CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
"My God. Could this place get any nastier?"
Turning to the door, Randy Orton grimaced. The last thing he needed was to hear her whiney little voice. "What do you want?"
Without a real invitation, Brooke Leland let herself into the cluttered apartment and trailed her manicured finger over the back of the couch. "What? No kiss?" she asked, her brown eyes wide as she watched him, feigning innocence.
"I thought I took your key away," he spat, setting his cereal bowl on the end table next to the couch before he stood, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
Brooke shrugged and kept walking toward the bathroom. "You gave it back," she called over her shoulder. With the door open, she dropped her form-fitting jeans to her ankles and sat on the toilet. "So clearly you haven't been using your off-time to clean."
He was pretty sure that his anger management counselor wouldn't condone the thoughts running through his head. The judicial system probably wouldn't condone the things he wanted to do with her at the moment. And he was sure that his mother would not condone the things he was about to say.
Walking past the bathroom without so much as a glance inside, Randy moved toward the refrigerator and helped himself to a beer. They had talked about using alcohol as a help tool during his therapy. He wasn't supposed to be using any substance to make confrontation easier. But desparate times called for desparate measures, and if anything reaked of desparation, it was Brooke Leland.
For more than three years, she had been his partner in crime. His passion and his fury. His face and his heel. She was his muse, for better, but more often, for worse. She had offered him his first joint, gotten him into his first fight, and spent his first night in jail with him.
He hated her more than he had ever hated anyone. But he couldn't seem to stay away. Because for all of the headaches and the pain and the irritation she provided, there was something addictive about Brooke Leland.
The flush of the toilet was followed by a slam of the bathroom door. When Randy turned, Brooke was standing at the end of the kitchen island, her hands on her hips. "I take the time out of my busy schedule to come all the way over here and you're just gonna ignore me? What the fuck is that about, Orton?"
Rolling his eyes, Randy turned and matched her pose with his hands on his hips. "First of all," he started, holding her gaze with a steady one of his own. "You live two blocks over. And I don't know what this bull shit about a busy schedule is. You don't have a fucking job, Brooke."
She huffed as though she was about to throw a tantrum, and then shrugged. "I have a job, Orton," she corrected. "I run a lucrative business out of my home."
"Right," he nodded sarcastically. "I forgot about the little webcam thing."
If there was anything that set Brooke off, it was the insinuation that her website was not a real job. "That 'little webcam thing' happened to net me over three hundred grand last year, smartass," she corrected, helping herself to a beer from the fridge. "Seriously, dude," she perused the dishes in the sink. "You need to get a maid."
"Would you lay off the fucking mess?" Randy finally snapped. "Jesus Christ! I haven't been through enough lately? I can't get thirty seconds of rest in my own fucking home?"
His outburst made Brooke laugh, her ruby red lips parting as she tilted her head back. "You're such a drama queen," she sighed, moving back into the living room.
When he joined her, she was splayed against his couch, her puma-clad feet propped on the coffee table. "Get your feet off the table. Jesus! Were you born in a barn?"
Brooke withdrew her feet and sat up, allowing him room to flop next to her. "Callin' the good Lord's name a lot today, Orton. What happened? You find some religion at Bad Mood camp?"
He smiled and leaned forward, pulling on the hidden drawer under the coffee table. Withdrawing a small wooden box, he took rolling papers and a baggie and laid them out. "Religion doesn't really suit me," he reminded her, sprinkling a generous amount of pot down the middle of the paper.
"What does suit you?" Brooke asked coyly, leaning close to him as he moved the paper toward his lips. Gripping his wrist, she guided the joint to her own mouth and licked it seductively.
Randy shook the shiver running down his spine as he rolled the cigarette carefully and waited for her to light it. "What do you think?" he challenged, holding the joint between his fingers as he passed it to her.
Brushing his fingers with her own, Brooke smiled and took a long drag, puffing her lips as she held the smoke. Their eyes held each other's gaze, dancing an intimate tango that no one could ever hope to figure out. As she parted her lips, a thick cloud of smoke escaping the confines of her mouth. "I think it's been too fucking long."
During his two months in Georgia, he had resolved to cut her out of his life. He had too many dreams that hadn't come true yet, too much left to accomplish. She was his albatross. He had told his counselor that he knew Brooke would be the death of everything he had envisioned for himself.
But even recalling all of that couldn't stop him from grabbing an ashtray from the coffee table and taking her hand, leading her toward the bedroom. If it was true - if loving her killed him - at least he knew he would die exhausted and satisfied.