Hendrix
“Where are you, Parker?” Jax stormed into the house, took one look at the room I was in, and cursed. “Are you kidding me with this shit? How dare you act out when you made the bed, you’re currently lying in.”
“Just go. I want to be alone,” I muttered loud enough that he heard. It was all the energy I had left. “Don’t need you here to remind me that I fucked up with the person that mattered most.”
Bringing the almost empty bottle of scotch to my lips, I took a large gulp. My insides churned, the urge to destroy everything in my path overwhelming me once more.
So far, the kitchen and dining room had taken the brunt of my ire. Shattered, the remains laid in tattered heaps all around me. The perfect simile to my life.
I fucked everything that I touched.
First Ophelia, and now Beau.
Just thinking about them left me a confused and angry mess. I’d let my dick detract my attention from what mattered; the memory of my wife shouldn’t be tainted by my lack of self-control.
I shouldn’t be reminded by a fucking message alert on my phone.
Bringing a hand up to my chest, I rubbed the spot where it felt as though I had a gaping wound.
“You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself, Hendrix. What happened that night wasn’t your fault.” Jax took the other bottle I’d pilfered from my liquor cabinet and placed it out of reach.
“Put it back.” Ignoring me, he reached for the one in my hands, but I pushed his away. “Why the fuck are you even here? To ruin my night?”
“Think you’re doing a fine job of that yourself, dick,” he huffed and let up on trying to take my sole vice. Instead, he pulled up a chair, and sat down facing me. “But don’t let me stop you…this show must crash and burn before you get it together.”
“You didn’t answer me. What’re you doing here?”
“Well, I was invited to this glorious dinner by the beautiful Beau. Poor girl sent me a text—”
“How is she?” I asked before I could stop myself. Fuck, why couldn’t I stop thinking about her? The look in her eyes—the quiver of her bottom lip haunted me more than when…
“You don’t get to ask that.” There was more than anger in his tone. Jax was disappointed. Join the club, asshole.
“Just wanted to know if she’s safe.” Moreover, where was she? How did she get there?
“Nice try, Parker, but as of three hours ago, Miss Carter is off limits to you.”
“You got me into this fucking mess, Jax.” Standing up, my chair tipped back, and a leg broke. Cracked at the joint. “Remember how hard you pushed for something I wasn’t ready for? How you forced my hand?”
“And I regret pushing you more than you know. Beau deserves better than what she got in this deal.”
“She’s nothing more than a girl I paid to—”
“Be very careful how you finish that sentence,” Jax seethed, his own chair falling back from the abrupt move. One second, he was sitting, and the next in my face. Livid—if he could the man would deck me. “If Ophelia were here, she’d want you to move on, man. Living life. Not like this.”
“But she isn’t…is she?” The bottle in my hand smashed against the nearest wall, the shards flying everywhere. “She’s dead because of me, Jax. Because I couldn’t do what was right.”
“You need to let that guilt go, Hendrix.”
“My wife doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.”
“You didn’t love her!” His blue eyes met my hazel ones and narrowed while pointing a self-righteous finger at me. “Did you conveniently forget asking me for my divorce attorney’s number? How miserable you both were?”
And deep down I knew that we were just that: miserable.
But it’d never negate that my wife’s death broke a piece of me. That it hurt to lose her before I could let her go. Before I could make her happy by gifting her the freedom she so desired.
Her accident—the mangled car pieces that pierced her body—would never compare to the insults we’d flung at each other earlier that same night of the accident. The last time I saw her alive.
You’re an asshole, Drix. It’s always your way or nothing.” Any other day her tears would’ve been my undoing, but finding her bags by the door ignited my ire. “He loves me, you know...loves me in a way that you never could. I’m done being your arm candy. Let me go.
I could almost hear the vindictiveness in my own laugh that day. “That’s rich coming from the slut who cheats on her spouse. Who falls in love with someone else without caring about the man who takes care of her every whim. You embarrassed me, love.”
We’d been each other’s everything. Even through every bitter fight, she was still my friend first. Unfortunately, we were just wrong together, and it was too late in the end to remedy that.
“Letting her go seems like a slap in the face to her memory. Even at our worst, I loved her.” The fight left me, and I dropped to the ground, just sat there while staring off into space. Had nothing left in me to give. “Had I not been a dick, she would’ve been alive and happy. Probably married and a mother. How fair is it that I can still have that, but she can’t?”
“You always made excuses for her.” Jax sat next to me, in his hand the bottle he’d taken away. He took a long pull and passed it over. I grabbed it and did the same.
“And you disliked her.”
“Ophelia could do no wrong in your eyes, even when being a bitch. Spoiled and snobby, she lived a good life riding your coattails.” At my glare, he held a hand up. “Sorry, man, but you need a reality check. Seems to me that in your grief you forgot quite a few things that matter.” If he was waiting for me to ask, I didn’t. Just took another drink straight from the bottle and waved him on. “Hendrix, she chose to leave that night. She chose to cheat and then abandon you as if you were the bad guy in the story. She chose to do as she pleased. The only one blind to her selfishness was you.”
XXX
Jax left after a while, but his words still haunted me.
She chose…
And as much as it pained me to admit, she had. Her bags had been packed that night after I came home, accusing her of blatantly showing off her lover. Of forcing my hand when it came to our divorce. Ophelia had embarrassed me, and I’d been rightfully angry.
Instead of apologizing, she accused me of using her. Of being neglectful when just a week prior, I’d taken her on vacation to Paris for fashion week. She asked, and I gave in time and time again.
But I was the bad guy?
“Fucking asshole,” I hissed out, my head pounding—too much going through my mind and nothing was making sense. One moment I was furious, and the next, full of regret.
Had I let her go instead of asking for time?
Had I not questioned and just listened?
You can’t shoulder this blame alone anymore.
Somewhere in the house, a buzz sound came on. It was loud. An alarm.
My eyes shifted toward the windows and realized that dawn had arrived, and I’d yet to close my eyes for more than three hours. Each time I tried, I saw their faces.
Ophelia. Beau.
Beau…
The opening notes to a jazz song followed the buzz, and it hit me right in the chest. I remembered that song, same one we’d danced to on the boat at the end of our date. How beautiful she looked, head tipped back with laughter at something I’d said.
“She has to hate me.” Moreover, those words alone caused my body to ache. Churned my gut.
What had I done?
Why had she paid for the brunt of my fury?
Again, I was assaulted by images of us. The dinner with James and his wife…the admiration I felt while listening to her talk with absolute passion about helping kids with disabilities. Watched how she wrapped them around her finger by just being her. No pretenses.
Next came the night she slept at her apartment and the manic need that pushed me to seek her out. The look in her eyes when she opened the door and saw me there. How I took her. The savagery of our bodies coming together as one.
Her, in that sinful dress walking downstairs to me the night of the gala. My constant need to be close to her. Amber’s words and then my own revelation as I came deep inside her pussy.
I fell for her. Had no fighting chance against her ensnarement.
Beau Carter had stolen my heart, and I didn’t want it back.
“Fuck me, I love her.” A small smile formed on my lips, but fell just as quick. “She is never going to forgive me for what I said. For calling her a whore and treating her like one.”
I’d lost her before I ever had the chance to love her.
No, I refused to believe that.
Hendrix motherfucking Parker made shit happen every day, and this would be no different. Had to be.
Rushing upstairs, I washed my face and changed clothes. Had my keys in hand and was inside my truck before I could second guess myself—was heading toward the bridge back to Miami with my mind made up.
Just had one stop to make before I could face my nymph.
XXX
“Sorry it’s taken me so long to come back, babe.” Brushing the leaves from around her headstone, I washed the structure of dirt before placing her favorite flowers in the small vase. A dozen roses in pink with a purple ribbon tying them together. “Wasn’t trying to be a dick and make you wait.”
Around me a few families were doing the same, sitting on the well-maintained lawn and talking. Whispering to those they loved and lost. Trying to cope with that hole that would never heal.
“It’s been hard, Ophelia. So fucking hard to accept that you are no longer here…that I’ll never hear your nasal laughter again.” Looking up at the sky, I let out a long sigh. “Patience had never been your forte, and I never asked you to stay that night either. We messed up. Along the way we forgot to be friends…what mattered most; to be happy.”
The wind around me picked up, just a subtle breeze. I felt her presence all around me, and for the first time since her death, I could breathe without guilt. Without the burden of it all being my fault.
Sitting on my knees, I rested my forehead against the plaque that now bore her name. “I’m so sorry, babe. Sorry that you felt the need to run away from me. Sorry that you never got to explore the love you found in another man’s arms.” A tear fell from my eye and rolled onto the headstone. “Also, I need you to know that I forgive you. That no matter where life takes me, a piece of my heart will always belong to you. Rest in peace, Ophelia.”
Closing my eyes, I pressed my lips against the marble and stood. I walked away and back to my car feeling lighter than I had in a long time.
Not that life would be simple. Nothing ever was, but the last stop on my way to Beau had to be done. Just hoped they’d hear me out before tossing me out on my ass.
The house wasn’t far from the cemetery, about a twenty-minute drive in the midday traffic.
A quaint house sat in the middle of the cul-de-sac that stood out from the others with its lime green door. Out on the lawn, a man stood looking up at his roof with a puzzled expression, trying to figure out what was wrong.
Her father.
At the sound of my truck’s door closing, he turned around and faced me. Gave me a once over before tilting his head in the direction of his roof once more.
“Know how to fix a leak, Mr. Parker?”
“How do…”
“I was expecting you,” he stated bluntly, eyes hard and with a bit of anger in them. “That, and your truck has the company’s logo on it.”
“Ahhh.”
“So, do you?”
“Yeah, shouldn’t take more than an hour if you know where the patch needs to go and there’s no substantial damage.”
“Good.” With that, he walked away and toward a ladder leaning on the right side of the house. Up he went and then waited, arms crossed over his chest. “I suggest you get up here and give me a hand. You have a lot of explaining to do.”