Blurred Lines by Scott Hildreth Read Free Book Online Page B

wall, and lifted my shaking hand to my mouth. Tyler may have become the brother I always wanted, but since my attempt at sobriety, he was more and more protective of me with each passing day. His manner of sheltering me from myself - at least when it came to Riley - was becoming more aggressive in nature than what I was comfortable with.
    The cigarette calmed my nerves and allowed me to come back down to earth. As I took my last drag and prepared to toss the butt into the street, I recognized the headlights of Riley’s BMW.
    I glanced at my watch.
    Five minutes early.
    Long before I suspected she noticed me, I flicked the cigarette aside and turned toward the shop. A precursory glance through the glass indicated Tyler had taken my advice. As I pushed the door open, the empty stool at his work station confirmed my suspicion.
    I would spend the night alone.
    Well, not exactly, but as close to alone as I wanted to be.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    RILEY
    As ridiculous as it seemed, I had spent the last four hours counting the minutes until I was going in for my new tattoo; checking my watch every fifteen minutes hoping somehow an hour had passed, only to find out it had been minutes. After changing outfits no less than six times, I finally settled for jean shorts, my tattered Chuck’s, and a freshly purchased, but vintage appearing Clash concert tee shirt.
    I had no way of knowing if my obsessive behavior was normal, or even if it would qualify as obsession for that matter, but I really didn’t care. I felt like my interest in Blake was genuine, without any real motive, and harmless. After convincing myself that no one would be able to schedule when their life presented a person of interest, I dismissed my thoughts and feelings to be nothing more than reaction to a good opportunity.
    I hated to call it fate, because the word made everything seem so cliché. Fate, to me, was reserved for romantic comedies, love songs, and a few well written books. Realistically speaking, there was no such thing as fate. The world spins, we stumble forward in life, and if we’re paying close attention, sometimes through the course of our stumbling we bump into someone who catches our interest.
    Blake surely caught mine.
    I sat in my car waiting for four o’clock to arrive, wondering how much different a person I would be if I had never met Stephen. The summer after my junior year in high school we met, and immediately following, we started seeing each other. Within a year, I had graduated high school, and against the demands of my mother, I moved in with him. He was nine years older than me and had just completed law school two years prior.
    At the time, his manner of dress, his many cars, and his attentive nature caused me to yearn to share my time with him. Fairly quickly, I fell in love. In hindsight, I was young, immature, and all too eager to fall for someone who provided me with an ounce of attention. My having grown up in a single parent home with a working mother and no siblings made my appetite for affection far greater than it would have been for anyone else my age.
    I clung to Stephen like gum to a shoe. My plans to attend college were soon cast aside after promises that everything I wanted, desired, needed, or required would be provided to me without question as long as I was loyal to him and his needs.
    So, the little girl who resided within me looked at him in a fatherly sort of way, and I fell deeply in love with what it was he provided me. Protection, comfort, love, affection, and a good hard fucking a few times a day convinced me he was nothing short of the answer to my dreams. Constantly showered with gifts, money, and clothes, it was difficult for anyone to convince me that my best interest wasn’t exactly what Stephen was furnishing.
    I dismissed the violent outbursts to my immature behavior, and told myself as soon as I matured fully, I would stop making the same mistakes, and the abuse would stop. In time, I did