Chapter 43
Charity
I woke up to the sun streaming through my blinds and sucked in a deep breath, stretching luxuriously. I picked up my phone to check the time and had a waiting message.
Nothing: Good morning, Baby. I hope you have a great day, I’m thinking about you and my bed is kind of lonely. See you after the club meeting tonight.
Aww! God, he was awesome, I stared at the text for a long time before going into my contacts and erasing ‘Nothing’ and replacing it with ‘Dom.’
Me: I miss you, too. Didn’t know there was a club meeting tonight, but yes, definitely I will see you after. I hope you have a good day, too. Call me if you get the chance, I know you get busy. –XoXo
I hit ‘send’ and lay back down, staring at my ceiling, worry gnawing at my gut. What the absolute fuck did I get myself into with Figaro yesterday, and how the hell was I going to convince Dom to go back with me?
“Ugh, god!” I said to myself and covered my face with my hands, huffing out a big sigh.
“Uh, oh! What’d you do?” Hope asked, barging through the cracked door with a cup of coffee in each hand, Faith coming in right behind her with a cup in hers.
“Oh, god. The lord bless you and keep you,” I said taking the proffered cup of coffee off my sister.
“Dude, that catholic university perverted your brain,” Hope said, making a face.
“Shut up, I’m pretty sure it being a catholic uni, it did just the opposite,” I said taking a sip. Ah, perfect temp, screw sipping, I gulped.
“Still doesn’t answer my question,” Hope said, flopping down on the edge of the bed, “What’d you do?”
Faith sat cross legged in the middle of the floor and looked like she was, for once, glad she wasn’t the one being grilled. I shot her a dirty look and she looked well pleased. She was becoming more like the sister I remembered every day, and I was grateful for that. More of her fire was showing.
“I may have applied to the ambulance company Nothing used to work for and I may have gone for an interview yesterday.”
“Annnd?” Dammit, Hope was like a dog with a bone.
“And I may have told them I could get Dom to go back to work for them in exchange for securing me my own job.” I wrinkled my nose and Hope busted up laughing.
“Oh! Oh, that’s good!” she cried.
“Shut up! I’m trying to figure out how to convince him, any ideas?”
“Oh no, oh hell no! All those times lecturing me about letting Faithy here make her own decisions and then you go and pull this? I’m going to enjoy watching you squirm, you are so on your own for this one.” Hope cackled and got up, “Good luck!” She called over her shoulder and went back downstairs, just howling with laughter.
Faith just sat on the floor and smiled while I probably looked like I’d sucked on a lemon. I looked to my middle sister and raised an eyebrow; she raised both in return and said, “Don’t look at me! But if it’s one thing I know, if you want something bad enough, you’ll figure out the words. I think it’s a great idea personally.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” she said nodding, “Nothing was great when he took care of me, you know, when I was sick. He’s wasted painting houses. I bet you all of the guys would agree with you, too.”
“Agree with her about what?” Marlin asked from the doorway and I felt my eyes roll. Was there no fucking privacy at all in this house? I wondered, and honestly I chastised myself right on the heels of that thought for it having been a rhetorical question. Of course there wasn’t. It seemed to be a way of life when it came to these guys, one big happy family, and by family I meant everyone all up in each other’s business. I was beginning to miss the autonomy of my college years where the only person I had to worry about was my dorm room roomy.
“That Nothing needs to go back to being a paramedic,” Faith said.
“Hell yeah, he does. He’s wasted on painting houses, being a medic is that man’s calling.”
“Yeah, well, I have a little less than a week to figure it out,” I groused and Marlin raised an eyebrow over the battered side of his face. “Don’t ask,” I told him and he nodded.
“Say no more, I was just coming to collect my girl, see if you wanted to go out on the boat with me and Johnny.
“Can Charity come?” Faith asked.
“Sure can,” he said.
“Thanks, I actually think I would like that,” I said.
“You got around ten minutes to get ready and meet us at the marina.”
“I’ll ride with Charity; show her which boat it is, we’ll be right there.” Faith jumped up and gave her man a kiss and he ducked back out into the hall. I swallowed the rest of my coffee at light speed and got up.
Faith handed me a swim suit and wrap and said; “Bring something to work on or read, you’re going to love this.”
We piled downstairs, me with my laptop bag over my shoulder, loaded with stuff for me to do, and went out to the Jeep. Hope was already gone, probably with Cutter. My butthurt was still strong enough I didn’t care but I’d be over it soon enough. We drove out to the Marina and I don’t think I remember Faith ever being so excited.
“Hey!” she called out to a man on a rather expensive looking fishing boat.
“Hey you! Who you got with you? That Charity?”
“I’m Charity,” I confirmed. He pulled Faith up onto the boat and reached down for me, I let him haul me up.
“I’m Johnny, Jimmy, er, Marlin’s brother.”
“Nice to meet you, Johnny.”
Marlin appeared on deck and said without preamble, “Don’t get your hopes up, Johnny, she belongs to Nothing.”
I raised an eyebrow about to smart off on a feminist rant, but Faith caught my eye and shook her head. Curious, I let it go for now.
“Come on, Charity, let’s get situated and let the guys work.”
I followed my sister to a couple of lounge chairs at the front of the boat and once we were well clear, I asked her, “What was that all about? I ‘belong to Nothing,’ like some piece of cattle?”
“It’s not like that,” Faith said and I gave her a look.
“You got some explainin’ to do, Bubbles.”
“Okay, it’s like this…”
Faith had a lot to say and by the time she was through, I was a little misty eyed and honored that Marlin would think I belonged to Dom, and I found myself wondering if Dom felt the same way, because, I’ve got to tell you, the thought was really nice.
“So you and Hope seriously wear vests like theirs that read ‘Property of Marlin’ and ‘Property of Cutter?’” I asked.
“Want me to go get mine?” she asked.
“Yes, yes I do.”
She got up and went below decks, and I waited for her. She came back with a fitted, black leather riding vest, the front reading ‘Firefly’ on the nametag. She turned it around and sure enough, it read ‘Property of’ at the top, and down below, where the guys’ vests read ‘Ft. Royal,’ hers read ‘Marlin.’
“Wow, it’s beautiful.” And it was, a blue and silver marlin fish, leaping out of the water was embroidered where The Kraken men wore their club patch.
“Hope is sort of an honorary member, so hers is the club colors in the middle. Most Ol’ Ladies from other clubs don’t have anything in the middle, just the ‘property of’ and their Ol’ Man’s name.”
“I kind of like this better,” I confided.
“Me, too.” She got up and went and put it back, returning to the lounge chair next to mine.
It was a great day spent on the water, bonding with my sister after that. I loved every minute of it.