Chapter 13
I’m wearing black until they make something darker.
-T-shirt
James
“You fucked up.” Max said from behind me.
I turned from watching Jolie drive away to Max, who was still leaning against his bike casually. His legs were crossed at the ankle, and his arms were crossed tightly against his chest. Jack and Gabe were in similar positions, both watching me with the same frown of disproval.
“What?” I asked, completely and utterly exhausted.
All I wanted to do was see my kid, and take a seat on the couch with my two girls and watch another stupid movie. As long as it wasn’t Frozen.
“Going to that bitch over Shiloh.” Gabe drawled.
My brows drew together in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re talking about that woman rushing to your rescue, calling your goddamn lawyer, pulling some of her only connections with the few cops she’s made friends with in her short time here to get you out. Yet, you let her leave with a beaten look dominating her pretty little face.”
My stomach dropped, and I remembered in that instant that I thought I smelled the soft scent of her perfume in the police station’s lobby. Yet, when I’d turned around, I’d only seen the door closing softly, and I’d put it out of my mind as Jolie rambled on and on about how awful it was that I’d been arrested.
Setting her away from me as quickly as I could, she’d then started rambling on and on about how someone had been stalking her. Which was how she’d learned I was arrested in the first place. She’d come down to the station to file a report, and had overheard it from the desk clerk.
I’d practically had to drag her to her car. Although I was sympathetic with her plight, I’d had a rough day myself, and I wasn’t up to listening to her incessant whining today. However, she’d showed up more and more over the past two months, and I was at the point where I didn’t want to put up with her at all. I’d thought I’d been lucky that Shiloh didn’t see Jolie launch herself into my arms. Now I knew I wasn’t lucky.
“Fuck,” I growled, eyes pointed at the bright blue sky.
The clouds were moving quickly, which inevitably meant that we were on the verge of another thunderstorm.
“You could say that again.” Max agreed.
“I didn’t want her to touch me. She keeps bugging the absolute shit out of me. But I can’t tell her to stop. It’s like kicking a fucking puppy. She looks up at you with those big brown eyes and really pours it on until you cave. She’s relentless.” I said, exasperated at the situation.
“Well, you’re going to have to do something about it. Shiloh said something to Winter the other day about her. I only walked in on the end of their conversation before they both stopped talking, but from what I heard, she really dislikes the woman.”
“Amen.” Max growled, looking away.
Thinking she needed some time to calm down, I decided to go check on my girl, and then I’d go searching for Shiloh.
“Were you able to get my bike?” I asked my friends that were currently avoiding eye contact.
“No, you’re more than welcome to ride bitch though.” Jack rasped.
I eyed him for a few moments, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Fuck it. It was only about a two and a half miles from the gym. I was still in my gym clothes anyhow. Talk about embarrassing. I was in the process of benching two fifty when three cops poured into the weight area.
I’d known immediately that I wasn’t going to like what they’d have to say. So, I’d re-racked the weights, and then followed the cops out of the building where they’d proceeded to cuff me and stuff me into the back of the unmarked police car.
Without realizing I’d done so, I started jogging. It wasn’t until the gym, and my bike, came into view that I realized I’d made the ten minute jog to my bike without even saying goodbye to the friends that always had my back.
I knew they’d understand, and I didn’t dwell on the fact that they were probably concerned about me.
Straddling my bike, I pulled the key from around my neck and started the bike up. The low throaty roar soothed some of the frustration that was coursing through my veins as it usually did. When I’d gotten back from Iraq, the only thing that had calmed the nightmares enough was the roar of the bike, and the feel of the wind in my face.
I rode home, relishing the sun soaking into my skin, and the smell of the pine trees as they whizzed past me. Dark clouds gathered in the distance as I rode. My mind wasn’t the riot of emotions that it had been when I’d left the police station, but I kept feeling a sense of unease. As if something was about to happen that I wasn’t ready for.
***
“Hello?” I answered my phone.
I’d been on the line trying to find Shiloh for the last two hours, yet I couldn’t find her. The women didn’t know where she was. Her boss didn’t know where she was, and her house was empty. I’d even called her brother. Well, the brother that doesn’t live two doors down from me. Sebastian had said that he didn’t know where she was, and if he did know where she was, he wouldn’t tell me because I’d obviously fucked up if I couldn’t find her.
After a frustrating five-minute conversation with the man, I hung up the phone and watched Frozen with Janie. Again.
It wasn’t until I was carrying Janie over to Cheyenne’s house that I heard the high feminine cackling coming from the direction of Jack’s place that was all the way across the compound’s grounds.
Repositioning Janie’s sleeping form on my shoulder, I carried her forward until I could see what was going on.
What I saw made my jaw clench tightly.
Every single one of the mother fuckers were there. They knew I’d been looking for her. I knew for certain that at least Gabe and Elliott knew, since I’d reached them first in the attempt to speak with their wives.
“Ember, truth or dare?” Shiloh half yelled/slurred.
“Truth.” Ember slurred.
“If you were home alone at night and you heard a fart, would you laugh or be scared?”
Snorts from the men, and piercing laughter from the women followed that statement.
“Honestly, I’m pretty sure I’d laugh. Then I’d probably freak.” Ember groaned.
Barely reining in my temper, and most definitely not in a laughing mood, I turned and left the gathering. After two hours of being worried sick, I just didn’t have it in me anymore. I was tired. Exhausted. And ready for all of this bullshit to be over.
Once I got to my place, I laid Janie down in her bed before locking all the doors, windows, and arming the alarm. I brushed my teeth, and then fell into bed with an exhaustion that seeped deep into my bones. I rubbed my eyes with my fists, and contemplated shutting off my AM alarm when the knocking started.
I almost ignored the thumping at the door, but thought better of it when it started to pick up decibel levels. Really needing Janie to stay asleep, I rose out of bed. My bones cracked as I made my way to the door.
I stabbed the keypad’s buttons with the blunt tip of my finger with brutal force. Then I started snapping the locks out of place, and then yanked the door open. I wasn’t surprised to see Sam at the door, and I also wasn’t in the fucking mood. Which I told him.
“What the fuck do you want?” I demanded.
His eyebrows rose at the tone of my voice, but I couldn’t help it. I was mad. And if I wanted to be truthful with myself, a little hurt.
“Got a problem?” He asked with a calmness that made me want to punch the fucker in the face.
“No. I’m fucking tired. You made me get out of bed, and I wanted to sleep.” I answered.
All truthful answers. However, not the total truth.
He knew I was purposefully not telling him everything, but the fucker wasn’t my captain anymore. He could suck my dick.
“Gabe said he saw you walking back to your place. Must not have been that tired.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose in between two fingers, and promised to donate my porn collection to a local youth shelter if God could make my headache go away.
“I’ve got a fucking headache. My body aches from sitting in a straight backed metal chair for four hours, and I’m tired. What. Do. You. Want?”
He studied my face for a few moments before uncrossing his arms from his chest and taking a casual pose against the side of the stucco wall that lined the outside of my house.
“I’m not sure I want my sister mixed up in your shit.”
“My shit?” I asked, completely amazed that he’d brought that up to me.
“Yeah, your shit. I don’t want her hurt. You’ve got all this shit swirling around your life right now, and I really don’t want that to affect my sister.” He confirmed.
I wanted to hurl his own shit back at him. What about all the shit he’d brought on my sister? What about his old man who was more of a goddamn danger than anything that I could bring to his sister’s life?
I stared at him for a few more moments before making the hardest decision of my life.
“Okay.” I nodded, and then stepped back, closed the door, and re-armed the system.
It wasn’t until I was in bed and listening to the storm that’d been threatening the entire day pound at the glass of my window that I finally let the pain of his words roll through me.
Pushing the rioting emotions back down, I contemplated what my next step would be. I knew for sure I couldn’t leave the county. The court, for one, wouldn’t allow me to. I also wasn’t so sure I wanted to leave the place I’d grown up in. To take Janie out of school in the middle of the school year.
That didn’t mean that I had to stay here, where Shiloh would be a constant reminder of what I wasn’t allowed to have. I also didn’t have to stay working at Free. I’d had dozens of job offers since I’d been discharged from the army. I could take the one with the police department easily.
Which if I was being honest, I’d been contemplating more and more lately.
Decision made, I fell into a fitful sleep. Only to awake a little over two hours later with my heart damn near pounding in my chest, and the still warm sensation of my good friend’s blood running hot over my skin.
“Goddammit Dougie. Goddamn you.” I said into the darkness.
***
“What’s going on, daddy?” Janie asked me as I carted a few duffel bags into my mother’s house.
Janie was used to staying here whenever my mother wasn’t working. What was not normal was having me moving my shit in, taking over Cheyenne’s old room.
“We’re going to stay here for a little while, pickle-lilly.” I answered.
She beamed at me, completely unaware of the sadness that waivered my voice for a split seconds before I masked it.
“That’s awesome, daddy! Grammy got me a trampoline!” She squealed.
That didn’t surprise me either. The woman couldn’t say ‘no’ when it came to her grandchildren. Especially Janie. What had my brows rising was the fact that I hadn’t put the trampoline together, and I damn well knew those fuckers didn’t come fully assembled.
“Who put it together?” I asked her.
“Granddad Todd.” She said before running towards the back yard and scrambling through the net that surrounded the trampoline. As if she didn’t just drop a fucking bomb and take off.
‘Granddad Todd’ and Grammy have some ‘splainin to do.