If I Should Die: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel (17 page)

I should've known last week when the back kitchen window was found broken that Ty’s paternal spikes would be more noticeable. Anytime when there's an incident somewhat involving my safety, he loses his shit. Especially since Grams passed two years ago. Every time? Bitch, every time. And until his feathers are calmed back down, I’m forced to deal with this new paternal urge of his towards me.

After we’ve said goodbye and I hang up, I step into the shower and I swear, as soon as the hot pelting water hits my tired aching flesh, I almost cry it feels so good.

I’m happy, I guess. If someone were to ask me how I feel these days, I’d say I’m happy. Inhaling the fresh lemon and apple scent of my shampoo as I lather the smoke smell of the club from my hair, I can’t help as the thought crosses my mind that I should be. Happy, that is.

I’ve been much worse. I’ve certainly lived much worse, that’s for sure. I have my own house; though I didn’t put myself in it—it’s mine. I have my own car. And for the most part, I’m covering all my bills. I’m a functioning adult, as loosely as you’d like to take that term, of course. But it’s working. It may be different, or unorthodox, or abnormal, but it’s mine. And I’m happy, for the most part. I’m pretty happy with my lot in life.

After I’ve shaved from armpits to ankles, and rinsed the conditioner from my hair, I grab the fluffy towel from the shower rod and begin wiping my face with it as I step from the old claw-foot tub. Most parts of this house are old. It’s funny, really. The entire house was a metaphor for what Grams and I built our life upon when we moved down here.

The core of the house is probably older than dirt. But with time and storms, it’s like the crust and the mantle are new but the core, the strength of the house, is old. I wanted to tell Grams that badly. And I almost did, several times after the thought struck me one night the first year we lived here.

But you know that interim of time? When you’re between thinking when will this life ever end? And wondering how in the hell you got so lucky? When things are still and the days pass too quickly for you to even notice? Yeah, I forgot to say it to her, sometime then. Sometime on one of those days, I put it off.

I head towards the double doors leading to the deck on the back of the house after I throw on a band tee of Ty’s and some boyshorts. Swiping the small stack of mail from my dresser, I begin flipping through it before heading towards my bed for my bag when I remember I don’t have anymore damn cigarettes.

“Shit!” I mutter, stepping out on the back deck, sans my smokes, mainly to let my hair air dry because it makes it easier to manage and just throw up in a bun, instead of actually paying someone to cut it, but also so I can sit out under the night sky and use the full, bright moon to glance at what bills I won’t be able to pay ‘til...next Wednesday.

My hands still when I see her handwriting scrawled across a letter from New York, New York. “Dammit, Eden.” And I can’t promise you I’m cursing because of her or the fact that I’m out of cigarettes when my pointer finger swipes open the envelope.

As soon as I see the black ink scribbled across the college ruled loose leaf paper the letter is written on, I wince.
Why not just email? Like we’ve been doing for the last seven years?

I don’t know what to tell you—maybe it’s Ben’s fault. Maybe it’s Mom’s. I really don’t know. I do know I wish she’d stay the hell away from the MC gangs.
Jesus. Christmas.

I mean, from Seattle through Detroit. Hell, all over Canada and the North East states. Between motorcycle life and being tucked in her daddy’s penthouse in Jersey, the girl stays unaccounted for.
And I thought I was the fucking homeless vagabond. Ha!

Since I don’t currently have a cigarette, instead of getting off my lazy, tired ass, I look out over the ocean and breathe with my sister’s letter still in hand. And I know I’m hesitating. But I take my time, scanning the surface of the sea before looking up in the beautiful starry night sky.

“I shudder to even know, Eden Grace, what in the hell you’ve done this time,” I mutter aloud, before glancing down at the piece of paper in my hand.

Eve,

It’s been a while. I miss you. How’s everything been? Since Grams? Sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral. There was some stuff that was going on then with Ben. But it’s done now. I’m finished with that part of my life for good. I tried calling Mom a few times, but she’s either not home or not answering. I hope she’s not unhappy with me. But more than anything, I pray you’re not. I’m sorry I haven’t been a very good little sister. What I’m more sorry for though, is not trying. But I will. Soon. You’ll see, I will. Look, this is my new address in Clearwater. Not the one on the envelope, but the one at the bottom of the page. Write me and let me know what your number is. I lost my phone a couple of months back and can’t find where I wrote your number down. I was going to ask Mom but she never picked up. Gosh, I hope she isn’t mad at me. I’m doing so much better, Eve. I really am. When I get your letter, I’ll call you from the payphone outside where I’m staying! Hopefully we can visit the next time Josh is supposed to be heading through there. I love you, Eve Of’May O’Malley. I miss you like crazy! I can’t wait for you to see what I’ve done to my hair!

Love always, your little sister~ Eden.

I’m telling you...I don’t know what happened. And you’d think with the advantages Eve’s had… but I guess when it’s nature vs. nurture, it’s different for each individual. And yes, my Grams rattled off those exact same words, probably a hundred times in the last ten years, and that’s probably where I get the thought. I just wanted so much more from my sister. Is it too much to ask for family to just act like family? I thought when we were kids that no matter what—we’d get it figured it out. And we’d be a family. Even if it was just us. I swore, when we grew up, that we were going to be different. Not all estranged like Eleanor and Ilsa.

And I don’t know if it’s the thought of that or the reality of it that hurts more when suddenly I remember the extra pack of cigarettes I stashed in the junk drawer in the kitchen the other day. I hop from the wicker chair I’m sitting on and cease my mental bitching and whining before hightailing it towards that direction.

It’s sad really; a measly pack of cigarettes, or hell just the thought of one, puts this much pep back into my step. Especially after this exhausting fucking day. And the fact that I’ve just heard from my sister for the first time in four months, I’m sure, seems even more pathetic to you...but still, I’m damn near skipping as I flounce into the living room on my way to fetch my cigarettes. I haven’t been this excited to find something in I don’t know how long. Skipping, I tell you. I’m damn near skipping when I enter the living room.

It’s his words, and their unique ability to strike through a silent room with the stealth of a goddamn ninja, that has me screaming bloody fucking murder before leaping twenty-four inches off the ground with my bare feet. “It’s my vagabond. There she fucking is.” His voice may as well be a razor on silk thread just before he slowly claps three times.

Once. Twice. Thrice. Three claps of his huge hands ring out through the living room.

And the same damn voice that’s riddled my dreams for the past ten years, and every halfass attempt at every halfass relationship I ever entertained the thought of over the last ten years. They never stood a chance in hell because of the owner of that damn dark voice.

I can’t tell you how long it took my eyes to find him sitting on my Snuggler recliner in the corner of the dark room. I can tell you, until I did, the breath in my lungs didn’t move. Nor did a single other motherfucking thing in the house. If it weren’t for the full moon hanging so low in the midnight sky, I don’t know that I would have been able to see him. ‘Cause all I’m currently
barely
able to stare at through the dark room is his beautiful fucking silhouetted profile.

Once his claps have ricocheted from my silent living room walls, I find my voice and speak. “Jacques Cain. What in the hell do you want? With me?” I lie and tell myself he can’t see me wince when I realize the ‘
with me’
part of that statement made it past my lips. But I am able to hold back the curse.

“Pipsqueak, do you know how long—” His sinister chuckle causes every damn hair across the surface of my skin to rise on end. And when his laughter stops, he rubs his hands down the front of his worn out looking jeans and pauses. Then a few seconds after, he reaches over and flips on the light.

Then it’s his eyes. It’s at this point when his voice and the words he’s speaking to me are lost. All I fucking see is a sea of navy. On a matte canvas of tanned tattooed skin. With the beginning of salt starting to pepper throughout his dark long hair. But those eyes though...those goddamn navy blue eyes.

They feel like knives carving out chunks of my soul. “There’s no way you can know. There’s no fucking way.” He coughs before standing and opening one of the screen doors—the one which wasn’t already open to the back deck. Two feet away from where I just went through my bills, and read a letter from my sister.

And when he stands, only when he does, it looks as though he’s still standing he’s so damn tall. I wonder why his height wasn’t something that stuck out in my memory all this time.

Oh yeah, because the only time I saw him over the age of...hell, twenty? He was on his back, and that was only when I was sober.

Good Lord and heaven’s angels. When they sing, I bet it’s songs about men who behave like the devil and look like him, as he comes to his full height inside my living room. His dark, long hair falls around his shoulders until he runs his fingers through it and leaves it tucked behind his ears. This shit isn’t even fair. What the hell? It’s like George Clooney mated with Matthew Mcconaughey. It’s ridiculous! My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach and I quickly decide to turn it into something a little more productive, like, I dunno, anger. Better than vomit at this point.

When his navy blue eyes narrow back on mine, I blurt out, “Is that all you own? Just a closet full of worn out denim and leather?” I can’t stop the snide remark from falling off the tip of my tongue if I tried, ‘cause of the wreck of the remains he left alongside what was once my heart. Why couldn’t he just stay away? I was doing so well. So perfectly well, and alone.
Why?

After he stops but before he speaks, he slowly turns around. When there’s less than a foot between us, he stops.

And then he doesn’t move. Not another inch.

Nope, he just pierces my eyes again with his, putting everything else in the world but he and I in another time, then speaks.
“Do you have any idea how long I thought I fucking stole your sister’s V-card? When in reality, all along...it was you? Do you even know who the fuck I am, little vagabond?”

After the brothers and I survived the attack on the club, I spent three months on the fourth floor of Mt. Sinai and another eighteen in and out of physical rehab. Apparently a man isn’t supposed to take two to the chest and one to the stomach and make it out alive. But I did. And I’m paying for it every fucking day since.

I don’t think the human body is supposed to be subjected to the anesthesia associated with that much time under the knife. My theory is, it does something to the muscles around the bone. I don’t know, maybe there isn’t enough oxygen or some shit. I just know my damn body hurt a hundred times worse after every surgery.

I really don’t know how to tell you this, honestly—and I may be rambling. Possibly to ward off any lingering pain from the old scars around, coincidentally, both my heart and my body.

So, other than just say it—fuck it, I’mma just say it: Pops didn’t make it. Sorry. With his heart, even if he would have lived through the first surgery, he wouldn’t have made it through the one after they could find him a heart. I think it was my mother who once told me sometimes there’s a blessing in a curse, and there is such a thing as worse than being dead. It’s living a lifetime of pain and agony that’s worse.