Page 10 of Tony

Hate. That’s the only emotion I’ve ever felt for him.

So why is he allowed to have this goddamned hold over me? I don’t get it.

And why does my best friend have to live so far away two time zones over? She would get it. If we were together, she’d tell me something profound. Some reasonable explanation as to why I’m still dealing with these lingering feelings. And you know what? She’d probably be right. Because she’d probably share my problem with her boyfriend—Tony’s freaking older brother—and he’d have some older-brother superpower insight, and then… bam. Everything would make sense. I’d fall out of hate-fuck lust with Tony, and I’d move on to someone else.

Someone who didn’t think a good time was stalking a girl home in the middle of the night and hate-fucking her against the side of a garage.

Someone who didn’t pull me into their dark side and make me like it afterwards.

God. That infuriates me.

Because I don’t like it! I’m just… addicted to it!

Not it. That’s not right.

I’m addicted to him. Just him.

I need someone who is not him. Pretty much anyone, actually. I’ll take anyone.

Someone who is the total opposite of Tony.

Hmm. I pause to think about what the opposite of Tony might look like. Just so I can have a visual. Just in case said opposite of Tony appeared in my life. I should maybe be on the lookout for him.

Tony has naturally dark hair but he’s been in the tropical sun for so much of his life, it’s been bleached to a dark coppery bronze. His eyes almost perfectly match his hair, a magical kind of brown. A brown that reminds me of those polished tiger’s eye stones you find living in large bins inside remote gas stations in random towns in Utah, or the perfect blend of tea I once found in the new-age shop that used to be next door to Sick Boyz, but is now a used bookstore. Delicious brown.

Which means the next guy needs light eyes and lighter hair.

Tony is well-muscled and he’s got ink, but listen. I’m not letting him strike those two attributes off my checklist. Fuck that. I work in a tattoo shop. Knocking off all inked men means every male who comes through the door is off limits. And let’s be honest here—I’m not exactly a social butterfly. I don’t even have a best friend at the moment. So even though I don’t want to find my next obsession at the tattoo shop, it might be my only option.

But definitely no sailors. Or fishermen. I’m done with men of the sea. Forever.

And there it is. That feeling in my gut. That sick, sick feeling of loss I get every time I even think the words ‘sea’ or ‘ocean.’ Or ‘fishermen’ and ‘sailors.’

Loss. Like… a true kind of grief. The kind of grief I feel for my mother when I let thoughts of her creep in too.

I don’t understand feelings. They’re so stupid.

Not only does Tony not deserve me, missing him and what we had in the past should not be up there on the sadness scale with missing my mother. That’s so wrong. I’m so wrong!

No. He’s so wrong!

Tony is a freak who gets off on putting his hands on my throat. He loves fucking me like I’m his toy. His whole world revolves around control, and darkness, and rage.

So why do I want him?

Why?

I bang my fists against my head and close my eyes.

I need therapy. I start tapping on my cracked phone screen, looking for therapists. I need one. Bad. Like, right now. There’s something wrong with me. Something truly dark and depraved about my sexual preferences and choices in men.

No. Not men.

Man. One man.

Just him. Just Tony. Why is he here?

He has had this hold on me since high school, for fuck’s sake. I was only seventeen when we first got together. He, on the other hand, was twenty-two.