Angel Over My Shoulder (18 page)

She nodded.

His face seemed to crack and his lips parted as he stared at her in disbelief. “Tell me something.” Leslie looked away, knowing his question—or at least knowing that it was something that she wouldn’t want to answer. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve felt that you haven’t been…are you—have you met someone else?”

“A long time ago.” She met his eyes. He deserved that. “Before you.”

“And now he’s back and I’m out?” He paced angrily a few steps before his eyes flashed at her again. “How long have you been seeing him? How long have you been with another man while you were with me?!”

She shook her head. “That wasn’t how it happened. I didn’t see him again until after you left. I mean, I’m not trying to tell you that it’s not about him. You’re right, it’s about him and I’ve never been able to open up to you because my heart has always been with him-”

“Fucking…” He was shaking his head and pacing again. Then he swung around to look at her again. “You’re a fucking liar because I’ve loved you for years-YEARS! And I’ve never ever seen you with anyone that made you…” His voice cracked. “That made you feel half as good as I have!”

Tears stung her eyes. Because what he said was true…except he didn’t know her when she knew Angel. “I’m sorry.” She crossed her arms. She hadn’t wanted to apologize and she damn sure hadn’t wanted to cry but tears were gliding down her face. “I never wanted to hurt you-”

James rolled his eyes. “Don’t cry! Do not cry because…I don’t ever want to see you crying.” His voice softened. “I’ve seen you go through so much, Leslie. But I’ve never seen you cry. You’re crying over me?”

She covered her face as her body shook. His gentle words were killing her. “You don’t deserve this. You’ve been good to me.” She looked at him and swiped at her tears. “You’re a good friend. I want you to buy the bakery. I want to sell it to you for a dollar-”

He waved her words away. “Buy the bakery for a buck, or buy yourself a conscious? No. I don’t want the bakery. I don’t want anything from you.” He gave her a calm look. “I want to forget that I ever met you.” He walked past her and out the door.

She stood there for a while and cried silently. She’d seen her future and she knew what she’d had with James. He was a kind man. But she had not been truly happy.

Leslie flew back to Connecticut two days later. In that time, she never saw James. He had taken his belongings and left. Alan met her at the airport. When he spotted her, the serious look on his face lifted and he hurried to her. She couldn’t help but to think of a similar greeting just a few days before with a totally different emotion.

Leslie ran to greet him, leaping into his arms happily. It was the first time that they’d been public with their relationship. What did people see; the cougar with her young lover? A black woman and a white man? A scarred, battle weary woman with an innocent lover? Leslie didn’t care what anyone else thought. This man whose arms she was in, loved her unconditionally.

On the ride back to her home, she told him how hard the break up had been, but that she didn’t have any second thoughts. She asked him how his break up had gone.

“Not good. She got mad at me, she yelled, she accused me of being a racist.” He glanced at her. “I…I told her about you. But it hadn’t made things go better when she heard that you were black AND older then her.” She reached out and touched his hand, the one that rested on the gear shift.

“I have something that might make you feel better.” He opened the center console and removed a burned CD. He slipped it into the player and she heard the soft, mellow melody of the familiar Bobby Caldwell song.

“That-!” She pointed at the player while staring at him with wild eyes. “That’s my song!”

“I wanted to ask you, if we can make this our song?”

She sat quietly and listened to the words of the song that had been the one bright beacon in her life; connecting her past, her present and now her future.

She smiled and nodded and they sang the familiar verse together;

There are times, when you’ll need someone

I will be by your side…

James stared into his beer. Here he was sitting in a bar drinking away his woes like some stereotypical sad sack that had gotten dumped; which is exactly what he was. He mentally calculated the beers that he’d had and then paid his tab because his intent was not to get drunk, just to drown his pain; dilute it. He swallowed back the last of the warm beer and then nodded to the pretty bartender.

She had admired his tattoos but she was too young and cute for a biker like him; pushing fifty with a worn face and a fucked up disposition. Women didn’t rank high on his list at the moment. But he refused to think directly of Leslie. Not that she wasn’t always somewhere in the back of his mind, haunting ever action and every thought that he had.

Fuck! I don’t want to rehash this shit again!
He thought as he gunned his motorcycle. He pulled into the gated community that he now lived. He had rented a townhouse, mostly because he wanted his bike safe. What a fine biker he made! On top of that he was currently between jobs; unemployed. And he was eating through his savings like a maniac. But he did have a plan. When his savings was exhausted then he’d hit the road again and leave behind this bullshit life that he’d gotten sidetracked by.

This time he cracked a smile that actually touched more than his lips. Back in the day he used to ride in the deserts from Utah to Arizona --only to end up on the beach in California. He’d have a tote and a blanket and sometimes that’s all he needed for days on end. But then he became James the baker and he fell in love with a broken black girl…

He cut off his bike and sat there for a moment. It hurt. It hurt like hell and it had been a month since she’d told him that there was someone else. Leslie had been fucking someone else. Leslie loved someone else…

He lit a cigarette and sat there in the night. He lived alone and could smoke in the house but had learned to go outside for a smoke. He sighed and walked to his door and then squashed out the half smoked butt with the heel of his boot. He grabbed the mail from his mailbox and then entered the house.

It was a mess but…well who did he have to impress?! He cut on the light and then shuffled through the envelopes, tossing the junk ones onto the coffee table by the door. He suddenly froze; a thick envelope heavy in his hand and a name on the front that he didn’t want see; Leslie Wilke.

In defiance he tossed the letter with the other junk mail and walked into his kitchen for a beer. He rubbed his face and then slammed the refrigerator door closed with the beer still inside and headed for the letter, ripping it open carefully. He looked curiously at a letter and then another envelope, the second one old like it had been written ages ago.

His heart was thumping at the same time that he was brewing with anger and hurt…but something else as well; hope. He sank down into the armchair, his green eyes moving across the letter and the neatly written words that he recognized instantly.

James sat back and lowered the letter to his lap for a moment as he thought about the words that she had written. Well at least she knew that much.

James rubbed his cheek and sighed. Damn. She should have opened up to him about this! He made a fist and continued to read.

“…the fuck?”

James growled. “You are certifiably insane, Leslie…” but he continued to read. And he knew that he would open up the older envelope and devour every word that she had written. Still…how could she have guessed at his plans to ride again…? He read the last line of the letter about four times.

The End

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Pepper Pace writes romance stories with steamy eroticism, humor and warmth. She enjoys writing, as well as reading about unlikely romances and interracial relationships. Her characters are painfully real and just like in reality, sometimes their stories make you cry, sometimes they make you laugh and when Pepper turns up the passion it becomes very steamy!

She has described her stories as ‘out of the box’ because she is intrigued by the unusual. Stories about perfect people offers very little excitement for Pepper, which is why she has woven a world rich with anti-heroes, the insecure, the angry and always redemption.

Pepper lives in Cincinnati Ohio with her teenage son and daughter…as do most of her characters.

Visit Pepper’s blog at http://pepperpacefeedback.blogspot.com/

Awards

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Pepper Pace is a popular author on Literotica.com. She is the winner of the 11th Annual Literotica Awards for 2009 for Best Reluctance story, as well as best Novels/Novella. She is also recipient of Literotica’s August 2009 People's Choice Award, and was awarded second place in the January 2010 People’s Choice Award. In the 12
^th
Annual Literotica Awards for 2010, Pepper Pace won number one writer in the category of Novels/Novella as well as best Interracial story.