Chapter Eight

Calm Before...Her

Garrett

After a few days of just hanging out, eating, having a few drinks, which I had to convince Gage and Gray wasn’t an issue for me, we finally left my brother’s castle in the sky and went out in public for dinner, then we went to a game. The new Yankees stadium. A place he told me I needed to experience with Brand when I am ready.

“Looking at things through his eyes, man, brings you back to what’s important—family.”

Not long after that, I figured out that it wasn’t that he felt above any of us. He was doing it all—running the business he no more wanted than I did—but his reasoning for not wanting it was a little different. He wanted a simple life. He wanted Falcon’s Landing, and Mags, and yeah, my son. To live a life where he could wake up and, as he said, “Piss off the porch” if he wanted to.

When we got back to his Madison Avenue building, we met the girl he talked about.

Phoenix Star.

That chick hates me. It’s clear. I don’t give a damn, though. Doesn’t shock me in the least. What does shock me is, before Gage pulled her into the building and whisked her away into the elevator, before he asked Gray and I to give him a few minutes, he stuck up for me.

Yeah, shouldn’t shock me, not after learning about what he did in Portugal and all the talking over the past we have done the past few days, but it does. It gives me a little hope, too.

When Gray and I walk into the apartment an hour later, it’s more than obvious he needs more time.

Gray smirks. “Fucker.”

“I suppose he is,” I say.

“I’m gonna head to bed. You good with that?”

I nod. “Gonna do the same thing.”

I head into Brandon’s room, strip down, and stand there, looking in the mirror.

Vegas didn’t do shit for me. I have leaned out. Not that I’m thin, I’m not, but the bulk I carried when I was in the fields, with the horses, actually working and laying off the drugs, I had bulked up.

I look at my nipples. Took eight fucking months for them to heal, longer than it took my dick after the piercing.

I laugh at myself when I think about the fact that I have a metal rod through my junk by choice, and I was fucking sober. Pretty sure I was looking for the pain. Physical pain feels better than the emotional kind. Learned that a long time ago when that old man fucking touched me. That torturous pain went away. The fear of going outside, the fear of looking in the eyes of the person who knew, the nightmares, the hatred and self-loathing, that sticks.

On the day Gage married Juliana, I decided I needed a reality check, and that I didn’t give a fuck that she was pissed. Shit, she fucking ruined everything after what we had said in the heat of the moment. I was never going to let someone destroy me again. My dick was always a problem. So, I fucking paid to have it speared.

“Could take six months to heal,” Kat from Forever Steel told me after I had it done.

“Good,” I said, sitting up.

“Means no fucking,” she added.

“Good.” I pulled on my track pants then threw down some Benjamins. “Anyone asks, I wasn’t here.”

“Fine by me,” she said, cleaning up the tools she used.

I sold my Hellcat for pennies on the dollar and bought a Harley and some tags so I didn’t have to register the fucking thing from my thug friends that not only watched, but had a hand in Juliana’s house burning down; all brought on by them thinking I was someone else. Fucking ruined lives. Not that those people deserved to live. They didn’t. Then I rode west.

Burner phones kept me in contact with home. I would contact Gray when I knew I would be leaving in a couple days to wire me money. Called home on holidays and spent a damn year fucked up and running.

One year, I kept a fucking promise to a girl who destroyed what was left of my shitty life. A girl who took everything good from me. A girl who Gage pulled away from me, thinking he was doing the right thing by me. A girl who fucked my brother because I said some shit in fear, in anger, that I didn’t even have a moment to recant.

Fuck her.

Fuck her and her bullshit love, her bullshit forever, her bullshit “I owe you everything,” fuck her and her goddamn light brown eyes and her round, little ass.

Fuck her and fuck them all. That was all I could think about while I was gone.

I shake my head as I look down at my dick. “Fucked you up good for seven months. Nothing touched you. Kept my promise to a girl who didn’t deserve it, until a week after Brandon was born.”

I expected something—the fucking truth to come out of her lying little lips. It never did. So, for the next year, I allowed women to drop to their knees, unbutton my pants, and I loved when they fucking gasped at the sight of me.

I look down again and tell my dick, “Didn’t know you’d make even a fucking whore blush and salivate.”

I grab my toothbrush and squirt some paste on it. Then, as I brush my teeth, I consider how fucking lucky I was that second year. Smoked everything in sight, snorted anything I could crush up, and popped pills like they were candy. Every fucking drug I could get my hands on, I did. Luckily, I still have my fucking teeth, unlike many of the men I hung with. Lucky I had my life, not that I cared then.

Year three, I was off the pills and smoke. Booze was my bitch and barflies were my whores. Why? I found her on social media. Saw her looking fucking amazing. Not amazing if you liked done-up versions of your mother. I never did. But amazing because she looked thicker, healthier, and had the happiest little boy on her lap at a birthday party. I was happy for her, for him, but hell if that was enough.

I moved from town to town if shit got bad, and it often did. How fucked up is it that, when word spreads that you are hung like a horse, fuck like a wild mustang, and have a spear in your cock, women, even married women, beg for a ride? Most of them got it in the ass.

Yep, in the ass. Never thought I would do it. Not after...Not after all the shit in my past. But here’s the thing about pain. You stub your toe, it hurts. Slam your hand in a car door, that stubbed toe was nothing. Get abused as a kid by a now dead man, horrific. Get your heart fucking ripped out, stomped on, have a kid you can’t touch because he isn’t yours and every motherfucker you ever thought was on your side is gunning for you, well...let’s just say that dead men ain’t shit.

Every woman I fucked in the ass was her. Every woman I gagged with my dick was her. Everyone I left behind because they got a little attached, they were fucking her, too.

When some test popped up that Gage wasn’t Brandon’s father, he booted her ass.

I stayed clean for a few weeks, waiting, just waiting for the call to come get my kid. But, Gage never knew he was mine.

When I heard from Gray that she was tossing back pills, washing them down with booze, and having men over while Brandon was there, and that Gage got emergency custody, I waited again for my name to be spilled. Again, didn’t happen.

When she went off to school to get her shit together, I waited then, too. Still didn’t happen.

She knew I was shit. I was so sure he had told her all about me. Then she was living with a fucking doctor. I stayed the fuck away, and then I got lost again.

A big fat check from Gray made Vegas possible. Every fucking whore I could get my hands on and dick in became her again.

Once her hero, one fucking wrong time to show her who I really was, and less than five hours later, she had found another one.

I fucked up. I did. I should have been man enough to step up, but I wasn’t. Hell, I don’t even know how I can now, but Gage assures me that I have time. Time to get to know Brand. Time to be a part of his life. Time to grow into who I am meant to be.

Fucker has more faith in me than I deserve.

I will be damned if I’m going to let the fucking self-doubting voice in my head that has fucked with me since I was eleven, win.

The man who buried it there was not Gage, not my brother. The man who buried it in there was fucking dead, and I was free because of Gage. That right there is what I am going to hold on to.

Gage told us the other night that he wanted to be a better man, better than my father, to be present, and I want that, too.

God help me because, if I fail, if I fucking fail, it isn’t going to be only me who is destroyed. It will be a little boy who I don’t know, yet love enough to have stayed the hell away from.

No more.

Listening to the headboard knock, the moans, the fucking groans from down the hall, that doesn’t help me sleep one bit. It makes me think of her.

No woman got me for more than half an hour unless she was paid by the hour. Hell, half of them tagged out, and yeah, I let them.

Juliana, she got the naive little punk who thrived on seeing her face when she came. Watched her every expression to make sure he was making her feel good and not dirty. Juliana got as close to making love as a fucked-up punk could give. Hours and fucking hours of it, every fucking day, unless she was bleeding. Hell, I fucked her then, too, but in the shower, the bath, and that one time when we went fishing, in the ocean.

Gage must think this bitch—Phoenix—is something special.

“Something special,” I huff.

The bitch who I thought was special, the one who thought she loved me, and that I thought I loved, well, I was going to have to face her, too.

***

I didn’t sleep for shit again. She was all in my head, and I wasn’t going to swallow a pill to make her go away.

When I walk out into the kitchen, Gray is sitting at the table with a notebook.

He looks back then stands up. “Morning.”

“Morning,” I say.

He grabs me a cup of coffee and brings it over. “Made breakfast, too. Sausage gravy.”

“Thanks. I’ll cook tomorrow.” I nod before taking my first sip.

Gray sits down and smirks, then looks over at me. “Get any sleep?”

His shit-ass grin makes me laugh. He laughs, too.

He stops abruptly, and his eyes fix on something. I turn to see the little shit sneaking down the hall.

Biting the sides of my cheeks, I glance at Gray, and just like when we were kids, one of us laughs and the other loses their shit.

We both try like hell to hold it back, but fail.

She looks up and stops fidgeting with her clothes, nods at Gray, then glares at me.

“Good morning, Phoenix. Would you like some coffee?” Gray asks. He’s actually enjoying this shit.

“No,” she whispers and looks back; I assume to see if Gage is coming down the hall. Then she looks back at Gray. “I want to say sorry about being rude to you yesterday. I had no idea who you were.”

He holds out his hand. “Apology accepted.”

“And me? You sorry you were rude to me, too?” I ask.

She looks at me and scowls. “No. You...” Her mouth snaps shut, and then opens again. “You better get your shit together, because that man”—she points back down the hall—”is a hell of a lot better than I am. I’m watching you.”

“Should I be afraid, little ninja?” I taunt her purposely.

“Most definitely,” she says, bending down to fix the heels she’s wobbling on.

“Should fix your skirt; shirts all tucked up in it,” I tell her.

She stands quickly and grabs the back of her skirt. “Asshole.”

I nod. “Most definitely.”

“That little boy is amazing,” she tells me, patting her hair down.

“And that hair is a fucking mess,” I tell her.

Grayson tries to hold back his laugh and ends up covering his mouth. Now she’s glaring at him.

“Sorry, Phoenix. Really, I’m—”

She holds her hand up, stopping him.

“Be good to him. He deserves it.” She turns and nearly falls. Her legs must be weak as fuck.

I laugh to myself.

When she’s at the door, she holds up her middle finger as she uses the other hand to open the door.

As soon as she’s out, Gray and I laugh.

“Never in a million years would I picture him with a chick like that,” Grayson says, still chuckling.

“I’d fuck her. She’s hot. Well, as long as I could tie her ass up and gag her,” I agree, also still laughing.

Grayson puts one of the four plates back in the cupboard then breaks up some biscuits on two of them.

I grab the ladle next to the pan and take one of the plates from him, pour the sausage gravy over the biscuits, and hand it back. He takes it, hands me the other plate, and then sits at the island, while I pour gravy over mine.

As I sit and eat, I wonder what he’s told her; what Phoenix knows about me. I wish it didn’t mess with me. I wish I didn’t give a shit. But I’m guessing she’s going to be around for some fucking time, and I don’t want Brandon to feel her hostility and think any less of me than he already does.

Jesus, this is a mess.

“Morning.”

I look up as Gage walks out in jeans and a tee-shirt, freshly showered.

Gray silently chuckles again, and I get caught up in it.

Gage rolls his eyes as he walks to the coffee maker.

“She’s a pistol,” Grayson says.

He looks back again and scowls.

“She walked outta here, head held high, hair all sorts of fucked up,” Gray continues.

“Like Mom’s used to be in the morning,” I add.

Grayson laughs. “Peg Bundy.”

“Shut the hell up.” He grabs a plate and loads it up with biscuits and sausage gravy.

“You’re eating my cooking and telling me to shut up?” Gray asks.

“Apparently,” he quips.

“So, Phoenix Star...” Gray starts.

“She’s off limits.” He points a spoon at him.

“Not last night at the club she wasn’t,” he reminds him.

“Last night, I was drunk.”

I stand up and walk to the window. I have a really bad fucking feeling about this shit.

“You good, Garrett?” Gage asks.

“Six days without a line or piece of ass; how do you think I am?”

“Gotten through the worst of it, man,” he reminds me.

I turn and look at him. “I need to get the fuck out of this fish tank apartment and city.”

“Where to?” Gray asks.

“Somewhere I’m not gonna go into a bathroom and see people doing lines, and somewhere I don’t have to listen to you fuck all night long.” I point to Gage.

“Didn’t know she was coming,” he tells me.

Gray laughs. “You were the one making her.”

Fuck, saying that I need out makes me need it more.

“Let’s get to the lake,” Gage suggests.

“Everyone who puts me on edge is fucking there!” I snap.

“Not at the old place,” he says.

“You gonna stay with us?” Gray asks.

“I will as much as possible.” Gage nods and looks at me. “Needs to happen.”

“What am I gonna do, sit around and fish?” Fuck, I can’t do this.

“No, Garrett, you’re gonna build a fence.”