The Fishermen (Infidelity #2)

by C.P. Harris

“I need you to hate me,” he whispered. “Don’t you know that I love you too much to ever hate you?”

“I’d face down anything to be with you. Now please do the same for me.”

“You don’t scare me. Your darkness doesn’t scare me, Franky. How many times do I have to prove that I can handle you?” “You shouldn’t have to,”

“You shouldn’t have to handle me. You deserve better than that.” “I don’t want better! I want you. I’ll take your fucking scraps without complaint if it means one day I get to have more. If it means that sometime in this lifetime I’ll get to have the good parts of you again.”

What he didn’t understand was that I’d take it, because I loved him enough to, because something was a fuck ton better than nothing.

Franky was a carnivore who wouldn’t be satisfied until my bones were bare, until I paid for him falling in love with me to begin with.

This felt like goodbye, like him saying this was all he could give me, and like me falling apart, never to be whole again.

I knew better than to get mixed up with Franklin Kincaid, but I hadn’t cared about the risks because every fiber of my being wanted him.

I waited for him for nineteen whole days, with nothing to nourish me but fleeting hope. I waited, and he never came. He never chose me.

“Like you’d do anything to have me?” I’d said. “Like the only way for you to cope with wanting me is by taking it all out on me? Your anger, your lust, your guilt… Your sadness too?”

“You’re a tortured soul, Franky, but I can handle it. When no one else can, I can handle you,” I’d promised him.

With Noon gone, and now Franky, I was the one thing I feared more than anything. I was alone. I’d been thrown out of a window again.

I wanted that guilty, shameful feeling that came with giving away something that belonged to someone else. I wanted there to be no going back for me, just like there had been no looking back for him. I wanted that flimsy string holding what remained of me together to break.

It was over. I was done. I would never be hurt by anyone ever again.

He was still handsome, more so now, if that were possible. But he no longer reminded me of sunshine. Leland was a cyclone of pain. I’d tarnished him.

We were all so broken, I realized right then, but I couldn’t be the one to fix us. I wasn’t strong enough, or brave enough, to do that. Not since him. I was capable of very little without him.

I understood his pain. I knew what his heartache felt like. I knew the texture of it, the stench it gave off, and I knew how impossible it was to navigate its constant fluctuations, the unpredictable agony of it all.

I couldn’t let him break me again. I couldn’t let him see that I was broken already.

“Have you ever been crushed by the one person you would’ve done anything for or given anything to?” Cole asked, leaning his forearms into the bar top. “Yes,” I answered. “How did you handle it?” “I let it change me,” I said. “Did it help? Did it make it hurt any less?” “I thought it did, but fooling yourself has an expiration date.”

Cole’s friendship ended up being the life raft I needed. Franky had gotten it wrong. I didn’t need just one friend. I specifically needed Cole.

I’d shut him out because I refused to let Franky know that without him I couldn’t find it in me to be a daisy. But he knew anyway, and it fucking hurt like hell.

I didn’t want to know him anymore. I didn’t want to love him anymore.

Your suffering isn’t a gift, Franky. What you’re doing isn’t okay just because you’re not happy while doing it.”

holding on to things that don’t serve you is just bad for the soul.”

I understood that trauma was a cancer of a different kind. It ate away at everything good, and it blocked any attempts made at refueling my life with additional good.

what he needed from me overrode what I wanted from him, even if what he needed wasn’t me.

“But let me make myself clear,” I said. “The moment you tell me you’re ready, we tell him. I won’t hesitate, Leland. I won’t make the mistake of not choosing you again.”

Some things about me may have changed, but some would always remain the same. Leland was mine.

I guess we were both doomed to live and die in the winter meadow.

The sight and sound of Franky begging would never cease to make me feel both honored and unworthy. A man like him shouldn’t have to beg, yet he did so for me.

If anyone’s forehead kisses were going to make Leland feel better, it would be mine.

“God, Leland. If I could slam you against that wall and take you right now, I would. I would fuck you for all the years I hadn’t been able to. For all the years I loved you and wasted that love on my pain. I would fuck you until you couldn’t see straight.”

“I just…needed something to hold on to that night. Something to help remind me that I could be more.” “You are more,” I said. “You’re everything, Leland.”

“That the man I love created it for me. That it depicts the passion we once shared. The darkness of that passion.”

I’d tell myself this was progress, that I was one step closer to having the other half of my heart back, and he was one step closer to accepting the other half of his. I told myself that, one day, our half hearts would meet in the middle. One day, our hearts would join and be whole.

“I kneel for no one but you, Leland. No one.”

Wolves didn’t want to eat other wolves, they wanted to feast on lambs.

“You strike me as a top,” I said, not giving a fuck about his excuse for being here. “And two tops don’t make a bottom.”

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, Lucas. Franklin Kincaid is not riding anyone’s cock. That’s one hole of his that a dick won’t see any action in,”

“This place reminds me of the day we became friends,” he said. “I come here and life suddenly feels simple. Easy. Like it was between us that day.”

“Keeps me focused on my goal,” he said. “Keeps me focused on you.” “We almost shit our pants up there,” I said, my voice a bit breathy from his intensity. “Care to do it again?” he asked, studying the wheel and then staring daringly down at me. He held his hand out to me when I stayed quiet with indecision, because things were less scary when holding hands, even if that thing was revisiting the era when my feelings for him began to unknowingly take shape. “Shitting my pants has never sounded so good,” I said, closing my hand around his.

And I want daisies, Franky. Daisies everywhere so I’ll never forget to be brave ever again.’”

“Maybe one day we can both be daisies,” I said, tears tumbling down.

It said you and I are in this together. No matter who else is in this space, it’s just you and me. It said I’m just as scared as you, but together we could all be daisies.

“I haven’t painted in years. I might not know how to anymore.” “So you’ll practice. Every day and every night, with me by your side, you’ll remember how,” he said. “Okay,”

“Where do you see yourself in this lifetime, and every lifetime after, Leelee Bear?”

“Somewhere still wanting you, Franky.”

We kissed like our lives were on the line, like if we stopped, we’d both die.

I’d gone without the source of his love for so long, and I already knew what having it snatched away again would do to me, and so I needed constant reminding that it was still there, that today his love was as sharp as it had been yesterday, and the day before.

I hadn’t lied when I said I’d be somewhere still loving him in the next lifetime. I hadn’t lied the first time I’d said it either. I would always want him, and I now knew that no matter how much I prepared myself for him, no matter how much hindsight I now had, and no matter how much more my own life had to offer me, Franky still had the power to break me because there was no protecting oneself from the type of love we shared. You went all in, guards down, hearts exposed for the taking.