Chapter 17
Good luck and take care. By good luck, I mean go fuck yourself. And by take care, I mean go fuck yourself.
-E-card
Winter
“Oh, God. I forgot how much this hurts.” I said and gritted my teeth.
“Probably because you’re doing it on a sensitive spot.” Ember said, patting my hand comfortingly.
“Maybe.” I squeezed out.
I was in the process of getting a tattoo at a tattoo studio that Elliott had recommended. Blaine was sitting on the chair in front of me. Ember was sitting next to Elliott on the sofa across the main room. Payton was looking through the books at the counter. Cheyenne was reading stupid laws on her phone, and reading them out loud periodically.
“Sucker.” Payton laughed.
“I’m sure he’s going to like this and all, but he’ll probably get pissed when he sees that you had another man so close to his cock socket.” Elliott said with a thick southern accent.
“Cock socket? Really?” Ember asked, bumping him with her shoulder.
“What would you like me to say instead? Tutu? Meat flaps? Cooter?”
The tattoo artist started cracking up and I started getting antsy. “How about we stop cracking this man up while he’s so close to my special parts?”
“Holy shit,” Payton exclaimed. “Can you believe this? This guy has a bar through his dick!”
“That’s called a…” The artist started saying before Payton interrupted him.
“Oh, my God. That one comes out his urethra. How do you piss straight with that in? I bet that hurts like a bitch. What do you think recovery time would be on that? It doesn’t look like it would feel that good. Do you think Max would get one?” Payton asked, spitting the questions out one after the other.
“Probably doesn’t. Yes, it hurts like a bitch. Eight weeks. Feels awesome, from what I’ve been told. And probably not.” Elliott said as he picked dirt out from under his fingernails with his pocketknife.
Crickets.
“What do you mean, from what you’ve heard?” Blaine asked the question we’d all been silently wondering.
“What? I just asked a few buddies that got them done.” He said, not even looking up from the knife.
“Who?” We all asked at the same time.
“Yeah, right. I’m not telling y’all. Y’all have six-year-old abilities when it comes to keeping secrets. All it would take is one tiny look at the person and then you’re going to be asking about his dick. No.” He laughed at us.
Of course, telling us no only made us more interested in knowing who it was.
“It’s not Max.” Payton declared loudly.
Cheyenne shook her head. “Not Sam either.”
“Negative on Gabe.” Ember pouted.
“Well, it sure isn’t Elliott, although it does look quite interesting.” Blaine laughed.
They all turned to me, waiting. “Nope.”
“Who does that leave?” Cheyenne asked and then immediately made a disgusted face.
“Oh, God! It’s James, isn’t it? Oh, eww. Gross. I need some alcohol to knock this image out of my brain. Oh, my God! It’s not going away!” She wailed, clutching her head.
Elliott’s face was blank, not giving anything away. “Somebody needs to ask him.”
At Ember’s comment, Cheyenne started the gagging again.
“Okay, done. How do you like it?” Diablo, the tattoo artist, asked.
I looked down and studied the work.
It was exquisite. You couldn’t even see the scar anymore. “Beautiful.”
“That looks freaking awesome! You can’t even tell there was ever a scar there.” Payton said, scooting close.
The picture that we based the tattoo off was held next to my thigh for comparison.
“That looks almost like Jack’s, but not gross like the skull tearing the snake. Glad you left that part out. This one looks more like a sugar skull.” Ember studied it.
“Can you do one for me, too? Only different colors.” Cheyenne asked enthusiastically.
“Yeah,” Diablo said warily.
And that was how every single woman in the group got a tattoo of their men’s tattoo.
***
The next day
“Where are you?” I asked Jack over the phone.
“I’m still here. Adam left me a few surprises. What did you do last night?” He asked.
It was clear he didn’t want to talk about whatever Adam had left him, so I let him change the subject. Only I didn’t want to talk about that one. I wanted to surprise him.
“Oh, you know. The usual,” I said evasively.
“Uh, huh. Sure. Elliott wouldn’t tell me either.” He laughed.
“We threatened his life if he told. I’ll show you as soon as you get home. I promise. Scout’s honor.” I said, holding up the symbol for scout’s honor, even though he couldn’t see me.
“You’re not a scout. Never have been, never will be. That’s something only a man can do.” He said chuckling.
“I could if I wanted.”
“Actually, you have to get it done by the age of eighteen. And you’re past that age. Plus you have to have a dick.”
“Whatever,” I said ignoring the crude language. “When will you be home?”
“Tomorrow morning sometime. We’ll leave early.”
“We’ll?” I asked.
“Yeah, Sam, James, and Max are here. We’re bringing some shit home.” He muttered.
“I am not shit.” A woman hissed in the background.
“Yeah, well you act like a shit. So same thing,” Jack muttered low under his breath. “Baby, I gotta go. We’re heading in to a rib joint and it’s loud inside. Love you.”
The phone went dead in my ear before I could even say it back. Although it annoyed me to no end that a woman was at a rib joint with him, I felt better that he wasn’t alone with her. What I didn’t like was the fact that he never called last night, nor this morning like he said he would.
“Engine 1, Medic 1, Engine 2, medic 2. Motor vehicle accident four hundred block of Texas Street. Multiple vehicles and injuries.” A disembodied voice said over the loud speaker.
I rushed to Medic 1 and piled into the passenger seat while Allen got into the driver’s seat. With Kilgore being such a small community, it wasn’t unheard of for the chiefs of all departments to get on the street and do the grunt work with the rest of the department.
As the Ambulance pulled out, the skies opened up. Rain came down in a torrential downpour with lightning and thunder following quickly in its wake.
“Fu- ah, I mean darn.” Allen said and then glanced at me looking guilty.
I burst out laughing. “Oh, Allen. I live with a husband who has the mouth of a soldier. Trust me, there’s nothing you can say that I haven’t heard before.”
He chuckled, but stopped quickly as a SUV with a woman talking on a cell phone pulled out in front of us.
Allen slammed on the brakes and maneuvered around the dumb woman. “Geez, seriously? First, it’s raining, so get your head out of your butt. Second of all, that sign over there said no turn on red, lady.” I fumed.
Allen chuckled. “Every time.”
The scene we pulled up on was one of nightmares. A multiple vehicle accident happened at an intersection. The light had gone out, and from as far as I could tell, the vehicles all ran through the light not noticing and struck each other. There were four all together, and none of them looked anything less than totaled.
The first thing we heard, as we got out, was a woman wailing. “My baby! My baby!”
Downy came up to us with a grim look on his face. He was wearing a reflective rain slicker that covered him from head to toe. KDP was written in reflective lettering on the chest, which glowed in the darkness the rain compelled.
Whatever he was about to tell us wasn’t good. Not in the slightest. “I can’t find a baby. I’ve looked everywhere inside that vehicle, but can’t find anything in there except for the mother. There’s a car seat, but no kid. Also, the people in the other three vehicles need the can opener. Doors aren’t budging. Nothing fatal from what I can tell. Everyone is conscious.”
As he spoke, we followed him to the car that had the woman crying and got to work.
The officers on the scene continued to look for the child, but it wasn’t until the husband of the woman showed up that we figured out there was no baby in the first place. Two weeks ago, the woman delivered a stillborn child and the husband said she’s been upset about it ever since.
Although her story was heartbreaking, we couldn’t help but be relieved that a child wasn’t hurt in the accident.
Hours later, everyone was horribly exhausted. After hours in the rain, with thirty degree weather, no amount of protection was good enough anymore.
Not to mention my mind kept straying to my own heartbreak. My own little baby that I would never hold. Never smell her tiny baby smell. Never watch her take her first step. Or go to senior prom.
By the time my shift ended, I was in one hell of a mood.
Only one thing I was certain of and that was that I needed to see the box. I needed to know my angel baby.
Deciding I needed to have my stuff pronto, I called my old landlord. We arranged for her to pack my belongings into a Pod and have it all sent to me. However, the box she said she’d send out with the mail today, and have it overnighted to me.
It was clear to me now that I would never be going back and I paid the fee to cancel my lease. I just hoped Jack didn’t get upset with me.
He’d said movers cost too much and that we could get it done in a few weeks. Only, I wanted that box yesterday and I couldn’t wait for Jack any longer. I needed it now.
Little did I know that I opened a door that would have deadly consequences in the days to come, and I would regret the decision of not talking to him beforehand, with my every breath.