Chapter 16
Max
The scent of bacon and eggs hits me when I open the door to my apartment. Lacey was fast asleep when I left a couple hours ago for my morning jog.
After working up a sweat with her last night and again this morning on my two mile run, I was starving. My stomach rumbled, urging me to make a plate before it ate itself from the inside out.
I kick my Nike’s off at the door and what I see when I turn around freezes my insides with a sickening coil.
Chris.
My brother is sprawled across my couch with his feet propped on the arm comfortably. His fucking shoes are caked in mud and dirt. Probably from being tasked out to dig up holes in the woods for our dad. It was something the old man forced us to do as punishment when we didn’t meet his expectations.
Quite a few holes were dug by me after announcing I would be going to college whether he liked it or not. Part of me had feared I was going to end up in one of them if I didn’t tread carefully with my rebellious breakaway.
Wouldn’t that be ironic? To end up buried in the hole you dug.
I wonder what Chris had done to be tasked out with the worst job imaginable.
Plates clank around in the kitchen as Lacey sets three onto the counter and generously spoons scrambled eggs on each plate. She’s in nothing but the tank she always sleeps in and shorts that leave little to the imagination. Chris’s eyes are fixated on her shapely ass as she cooks, oblivious to his gaze.
When he notices me standing in the doorway, momentarily stunned, he lifts his brows suggestively. Then he turns his focus back to her as if my presence is irrelevant. It’s like he can’t keep his eyes off her ass.
That pisses me off and propels me to finally snap out of the shock.
“Do you like butter on your toast, Chris?” Lacey asks sweetly from the kitchen. She’s distracted with the toaster and still hasn’t noticed me standing there. She smiles over at my brother, patiently waiting for him to tell her his toast preference so she can finish making breakfast.
“Yes, please.” He responds politely.
The asshole has never been polite in his life. I would know. In fact I wouldn’t have even thought he was capable of it if I wasn’t witnessing it with my own eyes.
It’s as if I’m in some sort of alternate dimension where my brother is a decent human being and Lacey is my girlfriend, pleasantly cooking for the three of us so we can have a family meal on this beautiful Saturday morning.
Definitely an alternate universe.
“What’s going on here?” My voice sounds annoyed and I have to hide an inner wince.
I really didn’t mean to sound so whiney and jealous but there it was.
Chris smirks up at me knowingly. I want to smack the shit out of him all of a sudden. Of course my brother would catch my irritation and jealousy and enjoy it. Hell, he looks like he’s planning to play with it. Make it worse to the best of his ability just to watch me squirm.
“I’m making breakfast. Your brother stopped by.” She points out the obvious as if I’m stupid.
And I feel stupid too because in all the time I’ve spent with her I never imagined my two worlds colliding.
Lacey and my family were never supposed to meet. Those two completely separate parts of my life were never supposed to overlap one another. Now the train wreck of meet-the-fucked-up-family had started before I even got home.
Knowing the kind of guy he is, it made me sick to my stomach for his gaze to even drift in her direction. It’s the same kind of guy I am though. I needed to remember that. Chris and I had done all the same things up until two years ago when I decided to change my life and he decided to screw his up more than ever.
I rarely got summoned by dad these days except for cash pick-ups or simple jobs any moron could pull off. He knew I wasn’t good for much else.
Chris seemed to seek out ways he could become more heavily involved in that world, trying to make dad proud. He obviously still hadn’t learned what a fruitless task that was. It was nothing but a pipe dream. Dad never was proud of shit. If by some miracle he was, it was for something anyone with a moral compass would be ashamed of.
I wasn’t sure how long I thought I could spend all my free time with Lacey without my brother weaseling his way in. I guess I never expected to be with her this long. Whatever this was between us was never supposed to last. Be that as it may, I had no intentions of ending it anytime soon.
I couldn’t.
Coming home to find her cooking dinner for us or wrapped up in my blankets on the couch with the remote in hand was the best part of my day. Hands down. On the late nights I had to work for dad I would quietly come home to find her sleeping in my bed, peacefully spread out on top of my sheets with her hair fanned over both our pillows. The light strands were a sharp contrast to the black sheets and pillow cases.
Make-up and body spray bottles littered my bathroom counter. Special body wash blends filled my shower and cluttered the rack under the faucet. She had slowly made herself at home here and to my immense surprise I loved every second of it.
When I left the apartment this morning all had been right in my world. Now anxiety and tension stiffens me. It’s as if there are metal rods in my bones holding me rigid. My posture feels unnatural as I try to communicate with my brother telepathically, hoping he gets the message to get the fuck out of my apartment.
Now.
Maybe then I can convince Lacey the shit-show of meeting him has all been just a dream. Or a nightmare. Take your pick.
“What? I can’t stop by to see my baby brother?” Chris smirks in sheer amusement. He’s clearly not getting my silent messages. I guess we weren’t the kind of brothers anymore that could communicate without words. Or fists.
Lacey stays busy in the kitchen, rummaging in the cabinet for coffee cups. She pulls chocolate flavored creamer from the back of the fridge and smiles in victory.
The coffee pot sitting on my counter came from her house. When she started spending more time at my place she brought it over with her. She knew I wasn’t a coffee drinker and if she was going to spend the night here she insisted she needed her morning caffeine fix.
The sound of coffee being poured into two mugs from the kitchen aggravates me a step further. So Chris was just going to show up here and have breakfast and coffee with my girl while I wasn’t even here?
My girl.
I haven’t thought of her in that way yet but the term felt very much fitting.
Possessiveness rushes over me unexpectedly. No one had tried to flirt with her around me since we started this thing together so I didn’t know how I would react. Lacey wasn’t much of a partier and neither was I. The karaoke bar last week had been a special occasion centered on the music and being wrapped up in each other’s energy.
We spend most of our evenings alone together watching Netflix, having lots of sex and occasionally going out in public for necessities like groceries and condoms.
So far I had been able to keep Lacey to myself. Hoarding her affection and goodness alone in this apartment while the world keeps spinning outside these walls.
“Two sugars and a splash of cream?” She calls out, double checking his coffee order.
“That’s right.” Chris answers in an overly innocent tone that doesn’t fit the version of him I know. “I love cream though. Give me a little more.”
There is was.
Lacey either ignores the comment or the innuendo goes over her head. Likely the latter.
His tone was discreet enough to fool someone that hadn’t grown up with him and been fully acquainted with his sense of humor.
My jaw clenches as she flitters in with Chris’s plate and steaming coffee mug.
“Thanks sweetie.”
Sweetie? What the fucking fuck?
He takes the plate and digs in while pretending he can’t see my death glare. The smile he’s fighting tells me he sees it just fine.
Lacey grabs the two remaining plates and squeezes onto the loveseat next to me, leaving Chris alone on the sofa. He doesn’t seem to mind since this gives him a better view of her bare legs curled underneath her comfortably as she cuddles into my side.
I shift closer to her and rest my hand on her upper thigh in a move to mark my territory. As if it wasn’t already obvious enough that I want him to back off. Lacey, affectionate as always, leans into me while the three of us eat our breakfast in dead silence.
It’s not hard to pick up on the tension between me and Chris. From the glances she’s casting between the two of us I know Lacey can sense something is wrong. She can feel it in my tensed arm that she’s leaning into. Besides, I didn’t exactly give him a warm welcome when I found him in my living room and we hadn’t said two words to each other since.
There’s a lot I’d like to say to him. But in front of her? I can’t.
When she finishes her breakfast she takes both of our plates to the sink, rinses them off and settles back next to me with her coffee mug in hand. The hot drink has cooled considerably while she ate and it was her favorite temperature now. Luke warm.
Curiosity lights her eyes and I know she wants to figure out what’s going on between us.
“I didn’t know you were hiding such a beautiful girl from the family, bro.” Chris announces as he sets his own plate on the coffee table in front of him. He downs the rest of his coffee as if taking a shot.
My jaw clenches involuntarily. I see his comment as the veiled threat it is and I feel Lacey shift uncomfortably away from me. It dawns on me that she must be thinking he’s implying I’m ashamed of her. That I’m hiding her away like some sort of dungeon troll. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
The girl needs to get her head checked if she thinks she isn’t the most beautiful, desirably sweet and woman I’ve ever met. The perfect blend of innocent and naughty.
It was a courtesy to her to keep her from my family. But of course she didn’t see that because I hadn’t told her much about them. If anything I was ashamed of them. Of myself for being anything like them. For having ties to them despite their lifestyles.
Not of her.
“You never told me you had a girl. I would’ve come by sooner to meet her.”
His eyes zero in on her chest. She doesn’t notice. Her eyes are fixated on her lap awkwardly, cheeks tinged with pink. I can’t stand him looking at her another second, his mind calculating God knows what kind of plans and schemes.
Enough is enough.
“Lacey go get dressed.”
She looks up at me in surprise. My tone was harsher than I had intended. The stress of this situation is eating away at me but I can’t take it out on her. It’s not her fault I dragged her into this moment without warning or preparation.
I hate the hurt in her eyes as she stands up to change. She thinks I want her to leave because I don’t want her to meet my family and that’s exactly the case but not for the reason she thinks. But I don’t get to explain any of that before she disappears in my bedroom to put more clothes on and hide herself from my pervert of a brother.
“Stop looking at her.” I demand quietly, not wanting her to hear.
“What?” He shrugs as if it’s no big deal and kicks his feet up on my coffee table, muddy boots and all. “She’s cute.”
He seemed to be saying it casually as a compliment to me for being able to get such a cute girl. But I knew him better. I heard the suggestion in his voice and hated that I ever gave him a reason to think this would be my plan with Lacey.
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it always like that? Dad would love this one. You’d be the golden boy again. Like when you brought him Natalie.”
His tone holds a hint of bitterness. My stomach churns at the mention of my past. I had done a lot of shit for my dad I wasn’t proud of. Natalie was one of them. Chris and I had grown up bringing girls home. Luring them in as if we liked them and then leading them right to his web.
Sometimes we actually did like them. At least I did.
Dad coached us to do his dirty work as far back as I can remember. We both foolishly chased after his approval. What we thought was a father’s love. I suspect Chris still chases after Dad’s approval though the man didn’t possess an ounce of love, decency or compassion. Chris had to have discovered that by now no matter how disappointing the realization was.
Approval? He didn’t possess much of that either. But Chris was still searching for that and I wasn’t going to be the bearer of bad news.
“No.” I warn. “Don’t go there.”
He throws his hands up in mock surrender, still openly amused by my reactions.
As teens we had competed to bring Dad the prettiest girls we could find. The winner of the week got to be in Dad’s good graces for a brief moment in time. His pride and joy in the sickest and most twisted of ways. He bragged about us to his friends at the bars and let us order a beer with him. Boosting us up and making us feel like men.
That wasn’t what a man was supposed to act like. I know this now.
I doubt Chris has changed much in the last two years. The girls that stayed had always been willing, albeit deeply deceived. Once we brought them home Dad pretended to be a cool parent, letting us drink and smoke weed. This was his strategy to make the girls think he was fun. Trustworthy.
That he wasn’t the enemy like many of their parents were.
Step two was for one of us to sleep with the girl and make her feel desired. This made them more compliant when Chris and I convinced them they really wanted to work for Dad. They wanted to sell their bodies for him because they were so beautiful it would be a shame to let that opportunity slip by.
Soon Dad was taking all their money and convincing them it was okay because they were living in his house and he was taking care of them in every way they could need. He got them birth control.
Clothed them.
Fed them.
Some went home to their families before things got too out of hand. Those were the ones with decent parents and dignity. The ones with a place to go back to. Others were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Stuck with us.
Chris and I were merely pawns in this game, helping him lure in pretty young girls that could make him money.
Threats kept me halfway under his thumb and I knew it would always be that way. Fear kept me rooted in place and I hated that. Hated feeling like a coward. All it took was a flash of my mom’s face in my mind and I knew what would happen to me if I didn’t comply with whatever he demanded.
Prostitution wasn’t even his main source of income or his darkest. Drugs, gambling and hired hits were among his other specialties. When we grew older we got dragged into each of those activities as well. I wasn’t interested in being a pawn anymore in any of these areas.
So yeah. I knew why Chris had mud all over his boots and why he would be digging holes in the woods before the sun even came up.
And it wasn’t good.
“What the hell are you even doing here?” I ask as I scrub a hand over my face and close the door on those old memories. I didn’t want to be that guy anymore. I wasn’t that guy anymore.
This question sobers him and the amusement drains. “I need a place to crash for a few days. I didn’t expect anyone to be here with you.”
“Why can’t you stay at Dad’s?”
He stares at me with a blank expression. A dead expression.
“I just need a place to stay.” He snaps. “Can I stay here or do you want me to leave?”
Oh I wanted him to leave alright. But he was still my brother. So with a heavy sigh I agree to let him stay for a few days.
“You can stay. Does he know you’re here? I don’t want him coming around here looking for you.”
The bedroom door opens and out walks Lacey. She’s in dark wash skinny jeans covering her legs and a fitted Red Valley Bears t-shirt. The tight line of her lips as she reaches for her purse next to the couch sends a knot into my stomach.
“Wait, angel.”
Shit. There were tears welling up in her eyes and I could tell she was fighting to hold them off. Having her here any longer with the family drama was a bad idea but I couldn’t let her leave looking so hurt and devastated.
“Come outside with me.” I follow her outside, leaving my brother behind in the living room and waste no time explaining. “It’s not you, I promise. It’s him. I don’t want you around him.”
“It’s ok.” She refuses to look at me.
“Lace, please. Look at me.” She finally lifts her eyes to mine and I pull her in for a soft kiss needing the connection as much I need to reassure her. “I just wanted to keep you for myself.”
A surprised laugh chokes out of her and she swipes under her eyes. “I know you don’t want a commitment and that’s fine. But…I can’t be your dirty little secret.”
“You’re not. I swear you’re not.” I tangle my fingers in her hair and press her back against the brick wall of the apartment building. “You don’t understand.”
And I couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t let her know about my past or my fucked up family. She would know where I disappeared to on the weekends when I work for my dad and I couldn’t bear to see the look on her face when she connects all the dots.
Drug dealing, collecting loans or dishing out warnings in the form of broken legs. Digging holes when Dad was pissed at me, knowing it was one of the shittiest jobs he could task out. Picking up and dropping off girls all evening with their johns.
He always had a different job description for each day. I never knew what I was going to get. It’s one of the many reasons I dreaded his calls so much. The unknown was something you could never really prepare yourself for.
Since we had taken on more advanced roles for Dad he didn’t expect us to bring him prospective girls anymore. I hadn’t done it in years. If he set his sights on Lacey that’s what he would expect of me though and I would completely lose my shit.
This was exactly why I didn’t date to begin with. I knew what it would lead to and I didn’t want that hanging over my head or weighing on my conscious.
“I can’t understand if you don’t tell me.” She whispers against my lips.
“I can’t tell you. Please. Don’t ask.”
She sighs and pulls away from me, getting into her car without another word. She gives me a sad smile through the window before driving home and leaving me standing in the parking lot alone.
✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
Chris ends up crashing at my house and I slowly coax out the reason he has nowhere to go. He stole drugs from Dad on the ruse he would be selling them. Not just any drugs. Heroin.
My brother was shooting up heroin.
That explained the pallor skin and dark circles under his eyes. He had been high out of his mind when he showed up at my apartment openly scoping out Lacey. As soon as he told me the story of stealing two pounds of heroin from Dad for him and his supposed friends I told him he needed to go to rehab.
He refused.
Granted it wasn’t a huge amount in terms of what he was used to selling, Dad was likely enraged on principle. No one stole from him. No one. Especially not one of his sons. He killed people for less. Deep down Chris had to be terrified despite his outer bravado.
I still wanted to knock his ass out. Just for a different reason now.
Two days into his stay at my apartment, after roughing it through detox on my couch, my dad’s number flashes across the screen of my phone. Chris’s face pales as he sees it flashing on the table between us.
I hesitate. “If I don’t answer it he’s going to get pissed.”
“I know.” Chris gestures to the phone, urging me to answer before Dad hangs up. He would probably show up in person if I didn’t answer and I imagine that would be even worse.
I wouldn’t know for sure. I had never ignored a call from him in my life. I knew better than to do that.
I slide my finger across the screen right before it goes to voicemail.
“Hey.”
“I need you tonight.” He barks out cutting right to the chase.
There was no time for pleasantries when there was money to be made. Stress and anxiety flood my system as I stare across the table at Chris, wanting to punch him in the damn face for bringing this on me tonight. Dad didn’t call on me for help as often as when I lived at home, before moving here for college and a ruse of freedom.
Only when Chris was busy. Or MIA.
He was the son he always wanted. The son he could depend on. Except when he made the mistake of giving him a kilo of heroin.
“Ok.” I agree, not having a choice in the matter. That much was made clear the moment I moved into my own apartment in the condo Dad owned and started my first college class. I was still at the asshole’s beck and call. It was impossible to escape his reach.
He hangs up on me before I can say anything else. He won’t tell me what I’ll be doing over the phone anyways. I know the drill. I’ll have to wait until I get to the house to be tasked out.
My stomach knots.
“You ever think about offing him?” Chris asks, pulling me from my thoughts as I drop the phone on the table in front of me.
“Every fucking day.”
“Me too.”
That surprises me. He has a cup of coffee in front of him which he brewed in the coffee maker Lacey left behind. I haven’t heard from her since she left the apartment the other day even though I tried texting her four times. Chris walks back to the counter and pours himself a fresh cup.
“Dad’s a fucking monster. Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you think I’m the same way. Like you think I worship the guy.”
Again this surprises me.
“Don’t you?”
“I did I guess. At one point. Didn’t you?”
“No. I was just scared shitless of him. And you.”
“Me?” Now it’s his turn to sound genuinely surprised by my statement. I guess this is a day full of them.
“Yeah. You.”
“I would never hurt you, Max. You’re my brother. My only brother.”
“Why do you want to be like him?”
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you like him?”
Now he’s pissed. He slams his hands down on the coffee table, making it rattle from the force.
“I’m not like him godammit. I don’t have a choice. I’m not like you. I can’t go to college. I didn’t even graduate high school for fuck sake. I don’t know how to do shit except work for Dad.”
Now I’m pissed too. What a cop out. Did he think it was easy for me to leave and try to change my life for the better? All while constantly getting pulled back into the family vortex?
“That’s not true. You didn’t even try.”
“That asshole wouldn’t let us both go, Max. He wouldn’t and you fucking know it.”
“That’s a cop out.”
“You little shit. I’ve been working for him twice as much these last couple years so you can worry about school and stay out of this shit. Don’t fucking talk to me like I’m stupid. Why do you think he hardly calls you anymore? It’s sure as shit not because he respects that you’re a fucking college boy now. I don’t get a fucking day off from him. I’m there doing his shit jobs every. Single. Day.”
He drops his mug in the sink with a heavy clank and stomps off to my bathroom. The door slams shut. The shower spray comes on shortly after and I don’t see him again before it’s time for me to head to Dad’s.
For the entire half hour drive I reflect on what Chris said back at the apartment. I grip the steering wheel tightly and zip recklessly around other cars that drive too slow.
It’s not like I’m in a rush to get to Dad’s and get assigned some ridiculous task. I just have too much energy racing through my veins. Flying through these streets behind the wheel somehow makes me feel like I have control over something reckless.
I can’t believe this shit. Chris was trying to blame me for the last two years of shitty choices he made. Was it my fucking fault he was shooting up heroin too? My fist collides with the dash, cracking the AC vent and cutting my knuckle.
The pain feels welcome.
My thoughts immediately go to Lacey and the way her tiny fingers worked to clean up my bloody knuckles the first night we met. And then again the next day when I busted them upside her ex’s face.
Who was going to tend to them this time? No one.
Her ignoring my texts these last couple days was definitely in her best interest. I knew that to my very core. Hell, I was the one that told her I would never be good enough for her. Maybe she actually listened for once.
But that didn’t stop me from missing her. I missed the sound of her voice, singing or talking. The sight of her spread out across my bed. The feel of her delicate hand in mine. Her laughter when I told a stupid joke.
The monstrosity my dad calls home comes into view. I park in the circle drive so I don’t get blocked in. Dad isn’t even home when I get here so I decide to head straight upstairs to my old bedroom. I ignore the scantily clad women sitting around the kitchen, smoking and drinking from plastic cups.
One girl leans over the kitchen island snorting powder off the granite. I ignore that too.
In my room I carefully shut the door behind me and dig around my dresser until my hand collides with the bottle.
Don Julio.
It’s hidden in the back of my sock drawer. I hadn’t hidden it for the same reason other teenage boys might. If my father found it he wouldn’t have batted an eye. There would’ve been no grounding or lectures about underage drinking under this roof.
No. I had hidden my booze so I didn’t get swindled by one of the girls frequenting my room. Or by my dad if he ever happened to come up here snooping around.
I uncork the bottle and take a healthy gulp before stuffing it back in its hiding spot. I just wanted enough to cut the edge of anxiety I feel from whatever I was about to do. It always felt like this.
The Don Julio always helped. Sort of.
For a moment I think about Chris and what he said tonight. Did he really take on more bullshit when I left to shelter me from this world? It was hard to imagine him being that type of brother. But if it was true, it wasn’t hard to figure out how he ended up resorting to drugs to cope with this life.
As I shift old socks around to hide the bottle a soft knock raps on the door. Before I can respond the door opens. A cloud of perfume hits me before I see her and I already know who’s behind me.
Trouble. That’s who. And I had left trouble behind a long time ago.
“The girls told me you were up here. You weren’t going to say hi?” Natalie coos, raking her long fake nails down my forearm.
“I’m busy. I don’t plan on staying long.”
“You don’t look busy.”
She reaches between us and grabs my soft dick through my pants without preamble. I should’ve anticipated that move from her but I don’t and jump back from her sudden, unexpected touch.
“What’re you doing?” I ask dumbly.
What the hell do you think she’s doing? Same thing she always does when she wanders up here to your room. This isn’t anything new.
“Fuck me.” She pouts up at me seductively with her unnaturally red lips. She knows this move is usually all it takes to get me going. This time my dick protests by staying as soft as play dough in her hand.
“I can’t.”
Really. I can’t. And I don’t want to either.
“Oh come on, Max. You know I’ll make you feel good.”
And she could make me feel good if I let her. She had done just that plenty of times in the past. It was her job after all.
Natalie drops to her knees and reaches to unbutton my jeans. I guess she’s tired of talking and plans to communicate the only way the two of us ever have.
For someone that’s been getting it daily from Lacey these last few months, this two day drought has me pretty horny. My dick begins to betray my protests by hardening. Natalie takes notice and strokes my length through my jeans in renewed excitement.
I step back out of her reach when she unfastens the button on my jeans. She stumbles slightly on her knees before regaining her balance. Undeterred, she gazes up at me with her overly made up smoky eyes and licks her ruby lips.
I stay far out of her reach.
“Natalie, get up.” I order with a gritty voice.
A sultry smile grows on her lips at the sound and she crawls on hands and knees to my feet. When she gets closer she grabs her breasts suggestively before me as if presenting me a sex feast.
“Remember when you came on my face and my tits? I’ll let you do it again. I’m off work tonight. Don’t you want to play like old times?”
I harden a bit more against my will but don’t respond.
“You know it’s been a long time since I’ve had your cock. I want it bad.”
She inches closer to me, still on her knees, and rubs her hands up my thighs.
“Chris told me you have a girl. Don’t worry, Max. She’ll never know. I’ll make sure I clean you up real good before you go home.”
I didn’t have a girl. Lacey wanted nothing to do with me. She wouldn’t even text me back. And I knew firsthand how good Natalie could make me feel. But the idea of fucking her again made me feel dirty.
Trashy.
Like I was betraying Lacey.
And I just couldn’t do it.
Even if Lacey wasn’t answering me we had unfinished business. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, the center of my chest. And I wasn’t going to fuck anyone else until we sorted through and finished it.
Since Natalie clearly wasn’t going to listen to my adamant refusal I stepped around her while fastening my pants and simply left the room. She probably wasn’t expecting the rejection. I had certainly never turned her down before. She was the only girl around the house I repeated performances with.
The others were always one and done.
There was a time when I genuinely liked Natalie. I had a teenage crush on her for a total of three weeks and it was ultimately my fault she ended up the way she did.
Chris was right. I brought Natalie to Dad back in high school after meeting her at a teen club. We danced all night, made out in the hall that led to the restrooms and I convinced her to come home with me that night.
If it wasn’t for me would she be in college now? Maybe married to a nice guy instead of putting her body to work night after night? Fuck. I hated myself for that. And I would never know the answer to those questions because she was too far gone now.
She actually enjoyed what she did. And she didn’t hold a candle to Lacey.
Even if she got me off tonight I would still crave Lacey’s soft and luscious body. Her mouth. Natalie just couldn’t satisfy the hunger I had. There was only one girl that could do that.
I went back outside and sat in my car to wait for my father there. I didn’t want to be in his whorehouse another second. Pulling my phone from my pocket I type up a message to him and hit send.
Max: I’m here.
My mind can’t stop traveling back to Lacey. Especially now that I’m sporting a hard dick. I could probably rub one off in my car before Dad gets here but decide against it. Natalie would probably see me from the window and take it as a sign I needed her to finish me off.
Instead I open a new text to Lacey.
Max: I miss you.
Lacey: I miss you too.
I’m surprised that she even replied and stare down at my phone for a few seconds. My heart races at the sight of her text.
Max: It’s good to hear from you.
Max: You’ve been giving me the silent treatment.
Lacey: I just thought we needed some space.
Max: I thought you were breaking up with me.
Lacey: We aren’t together. How could we break up?
It hurt to read that but I have no right to feel that way. It’s the truth. Not to mention it was my idea.
Max: You know what I mean.
A sharp knock on my window pulls me from the text. My dad stares down waiting for me to get out of my car. I pocket my phone and do as he expects to avoid any issues. If I just do what he asks I know I can go back to my apartment and put some much needed distance between me and this place.
I just hope it isn’t anything too crazy and I can skate by.
Without much in way of a father-son reunion, he hands me the keys to a clunker he has parked on the back lawn. It’s hidden from view by his seven foot tall privacy fence. He hands me an address scrawled on notebook paper in his sloppy handwriting and tells me to drop off everything from the trunk at midnight.
I don’t ask what’s in there.
Before I walk off to the gate and head out he speaks the words I was hoping to avoid. “Have you heard from your brother?”
My steps falter and I hope he doesn’t hear the lie in my tone.
“No. I thought he was living here.”
“He does. He hasn’t been home in a few days.”
“Ah.” I feign disinterest. “Sounds like him. I’m sure he’ll be back.”
“He better be.” He says with a hint of malice. “If you hear from him let me know.”
It was a demand. Not a request. I nod, anxious to walk away. He stares hard at me for long, drawn out seconds and I fight the urge to fidget under the cold stare. I’m well practiced in hiding my inner thoughts around him and he seems to accept my answer fairly quickly.
“And don’t tell him I was looking for him.” He adds. “That’s just between you and me.”
My chest tightens painfully as I nod again and walk away. I fight the urge to rub at the tightness in my chest, not wanting Dad to know how much his words shook me. If he finds out Chris has spent the last few days at my apartment and I lied right to his face he would be livid.
We would both be in the fire. I wonder if Dad would kill both his sons at the same time or if he would choose a favorite once and for all before snuffing the runner up.
I drive to the address he gave me on autopilot and pop the trunk to find it full of military issued rifles. Full of them. There’s at least twenty packed in there so tight they’re nestled in like Tetris pieces to make sure they all fit.
If I got caught with this sized arsenal I would likely spend the next twenty years in a federal prison. The thought makes me antsy and I hope the buyer hurries the fuck up so I can get out of here.
It isn’t long before a black car with solid tented windows pulls up next to me in the darkened parking lot. Together we quickly unload the weapons from my trunk to his. Dad’s already been paid for the merchandise so it’s over once we move the weapons from one trunk to the other.
No words are spoken between us and the silence has me on edge. It takes some effort to get them to fit but we eventually get things situated. When the last gun is moved to his trunk we part ways without remark.
Dropping the clunker back off in Dad’s yard has me tempted to just sleep there for the night. I’m exhausted but decide against it. I could end up waking up with Natalie in the car, sucking me awake. So I get back in my own car that sits in the circle drive where I left it and drive straight to Lacey’s apartment.
She finally answered me today so I didn’t feel quite as pushy and overbearing showing up at her door. The idea had crossed my mind several times over the last three days but I had resisted up until this point.
I didn’t want her to feel harassed or uncomfortable. We would speak or see each other on her terms.
She opens the door looking sleeping after my second round of knocking. I woke her up. The thought makes me feel guilty but I missed her presence so much I can’t bring myself to regret it. I had to see her.
I really had missed her. Seeing her tousled hair and sweet brown eyes for the first time in three days gave me an immense sense of calm.