Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III (17 page)

She came back and I asked, “What was that for?”

“I called a friend and asked him a really big favor,” she said and I raised my eyebrows, pushing my new sunglasses that Hope had bought for me, up my nose.

“What kind of favor, and who’s this friend?”

“Bobby, he’s a friend of Marlin’s. He has an orange grove about an hour away.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with anything.”

She rolled her eyes so hard I thought she might have glimpsed gray matter, “He doesn’t just grow oranges, silly. Orange grove is a misnomer, it really should be called a ‘citrus grove,’ he grows limes and lemons too. I asked him for a tree.”

“You did what?” I asked, blinking.

“He grows them for plant nurseries, so why not?” she asked.

“Big sister, I could kiss you,” I said and she blushed.

“It’s not that big of a deal, I like Nothing… he helped get me better. I’d like to help him get better, too.”

I hugged the crap out of Faith and whispered, “You’re the best sister anyone could ever ask for.”

“Thanks,” she said softly and hugged me back just as tight.

We ended up
just
working on Nothing’s house. There was so much that’d fallen into disrepair that it needed the attention. Even his brothers seemed surprised at how much the house needed done. It was worth it, though. By the time we were through, it looked like one of the nicest houses on the block. It was amazing what you could accomplish when you had an entire team of people working together.

Nothing and I hadn’t seen much of each other throughout the day, and when I found him again, it was him standing in his kitchen, a bottle of water in his hand and a faraway look in his eyes.

“Hey,” I murmured.

He shook himself, like a dog coming out of water and his gaze focused on me, a mask falling into place, shuttered, guarded.

“Hey,” he said simply and I sighed inwardly, steeling myself for the rejection I just knew was coming.

“Place looks great,” I said.

“Yeah, got a lot of stuff done that Corrine wanted,” he said and looked at the bottle of half empty water in his hands. “Kind of wish I’d done it while she could appreciate it,” he said, punctuating the statement with a heavy sigh.

“Yeah, I get that.” Silence ensued and it held that oppressive weight, the feel of an impending storm, only instead of thunder and rain, I pictured yelling and tears.

Here we go,
I thought.
Radar was right; I should have given him space…

“Listen, Charity…” I perked up and waited for the hammer to drop, thinking to myself,
just get it over with.
“I really like you, but I really can’t do this. It’s…”

“It’s not you, it’s me? I’m sorry I was weak? Let’s just be friends?” I asked, my tone was sharper, more sarcastic than I’d meant it to come out, but I was surprised at just how much I found that this inevitable speech was hurting. Bewildered at just how much I’d emotionally invested in Nothing in such a short time.

“Pretty much all of those things,” he said quietly.

“I really want to help you,” I said.

“I know that, but I’m not one of your patients, and I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” I murmured and stared up at the ceiling, tears pricking the backs of my eyes.

“
Yes,
I
am.
You’re a beautiful girl, and any man would be lucky to have you –“

“Really? Well what about you?”

“I’m just not that guy,” he said with a shitty half assed shrug.

“Do you think you’re being noble right now, Galahad?” his head snapped up and his gray eyes flashed with anger.

“What did you call me?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s not my name anymore.”

“No, I suppose it’s not,” I uttered, then heaved a big sigh. “Strike three, you’re out. Have fun being miserable, Nothing. I’m just not on board anymore. I can’t be the only one trying here. Things just don’t work that way.”

I turned and walked out of the kitchen, through the open space of the living room, and out into the bright sunlight. I didn’t know what sucked more, the total sense of failure, or the fact that despite all of his asshattery, I still
really
liked Nothing. I felt like we vibed on the same frequency, or whatever, in those rare moments when he wasn’t letting his grief be all consuming.

I couldn’t help but wonder if I was giving up too easily, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was saving myself a lot of heartache in the long run. I got in my Jeep and drove off, the few remaining guys loitering around Nothing’s place eying me with sympathy. Radar’s face flat and unreadable except for the slight nod he gave in my direction. I wondered vaguely if they’d heard the exchange, but couldn’t bring myself to care. Might as well make my humiliation complete on that front, eh?

Chapter 22

Nothing

I stood in my kitchen, everyone gone, and stood at the counter that I’d bent Charity over what seemed like forever ago, but shit, must’ve only been a few days gone now. A fresh bottle of Jim Beam rested within reach, an empty whiskey glass next to it but I just wasn’t feeling it. I felt shitty, I really did and decided I needed to shelve the fucking bottle this time.

Still, that didn’t mean I wanted to stay sober tonight, so I busted out my stash of weed instead, rolling a joint. I’d never been good at it, Corrine though, she’d gotten pretty decent at it. I went out back and dropped into one of the wooden patio lounge chairs, propping my feet up. It was peaceful, the crickets and frogs starting their serenade, the smell of fresh cut grass filling the air. I stuck the joint in my mouth and lit up, sucking in a lungful of green, sticky smoke and holding it until my lungs screamed and the mellow effects rolled out from my center.

I turned my head up and back when the screen slid back, Cutter coming out to join me. I frowned, “Back again, Cap?”

“Figured it was time you and I had a talk, man.”

I nodded, figuring that I was about to have my ass set straight, but honestly, I had no clue what the Captain was gonna say. You never did when it was Cutter. He dropped into Corrine’s lounge chair and set a six pack of cheap beer between us. I passed him the joint.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, taking a hit and propping his booted feet up.

“Come to tell me I’m bein’ an idiot?” I asked.

“Of the highest order,” he said, voice strained as he held his breath. He exhaled sharply and passed me back the weed. I took another hit and pinched off the cherry, figuring the tongue lashing I was about to get was gonna be epic.

Cutter pulled a beer from the pack and twisted the cap off the amber bottle, he leaned back again, crossing his booted ankles, frayed denim against worn leather. He’d ridden over here.

“Let’s have it,” I said.

“I think it’s time,” he said, “to set the record straight.”

I frowned and leaned my head back against the back of my chair, rolling it over to look at him, “What d’ you mean?”

“We’ve been waiting a real long damn time for you to show any fuckin’ signs of waking the fuck up out of this,” he gestured with his beer, “whatever the fuck it is.”

“Grief?” I supplied, and he gave me a flat, stone cold look like I was
the
biggest fuckin’ tool.

“Whatever you’ve been doin’ to yourself these last few years? The word ‘grief’ ain’t even come close to covering it, neither does wallowing, whatever you been doing, they ain’t got a name for, Dom.”

Oh shit, he used my real name… I sobered almost instantly, “You stripping my patch?” I asked and he frowned.

“Hell fuckin’ no! Once a brother, always a brother, lame ass. Point I’m trying to make is you lost your wife and baby girl, and ain’t none of that your fucking fault.” He raised his hand when I opened my mouth to protest and barked, “Shut it! I’m talking now, and you’ve had your fuckin’ turn. You’ve had your fuckin’ turn for three goin’ on four fuckin’ years now. Now it’s
my
turn. You feel me?”

I shut my fuckin’ mouth and swept out a hand in the classic ‘after you’ gesture and he nodded once, curtly.

“This back and forth you got going with Charity –“

“That’s done now,” I interjected, shifting uncomfortably.

“The fuck it is, I see it written all over your face. You forget I’m fuckin’ her sister? I know how addictive these women are. Hell, don’t believe me, just ask Marlin.

“I don’t have to,” I grumbled.

“That’s my point, Dom. You’ve got Corrine put on this pedestal so fuckin’ high ain’t no mortal woman down here on the ground ever gonna compare, and its fuckin’ bullshit.”

Charity’s words echoed back to me,
“I can’t be the only one trying here…”
which harkened back to what Corrine had said to me that night, before the crash.

“I blame myself for some of your marriage falling the fuck apart,” he sighed.

“We weren’t falling apart, Cap. It was just a rough patch, I would have pulled my head out of my ass and things would have been fine.”

“We’ll never know,” he said with a heavy sigh, “but Corrine came to me a few days before your accident. She told me she loved the club, but she loved you more and that we needed to let you go. We were building an empire back then, trying to help people, for profit, sure, but tryin’ to help ‘em none the less. She asked me to let you go, and I told her we needed you. Selfish as fuck, I know but it was true. You were pretty irreplaceable to the operation. She threatened to leave you and I told her she didn’t want to do that.” I was staring at him open mouthed as he dug around in his cut.

“Man, this whole time we wanted to tell you, but you’ve been on that fuckin’ razor’s edge and we were afraid if we did, you’d just end it.” He extracted a manila file folder, folded in half long ways and said, “Then Charity showed up, and we thought with how you two were magnets for each other, that you’d finally let Cor and Katy go, but then you had to go and fuck it up today, and I just don’t know what to think.”

A cold knot of dread took up residence in the center of my chest, my eyes locked on that fuckin’ file folder, and I asked, voice hollow, “What’s in the folder, Captain?”

“You ever wonder why we run Hossler’s ol’ man outta here?” he asked.

“You said he’d stolen from the club.”

“Yeah, about that, I’m sorry to have to do it this way, but it’s
what
he stole.”

He handed over the folder and I took it with numb and shaking fingers, opening it up to eight by ten glossy photos of my former brother, balls fucking deep in my wife. I dropped the folder, the photos sloshing out onto the fresh cut grass and shaking I put my head in my hands.

“Oh my god, man. This can’t be happening!” I said and tried to suck in deep and even breaths, except I couldn’t get any air. Cutter put his hand on the back of my shoulder giving it a squeeze.

“Take it easy, brother. I need you to breathe.”

“The fuck? What the fuck? Why would you keep this from me!” I shouted and Cutter sighed.

“I told you, man. We were afraid of what you would do. You weren’t in any kind of place to fuckin’
hear
it.”

I launched to my feet and staggered to the edge of the grass, falling to my knees and puking up whatever was in my stomach. I’d only wretched once before on a super emotional call that involved a child that’d been exactly Katy’s age.

“This isn’t fucking
happening!”
I repeated and looked up at my Captain, the President of my club. The resignation was written all over him, and I could tell what a burden he’d been carrying all this time in keeping it secret from me. I asked him, “Why are you doing this to me? Why now?”

“Because you’ve got a real chance at something here, and I don’t want to see you fuckin’ piss it away on some illusion of what you
thought
you had. It wasn’t fuckin’ real, Dom. Maybe it was once, but by the time the shit got really real, it was pretty fuckin’ broken.”

I bowed my head and couldn’t hold the flood of grief and loss back any longer. Cutter came over and lent support, and I fuckin’ lost my shit, as much as any man would on discovering his entire fucking life had been a goddamned lie. My reality lay shattered around me, winking in the dying afternoon light.

Chapter 23

Charity

“Hello?” I gripped the towel at my chest and tried to hold the phone so it didn’t come in contact with my wet hair.

“Hi! It’s Greg.” I paused, several heartbeats going by before he said, “Is it lame that I’m calling you like the very next day? Because I’m suddenly feeling like I’m pretty lame,” he laughed nervously.

“No! Hi, um, you just caught me at a bad time; I just got out of the shower.”

“Oh, hey, if you don’t mind me saying, I guess that’s just a matter of perspective,” his tone was teasing and I laughed a little.

“Can I dry off and give you a call right back?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, sounding skeptical.

“Call you
right
back. I promise,” I said.

“Okay.”

I ended the call and blew out an explosive breath.
What is wrong with you?
I thought to myself. I dried off and got dressed. A lace top that was long sleeved, but off the shoulder. Perfect to hide the bruises but cool enough for the sultry afternoon outside. I paired the black lace top with a pair of short light colored denim shorts and a pair of black, strappy wedge sandals. Not too dressy, but not totally casual either. I dried my hair, straightening it with my flat iron, and spent an extra few minutes covering the light bruise at the corner of my mouth with makeup. That done, I decided
fuck it
and did my whole face. I’d perfected the natural look, and with some light pink, bordering on nude lip gloss I was done.

I went back to my bedroom and picked up my phone off the bed. I needed a little ‘me’ time and had planned on heading down to the boulevard to have a drink by myself, but I fancied a bit of company, so long as it was company who wasn’t Nothing or the MC. I needed a break from the drama and Nothing’s club brothers kept casting me sympathetic looks that’d like to drive me crazy.

Greg picked up on the second ring, “I didn’t expect to hear from you,” he said.