K. Bromberg - Crashed

“As you were mine,” he says, and I think back to how easy it seems for him to say these things now when a month ago I never thought it would be a possibility. He leans forward and brushes his lips against mine, his tongue delving between them to taste and tantalize. I groan, unsatisfied, when he pulls away. “Now give me answers, woman. Ace?” he says with the raise of his eyebrows.

“Okay, okay,” I relent, although I’m still very distracted by how close Colton’s lips are to mine and how much I crave just one more taste even though my lips are still warm from his. “Like I said, Haddie goes for tattooed men destined to break her heart. Some are good for her, most are not. Max and I used to always laugh at the revolving door of rebels that surrounded her. In college she dated this guy named Stone.” I just nod when Colton shakes his head, making sure he heard me correctly.

“Yes, Stone was in fact his name. Anyway, the guy was a jerk but Haddie was madly in lust with him. One night he stood her up for his boys, and as we sat with a bottle of tequila and a bag of Hershey kisses, I told her he was a “real ace in the hole” she’d picked this time. One thing led to another shot, and then another shot.” I laugh at the memory from all those years ago. “And the more we drank, we decided to make ace stand for something … we thought we were hilarious with our guesses and once we decided on the perfect one for Stone, we couldn’t stop giggling. Later that night after he’d been out on the town with his buddies, he showed up at the door and when Haddie answered it, she said “Hey, Ace!” and the nickname stuck. He thought she was telling him he was an ace in the sack when she was really telling him he was an arrogant, conceited egomaniac.” Colton’s eyes meet mine when I finally give him what he wants to know. “And from there on out, every time she dated a guy who was like Stone, we called him Ace.”

He just stares at me for a second before nodding his head subtly. “Hmpf,” is all he says after a beat, his expression stoic and unexpressive. I worry my bottom lip between my teeth as I wait, and then a slow, lazy grin curls up one corner of his mouth. “It’s still a chance encounter to me, but I guess I earned that title the first night we met.”

I snort. “Umm, yeah, you can say that again.”

“Don’t kick an injured man when he’s down.” He pouts in mock sadness, and I lean in and brush my lips against his.

“You poor thing,” I croon.

“Yep, and just because you feel sorry for me, you’re going to let me ask another question. What other memory am I forgetting that you’re not telling me?”

I swear my heart skips and lodges in my throat. I try to not falter. Try not to show the break in my figurative stride, which would most definitely let him know that I know something he doesn’t. “Nice try, Ace,” I tease, swallowing hard and figuring distraction is key at this point.

I lower my lips and kiss little pecks down his neck and chest and then instantly know my next question. I probably shouldn’t ask it—know it’s a no-go area and I really intend to ask about the knock four times on the hood of the car thing—but the question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. “What do your tattoos mean?” I feel his chest hitch momentarily as I look up and meet his eyes. “I mean, I know what the symbols represent … but what is their meaning to you?”

He stares at me, tumult in his eyes and uncertainty in his grimace. “Ry … ” My name is an exhale on his lips as he tries to find the words to express the warring emotions dancing at a rapid pace through his irises.

“Why’d you get them?” I ask, thinking maybe I’ll switch gears, anything to get rid of the fear flickering in them.

“I figured I was scarred permanently on the inside—live with it every day, a constant reminder that never goes away—I might as well scar myself on the outside too.” He shifts his eyes away from mine with a deep breath and looks out toward the ocean. “Show everyone that sometimes what you think is a perfect package is filled with nothing but damaged goods, scarred and irreparable.” His voice breaks on the last word and with it so does a little piece of my heart. His words are like acid eating at my soul.

I can’t stand the sadness that overtakes him so I take the reins. I want him to see that whatever the tattoos represent, it doesn’t matter. Show him that only he could take what he deems an invisible disfigurement and make it visibly, beautiful art. Explain to him that the scars inside and out are meaningless because it’s the man that wears them—owns them—who is important. Is the man I’ve fallen in love with.

And I’m not sure how to show him this, so I move on instinct, touching his arm so he raises it up. I very slowly lean forward and press my lips to the uppermost one, the Celtic symbol representing adversity. I feel his chest vibrate beneath my lips as he tries to control the rush of emotion swamping him when I move ever so slowly down to the next one: acceptance.

The notion that anyone should ever have to scar themselves permanently to accept horrors I can’t even fathom hits me hard. I leave my lips pressed against the artistic reminder and close my eyes so he doesn’t see the tears pooling in them. So he doesn’t mistake them for pity. But then I realize I want him to see them. I want him to know that his pain is my pain. His shame is my shame. His adversity is my adversity. His struggle is my struggle.

That he no longer has to battle it alone, body and soul stained in silent shame.

As I lift my lips from the symbol of acceptance and move it down to healing, I look up at him through my tear blurred eyes. His eyes lock on to mine and I try to pour everything in myself into our visual conversation.

I accept you, I tell him.

All of you.

The broken parts.

The bent parts.

The ones filled with shame.

The cracks where hope seeps through.

The little boy cowering in fear and the grown man still suffocating in his shadow.

The demons that haunt.

Your will to survive.

And your spirit that fights.

Every single part of you is what I love.

What I accept.

What I want to help heal.

I swear neither of us breathe in this silent exchange, but I can feel walls crumbling down around the heart that beats just beneath my lips. Gates that once protected are now forced apart from the rays of hope, love, and the trust breaking through. Walls collapsing to let someone else in for the first time.

The absolute impact of the moment causes the tears to fall over and trail down my cheek. The salt on my lips, his scent in my nose, and the thunder of his heart breaks me apart and puts me back together in a magnitude of ways.

He squeezes his eyes shut, fighting the tears, and before he opens them, he’s reaching down and pulling me up so we’re at eye level. I can see the muscles in his jaw tic and see the fight over how to verbalize it in his eyes. We sit like this a moment as I allow him the space he needs.

“I …” he starts out and then his voices fades, lowering his eyes for a beat before raising them back up to mine. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet. It’s just too much and as much as it’s clear in my head—in my soul and my nightmares—saying it out loud when I never have, is just …”

My heart splinters for the man I love. Fucking shatters into the tiniest shards possible from the memories that just put that lost, apologetic, shameful look in his beautiful eyes. I reach out and cup his jaw in my hands trying to smooth away the pain etched in the magnificent lines of the face.

“Shh, it’s okay, Colton. You don’t need to explain anything.” I lean in and press a kiss to the tip of his nose as he does to me and then rest my forehead against his. “Just know I’m here for you if you ever want to.”

He exhales out a shaky sigh and pulls me tighter against him, trying to make me feel secure and safe when I should be doing that for him. “I know,” he murmurs into the darkening night. “I know.”

And it’s not lost on me that he let me kiss all of his tattoos—express love for all of the symbols of his life—except for the one denoting vengeance.

Colton

“Motherfucker!”

Where the fuck am I? I jerk awake and sit up. My heart’s racing, head’s pounding, and I’m out of fucking breath. Sweat beads on my skin as I try to wrap my head around the jumbled images floating, then crashing through my dreams. Memories that vanish like fucking ghosts the minute I wake up and leave nothing but an acrid taste in my mouth.

Yeah, the two us—nightmares and me—we’re tight. Thick as motherfucking thieves.

I glance at the clock. It’s only seven-thirty in the morning, and I need a drink already—screw that—a whole fucking fifth to deal with these goddamn dreams that are going to be the death of me. Talk about motherfucking irony. Memories of a crash I can’t fucking remember are going to kill me trying to remember them.

Can you say fucked up with a capital F?

I laugh out loud only to be answered by the thumping of Baxter’s tail against his cushion on the floor beside me. I pat the bed for him to jump up on it, and after a bit of petting, I wrestle him to lie down, laughing at his wildly licking tongue.

I lie back on my pillow and close my eyes trying to remember what the fuck I was dreaming about, what empty spaces in my mind I can try and fill. Absolutely fucking nothing.

Sweet Jesus! Throw me a goddamn bone here.

Baxter groans beside me. I open my eyes and look over at him, expecting puppy dog eyes begging for attention. Nope. Not in the slightest. I can’t help but laugh.