Now Leaving Sugartown Read online

  “Boo, you whore. At least let me parade him around the room a little. When else am I ever gonna get to hang off the arm of a man that fine?”

  I laugh and Trix takes that as my permission, because she slides her arm through Sammy’s and leads him away from me, all the while Sam is oscillating between glaring back at me and looking as if he’s wandering off with Pennywise from Stephen King’s IT.

  I turn around, annoyed that I’m going to have to wait until I get home to get some and deciding that I could use a drink after all, when I run smack bang into the birthday boy. His arm automatically slips around my waist and I stiffen.

  “Can I talk to you?” he shouts over the noise.

  I risk a glance at Sammy, but I can’t see him in the crowd any more. “Sure.”

  Before I’ve even gotten the word out, Mace is taking my hand and leading me to the hall near the bathrooms, where it’s quieter. I lean back against the wall, ’cause my shoes are killing me.

  “What’s with Brokeback Mountain, Pep?”

  “Well, I didn’t watch the movie, just kinda skimmed the trailer for the hot parts on YouTube, but I believe it was a story of two cowboys that fell in love.”

  “I’m fucking serious. You told me you were done with Stieg. We had a lot of shit that was left unresolved for a long time, and then suddenly you just up and vanish. And then you come back with your fucking high school-sweetheart trailing along behind you, like a fucking dog on a leash.”

  I laugh, thinking he’s joking, but when I meet his gaze his eyes are angry and his face is tight. “Mace …”

  Before I can even register what’s happening he pulls me to him and plants a kiss on my lips, driving his tongue into my mouth. I push at his chest as Mace’s hands quickly slide from my hair to my arse, and he cups my cheeks, his strong fingers digging into my flesh.

  I try stepping behind, but the wall grazes my back and I stop breathing, probably irrelevant anyway seeing as Mace has his tongue shoved down my throat, cutting off my air supply. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been the victim of an attack kiss, but there sort of isn’t much you can say or do when someone is cleaning the inside of your mouth like they really want their bond money back.

  I shove at him in an attempt to get him to back the fuck up. He relinquishes his hold, and he removes his mouth from mine, but doesn’t back up any. In fact, his hands go to the wall at either side of my head.

  “Jesus Mace. Could you maul me anymore? Gross.” I run my fingertips over the corners of my mouth, removing his saliva and hoping like hell he hasn’t ruined my lipstick, because if you’ve ever donned a good red lipstick in your life you’ll know that that shit doesn’t remove itself, especially when it’s smeared all over your face. And from the looks of the red smudges on Mace’s upper lip, he has. “God damn it, you ruined my fucking lipstick.”

  “That’s not all he ruined.” I hear Sammy’s voice, and my body freezes. I didn’t do anything wrong here. I didn’t kiss him back, I didn’t ask him to maul me, but I can’t help but feel guilty because the thing that Sammy doesn’t know is that Mace and I have a history that goes beyond his hands on my body to pierce or tattoo it. A history I’ve worked hard to keep from Sam, because I knew it would drive him insane. I knew it would hurt him, even though he and I had been nothing when Mace and I were a … something.

  “Sam, it’s not what it looks like,” I implore, shoving at Mace’s chest again.

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Sam asks, and his eyes are bright with fury.

  “No, it’s exactly what it looks like.” Mace is still standing in front of me, looking down at me with a smug expression. “This little minx has been leading me on for years, and when I finally sunk inside a year ago it wasn’t a fucking accident. Just like that kiss.”

  I shove at the same time that Sammy yanks him around and lays into him, slamming his fist into the side of Mace’s face. He staggers back, mostly just into me and then Sam has him around the throat.

  “Sam!” I shout. He ignores me, and instead punches Mace right in the nose. Blood sprays Sam’s face and then Mace, despite probably being in crazy amounts of pain, charges him. The two of them go down. Mace gets in several good hits before Sam throws him off with an uppercut to the jaw. Sam straddles his waist and punches him again, hard, sharp hits that force my stomach into my throat with the sickening crunches they make. “Sam. Knock it off.”

  It seems everyone in the club chooses that moment to grasp what’s going on, including the bouncer. He steps away from the velvet rope and launches himself at Sam, putting him in a headlock with his big beefy forearm. Sam fights, almost punching the bouncer in the face, and then he allows himself to be pulled away and deposited on his arse two feet away from Mace, who’s cradling his face in his hands as his friends stand around him.

  “Take it outside.” The bouncer grabs the collar of Sam’s button-up and yanks him to his feet, through the room and to the stairs leading up to the street. He lets go, and Sam jerks away from him. The bouncer points to the stairs, indicating that Sam had better start walking up them before he gets a beat down of his very own.

  His mouth is bloody, his cheek is a little swollen and his shirt is ripped, but he looks a damn sight better than Mace right now. His eyes search me out from across the room and lock onto mine—they’re narrowed with anger. Jackarse. I stalk towards him and when he knows I’m hot on his heels, he climbs the stairs.

  The second we hit the street, I’m all over him. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “What was I thinking? I’m not the one that just had my tongue down someone else’s throat. What the fuck were you thinking?” People stare as they pass us in the street, watching openly but giving us a wide berth all the same.

  “I didn’t kiss him back. He grabbed me and forced his tongue inside my mouth and groped me so hard I’ll probably have bruises, but I didn’t kiss him.”

  “That’s not what I saw.”

  “Then you didn’t have your fucking eyes open,” I shout, getting all up in his grill, and yeah, our height difference doesn’t really allow me to “get all up in his grill”, but that doesn’t stop me from jabbing a finger in his face. “Why, Sam? Why would I want Mace when I have you? When all I’ve ever wanted was you?”

  His anger dissipates a little then, and he grabs my elbow and pulls me around the side of the building into a dark alley. My anger doesn’t dissipate in the slightest. No, my anger is still set to raging bitch mode.

  “Those people are my friends and my work colleagues. You embarrassed me in front of them. And now I’m going to have to take Mace’s stupid drunk arse to a hospital and convince him not to press charges.”

  “You’re not fucking going anywhere with him.”

  “Excuse me?” I ask. Because there’s no way he just forbade me from doing something. “You can’t tell me what to do, Sam. We’re not kids anymore.”

  “You fucked him, Pepper. And you lied about it. You really think I’m going to let you go anywhere alone with that douche?”

  I reel back as if I’ve been hit, and in a way I have. I’ve been smacked upside the head with a god damned sledgehammer because Sammy Belle, my Sammy, the guy I’ve loved since I was just a kid, beat the shit out of a guy for fucking me two years ago when Sam and I were nothing but ancient history. I shake my head. “You’re fucking crazier than I am. Beating the shit out of Luke Roberts was one thing, but Mace?”

  “He was mauling my fucking girlfriend. What did you expect me to do?”

  “I had it under control.”

  He laughs, but it’s a bitter and humourless sound. “Yeah, you had it under control, all right. You were really hating the fact that he was all over you. Was like a trip down Memory Lane, huh?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I don’t know, Pep.” He uses Mace’s nickname for me, just to drive the knife deeper. “Did it feel as good as the first time?”

  “Fuck you.” I turn around and head for the club, b
ut he catches me up in his arms. “Let me go.” I shove my elbow into his gut. He flinches, but doesn’t loosen his hold.

  “You lied to me, about him.”

  “Yeah, because I know a little something about how much it hurts knowing that someone you love has shared a bed with someone you despise.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means watching you fuck all of those girls right out of high school wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever had to witness. I thought I’d spare you that. You didn’t like Mace to begin with; chances were that you were going to hate knowing that I fucked him.”

  “Did you come with him?”

  “What kind of question is that, Sam?”

  “Did you come? Did you fuck him more than once? Was he better at pleasing you than I am?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course I came. He has a wicked tongue and a Jacob’s ladder. I came hard and fast, three fucking times.” He shakes his head and buries his face in his hands. “Was it as good for you, Sam?”

  “Was what as good?” he asks through his teeth.

  “You fucking us over?” I say, and step out around him, only I find myself thrust up against the wall. Sam cups my face, and I turn my cheek, but then his hand slides down to my chin and he tilts it up so I’ll look at him.

  He’s breathing hard, and his eyes are dark as he hisses, “You make me fucking crazy, you know that, right?”

  “The feeling is mutual,” I snap back. He pens me in with his big body against the wall, sliding his knee into the space between us. I resist the urge to grind myself against him, but it doesn’t matter because Sammy Belle doesn’t pull punches. He’s every bit as stubborn and determined as I am. He moves, and his thigh rubs against my pussy. I shudder and gasp, though the last thing I want is his knowledge of how to make my body pliant, clouding my judgement.

  I’m angry. No. I’m fucking angry.

  My panties were already wet from earlier when I’d thought he was going to fuck me in the bathroom, but now they’re soaked because angry sex turns me on just as much as regular sex. Sam slides his hand down my body and slips beneath my skirt. Shoving my panties aside one-handed, he sinks inside and I gasp, throwing my head back against the wall.

  “Are you wet for me?” he whispers in my ear. “Or for him?”

  My eyelids fly open and I stiffen, all good feeling gone. My blood boils. How the fuck can he say that to me? How can he honestly think I want Mace? I mean, yeah, I fucked the guy. He’s hot, and he knows how to use all of his pierced, tattooed glory to the best of his ability, but there’s no comparison, because there’s no feeling with Mace. There never was because I was always too caught up in Sammy, because I’d left my heart with him in that stupid Podunk town, and I’d only just recently got it back. Luke, Mace, Stieg, and anyone else that might have come along would never have been able to lay claim to my heart, because it belonged entirely to the fucking idiot standing before me, and he doesn’t even realise it.

  Sammy pulls back to study my face. I push his arms away, ignoring the bittersweet stab of pleasure that courses through my pussy when his fingers slide free.

  “Neither of you,” I hiss, and duck out from under his arms, and then I walk around the corner, heading for the one place they won’t let him follow.

  “Pepper, get back here.”

  “Go home, Sammy,” I say, and head down the stairs. I don’t look back, but I know he tries to follow because the bouncers tell him to step back and there’s a struggle as they refuse him entry. The absolute last place I want to be right now is in a packed bar full of people that just saw my boyfriend beat up another guy for kissing me, but I don’t want to fight with Sam anymore, so I hold my head high and block out all the stares and the harsh words from the people around me as I pass and I go in search of the one person who’s probably feeling as busted up and bruised on the outside as my heart is right now.

  I find Mace, and we exit the club through a back door to avoid Sammy. I take him to the hospital and spend over half the night holding his hand in a waiting room before someone sees to his face. He’s given a couple of stitches, some painkillers, and the number of the hot blonde nurse who fixed him up.

  After we leave the hospital, I take him back to his Collingwood apartment in a cab. Even with his face all busted up, Mace pulls out every move he has. I don’t know how to make it any clearer that I’m not interested, so rather than having to fight off his advances all night I ply him with two Panadeine Forte and a shot of Jack large enough to take down a baby hippo—hey, don’t judge me, he’s hot and knows exactly the right words to say to ensure your panties need wringing out after one of his verbal foreplay sessions. This is Mace’s gift in life—mastering the art of talking women out of their underwear.

  But I don’t want Mace. I want Sammy. I’ve always wanted Sammy. I wasn’t prepared to jeopardise what we had for a half hour of playtime with Mace’s penis—no matter how awesome a penis it may be.

  I also wanted some shuteye, so before Mace could pass out, I pulled him off the couch and led him to his bedroom where he fell face first on the bed. That would probably hurt in the morning.

  I didn’t bring my phone with me; it’s still at home on the counter, but I texted Sam from Mace’s phone to let him know I wasn’t coming home until the morning, and then I switched it off, stole a couple of pills from the coffee table, downed them with a hearty swig from the bottle in true trailer trash fashion and fell asleep on the couch.

  It’s eleven o’ clock when I wake up. Mace is still sleeping so I take a twenty from his wallet and replace it with an “I owe you”, and then I slip out before he can try to stop me. I catch the tram to Toorak. When I get off, I pass a chemist and purchase a pair of jiffies so I don’t have to walk a full kilometre in my six-inch heels, and I walk back to Coop’s house to face the music.

  “I DON’T know, Holly. She didn’t say where she was, just that she was safe and she’d be home in the morning.”

  “Well fuck, Sam. That’s really reassuring,” Holly snaps into the receiver, and I fight the urge to hang up on her. I’ve been going out of my mind with worry since she stepped back into that club. I waited for hours outside for them to close the doors and when she didn’t come out, I knew she’d found another way out—one that didn’t involve walking past me.

  Then I’d gone back to the house, hoping she’d be there. She wasn’t. At four am, when I was sitting by the front door and struggling to keep my eyes open she’d sent a text message from an unknown number stating that she was safe but wasn’t coming home. I’d called the police, but I had no information to give them, and what the fuck would it matter? She’d come home when she was ready, only it was nearing one pm, and she hadn’t shown up yet.

  I hadn’t wanted to call Holly, but I didn’t see what other choice I had. They weren’t picking up at the Velvet Gun, I had no idea how to get in touch with her, or even where she was, and I didn’t have any of her friend’s numbers, besides the one she texted me from and that had obviously been switched off because I’d tried calling every twenty minutes.

  “Is she still taking her pills?”

  “Of course she is,” I say automatically, and then I blanch because I don’t remember seeing her take them, not for months. Not since the night I had my date with Olivia. Fear worms its way through my gut as I stalk through the house to the staircase and take the stairs two at a time. I enter the bedroom and head for her dresser, rifling through makeup bags and various lotions, then I check her bedside table and rummage through the drawers, but I come up empty.

  “Sam? Are you there?”

  “I haven’t seen her take a pill for months.” I admit. “I never thought about it, you know? I didn’t think she’d be stupid enough to not keep on top of that shit.”

  In the bathroom, I dig through the drawers and cabinets, tossing aside hairbrushes and more lotions.

  I can’t breathe. I’ve fucked this shit up royally
. I’m supposed to be looking out for her. I’m supposed to take care of her. “This is all my fault. I should have seen this coming.”

  “Hey, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. You can’t blame yourself for this.”

  “I have to go,” I say, not wanting to hear this shit from her mother. She should be blaming me. I got complacent. I thought she was doing okay, but the problem was I wasn’t paying attention. I should have seen it; I should have pushed her harder for answers when she cut herself with my razor. I should have seen this coming.

  “Sam, it might be time to accept outside help.”

  “Outside help?” I question.

  “A hospital—”

  “You wanna put your daughter in the fucking looney bin?”

  “She needs help, Sam. Help that you or I can’t give her.”

  “I’m not sending her to a fucking mental institution, Holly. I agree she needs help, but how is shoving her in an institution with a whole bunch of crazies going to help? Do you know what they do to a person in there?” I stare at my horrified reflection. “No. I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll watch her twenty-four/seven—I’ll shove those pills down her throat myself if I fucking have to. We don’t need help. We’ve always been just fine on our own.”

  “Sam—” Holly protests, but I end the call because I can’t listen to this anymore. I’m not putting her in a fucking hospital. I won’t do that to her.

  Opening the top drawer again, I fish around for the bottle of little white pills I’ve seen her clutch during a panic attack for more years than I could count. Finally I locate it right at the back, but it’s jammed in between a box of tampons and several bottles of makeup so I end up yanking the drawer out and upending it on the floor. I pull the bottle from the wreckage, and shake it. It rattles, sounding as though it’s half full.

  Satisfied, I’m just about to put it back when I catch the date of dispensary. It’s from six months ago. Pepper goes through a bottle of these every three weeks, or she used to. Fear jack-knives through my chest. I unscrew the cap, and empty out a couple pills into my shaking palm. The first thing that hits me is the sweetly cloying scent of mint; the next is the idea that the manufacturer must have changed Pepper’s pills because they look exactly like fucking Tic Tacs.