your dope and get the fuck out of my house. Bump up your plans to move out west to today because I don’t want to see your ass around this town again. I’ll give you an hour head start before I come looking for you. Chances are good I won’t be the only one looking either. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Chris didn’t respond but instead scraped himself up off the floor, grabbed his dope and took off out the door. TJ watched out the front window until the man’s car was out of sight before turning back to Sherri.

“I had no idea he was keeping any of that stuff here, TJ. You have to believe that,” Sherri said.

“So I’m just supposed to believe you… just take you at your word? All because you say you didn’t know… you expect me to just
trust
you… unquestioningly,” he said incredulously. “Even though you’re not about to give me the same benefit of the doubt regarding
anything
I tell you? When I tell you that I love you and that all I’ve ever wanted was for you to believe in me and support me… you’ll take a liar and a dealer’s word over mine…
every single time
. Well not today,
love
, not tomorrow or any other day for that matter. I’m done and I want you out of
my
house.”

“Wait, TJ… let’s just talk about this for a minute,” she said.

“There is nothing to talk about other than when you can come to clear your things out of
my
house. However, that will have to wait for another day because if you don’t leave right now I
will
call the cops and have them detain Chris who will say he just picked up the dope he’s carrying from
you
,” he said. “They will not only search
my
house but your bar as well… possibly shutting the place down for
days
.”

Anger whispered across her face and she said, “This is as much my house as yours. I understand that you are angry and I don’t blame you for that but you know damn well that I had nothing to do with those drugs being here. If you think you are going to use this as a way to scare me into walking away from this place or as an excuse to keep from giving me my rightful share… that I worked the last
decade
for… then you are seriously mistaken. I was wrong about Chris, I admit that… and I’ll be honest that I don’t know what to think about Gina right now… but I will
not
give up this house without a fight so you need to just go home before this gets really ugly and
I
end up calling the cops.”

“My name is on the deed to this house. Plus I left my shirt and shoes here the other night so some of my belongings are here as well. If you call the cops, they will just consider this a domestic issue and try to convince one of us to go and stay somewhere else. However, they can’t
make
either one of us leave since we’re married… it’s for the courts to decide who gets to stay and who has to go,” he said. “I hope you still want that divorce, Sherri, because you’re fixing to get it.”

“So after everything you’re going to let Chris and Gina pit us against each other?” she asked, clearly frustrated at his unwillingness to do what she wanted.

“No, Sherri. I would
never
do that… but you already did… ten years ago,” he said, walking over and picking up the pictures of Gina outside of his apartment and then walking back over and holding them out to her. “And you did it again today!”

Walking over to the sofa he flopped down and after several moments of staring at him, she finally sighed and said, “I need to get some things together and then I’ll go stay with Lilly and Bobby but don’t think this means that I’m giving up. I will fight you with every last breath I have because making a mistake doesn’t mean I should lose it all.”

He listened to her for several minutes as she noisily packed up some things to take to her sister’s house with her. Then he watched as she stormed out the front door dragging her bags along with her. Getting up he went over to the door and slid the lock into place more for show than anything. Once she backed out of the drive and took off down the road he pulled out his phone and called Chuck.

“He’s gone. Took his dope and left. Sherri left too for that matter… she’s going to stay with Lilly for a little while and I’ll be staying here at the house. I appreciate the heads up more than you will ever know,” he said when Chuck answered.

“It’s okay but old boy didn’t get very far. You haven’t been back for very long and don’t know this but Carla Sanders’ dad, Nathan Patterson, used to be a juvenile court judge. He made some bad choices once where Carla was concerned when she was younger. Once the general public found out they weren’t very forgiving and now Nathan has a ways to go in order to earn back the trust of the citizens in this little town. A good sized drug bust always makes the good people around here sleep a little better at night… for some reason,” Chuck laughed. “I guess you could say I helped two birds with one stone.”

“Can I ask another favor though?” TJ asked.

“If I can…” Chuck replied.

“Can you go pick up a new lock for my front and back doors from the hardware store? I’ll call in what I need but if you can pick it up and drop it off here that would be a huge help,” he said.

“Sure thing,” Chuck replied.

He called the hardware store once he got off the phone with Chuck. Then he sat and waited for Chuck to drop off the locks. Once Chuck left, TJ went around and changed the locks on both the front and back door and made sure all the windows were also locked up tight.

Sherri was no longer free to stomp around all over his heart… or his home. Then worn out from having worked all day, dealing with the drama of Sherri’s ex-boyfriend and securing his home, he went to bed.

Had he known the sleepless night he was in for he may have decided to make a bed out on the couch instead. It would have saved him from stepping foot into a bedroom that looked, smelled and reminded him of Sherri.

From the scrap of lace that he found on the floor near the hamper that he only realized were her panties once he picked them up, to the sheets that smelled like her… he lay there in agony for hours. When he finally did make it out to the couch the memories of what they’d done in the little living room, once upon a time, flooded his mind.

The house
was
Sherri. Sure he had memories of his childhood and being here with his grandmother but somehow memories of being here with Sherri outweighed them all. Without her here, it was no longer a home worth fighting for. He was hanging on to the dream that the house represented in his mind and it was just that… a pipe dream.

He and Sherri never stood a chance of patching things up and making even more memories in the confines of this house. What was once a love nest where two lovers rushed to at the end of the day to enjoy the pleasures of each other’s bodies, now was nothing more than some painted walls in a rundown neighborhood.

He should have seen it the minute he came back to town but he’d been unwilling to admit true defeat at that point.

She was right in that if he did fight for the house it was for no purpose other than to extend the inevitable. Everything in this house, in the garage, in the yard was hers now and had been for a decade. What right did he have to any of it after all this time?
Regardless if his name was on it or not.

He’d been truthful in that the idea of her growing old in this house with someone else had hurt so bad he couldn’t think of anything else but staking his claim… to her and to the house. At least it wouldn’t be Chris Anderson now though…
that stupid son of a bitch.

However, eventually it would be someone other than him or it would just be in a different house than this one. He was fighting a losing battle and he knew it.

A week later, he knew it was time to do what he should have done when he rolled into town. Pulling out the document Sherri had given him that asked him to sign over his rights to the bar, the house…
and to her
… he signed them all after crying for maybe the first time since reaching adulthood.

Deciding to cut out the middle man and hopefully eliminate the possibility of a fight between them, he called and got Dickie’s address from Chuck. Then hopping on the unfinished bike he’d been working on at the shop on his own time, he headed across town. Pulling up in front of a small ranch house he was greeted at the door by the older man.

“What brings you out this way?” Dickie asked, shaking his hand and inviting him inside their small two bedroom house. A young man sat on their sofa looking at a motorcycle magazine. “That’s Connor. He’s a foster kid that will be staying with us for a little while. He’ll be eighteen in a couple of months and we were just looking at some options for him after he graduates,” Dickie finished.

“I was actually looking for your wife, Becca… right?” he said.

“Yeah, hang on. She’s on the phone in the back bedroom, let me just go get her,” Dickie offered and then headed back the hallway.

A few moments later Dickie came back in the room and looking at Connor said, “Come on boy… let’s go look at what we might be able to do for a seat for TJ’s bike out front.”

Connor set the magazine aside and headed outside with Dickie just as Becca emerged from the hallway. She gestured toward the couch, offering him a place to sit down before taking a seat in one of the smaller chairs nearby. TJ sat down even though everything in him wanted to just thrust the papers at her, tell her to take care of things and then make a run for it.

“So what brings you by today?” she asked.

Swallowing down the fragments of his heart that had floated to the surface after having broken into a million pieces when he signed the damn papers, he said, “Sherri wants a divorce. I’ve looked over her offer and signed it. I was hoping that you could file it at the courthouse for us. Neither one of us knows much about that part. I’d be happy to pay the fees or whatever, just let me know how much it will be.”

With that he pulled the folded, re-folded, crumpled and then finally rolled up documents out of his back pocket and handed them to the proper looking woman who sat staring at him.