Double Dip (Unlocked Desire)

"You shouldn't trust me. I fuckin' don't trust me. Right now, it's biting, but who knows what else I'd want from you? What if I wanted something you wouldn't give?"

"Jack, stop this. I don't believe you'd ever hurt me."

"Until I did."

"You won't hurt her." Lip's voice came from the doorway. He'd been so quiet that I hadn't even heard the door open.

"How long have you been standing there?" I asked.

Chapter 6

LIP

Jack looked like a fuckin' mess. I'd seen him look like shit many times in our lives, but this time it was different. Usually, his anger fueled him; he'd get sad or pissed. He'd go off somewhere and beat the fuck out of some asshole. As I watched him and Joey in that bathroom, it wasn't the first time in my life I'd seen Jack broken, but it was the first time I was scared he couldn't be put back together again. His head was hung low, his hands formed into fists, and he avoided Joey by looking everywhere in the room but at her.

I turned to Joey, her hands cradling Jack's bandaged-up fists, but asked him, "What the fuck did you do to your hand?"

"Got in a fight. Florence Nightingale here fixed me up." Jack pulled his hand away from Joey and unclenched his fist. "See? Good as new."

I walked up to Joey, tucking her under my arm. "You okay?"

"Yes," she said, nodding. "Just a little sad."

I glanced at Jack. "You told her?"

"Yes, she knows everything. Now she can walk away, and the two of you can live happily ever after," Jack spat.

"You're such a fuckin' idiot. I've known you for most of my life; I've always been there. You think anyone that loves you is gonna walk away from you?"

"My own fuckin' mother left me at four, leaving me to that hell."

"What about what my mother did? Didn’t she prove to you that people love you?" I asked, frustrated as Jack's stupidity.

Joey gazed at Jack and then at me. "What did your mom do?"

"She adopted Jack on his eighteenth birthday. He'd already been living with us for two years. He'd emancipated himself at sixteen. My dad paid for the lawyer. Alison, his half-sister, had been beating him for eleven years. My dad couldn't take it anymore; every other day, he'd be at my house with a broken rib, arm, black eyes. She was a real piece of work. A complete fuckin' psycho. The bitch landed herself in jail five years ago when her ex-husband finally caught her beating the shit out of her kid with a sack of oranges."

"Jesus," Joey said, her eyes rounded. "What a fuckin' bitch."

"Yeah, she was one twisted sister. Had a thing about beating kids. She had been doing it since she was actually in elementary school. Still, her old man usually bought her way out of it. He probably tried when she was beating her own kid too, but her ex was more powerful than she was, the heir of some multibillionaire. He got the kid and got her locked up."

"Why didn't you tell me Catherine being in jail?" Jack asked.

"Didn't think you needed to know. You seemed to have been doin' okay. Then Joey came into our lives, and you seemed happy. I didn't want to fuck any of that up by bringing up the past. I didn't know how fucked up you were until recently. I'm sorry I didn't notice. I love you, man. I would fuckin' do anything for you. I thought Joey had managed to heal you, but this shit ran deeper than I ever thought, which was stupid of me."

"You were probably right," Jack whispered. He looked around, an expression on his face that reminded me of a trapped animal desperate to get out of its cage. "I gotta get outta here." Jack got up and headed for the door, but I got in front of him.

"No. No more running, man. You're not doing this shit to Joey. She fuckin' loves you. We both do. You aren't doing this. This shit with your past is not you. You were just a kid, man. Those fuckers should have looked after you, but all they did was hurt you. We aren't them. We are in this for the long haul." I shoved at Jack. I was so frustrated that he didn't know what he had and how easily he would let the past impact all our futures. "Why the fuck can't you see that?"

"I'm fuckin shit. I come from shit, and I'll always be shit," Jack yelled.

I got right in his face. "You're a fuckin' asshole, you know that?" I yelled back.

"You lookin' for a fight, Lip? I don't want to lay your ass down, but I will."

"No," Joey yelled, coming right between us. She placed one hand on each one of our chests. "Please stop."