CHAPTER TEN
Jared
I remembered something the next morning. It was a memory I thought I had forgotten. As I rode out with the other guys, it was right before my eyes as if I was living it again.
“You're worthless, boy.”
My father had said that. It was when he was drunk, so maybe I shouldn't have listened so much to what he said. But I had. He'd just been shouting at my mom again. I'd gone to confront him.
I paused, licking my lips. I was fourteen years old. My father was a full-grown, heavily-built guy. He smelled of cheap drink and engines and violence.
“I don't like what you do,” I began slowly.
He'd laughed at me. “What're you gonna do about it?” he'd asked. “Tell the police?”
I blinked, blinking back tears of anger.
“Maybe,” I said. My lip trembled. I might have been defying him, but I was terrified of him too.
He laughed. “Yeah. And then? If they take me away, what about your mother? Who'll pay bills? You thought of that?”
“I'll think of something,” I'd said.
That was when he'd said it. “You're worthless, boy.”
I had stared at him. I didn't know how I knew, but I had this sense that fathers weren't supposed to say things like that to their sons. Fathers were supposed to like their sons – or at least not scorn them. They were, of course, also not supposed to hit their wives, or make them cry all the time. I could still hear mom crying.
My fear was replaced by rage.
“I hate you!” I screamed at him.
That was when he hit me. Hard. My lips split and I tasted blood. I'd stared at him. He'd stared at me.
Crazily, it was new for both of us. He'd always stopped just short of hitting me before. He hit mom with regularity. But never me before.
“Get lost,” he'd stammered. “Just go. Get outta my sight.”
I'd run.
That was the night I left home. I'd taken a toothbrush, a jacket. My tiny model of a BMW bike my grandfather had given me when I was five. It was like a talisman.
I'd run and not looked back.
That was the day that changed everything. I had forgotten all about it until now – blanked it out, most likely. Like I'd blanked out all the fear and sadness and the cold with the booze and the weed, later on.
I blinked, coming back to the present moment. I was riding through a sunlit field, my hands locked on the bridle of my horse. I was jolted a little by the rolling motion of the horse, walking.
I focused on the present.
Why had I remembered that?
I shrugged. Maybe because, that day when I'd seen mom, was the last day I'd really felt loved. Until yesterday night.
I snorted. “Stop it, Jared.”
I wasn't going to think about that. Wasn't going to let myself believe that Darby felt anything for me. I had felt safe, and special, and cared for, lying in her arms. But that was my illusion. She didn't really feel anything for me.
She's way above you. Alex's sister, for crying out loud. No way.
She wasn't going to think twice about me. It was for a laugh, I told myself savagely. She wanted to sleep with a cowboy. That was all.
So that was it. I snorted. I would just forget her. I would pretend it had been a night like any other, like one of those countless nights I'd spent with other girls whose names I didn't know.
You don't care about girls outside the gang.
I blinked. Where had that memory come from? That was Bricks. He was one of the gang's senior members – called Bricks for some reason everyone had forgotten, probably him too.
“You don't care about girls outside the gang,” he'd told me. Non-gang girls were there for use, not to care about. Not that we'd have had the chance to care about them even if we had been allowed to – the non-gang girls we saw were mostly charging by the hour.
And our gang didn't have any girls.
I wanted to laugh at the irony of that. How were we supposed to have any meaningful relationships, when there was no one to have them with? We were unlovable, untouchable.
I've never told anyone I love them.
It was a surprising realization. But it was true. Even if I wanted to, I would have no idea how to go about it.
I looked down at my wrist. The tattoo was still there. The gang's mark. I had stopped my horse at the edge of the paddock. I rubbed over the mark absently and wished, not for the first time, that I could have it burned out of my skin.
I can't afford it.
“Jared!”
I looked up. “Yeah, Nics?”
“Come join us!”
I nodded. The guys were busy driving the cattle to a new field. I had been half-asleep and missed most of it. I squeezed with my knees and rode to join in.
We took a break for lunch about an hour later.
When we walked to the cafeteria I couldn't help my mind straying back to Darby and the night we'd spent. I remembered her sweet softness, the feel of her breasts in my lips. I felt so safe, so cared for.
And she was stunning. Not in the lean, angular way of some of the hard street girls I'd known, but in a gentle, lovely way. I wanted her so much my loins jolted and got hard.
“Hey, big boy,” Jacklyn, one of the waitresses, greeted me.
“Hey,” I nodded. I looked away from her tight breasts forced into the small blouse, the red lipstick. She was sexy in a flaunting way. But it wasn't her who was making my blood surge.
I ate lunch in silence, trying to forget about Darby.
***
I tried to avoid Alex.
I sneaked around, but I couldn't avoid it forever. When he finally caught up with me I was sitting in the garden, trying to forget about the night before. I was drinking coffee, enjoying the landscape.
“Darbs?”
I jumped, narrowly avoiding spilling coffee on myself.
“Hell, Alex,” I said crossly. “Don't sneak up on people like that.”
He made a sheepish face. “I'm sorry.”
I sighed. “That's fine,” I said. “What?” I steeled myself, waiting for the interrogation.
“Darby, what's up? It's not like you to keep secrets,” he began.
I closed my eyes. “If I felt like I could tell you what was up, I wouldn't be so secretive, would I?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But please. If there's anything I can do? I wish you'd talk to me sometimes. It would have helped in the past.”
I felt like he'd slapped me. “That was too much, okay?”
He was instantly apologetic. “I'm sorry,” he agreed. “I shouldn't have gone there.”
“No,” I agreed. “You shouldn't.”
When he had gone, I put my cup down and resisted the urge to throw it at something.
The past he was talking about was Alan.
My ex-boyfriend.
The reason why I hadn't told Alex about how he treated me was because I thought Alex approved of him. After all, it was Alex who'd made sure we met. He'd been at a party with Alex. A guy he used to work with.
A respectable, entirely presentable accountant.
He'd been a nightmare.
“Darby, you're such a klutz,” I remember him saying to me once. “I feel embarrassed sometimes.”
We had been out together. I still remember that day. We'd attended a thing with his colleagues. I was astounded when he said that. I mean, I'd done nothing.
“You were acting all dumb with Jake and Lewis. I felt so awkward back then.”
I had started speaking less at parties after that. In fact, there was a time when I had only spoken if someone asked me a direct question. I was getting back from that now, but it was taking time.
That hadn't been the only incident like that, either – far from it. He'd criticized me mercilessly – my hair, my clothes, even my speech.
“You have a southern accent,” he'd said once. “You won't get far with one of those as a lawyer.”
It was only about a year later that I'd realized he was talking rubbish. Firstly, I don't have a southern accent. I might have traces of one from my mom's influence, but it's minor. And secondly, I never saw that be an impediment to anyone's career. Not in the real world.
I closed my eyes.
I wished Alex hadn't brought all that stuff up. It should be in the past. But he insisted on dragging it all up into the daylight. I was so mad.
It did, however, make me notice something.
I didn't think like that when I was with Jared.
Not once.
Usually, ever since Alan, I'd been shy with guys. Hesitant to open my mouth. Very unsure of myself. But with him, that all melted away. I'd let him in on the most fundamental level. And I never once felt triggered or afraid of criticism
That was weird.
I sighed.
That doesn't mean anything, Darbs. I told myself. Maybe you were just tired. You've had a long trip. And Alex is right. You needed a holiday.
All the same, it was worth noting.
I shook my head. I was being silly.
I couldn't stop thoughts of Jared going around my head, though. I was glad I'd spent the night with him. I might be ashamed to admit to it in front of my nearest and dearest family members, but I was actually glad.
He'd reminded me of something I'd forgotten. What it felt like to be cared about by a man.
It had, I reflected, been worth remembering.