Craving Absolution (23 page)

Farrah

My phone blew up the next day as I was leaving the hospital.

Cam
: Hey u ok?

Cam
: Farrah?

Cam
: Its me Cam

Cam
: Are u there?

Cam
: Hello?

Farrah
: Hey dude, what’s up?

Cam
: R u ok?

Farrah
: Yeah. Small problem with the appendix so they took the sucker out. No worries.

Cam
: Dad wuldnt let me go 2 hospital last night with grease. Srry

Farrah
: Grease was here? I didn’t even see him. No worries, bud.

Cam
: Ya. Vera called grease cuz slider was freaking out

Farrah
: Crotchety old man. Why was he freaking out?

Cam
: Because you were in the hospital. Duh

Cam
: What does crotchty mean?

Farrah
: Grumpy.

Cam
: O ya. That fits lol

Farrah
: Did Grease take care of it?

Cam
: Think so. Didn’t here anything else

Farrah
: Good. How have you been? Sorry, dude, you were supposed to come over yesterday.

Cam
: Ha. Im fine. Maybe dad will let me come over in a couple days. Prob not tho

Farrah
: Everything okay?

Cam
: Ya. Hes a dick

Farrah
: Careful, bud. Don’t get in trouble

Cam
: Ill erase my texts

Farrah
: Not what I meant—but that’s probably a good idea

Cam
: Wish I didn’t have to listen to him

Farrah
: He’ll come around. You guys are dealing with a lot.

Cam
: I wish he would have died not my mom

Farrah
: Don’t say that, dude.

Cam
: K

Cam
: I gotta go help brenna talk 2 u l8r

Farrah
: Okay. Stay out of trouble so you can come hang out.

Cam
: Ill try

My stomach was in knots when he stopped texting. Cameron was usually pretty easygoing, and he
’d never complained to me before. I wondered if it was the anonymity of texting that had him so chatty, or if things were getting worse for him.

My house had become his safe haven before I
’d left for Lily’s, and the thought of him having nowhere to go for the past few months made me sick. I’d been selfish, I should have called him more, I should have checked in more often. Who was taking care of him? I knew Tommy wasn’t any better from the way Callie had described things.

The dude had seriously fallen off the deep end when his wife and kids were killed, and I couldn
’t fault him for that. But I did fault him for ignoring his remaining child. Tommy just seemed to ignore the fact that Cameron needed him, preferring to drown his sorrows in alcohol and disappear for days at a time, even during the lockdown. It was fucking frustrating.

I wished I could just take Cam home with me and be the parent I knew he needed.

Farrah

“I need to get out of this motherfucking cock-sucking bed!” I yelled to the ceiling in annoyance.

Cody had just left for the morning, and I could hear Gram making breakfast in my tiny kitchen.

“Then get your ass out of bed!” Gram yelled back.

“
I’ve got a fucking cramp!” I moaned, rubbing my calf gingerly as I tried to flex my foot.

Shit, when the doctor had told me
when I left the hospital that my recovery time would be minimal, I’d figured that it would be smooth sailing from then on. I’d been up and around the house after a few days, and within a couple of weeks I’d been off shopping with Gram, hanging with Lily when she’d come up to visit as promised, watching movies with Cameron and driving over to see Callie and Will. I’d felt fantastic.

But as time went on, I felt less and less fantastic due to a number of different factors. My back hurt. My ribs hurt. I got excruciating cramps everywhere from my ass cheeks to my feet
, no matter how many bananas I ate. Yeah, bananas were supposed to help with muscle cramps—who knew? On top of all that, my eyes became super sensitive to sunlight for some ungodly reason, and I had to wear the blackest shades I could find, even when the weather was overcast.

I was so done being pregnant, and I was only thirty-four weeks. God, the next six weeks were going to blow big
, hairy donkey dick.

Oh yeah, and I
’d started cursing like a goddamn sailor because my mood swings were so extreme it was either do that or scream at the top of my lungs, and I’d already had the neighbors complaining to the landlord. Twice.

I
’d seen Slider and Vera a few times in the last few months, and I couldn’t say that our relationship had progressed, but it had gotten easier to be around them. We weren’t quite friends, but maybe in the future when I wasn’t dealing with Cody’s spawn turning me into a maniac, I’d be able to make the first move. Maybe. I had to admit they were being cool, though, in a way that I knew they were letting me set the pace.

The biggest problem weighing me down, other than the thirty pounds of extra weight I was lugging around, was Cody. He
’d been nothing but helpful since the moment I’d left the hospital, but that was it. He was helpful, but he wasn’t anything else that I’d come to expect from him.

He barely touched me, and we hadn
’t had sex in so freaking long that if a hymen grew back from lack of penetration, the doctors would be encountering a virgin birth in six weeks. It was frustrating as hell and I didn’t understand it, but I knew with complete certainty that it didn’t have anything to do with me. There was something weighing on him, and after hearing about the member and his daughter who’d betrayed the Aces, I wondered if that had anything to do with it.

The playful
, sexy Cody I’d fallen for was gone, and left behind was a man who rarely showed any emotion at all. He was good to me, and I really had no room to complain, but I missed him.

I missed him kissing me like he couldn
’t get enough of me, and copping a feel as I walked by. I missed the way he would waggle his eyebrows at me like a complete idiot when he was teasing me, or kiss a scowl off my face when he’d done something especially irritating. I missed the way he would piss me off and then fuck me into forgetting what I was mad about, like he’d done that one day . . .

• • •

I had been listening to the Beatles while standing at the sink in the kitchen, completely irritated that Cody couldn’t remember to rinse a single dish. I’d been trying to peel dried chili off the bottom of a bowl, when he walked up behind me.

His hands grasped my hips through the long summer dress I was wearing, and before I could spin around
, he pressed against me, guiding our hips so they were slowly swaying from side to side with the beat of the music.

My breath caught in my throat as I felt him grow hard against my ass.

Then he began to sing, and while his voice usually sounded like a dying hyena anytime he sang along with music on the radio, this time it was so low that he was practically whispering as he used his chin to pull my hair away from my neck.

“Come together, right now, over me
,” he sang.

How he made the song sexy, I will never understand
. But as he began to pull my dress up and over my hips, I dropped the bowl into the sink with a loud crash, completely absorbed in the way he moved against me, and the feel of his breath against my throat.

Within minutes I
had been sitting on the kitchen counter—my irritation completely forgotten—and he had been inside me, chuckling at the way I’d come unglued.

• • •

I shook my head at the memory, a small smile on my face as the cramp finally abated. God, those things freaking hurt.

Gram and I were headed over to Callie
’s in less than an hour so we could take Will off her hands for the day. Where I’d barely felt any different during the first few months of pregnancy, Callie had had the absolute worst first few months, and things didn’t seem to be getting any better. She was into her second trimester, the time period that every pregnant woman looked forward to as the end of her morning sickness, but Callie’s wasn’t going away. She was still sick all day long, and you could see the weariness on her face no matter what time of day it was, or even if she’d just woken up. She’d pretty much gotten screwed both literally and figuratively this time around. She just lay around the house most of the time, so on top of feeling like she was going to constantly vomit, she also had to deal with the guilt of foisting Will off on family members.

Bottom line: P
regnancy sucked. I was glad mine was almost over.

“
Whatcha making?” I asked Gram as I waddled my ass into the kitchen. Shit, my hips hurt today.

“
Bacon and eggs,” she replied. “You want toast, you make it.”

“
Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this—” My words were cut off by someone knocking on the door. “I’ll get it,” I grumbled, grabbing my sunglasses from the table and sliding them on.

I couldn
’t have been more surprised by the visitor than if the pope himself had decided to grace me with his presence.

“
Uh, hey?”

“
Hi, sorry. I don’t have your number or I would have called. Can I come in?” Brenna asked, shifting her baby higher on her hip.

“
Yeah, sure,” I replied, stepping back from the doorway so she could scoot past me. “You can sit down if you want.” She was carrying not only the baby, but a huge bag of crap, and she looked like she was about to fall over.

“
Oh, thanks,” she said, falling onto the couch with a huff. “God, I don’t remember carrying this much crap with Trix.”

“
Hi, Brenna!” Gram called from the kitchen.

“
Hi, Rose!”

“
You want something to eat?”

“
Oh no, thank you, I’m only staying for a minute.”

What the fuck was going on? What, they were buddies all of a sudden? I
tossed my shades onto the coffee table, then stood there with a confused look on my face as Gram shuffled around and eventually walked toward the front door.

“
Farrah, I’m just gonna go grab Will and bring him back here so you two can visit,” she informed me as she picked up her keys. “Look away from the door, you don’t have your sunglasses on.”

I turned my head away just in time to escape the sunshine pouring into the apartment, before the door was closed again.

“So, I messed shit up with us,” Brenna began, speaking so fast that her words tumbled over each other. “I don’t have any excuse, except for the fact that I was pregnant and irrational, and worried about Cody. It was stupid. I was an idiot, but I’m hoping we can start over because you seem really cool and Callie seems really cool, and the Aces are a family and I don’t want things to be weird forever—”

“
Jesus, do you ever take a breath?” I asked in awe.

“
Occasionally.”

“
Okay, well, we’re fine. So don’t worry about it.”

“
Oh,” she said with a frown. “Well, that was easier than I thought.”

“
If you would have shown up a few months ago, you’d be leaving here bald after I’d snatched all of that pretty red hair right off your head. But now, eh,” I told her seriously, walking to the other end of the couch to sit down. “I’ve got bigger fish to fry, dude. I’m over it.”

“
Are you sure? Because I was a total bitch.”

“
Yeah, you were,” I replied with a grin. “It’s water under the bridge. Back then, Cody and I had just gotten together, and shit was weird and I was freaking out. Now? I know the dude’s not going anywhere. So, we’re good.”

The lie about knowing Cody wasn
’t leaving rolled smoothly off my tongue. I’d had years of practice.

“
I’m glad,” she said with a warm smile. “So, when are you due?”

“
Six more weeks,” I said with a whine, leaning back into the couch cushions. “It’s going to be the longest six weeks of my life.”

“
Nah, it’ll fly by,” she assured me, pulling out a little toy for her boy to stick in his mouth.

“
He’s cute.”

“
Thanks! He looks just like his dad.” She rolled her eyes. “It seems that dominant genes will forever make sure that my children look nothing like me.”

We talked for close to an hour before she had to leave, and by the time she
’d left, I was ready for a nap. I was just dropping off when the front door opened again and Cody strode inside.

“
Hey, Ladybug. What are you doing sleeping on the couch?” he asked as he made his way toward me, then leaned down to lift me into his arms. “We’ve got a perfectly good bed in the other room.”

“
I hate sleeping in there without you,” I mumbled, laying my head on his shoulder. “God, I’m so
done
being pregnant.”

“
Only a few more weeks, beautiful,” he reminded me, laying me gently in the bed.

“
Will you lay with me for a while?” I asked sleepily.

I could see the indecision in his gaze
, his wish to be somewhere else, but I didn’t take back my question. If he wanted to be somewhere else, he had to say it; I wasn’t going to give him an out.

“
Okay, baby,” he whispered, his face softening as he slid his cut from his shoulders.

The Aces had patched him in not long after Slider had gotten out of the hospital, but I hadn
’t gone to the party. I’d still been recovering from surgery at that point, and thinking back, he hadn’t invited me anyway. I didn’t complain, though, because he hadn’t stayed out late that night, and when he’d gotten home, I’d been the one to cover his new tattoos with ointment.

Yeah, tattoos. More than one. He
’d gotten the big tattoo that all the guys had on his back that day, but the day before, he’d done something else . . .

• • •

“What is that?” I’d called blearily from the bed as Cody had pulled his shirt off and I caught a glimpse of some sort of bandaging on his chest.

“
Lay back down and I’ll show you,” he’d ordered, unbuttoning his jeans and shoving them down his legs.

I didn
’t know how he expected me to lie back down when he was giving me a personal strip show. He walked around the far edge of the bed and crawled in beside me, leaning up on one elbow until he was hovering over me, the bandage on his chest right in front of my face.

“
Take it off, baby.”

“
God, I’ve been waiting to hear those words for freaking months,” I teased, watching his mouth pull up on one side in a small grin.

I reached up, feeling proud of myself that I
’d made him smile, and gently pulled the tape that held the bright white bandage to his skin. When the tattoo came into focus, at first it looked like scribbly lines. I must have looked confused as hell, because he began to explain.

“
The top tattoo is your heartbeat,” he said quietly, making my breath hitch in my throat. “I marked the little paper they had hooked to your monitor when you were out, so I knew what part I wanted to use. I didn’t really need it, though, your heart sped up whenever I started talking to you, so even if I wouldn’t have marked it, I still would have known what piece I wanted.”

I reached up to ghost my finger over the tattoo, careful not to touch it. My heartbeat.

“The one on the bottom is our baby girl’s from when we had the ultrasound.”

My finger ghosted over that one too, but I still couldn
’t find anything to say.

“
They’re patching me in tomorrow, and I’ll be on the chair for fucking hours getting my back tat, but I wanted yours to be there first.”