Chapter 24
Dragon
I unlocked the door to my girl’s apartment as Tommy and Leo talked quietly behind me. I’d dragged them along to help me get shit done, mostly so they’d finally get their asses off my couch.
Leo’s ass had made a fucking indention in the spot he’d sat in for the last two weeks, and I swear to Christ, Tommy’s ass was making a matching one on the opposite end of my damn couch. They didn’t do anything but sit in front of the television all day long. I knew they were dealing with shit in their own way, but enough was enough. They needed some fucking fresh air.
I took two steps into the apartment and stopped dead.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled, looking around the living room.
The place was bare, completely cleaned out except for stacks and stacks of plastic bins.
I stepped farther into the room and looked around. There wasn’t a picture frame or a scrap of paper anywhere. Shit even looked like it had been dusted.
“Whoa. Did Trix get robbed?” Tommy asked.
“No, you fuckin’ idiot,” Leo replied. “She got…packed.”
I walked forward into the kitchen—same thing. A few bins stacked on top of the kitchen table, but nothing else. I opened cupboards and the fridge. Nothing.
I made my way down the hallway, checking the closets and the bedrooms. They were all the same.
Plastic bins stacked neatly in each room. The beds stripped. The windows and floors clean.
“Hey, Pop,” Leo called softly. “Think I know who did this.”
I glanced over my shoulder to where Leo was looking down at a couple of bins near the dresser.
“Who?” I stepped over to where he was standing, and finally noticed the masking tape across the lids of the bins.
CLOTHES-NOT FOR STORAGE
“The fuck?” I mumbled softly to myself. I pulled the top bin down and looked at the next in the stack.
G – NAN’S Quilt – TRIX WILL WANT
Shit. I pulled that one down, too.
SHOES TRIX NEVER WEARS – STORAGE
Then I moved to the next pile, and the next, and the next, reading the labels on each one.
WINTER COATS – WON’T FIT BY THEN – STORAGE
SHEETS AND EXTRA BLANKETS – STORAGE
BOOKS – TRIX WILL WANT
SHOES – NOT FOR STORAGE
DO NOT OPEN – PRIVATE – STORAGE
CLOTHES – NOT FOR STORAGE
CLOTHES – PAJAMAS – NOT FOR STORAGE
BATHROOM SHIT – TRIX WILL WANT
TOWELS – STORAGE
“Cameron.” I finally said as I hit the last bin. “He packed up everythin’.”
“And labeled it,” Leo said quietly. “What do you think’s in the ‘private’ box?”
“Don’t even think about it, kid,” I warned, looking around the room. “Hell, this makes shit easy.”
“Why’d he do it?” Tommy asked in awe, his eyes wide.
“Because he loves her,” Leo answered simply. “Didn’t want her to have to do it herself.”
It only took about an hour for me and the boys to load the bins and furniture into the box van I’d brought. They were all labeled in Cam’s handwriting, all stacked neatly in their allotted rooms and ready to be taken away. He hadn’t used a single cardboard box, and he must have spent a couple hundred dollars buying those fucking bins, because they weren’t cheap.
Brenna had planned to go over and clean the place after we’d packed it all up, but I had Leo text her that she didn’t need to. Cam had taken care of that, too. There wasn’t anything left to do but give the key back to the apartment manager and drop Trix’s shit at storage.
I dropped the boys at the clubhouse with orders to sweep the garage and keep their mouths shut about what we’d found. It wasn’t their place to run their mouths about Cam and Trix’s business, and I knew Cam wouldn’t want that shit known.
When I pulled up in front of our place, Brenna came out to the front porch to meet me. God, she was just as beautiful as the first time I saw her. She’d filled out since she had the kids and her body grew softer with age, but she was still hot as fuck.
“Hey, what was that text about?” she called as she bounced down the stairs. Jesus. Her tits looked amazing when she moved like that.
“Place was packed up when we got there,” I answered, pulling her in for a kiss. I gripped her hand and dragged her to the back of the van.
She was climbing inside before I’d even got the back door all the way open, and her jaw dropped as she took in the six bins stacked near the cab.
“What the hell?”
“Cam packed up all her shit,” I told her incredulously. “Even cleaned the motherfuckin’ apartment.”
She turned her face toward me and my body instantly stiffened. “Don’t fuckin’ cry. This ain’t nothin’ to cry about,” I ordered gruffly.
“Did you see the way he labeled these?” she asked, shaking her head. “‘Movies and Trix’s favorite blanket, Trix will want.’ What did the other ones say?”
“Pretty much the same shit. Labeled ’em all pretty good—what should go to storage and what shouldn’t.”
“Trix is going to—”
“You think we should rip the labels off?” I cut in.
“Fuck, no!” She looked at me like I was out of my mind. “She should see this.”
“Baby, she’s just startin’ to get over the fucker—”
“No, she isn’t,” Brenna argued softly. “She’s just getting better at hiding it.”
I let her words sink in for a minute. Was my girl really hiding it?
She’d been doing better—not great, but better. Her nightmares had come back, but she’d only had one that week. Scared the shit out of me when she’d started yelling, but her mom had calmed her down pretty quick.
Amy came and took her to yoga a couple times. Wasn’t sure if that was helping, but it did wear her out.
“Hey, did you get my stuff?” Trix asked, coming around the back of the van.
I nodded silently and gestured toward the bins. Shit.
“Wow, you sprang for the good stuff, huh?” Trix started to climb up the back bumper and I lurched forward.
“The hell are you doin’?” I snapped, grabbing her under her arms and lifting her away.
“Uh, I was going to get my boxes.” She looked at me like I had two heads.
“Stay back, I’ll get ’em,” I snapped. Like I was really going to let her pregnant ass carry shit into the house. Was she new here?
“Just set them down out here,” she called as I moved toward the bins. “I’ll go through them and see if there’s anything we can put in the storage. I don’t have much room…”
I growled at Brenna as she tried to lift one of the bins, but she ignored me. I don’t even know why I tried to boss her anymore—she never listened to a goddamn word I said.
By the time I got all of the bins unloaded, Trix was staring glassy eyed at the labels.
“This is Cam’s handwriting. He helped you?” she asked quietly, her voice trembling. “I didn’t think—”
“It was done when we got there.” I sighed and ripped the rubber band out of my hair, scratching my nails along my scalp for a second.
“But—” Trix looked at me then back at the bins. “What?”
I pulled my hair back out of my face and tied it up. Jesus. This is why I thought we should take off the damn labels. If I’d torn them off before she saw them, our daughter wouldn’t look a fucking wounded animal.
“He packed up your shit—all of it,” I finally said. “Bins were packed and labeled when we got there.”
“Why would he do this?” Trix whispered to Brenna, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t know, baby,” Bren murmured back, wrapping her arm around Trix’s shoulders.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Trix mumbled, shaking her head.
“Nice thing for him to do—just leave it at that,” I grumbled, leaning forward to pick up three of the bins. “Let’s get these inside.”
I watched Trix closely that night, and the night after. I was waiting for her to lose her shit. I thought for sure that she was going to break down about the little fucker again, and I hated that there was nothing I could do to help her.
Bren had filled me in on what had gone down between my girl and Hulk. Couldn’t say I didn’t understand where he was coming from, but I still wanted to rip the guy’s head off and shove it up his ass. My Little Warrior was hurting—no doubt about that.
But she never lost her shit. She talked about telling Hulk thank you for a couple days, but she never did. I think she knew he didn’t want her gratitude.
After a while, even though I hated that my child was in pain, a part of me was glad that Trix was forced to stand on her own two feet for a bit. It made her stronger. As the days went by, I listened to her bitch about the heat and complain about how tight her clothes were getting, but she never fell back into the pit she’d been in before. She still dealt with nightmares, especially after Micky’s small funeral—but she snapped out of them faster and faster with each one.
Trix was getting her shit together, visiting a shrink and talking to her mother and nan. She fucking worked for it, and slowly, we all began to see a difference in her. The girl I’d raised gradually made herself known again.
She smiled. A lot. She went to yoga with Amy and Brenna. She made her brother paint her toenails. She bought a small, plastic pool and made Brenna sit in it with her, sipping on what she called virgin margaritas. They were fucking smoothies—she put fruit and ice in a blender. Smoothies.
One day about two months after she’d come to live with us, my girl cornered me as soon as I’d taken my boots off after a long day at the garage.
“Hey, Pop?” she said quietly, making the hair on my neck stand up. I wasn’t used to a quiet Trix, and it made me itchy.
“Yeah?” I asked gruffly. I really fucking hoped whatever she had to say wasn’t bad news. Couldn’t take any more of that for the next few years.
“I’m sorry I asked you to help me with Cam. I shouldn’t have done that.” She rested her hands calmly on her belly, but I saw her thumbs slide between her palms and the fabric of her shirt.
“Water under the bridge,” I mumbled back, raising my eyes to meet hers.
“No, you deserve an apology.” She swallowed hard, and in that second I wanted to tell her to stop talking, but I knew that whatever she was trying to say was important to her—even if it hurt. “You stepped in when I needed you to, even after you’d said you wouldn’t. I know that wasn’t easy for you.”
“You can always count on me, baby—”
“I know, Pop,” she cut me off with a small smile. “I know I can. And I know this seems kind of silly, since I’m living in your house.” She laughed a little, and I felt my lips twitch. “But I’m going to stand on my own two feet. I want you to know that I’ll never ask you to do something like that again.” She started to cry and I was on my feet in an instant.
“None of that, Little Warrior,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around her.
It was weird as fuck, hugging my kid when she had that huge ass belly.
“I just—I want to be able to take care of shit on my own, you know?” she said against my t-shirt. “I don’t want to rely on you or anyone else to make the hard decisions for me.”
“Then don’t,” I said simply, ignoring the swear word that grated on my nerves. I fucking hated it when she cursed. She was my baby girl. Ugly words shouldn’t be coming outta her mouth.
“I love you,” she said on a sigh, resting her weight against me.
“Love you, too, Little Warrior.”
And that was that. She started doing exactly what she’d said. Making her own doctor’s appointments and making lists of things she needed for the babies. She even started looking for jobs, though I wasn’t sure how she thought she’d be able to work any time soon.
She still drove me insane leaving her shit all over the house, but…
She grew.
She laughed.
And finally, she glowed.
I was so fucking proud of her.
Through all of it, the radio silence between her and Cam never faltered. They kept their distance all the way through summer and into the fall.