Selfless
Eight – ConsiderationIt's another lonely evening
And another lonely town
But I ain't too young to worry
And I ain't too old to cry
When a woman gets me down.
And another empty bed
Ain't too young to admit it
And I'm not too old to lie
I'm just another empty head. That's why I'm lonely
I'm so lonely
- AC/DC, "Ride On"
Some small and very bad part of her was obsessed with the idea of David slipping into the shower while she was in there and she ended up stepping out twice, peeking into the bedroom where the doctor lay in a completely pathetic state. Finally, though, she'd found herself suitably cleaned up and had tip-toed through the bedroom to search for anything she could wear.
David kept towels and robes everywhere in and near the bathroom, something she was pathetically thankful for as she'd yanked on the biggest and thickest one she could find and wrapped a ridiculously large towel around her hair, wearing it like a beehive as she watched him warily, listening to his breathing for long moments before heading across the room.
Her dress wasn't dirty exactly but she hated putting something on that she'd already worn and, while she had tried to put it on to avoid any crap, she'd taken it off very quickly, flinging it away. She'd never looked into David's closet before and found herself strangely fascinated by the sight of his clothes.
It wasn't that big a deal, not really, and yet it was. These were David's clothes, the things he wore, and she shot him a nervous look before stepping closer to the closet, peering in with a sudden giddiness, feeling oddly enthralled by the sight of his shirts stretching before her, a line of dark fabric; blues and grays and blacks and she reached out, caressing a sleeve of dark blue-green cloth.
It was soft beneath her fingertips and she enjoyed it, rubbing it between fingers and then casting David another nervous glance. He was out cold and it was clear but still, what if he decided that he didn't women who went through his closet and rated his clothes? And, hello, why did the married woman care about his clothes?
Raising the sleeve, she pressed it to her face and inhaled. It was freshly washed and it depressed her that there was no pleasant scent of David there, what she had been wrapped in the night for hours. Still, there was a hint of something there that had nothing to do with detergent or soap and she focused on it, focused on that hint of something so deeply that she could almost taste him.
She studied the shirt for a moment, dropped the sleeve before moving onto the next, a dark gray shirt that she remembered him wearing about a month before. She had stood under cold water and calmed herself down after all that and here she was, getting all hot and heavy over his shirts.
Jesus, how pathetic was she?
Moving away from his clothes forcefully, she studied him, cocking her head as she contemplated how he looked splayed out on his stomach, face mashed down, and arms beneath the pillow. Very few men had ever affected her like this and it had her baffled, had her confused as to why he made her so damn squirmy.
He wasn't the most amazingly built man ever, not really and she bit her lip, fingers itching to slide along his wrists and up his arms. He was a darker build than she was used to, warm brown skin that was as warm as it looked. Greenlee's eyes found his arm, found a spot of bare skin and she swallowed, fingers knowing full well how that spot felt.
He was hairy too and how often did she always whine about hairy men, whining that it was annoying and irritating and made her want to shove them in a vat of hot wax? Now, here she was, getting all hot and bothered by a forty-something year old who did things to her body with his eyes and his grin that made her breath come in whimpers and heat to rush through her like liquid fire.
David was drunk, completely dead to the world and here she was, staring at him like he was piece of meat, body reacting to feelings that had happened weeks before and were forever etched clearly into her mind, touches and contacts that made her body ignite as she stood there, shaking slightly.
With a quiet, pained groan, she fled the bedroom, seeking something to eat other than David… who tasted really, really good, by the way…
Vanessa had never hidden her affairs, not even from her child and David had learned the truth about the birds and the bees at an all too young age. At least his father had attempted to keep his son away from Vanessa's affairs, attempted to keep his son from knowing about his own female friends.
Charles hadn't done enough, not nearly, but he had tried and given up a few minutes from his work to see his son. No, not even near to close to enough for David but with no one else and nothing else, it had been all he'd had, a few precious moments every few weeks of half-hearted caring that had been the only light in his otherwise empty and hollow childhood.
And then his father had been gone, and he hated how Vanessa had pulled him round the wake, had yanked him around and coddled him, playing the grieving widow to a T and managed to play the doting mother just as well to the crowd she would gather. And he'd been stuck at her side, in a piece of crap suit that he hated.
Black suit and white shirt and, god, he'd hated that suit, hated how it hung on him, tight and smothering and how much his fingers had tugged at the black tie, smacked away by his mother whenever she spotted him trying to loosen it. She hadn't cared at all that his father was that cold body lying in that wooden box and had refused to let him leave her and her little group and see the body that he had felt grow cold.
He'd never hated her more than when she went up there and broke down, crocodile tears rolling down that heartless face. Vanessa had always been a good actress and he never forgot it, never forgot what it felt like to see someone he despised like that acting like she was worthy of sympathy, worthy of respect.
She was worthless, heartless and he hated that, in that moment, all he had wanted was for her to take him in her arms and tell him that everything would be fine. David had many bad memories; he had many things that he wished he could forget but he had found that the same memory that he hated so much had helped him save too many lives to count.
Talk about a cosmic joke…
His mind, a carefully constructed place that he held so carefully, that he fought to keep closed and still, was once again preying on him, an insidious presence that he could feel in his alcohol-drenched state but couldn't quite place and, shifting, he turned away from something that moved at his side, something that rocked the whatever it was that he was laying on at the moment.
His head ached and he took it in stride, knowing it wasn't fatal, and that it just felt like it at the moment and his fingers curved inward, tightening up in a fist as he shifted again, away from the heat and found it following him, making the whatever it was beneath him move even more than before.
He wanted it, he did, but why bother? He'd wanted to save his father and he was all too aware of how well that attempt had been, how useless he had proved himself to be while his father grew cold. The voice talking to him wasn't helping and he absently noted that, even though he always loved Greenlee's voice, it wasn't all that nice on a drunken mind.
And then the movements stopped, stilled and he relaxed into the bed—yeah, it was a bed, wasn't it?—letting out his breath in a grunt and then listening to her move around, in a half-aware state of consciousness, wishing he could pull her into the bed and knowing, at the same time, that there was no point.
Lavery didn't make her happy and he knew it, even when she'd pouted and giggled and ran her hands up and down his arms, insisting that Leo had sent her this great love with Ryan Lavery and David didn't believe it, not for a single second, because he knew when she was lying, even if it was only to herself.
Leo would never have sent her someone like Lavery, someone who was still in love with some other woman and couldn't handle the fact that that other woman could love in such a terrifying way and, god, Leo would never have done that, not to Greenlee. He had known her, he had known her before anyone else had, even when David had first noticed her in a purely 'man-as-pig' state.
Thinking hurt and here he was, thinking about jumbled pieces of his life, things that he knew could fit together and work if he could just do it all right, if he could figure out everything the way he had figured out that if he could just keep all the blood in, his father would be fine and he had figured out that, if Leora had survived, she would have been calling Greenlee something other than Greenlee…
Everything was wrong, all wrong and he was acutely aware of the fact that he was beyond drunk and still thinking like a depressed doctor who spent all his time drowning himself in alcohol and surviving on memories of his few hours with his dead brother's wife and, god, how could he have done this to Leo?
He groaned, turning away from the sounds of her, rolling away and pressing his face into the pillow, trying to sink into a deep enough state to work everything that hurt like this out of his head. She'd be on Lavery's arm tonight, draped up like a toy that he shook in Hart's face, taunting how 'happy' he was.
They were both miserable, and he could see it all too easily. It was a sham of a marriage, something they had pieced together, Lavery because he couldn't be a big brave boy and her because she just had to win her little game with Kendall… had she even thought about him, about how he would feel when he found out?
No… of course not… he was just the brother-in-law who would commit felonies for her…
David's cabin held the bare essentials when it came to nourishment and, while some feminine part of her cringed inwardly at the emptiness of his cupboards and fridge, she had long since learned that nothing could keep this man fully stocked in anything other than dry cereal, skim milk, frozen dinners and Scotch.
That, apparently, was what he survived on, begging the question of whether or not he was actually human.
This was the same man who ate his cereal out of a coffee mug and insisted that cereal bowls and all those other 'dorky' little bowls were useless when it came to actually eating the food. Of course, he was correct—damn it all to hell, by the way—but that didn't mean she ever had agreed with him.
She had been raised as a Greenlee and had been taught that every single extra spoon, fork, knife, bowl and other idiotic little thing had to be used because she was a Greenlee and that's what you did as a Greenlee… now, even with how much she hated such idiocies, she found she was still stuck on the concept.
How the hell had David worked the brainwashing from his head, anyway?
Sighing, turning away from the cupboards, Greenlee began to pick her way through the fridge, leaving the kitchen when she found nothing but old Chinese food that seemed to be growling at her threateningly in warning. Hands still tingling from the feel of his skin, warm under her fingers and palms, she burrowed more deeply into her warm robe, shuffling into the living room and stopping as she considered his desk.
Despite the overall organization of everything in his life, especially his work, there was a bit of a mess on his desk, something that piqued her curiosity ad she studied the desk with more interest, circling around it as her eyes skimmed over a notebook filled with that itty-bitty writing of his that she could never understand and several files, each unmarked and shut with a paper-clip.
It was utterly fascinating in a way that she couldn't quite understand and she bit her lip, shifting one foot and glancing at the door that led to his bedroom, where they had spent those hours laying together, for hours, finding anything they could to get themselves feeling anything other than that emptiness that had taken over their lives.
She studied his writing, regarded it thoughtfully and then dragged a finger down a page, shaking her head as she came to a very strong, very sure decision, and finally came to regard it as more than a simple thought that refused to leave her alone.
She didn't want to go home to her husband; she didn't want to go home to Ryan. She didn't want to go to the fucking casino to watch Ryan go for Kendall and to get Kendall away from evil Zach Slater, who was apparently completely evil and was out just to make Kendall suffer.
Ryan wanted Kendall back when she didn't want him anymore, just like some little kid who got rid of toy because it was boring or old but then decided that he wanted it back when someone else got interested in it. Greenlee didn't want him, didn't want him to ever put his hands on her again… she didn't think she'd be able to handle it.
She got more joy out of being snarked at by David than ever in her marriage to Ryan and that had to mean something, didn't it?
Five minutes later, she was calling up her husband and telling him to go on alone, that she was busy tonight and had work to do and to go out and enjoy himself… the only way she was going to the casino tonight was if she was going with David at her side… for the first time in years, she felt like a heartless, nasty bitch and it was indeed a wonderful feeling.