In the Unlikely Event by L.J. Shen

Present

Mal

It is worth mentioning how I ended up writing songs for a living, when initially, I made having people beg to buy my songs somewhat of a competitive sport.

The answer—as it is to many questions—is Rory.

After she left, I worked through the pain. I wrote songs about love, and about hate, and about indifference. About loneliness and alcohol and the dark corners of my soul that frequently sent a hostile breeze through the rest of my body.

Hundreds of songs became thousands of songs, and thousands of songs became something bigger than me. Like a monster in my closet, lurking every night. Every song became a demon, and each demon was out for my blood.

I bled onto the pages until there were no more words to be written. Still, I wouldn’t sell them. I couldn’t sell them because I didn’t want to change my circumstances. I didn’t want to become big and famous and rich (not that I thought I would, but one can’t take any chances). I didn’t want to brush shoulders with Ashton Richards and his likes. I wanted to busk till I died, and come back home to my small cottage, and live a life where I didn’t chase inspiration—it chased me. Where my art didn’t stem from the need to have a bigger house or a fancier car or more money in the bank. I did it because I wanted to, a luxury not many paid artists have. It helped that I’d never been a particularly materialistic person.

But then the accident happened.

Katherine died. But before she did, there were a series of surgeries that required specialists to fly out from Switzerland and America and whatnot. The medical bills began to pile up. Mam and Elaine, Kathleen’s mother, needed a place to live. There was shite to buy and people to pay, and I felt the world cornering me into a place I couldn’t get out of.

So I sold out.

I unchained my demons and sold them to others as pets. These people put leashes on those demons, slapped them with a cheery tune, and sold them to the masses as Billboard hits.

I sold out, hoping Rory would hear, listen, make the connection, and hopefully find me.

It was the kind of stupid, boyish hope I’d admire in a fictional, hopeless character, but hate in myself. Then again, what were the odds of her not deciphering the unmistakable words?

“…summer rain on Drury Street. Stupid me, I thought you were mine to keep.”

“…underneath the stars, you ask, do you believe in God? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, but after we’re through, I think I won’t.”

“Across the ocean, there’s a girl, made out of marshmallow and cyanide and shiny dew.”

Then I thought, I don’t know, maybe she simply hadn’t had the chance to listen to some of the BIGGEST FUCKING BILLBOARD HITS IN THIS DECADE because she had something against the radio and YouTube and TV and Western culture.

But I promised myself not to be bitter—especially after finding out Rory hadn’t, in fact, sent me the pictures and letter. She might’ve written those nasty-ass things on the backs of the photos—okay, fine, it was her handwriting, she did—but she didn’t intend for me to see them. To read them.

As for the abortion—that’s still a mystery. I want to ask her about it—if it’s even true—but that means dragging her into World War III with her mother. As much as I think Debbie Jenkins is a cunt—and trust me, no part of me doesn’t think that—I don’t want Rory to hate her mam more than she already does.

I hear a knock on my door and ignore it, still staring at the ceiling. If it’s Richards coming to get fucked, he’s in for a disappointment. I may have pretended to be more into snogging a man than I actually am. Not that there’s anything wrong with kissing men, but it doesn’t get my dick hard.

I just knew Rory would get a kick out of it, and I wanted to feck her mind before I bedded the rest of her.

Speaking of the F-word, she’s probably giving Shiny Boyfriend backdoor access right about now to make up for letting me own her mouth for long minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if I got her pregnant (possibly again) from kissing alone.

Bang, bang, bang. It’s progressed from knocking.

I groan, unplastering myself from the mattress and making my way to the door. Why are there no peepholes in these hotel doors? What kind of feckery is that? I swing it open with a frown.

Rory is standing on my threshold, eyes swollen, nose red. She’s been crying, and I’d pull her into my arms and hold her tight, but I need to know why she’s here, what we even are anymore. She lets me shove a chocolate bar into her pussy one day, but is (rightfully) mad at me the other. Getting my hopes high is a sure recipe for a heartbreak. And I’m not talking three-to-four-pieces break. My heart would completely shatter if Rory decides to ditch both Callum and me.

It’s like men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and Rory is from Pluto—faraway, mysterious, and nowhere near the rest of us.

I wait for her to say something. Preferably that Shiny Boyfriend finally got the hint, packed his Prada bags, and ran home to find himself a Botox-ridden lady friend who shares the same values. All three of them.

By the way, of all the shitty things I’ve done to get her—and the list is quite impressive for someone who doesn’t fancy himself a psychopath—kissing her today the way I did in front of him was not one of them.

We were both lost in that kiss. Found in it, too.

She is standing outside.

I’m standing inside.

And between us is a small, significant distance I really need her to be brave enough to cross.

“Where is the napkin right now?” She sniffles, shifting between her feet.

I fish for it in my back pocket—I still take it everywhere I go—and hold it up. I’ve imagined this moment so many times. The feelings of triumph and certainty coursing through me. But now, in reality, I feel…morbidly pathetic.

That I still have it. Always. With me. On me.

She storms in, slamming the door behind her with a kick. I expect it to be like in the movies: she finds out—a little later than I’d have liked her to—that I’m the one, and now it’s going to be fifty shades of every position in the Kama Sutra.

But this is not what happens.

What happens is she launches herself at me, throws her arms over my shoulders, and starts sobbing. Rory is not the sobbing type, so I wrap my arms around her and kiss her forehead, sheltering her from the rest of the world. If Arsehole Boyfriend wants her back, he is welcome to try to pry her out of my grasp.

“It’s over,” she breathes into my shoulder.

My heart is a mess of massive proportions. It hurts for her, but it’s thrilled for me, too. I can feel my shirt getting wet from her tears and snot. Her entire body is quivering with wave after wave of misery, and my initial sense of triumph is replaced with dread.

“Darlin’, it wasn’t meant to be.” I run my fingers through her hair. “He didn’t stand a chance. It was always us.”

She shakes her head into my shoulder, bawling even harder. “It’s not just that. I mean, I’m horrified by what I’ve done to Callum, and I’m ashamed of what we did…” Hiccup. “I’ve tried to fight what we have for so long, Mal. I no longer remember what it feels like to let go and allow you to pull me down the rabbit hole.”

I take her face in my hands, move her away so she can look me in the eye. “Newsflash, Rory: you’re already there. There wasn’t one moment in time, from the second we met, that you weren’t mine. Just like I’ve always been yours.”

She stares at me with emotions floating in and out of her pupils, like passengers on a train. I can see all of them.

Shame. Anger. Fear. Elation. Excitement.

“I kept the napkin, didn’t I?” I twist a lock of her hair between my fingertips.

Marry me, Rory.

Then she does something so unexpected, I nearly swallow my tongue.

She drops to her knees and unbuckles my belt with frantic movements. I say nothing, because I’m not above getting an emotional blow job, and because a weird, fucked-up, highly convenient part of me thinks she needs to suck my dick to prove something to herself.

When she pulls my briefs down, I’m hard as a baseball bat. My cock pops out with comic enthusiasm. She fists it and groans, closing her eyes and shoving it into her mouth. My eyes roll back in their sockets, and I thrust a hand into her hair, tugging for moral support. I feel her tongue swirling against my tip and forget what planet I’m on.

“Aurora Belle Jenkins,” I growl, “one day, you’ll be the death of me. But what a fecking way to go.”

Twenty minutes later (okay, six), I come hard inside her mouth—after asking for permission—and yank her up by her hair. I know that’s what she wanted all along when she gives me that glossed-over, may-I-be-fucked-now? look—to be manhandled like that Richards’ assistant lass.

Sometimes the dissonance between the way I act to win her over and my real self makes me wonder if I’m a sociopath.

“This was the part where we were supposed to make sweet love.” She laughs, her lips red and swollen.

She dives into my bed. I’m still standing, propping a shoulder against the wall and watching her.

“You were the one who got on your knees, Princess.”

“I missed it, and I’m single now.” She shrugs, tying her arms over her chest like a rebellious teenager.

“No, you’re not.”

She blushes. “Did you enjoy kissing Brandy?”

“Yes,” I answer her honestly.

Her gaze shoots to me, thunderstorms brewing.

I laugh. “I enjoyed feeling your eyes burning holes in her skull. Meant I was still in the race.”

“You won the race.”

“There shouldn’t have been a competition.”

She stares at me with heavy eyelids, begging to be fecked. I deny her. This is the only leverage I have.

She has my heart. I have my dick.

I turn around, grab her purse from the nightstand, and leave. I come back ten minutes later with her suitcase, which I retrieved from Callum’s room using the card she had, and start unloading it.

She asks me questions, but I’m too deep in my head to answer.

When I’m done, I go into the bathroom, splash my face with water, and stare at my reflection in the mirror.

I point at myself, narrowing my eyes. “You’re going to go out there and feck the shit out of her. So hard she won’t remember what day it is. What year it is. What Shiny ex-Boyfriend’s name is. But this time, you’re going to be cool about it. You need to screw her like you don’t want to screw her. You’re going to—”

“Mal?” she calls out from outside.

I stop dead, my eyes widening.

“The walls are kind of thin, and anyway, I’ve slept with you before. I know you can deliver the goods.”

A rush of laughter courses through my throat as I throw the door open. She stands on the other side with her arms open.

She jumps at me, and her legs wrap around my waist, my hands firm on her arse, and we kiss so long and intense, I’m certain our oxygen supply runs short. I move up the length of the bed with her in my arms—before remembering I want to make it epic, yet casual, and look-I’m-not-trying-too-hard-at-all—and shove her front against the full-length window. We’re on the fifteenth floor or so, and there’s another room, in another hotel, facing ours.

I jerk her jeans down so fast the sound of ripping fills the air, and I tug her panties to the side.

“Mal,” she moans.

“Shut up,” I growl, remembering the writing on the photo.

Tries too hard.

Talks too much.

I sheath my cock with a condom, spitting the wrap into her hair and plunging in.

“Ahhh,” she hisses, holding on to the windowsill. But I just stay there, cock inside of her, not moving.

“Mal?” she asks, still facing the Mediterranean view and the opposite hotel room.

The balcony’s sliding doors are wide open. There are shadows of people moving around inside the room. They could watch the entire thing if they just bothered looking, and it gives me a possessive thrill.

“Yes?” I ask conversationally.

“Are you having a case of stage fright?” she asks, her tone matching mine.

I bite my lip to stop myself from laughing. Feck, I missed her sweetness and sass. “Nah. Just enjoying the view.”

“Can you enjoy it while thrusting into me?”

“Pass. You wanna get fecked? You do all the work. Go on, then. Feck me. Whenever you’re ready.” I give her arse a little slap. “Just move back and forth. Not exactly astrophysics.”

“Are you for real?” She cranes her head around to stare at me. I’m still hard, and still inside her, and dead serious. She said I was a terrible flirt and tried too hard in bed. Well, here I am, completely unattainable—if you don’t count Rory herself—and the laziest lay on Earth.

I run the tips of my fingers over her back, making her shiver all over.

“The friction is not going to create itself, darlin’.”

She turns around and starts thrusting, back and forth, her arse cheeks jiggling deliciously as she does all the work. I look down, enjoying the porn-worthy vision. She picks up the pace, and I feel my balls tightening.

I groan. Not good. I mean, very good. Too good. I can’t come after five minutes, though. Especially after she listened to my bathroom pep talk.

I pull out of her without warning to stop myself from coming, and she turns around, scrunching her nose.

“Mal!” she cries.

“Bullocks.” I tap her arse with my cock. “Guess you try too hard.”

Before she has the chance to get offended, I throw her onto the bed, headfirst, and scoot on my knees toward her. I pick her up by her stomach, so she’s on all fours, and plunge in again without warning.

“Jesus.” She sighs. “You’re lucky you’re good at that.”

Well, I try.

I feck her good, fast and deep, playing with her clit, and when I feel her thighs shaking and her breath hitching, I stop again, turning her around on her back.

She growls, “What the hell is wrong with you? Let me come!”

I’m trying here. But I’m about to blow my load before you do.

“Coming is so overrated, darlin’. Making love is about giving.” I fist my cock and tease her cunt in slow circles, not plunging in.

“In that case, give me an orgasm before I pack my suitcase and head upstairs to Ashton’s room. I’m sure he’s more generous in that department.”

I can’t help it. I start laughing. I know I’m killing the mood, but hell, it is funny. I throw her leg over my shoulder and start pumping into her again, swirling my thumb over her clit as I do. She closes her eyes—ignoring the man my cock and fingers are attached to—and whimpers softly, her tits jiggling to the rhythm of my thrusts. I love seeing her like this. At my mercy.

“Faster.” She bites on her lip.

“Too lazy.” I keep my pace, thrusting deeper and deeper, not quite satisfied unless I feel like I’m tearing her apart.

“Mal,” she begs, although she is being fucked really hard and not very pleasantly. “Just a bit more.”

I deliberately slow down, putting her through delicious torture. I can feel her legs shaking again, and know she will enjoy her climax so much more if it comes gradually. I move in and out of her, watching as her skin blossoms in goosebumps as I give her what must be the best orgasm of her life by the look of her O-shaped mouth.

Once I’m done delivering the goods, I finally let go, pump into her a few more times, and find my own release.

I collapse beside her, staring at the ceiling, enjoying the dead hum of the air conditioning and our in-sync breaths.

“Let’s stay here for the entire week.” Rory is grinning at the ceiling, her eyes glossed over.

I roll over and throw an arm over her midriff, kissing her temple.

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because my pumpkin carriage turns into dust come midnight.”

“I’ll let you bum a ride in my Honda, in that case.” She laughs.

“Because I’ve got shite to take care of back in Tolka,” I amend, grinning.

“Define ‘shite’,” she presses.

I make a sizzling, steak-on-a-frying-pan sound, trying to keep it light, but I still avoid answering.

She has the right to know. I can’t deny that anymore.

“No, you’re keeping me in the dark. Again.” She removes my arm from her body ever so promptly. “What’s in Tolka, Mal? Why do you need to go back? Where do you go when you randomly disappear?”

If I thought she could handle the truth, I might consider telling her. But I know, with a clarity that makes me want to heave and throw up, that she would turn around and walk away if she found out. And I’m not ready for her to go. Not yet.

Maybe she’ll eventually leave me.

It’s an option I’m not eager to entertain, though I force myself to try to come to terms with it.

But even so, I still have a few good weeks in me—a few weeks of screwing her, picking her quirky, somewhat twisted brain, and enjoying whatever she has to give. A few weeks of remembering what it means to be alive. A hit of my favorite drug after years of being sober. Never mind what going cold turkey again might do to me.

“Answer me, Mal.”

I stand up and walk toward the bathroom, stark naked.

“You’re a dick,” she huffs from the bed.

“Evidently,” I deadpan, slamming the door behind me.

“You can’t keep things from me forever,” she calls. “The truth always catches up with you.”

I smile at the bathroom mirror, a sad smile that knows she’s right, but also so very wrong. Because she’s still in the dark about some things.

“Pack your bags, Princess. We’re going home.”