Chapter Two
Jeremy
She’s out there again.
My head thumps as I flop into one of my deck chairs. After nearly a month of binge drinking, I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like not to have a headache and a sour stomach. Not that it matters. I have nowhere I need to be today.
Or tomorrow.
Or ever.
It probably sounds like I’m feeling sorry for myself, but I’m not bemoaning my solitude. The thought of it is comforting.
My only neighbor is a woman who likes to taunt me by lying out on her deck in nothing but a tiny bikini. Okay, I’m sure her sunbathing has nothing to do with me, but it feels like a tease when I haven’t been laid in months.
The early afternoon sun beats down on me while I watch her. Small and slim, she stretches out like a cat before gathering her dark hair into a ponytail. A slight smile tilts her full lips as she lies back and tucks her hands beneath her head.
I don’t know her name. She waved at me not long after I moved in, but I ignored her. She got the same response when she waved at me from her driveway a week after that, and now she ignores me.
Mission accomplished.
The last month has gone by in a blur of whiskey, heartache, and regret. I’m worse than a damn country song. Frannie’s death hit me hard, and while I’ve been grieving for her and the future we should’ve had, I’ve also been accepting some hard truths.
I missed my chance. I didn’t think I was capable of falling for someone, and I did everything I could to deny my feelings for Frannie. Maybe we were too much alike, because she did the same. We took turns pushing the other away. Hell, we practically made a game out of it. Part of me always thought we’d get together eventually, and I assume she thought the same thing. We were young. We had plenty of time.
But time isn’t always granted to the young. My mother used to tell me I always had to learn things the hard way, and in this case, she’s right. Our time was up, stolen from us by a group of fuckwits who had a problem with people shopping. Unfair doesn’t even begin to cover it.
The woman next door gets to her feet and climbs the steps to her back deck. She must feel my eyes raking over her taut body, judging by the middle finger thrust in my direction. A snort of laughter jumps from my throat. I suppose having a hungover guy who looks like he’s been dragged backward through a ditch of swamp water doesn’t exactly make your day.
A knock on my front door is followed by a voice calling out, “Jeremy! Where the hell are you?”
Great. It’s Tucker.
“Dude, I’ve seen peep show booths that weren’t as disgusting as this living room.”
And Justus.
They agreed to leave me alone so what the hell are they doing here?
They step out onto the back deck.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demand.
“Oh, you know, just out for a drive, taking in the autumn colors,” Justus replies. “We haven’t heard from you in weeks, fuck nugget. Why the hell do you think we’re here?”
Getting to my feet, I head inside. “As you can see, I’m alive, so you can go now.”
“Nope,” Justus argues, as they follow me into the living room. “You look like shit and your house is gross. It’s intervention time.”
“I’m not an alcoholic,” I scoff.
Tucker crosses his arms and stares down at me. “No, but you’re wallowing in self-pity and that shit is about to end. We’re here to stay the weekend.”
A part of me is glad to see them. As much as I hate to admit it, part of the problem recently is loneliness. I’ve never been the type of person to enjoy being alone. I needed it for a while, but it’s starting to wear me down.
“Fine, but you’ll have to buy your own booze. I’m almost out.”
“We’ll hit the liquor store and party with you tonight, but then you need to dry your ass out,” Tucker warns.
“First, we got to do something about this house, and dude…soap…I’ve heard good things,” Justus says. “Go take a shower. I’ll call a maid service since there’s no way I’m cleaning this dumpster.”
For some reason, pulling myself off the couch to shower doesn’t seem like as much of a monumental task as it has been. Maybe I’m starting to come out the other side of the pitch dark tunnel I’ve been trapped inside.
“All right. Give me an hour.”
Justus scoffs. “You’re going to need more than an hour just to shave. I’m not envious of your bathroom. It’s going to look like you groomed a dog.”
“Fuck off, stripper.”
“That’s more like it,” he replies cheerfully.
Fuck. Maybe I did miss these guys.
Tucker and Justus aren’t just friends, they’re my family. Along with two other guys, Landon and Dare, we run an underground organization called In Safe Hands, or ISH. Tucker helps out when we need some muscle, but the rest of us are hackers, and we put our skills to use by hunting down child molesters, human traffickers, and other predators. Most of the time we send an anonymous report to the police. They’re grateful for the help, so they don’t look for us too hard. It helps that we have ties to another group, Striking Back, who have a lot of cops, judges, and other officials in their pocket.
There have been times when a repeat offender has beat the system and we’ve stepped in to take them out. None of us has any qualms about removing the worst of the worst from society, but we’ve steered away from that since the other guys now have families. And I don’t think I’d look good in orange.
I can hear them talking, then the sound of my back door shutting with a thwack. They must’ve decided to wait on the back deck. Can’t say I blame them.
The man I see in the mirror shocks me. It doesn’t seem like that much time has passed, but the guys are right. I look like shit. My facial hair has always grown fast, but I’ve never let it grow out until now. Considering my face looks a little gaunt and thin, I decide to keep it and just clean it up a little.
A few minutes with my trimmer does wonders, as does a long, hot shower. A haircut is a definite necessity, but otherwise, I look like a new person. My jeans are a little too loose, and I have to tighten my belt. A few meals probably wouldn’t be a bad idea as well. The one thing I kept up in my drunken stupor was exercising. Working out is so much a part of me it just came naturally, and helped to work off the rage that came and went. That, coupled with not consuming calories outside of a bottle, has given me a too lean look I’m not crazy about.
Hiding and drinking myself into oblivion wasn’t what I came to Illinois to do. It’s true, getting away from everyone was part of the plan, but my ultimate goal was to get up close and personal with the cult responsible for Frannie’s death. The actual shooters may be dead, but their message lives on. I’m going to put an end to it.
Tucker and Justus wait for me on the deck when I emerge from the bathroom, their eyes trained on something. They don’t even notice when I join them.
“Damn, Jer, you have a great view,” Justus says. “Just look at those peaks and valleys.”
My gaze follows his to the woman next door. She’s down on the dock, wearing a tiny pair of shorts and a form fitting tee shirt, totally oblivious to the way she’s being ogled. An easel stands before her, and she is completely focused on her work as she paints.
“She’s my neighbor. We share the dock.”
Tucker gets to his feet. “What’s her name?”
“How the fuck should I know? I’ve never met her. Are we getting out of here or what?” Now that I’m actually dressed, I can’t wait to get a change of scenery. I may be surrounded by beauty, but it’s been wasted on me. My sight has been filtered through a cloud of misery, grief and anger.
The way I always dealt with my emotions before was simple. Ignore, and find a willing woman to sleep with. The thought just isn’t doing it for me now. If I hadn’t been such an idiot, led by my dick, maybe Frannie and I would’ve—
No, not thinking about that today. I can’t.
“Happy Maids Service is sending a team in about an hour,” Justus says. “You’re going to kill their happiness.”
Tucker chuckles and grabs his keys. “I told them you’d leave the key in the mailbox.”
When I go to chuck the extra house key in the mailbox at the end of my drive, it’s stuffed with circulars and coupons. I never check it because no one has this address, and all my bills are set up to be paid automatically from my bank account.
Just as I’m about to throw it all in the trash can beside me, a one-hundred-dollar bill falls out of the pile and floats to the ground.
“What the fuck?” Tucker asks. “Did someone send cash through the postal service? That’s stupid.”
Climbing in the back seat of Tucker’s car, I sort through the pile until I locate the slim, white envelope. There’s only one word scrawled across the front in what appears to be feminine handwriting.
Asshole
“Yeah, it’s for you all right,” Justus quips, but his eyes grow wider when I pull out a stack of bills.
“Fifteen hundred dollars. Who the hell put fifteen hundred in cash in my mailbox without a name or anything?”
“Maybe someone got the wrong house?” Tucker suggests.
“Fuck if I know.” There’s nothing in or on the envelope to give me any clue where it came from.
“When was the last time you checked your mail?” Tucker asks.
“A week or two after I moved in. Didn’t see the point. No one uses snail mail anymore.”
“That’s weird. What are you going to do with the money?”
Shrugging, I shove it back into the envelope. “I’ll hang onto it for a while. If someone got the wrong house, I’m sure they’ll be back to get it.”
“Because that’s not shady at all. It was probably meant for drugs or some shit,” Tucker says. “Do you have your gun with you?”
“Yes, Dad. Locked and loaded. Now, let’s get a steak. I’m starving.”
#
Eight hours later, after a steak dinner, haircut, and a few games of pool at a local bar, we return to my house.
A minivan with Happy Maids scrawled across the side in pink paint sits in my driveway, and two young women are just coming out of my front door.
Justus stops and gives them a bright smile. Justus isn’t the type to cheat—and god knows Sadie would cut his nuts off if he did—but that doesn’t stop him from flirting. “Hello ladies, I just want to point out that this is not my house. I live in a nice, clean place—”
“With his wife,” I interrupt, and they both laugh. Reaching into my wallet, I pull out four hundred bucks and split it between them. I don’t know how much the agency pays, but it can’t be enough for what they had to deal with. “Thanks.”
“Thank you,” one of them replies, giving me a green light look if I’ve ever seen one.
“Drive safe,” I mumble, and walk past the guys into the house.
They follow me inside.
Wow. The place is spotless and smells like lemons. They even did my laundry. “Dude, what was that?” Justus asks, as Tucker carries the cases of beer into the kitchen. He returns with three bottles and passes them around.
“What?”
“That chick was practically humping your leg.”
“Not interested.” I flop onto the couch and take a long pull from the bottle.
“No, it can’t be. Jeremy Martin cannot be the c word,” Justus says, shaking his head.
“Are you calling me a cunt?”
“I could see how you’d make that mistake, but I was talking about the fact that you’re now celibate.”
Grabbing the remote to the television, I shove Justus aside. “Fuck off, I passed on one woman. That doesn’t make me celibate.”
“Plus your neighbor,” Tucker adds. “You would have been all over that…before.”
The word hangs in the air, supported by the weight of the awkward silence. Before. Before the shooting. Before Frannie died. Before I missed my chance.
“Shit’s different,” I reply, shrugging.
Justus is usually good at knowing when to change the subject and he nails it this time. “I brought the new Call of Duty. Ready to get your ass kicked?”
The next few hours are the best I’ve had since I moved here. The mood lightens, helped along by alcohol, good music, and great friends. We move out to the back deck at one point and Tucker points down at the dock, where my neighbor sits with a drink in her hand.
“She spends a lot of time down there, doesn’t she? Does she live alone?”
“No idea.”
Justus gets to his feet and bounds down the stairs toward the dock. “Five bucks says she pushes him into the water,” Tucker chuckles.
“I got ten saying his drunk ass will fall in on his own.” It feels so good to laugh again. To feel like a part of the world again.
We watch as they talk back and forth for a few minutes. When Justus turns to go back up the stairs, she follows him. Shit. Did he invite her over? Just because I wanted to hang out with them doesn’t mean I want a neighbor bothering me.
“Guys, this is Melissa. Melissa, this is Tucker and Jeremy.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says, directing her words and smile at Tucker.
“Melissa agreed to join us for a drink,” Justus says, leaning against the railing.
“Can I grab you a beer?” Tucker asks.
She holds up a glass and shakes it. “Already have a margarita, but thanks.”
“Here we go,” Tucker murmurs, just before Justus speaks up.
“You have margaritas? And I’m drinking this fermented swill?”
Tucker laughs at the confusion on Melissa’s face. “Justus is fond of the girly drinks.”
“Hey, not every man is secure enough in his masculinity to drink a pink squirrel.”
Melissa’s laughter fills the night with music. Okay, that may have sounded a little lame, but her laugh is beautiful. It reminds me of the wind chimes that hung outside my window when I was young.
“Well, I have plenty more at home. I’m happy to share. Do you have a blender?”
“Afraid not,” I lie. This isn’t good. I don’t want to make friends with the neighbors. I want my privacy to…to what? Keep wallowing in self-pity and regret? Damn it, the alcohol is killing my ability to think straight.
Melissa considers it for a moment. “No problem. I can bring mine, and the drink mixes, if one of you wants to come and help.”
“Go grab the blender, Jer. We’ll move all our stuff inside,” Justus says.
Damn it. There’s no way I can say no without sounding like a total asshole and having both guys turn on me. “Let’s go,” I grumble.
Melissa doesn’t seem thrilled with the idea either, but she leads me to her back door and flips on a light as we enter the kitchen. Holy hell. This is the first time I’ve really seen her up close in the light, and she’s more beautiful than she is from a distance. Those eyes. I only get a glance, but they remind me of the lake just after sunset. Dark blue and mysterious.
Her tone is totally different with me than it was talking to the guys. Like she’s tolerating me. I don’t know what possesses me, but I blurt out. “They’re married.”
Balancing a box with a few bottles of alcohol and drink mixes, she replies, “What?”
“Tucker and Justus. They’re married.”
“Okay. Cool.”
That’s all she has to say, and I follow her back to my place. It isn’t until a few hours and quite a few drinks later, that I realize how misconstrued my announcement was.
Justus slops his margarita down him and over my couch for the third time, so Tucker reaches over and plucks the glass from his hand. “You’re cut off, man. Or else I’m going to find you a sippy cup.”
“Pshhh, I’m good. Not nearly as think as you drunk I am.”
Tucker sighs, and dodges Justus’s half assed attempt to get his drink back.
“How long have you two been married?” Melissa asks.
It’s one of those needle scratch across the record moments, where everything seems to freeze. Looking a little uncomfortable, she adds, “You don’t have to tell me. I was just curious. You’re so…cute together.”
A second later, Tucker throws back his head and loud laughter echoes around us. Justus’s alcohol soaked brain finally catches up, and he jumps to his feet, steadying himself with a hand on the arm of the sofa.
“Oh, hell no! I love pussy! I worship it! It’s like a religion!”
Tucker just laughs harder at his reaction, and I find myself joining him. “No! Seriously! Look!” Justus pulls out his phone and holds up a picture of Sadie. “That’s my wife! And she blows me every night!”
“I’m sorry.” Melissa giggles. “Jeremy said you were married.”
“Yeah, to other women,” I clarify.
“Well, how was I supposed to know? You sort of blurted it out when I didn’t ask, so I thought you were making sure I wasn’t homophobic or something.”
“Oh,” Justus says, stretching out the word as he sits back down. “That is a strange thing to announce out of the blue.” He turns to Tucker. “Now why would Jer want Melissa to know we were taken? It’s a puzzler.” His finger taps against his lips while I try to resist the urge to break it.
“I was just making conversation,” I reply, getting up to grab a shot glass and my bottle from the cabinet.
“Are we doing shots?” Justus slurs.
“Nope,” Tucker replies, and Justus lies back on the carpet.
“Kay.” It’s his last word before he’s snoring.
“Lightweight,” I scoff, pouring two shots and handing one to Tucker.
“What? You can’t do shots with girls?” she taunts when I don’t include her. She was so soft spoken and quiet at the beginning of the night, but I have a feeling this teasing, smart ass version is the real Melissa.
I fill another shot glass, and it’s the first of many, but the last I really remember.
#
My rise to consciousness is slow and filled with flashes of the night before. Whiskey. So much whiskey. I can still taste it, though it feels like my tongue is permanently attached to the roof of my mouth. My first thought when my eyes pop open is water. Thankfully, there’s a glass beside my bed. I’m pretty sure it’s been there for a couple of days, but right now, I couldn’t give a shit.
It isn’t until I shift onto my side to reach for the glass that I realize there’s a slight weight draped over my shoulder. Who the hell?
Ink black hair, straight and sleek, spills down my chest.
Oh fuck.
Shit. Damn. Hell.
It’s Melissa. She’s naked and in my bed, which can only mean one thing, and I don’t remember one second of it. Justus and Tucker and their damn intervention. Look where it’s gotten me. I have to get her out of here.
Sitting up, I grab the water and down it. My abrupt movement jostles her, and she blinks, trying to focus her bloodshot eyes.
“Morning,” she says, sitting up and pulling the sheet over her chest.
“You have to go,” I tell her, jumping out of bed when she reaches to touch me. My head pounds, and my stomach twists.
She glares at me, her lips thinning into a straight line before she spits, “Asshole. I should have known.”
She stomps around the room, collecting her clothes, and manages to knock a picture frame off the dresser. Snatching it up, she tosses it back onto the dresser, and the broken glass rattles. “I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Being nice to assholes has never gotten me anywhere. I’m a damn glutton for punishment.”
Jerking my underwear up, I tell her, “Last night was a mistake. We were drunk. I never should’ve had you here, but you didn’t exactly run away, so if you’re waiting for an apology, don’t hold your breath.”
I’m aware I’m being a dick, but I need to put a stop to this right now. Frannie has only been dead for six weeks. It doesn’t matter she wasn’t technically my girlfriend or that we were dating other people when it happened. We would’ve found one another again. I know it.
Her glare fades a bit and she shakes her head, grumbling, “Unbelievable. Fucking class act.”
“You’re searching for your panties under my dresser. Doesn’t exactly scream classy,” I remark, grabbing some clothes and heading for my bathroom.
“Go fuck yourself with that limp dick!” she yells as I close the door. With any luck, she’ll be gone when I’m done.