Page 123 of Pucking Them
Slowly, he lowers his hand.
Robyn marches to stand next to me. She firmly takes my hand.
“My boyfriend and I are walking through those doors to watch the recital now.” Robyn tilts up her chin. “If you try to stop us, I will call security who are sitting outside the town hall. Want to knowwhatsecurity? The ones for your NHLlegendmillionaire of a brother.”
I fucking love this woman.
Bruno glances between Robyn and me in confusion. “She’s your girlfriend. But you’re…?”
“Don’t,” I say, quickly. I won’t let this asshole throw a single slur at me. “I like to kiss both men and women. Sometimes, I do it in front of packed arenas. I’d have thought that you would follow the sports news. You used to.”
“I avoid reading about you,” Bruno replies. “It’s triggering to me. You destroyed our family. Don’t you have remorse about what you did to Mom and Dad? Our family fell apart because of you.”
I pull Robyn away from Bruno, forcing myself to swagger across the lobby like his words aren’t slashing me to ribbons.
Yet I know what I am going to say to him…words that I whispered in the dark of the Discipline School.
Words that will mean nothing to him.
But words that mean everything to me.
I glance over my shoulder at Bruno. He is standing hunched with his hands in his pockets. He looks small and older than any image that I had held in my head.
I give a sharp smile. “The fucking Discipline School didn’t work. Tell that toyourmom and dad for me. They tortured me for nothing. They destroyed your family for nothing too.”
Bruno’s head ducks. His hair falls over his face.
I wish that I could see his eyes.
“Jude…” His voice is quieter but not gentled.
“Also…” I rest my hand on the door. My smile widens. “You know that car you always wanted to buy? The one that we talked about all the time? There were posters of it plastered over your bedroom walls.”
Bruno raises his head. “The 1960s Alfa Romeo Stradale? What the hell has that got to do with anything?”
I turn away from him. I don’t need to see his face.
Never again.
Instead, I slip my arm around Robyn’s waist, holding her against my side. “I own one.”
I don’t wait for Bruno’s reply.
I push through the doors into the hushed, dark of the hall. I pass the tickets to the usher.
Inside, I’m singing.
Robyn leans to murmur into my ear, “Satisfying?”
I chuckle, before whispering back, “More satisfying than the tenth orgasm that I’m going to give you in the seat of that Alfa Romeo on the drive home.”
Robyn’s breath hitches, and that is satisfying too.
I lead my gorgeous girlfriend across the scuffed floor through the low-ceilinged hall to the empty back row. We shuffle into the aisle of mismatched chairs.
Moonlight streams over the audience who are quietly chatting in the darkened hall.
As we slip into our seats, I try to come down from the high.
