Painted On My Heart

Kellus’s laugh was immediate and abrupt as John scrambled to his feet.

“Because I’ve been thinking about you. Even after all these years, you’re still the hottest guy in the room. I miss us, Kelly.”

“Yeah, right! Until you’re fucking some random guy or jonesing for your next bump.”

John stumbled as he rounded the side of the sofa, coming toward him. Kellus quickly moved away. No way did he want that stench on him. He’d have to change clothes, and even then, that still might not be enough to remove the smell.

“If you’d just lighten up and give it a try, we could be happy together again. I know it. I’d shape up. You wouldn’t be alone all the time.”

Kellus laughed again. John couldn’t even begin to understand the extremeness in the word lonely. He’d wasted too much time and lost everything while trying to make John act right—striving to be a good enough reason for John to want to make things right for himself.

“I see you’re interested. I know you aren’t having sex with anyone. I’ll drop to my knees and suck you right now. You can shove it down my throat like you like. You know I know what you like.”

Kellus guessed that was supposed to be John’s seductive come-hither look as his ex sauntered closer to him.

“Stop it, John,” Kellus said, moving to the front door. “I know what you’ve been doing. I got more than an eyeful last night. You weren’t thinking about us when that guy was fucking you.”

“I always think of you. You’re always on my mind.”

Kellus knew these lines like the back of his hand. John had been pulling these same stunts and fucked-up binges for far too long. So much so that Kellus could almost repeat, verbatim, the words that always came next. He didn’t want to hear any more excuses; he didn’t want to listen to the bullshit any longer. He just wanted to move forward with his life.

“Take your fucking medication. You’re killing yourself.” He opened the door but hesitated as his anger pushed to the surface. This was all a game to John. Kellus shouldn’t waste his breath, but he couldn’t help it. He spun around and faced John now standing in the entryway. “You destroyed anything we ever shared months ago when you didn’t consider my feelings or my health.” Kellus took a deep steadying breath. “I’m more serious than I’ve ever been. Don’t fucking take anything from this house. I’ll turn you in this time. I won’t be gone long. Please have the decency to be gone before I get back.”

Kellus swung the door shut as John made another move toward him. No way was he willing to have any more of this conversation. Listening to John’s empty promises of their future had gotten Kellus in this position to begin with. He walked briskly to his van, thankful that John never opened the front door to come after him. He’d had all he could deal with.

~?~

There were way too many fucking clocks in this house and every last one of them mocked him as each second ticked loudly away. Every click reminded Arik it was now past eight in the morning, and his very small window of time dwindled with every sweep of the minute hand. He’d been clear both last night and this morning that BT needed to be dressed and ready to go. Eight was the only time this entire day that he could drive BT to the airport and watch with his own eyes to verify the guy went inside.

Eight twenty and there he sat, cooling his heels. Man, this pissed him off. Who the hell had turned on the heat? He went for the nearby thermostat. He began shrugging off his suit coat as he checked the numbers and saw a very comfortable seventy degrees on the digital display. His escalating anger had to be warming him up.

Arik carefully draped the jacket over his office chair and rolled his sleeves up as he circled around his desk to open his schedule on his computer. BT had given him no choice. If he didn’t rearrange things, his entire day would be blown to hell and that absolutely couldn’t happen. These were the final stages before the grand opening. It was critical he be there. Past failures dictated he be a part of every step. If his construction team and staff could please him, they would have no problem pleasing the customers they needed to serve.

He waited impatiently as his laptop booted up. Within seconds, he was inside his internal corporate instant messenger, dialing his assistant. He didn’t waste time on greetings once she appeared on the screen.

“Iris, we need to move the flight back.”

“The one we just booked?”

“Yeah,” he answered irritably as he thumbed through the stack of papers on his desk, berating himself for allowing BT to make him late. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he would have had BT up at five, so he could have been ready by seven thirty.