by Voss, Deja
Mr. Gingerbread is dancing on my stomach, kneading me with his paws and bawling dramatically. If I’ve learned anything about him in the last fifteen years, it’s that when he’s hungry, he’s a huge asshole.
I don’t feel like getting out of bed yet. I don’t have to work until late tonight at the bar. Still, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and my knees crack and pop as I try and get myself upright for the day. I’m getting to an age where I need to start thinking about more reasonable footwear. Years of stilettos have got my feet all sorts of jacked up.
Mr. Gingerbread is unrelenting, damn near screaming as he weaves himself in and out of my legs.
“What’s your deal, dude?” I ask him. “You’re wound up tight today.”
I can barely make it down the hallway without tripping over him. I start a pot of coffee in the kitchen for myself while I pull out a can of food from the cupboard and begin to prep it for him. The smell makes me want to throw up. I can’t stand this canned stuff, but Mr. Gingerbread is getting old and losing teeth and it’s all he can eat anymore. I try and forget the fact that any day he’s still alive is a good day, but it’s always on my mind. He’s not the little kitten I liberated from my Aunt Mary’s hoard way back when.
“There you go, little guy,” I assure him, setting his bowl on the floor. I pour myself a cup of coffee, grab my Kindle, and go out on the front porch to do my morning reading ritual. I might not have a life of romance myself, but I am totally okay with getting lost in other people’s love lives for an hour or two.
My garbage cans are empty. I don’t remember hearing anyone pull into my driveway, but I’m thankful anyway, especially after the raccoon mess last night. Usually I have to borrow someone’s truck so I can take my trash down to the dumpster at the clubhouse. Having someone come pick it up for me almost makes me feel normal. Like a normal person living in a normal house with modern conveniences like trash pick up.
I bet it was Brooks. I smile to myself. Him and Gavin probably stopped by in the truck before they left for their trip.
I put my feet up on the porch swing, sprawling out while the morning sun kisses my face, and look for something that’s going to keep me entertained. Maybe something about a mountain man who rescues a princess from her life as a slave.
The storm door springs open with a creak and Mr. Gingerbread is taking off like a bat out of hell.
“Shit,” I mutter. I don’t let the old guy outside anymore. He tends to get lost for days at a time, and I end up worried sick. I chase after him in my bare feet as he stalks across the lawn. He heads right to the rhododendron tree in front of my bedroom window. He’s probably looking for a bird slower than he is to sacrifice.
“Gingerbread, come on, you asshole,” I yell, watching him bound from branch to branch, leaves shaking to the ground. I stand underneath the tree as he climbs around, letting him get whatever this is out of his system. After about five minutes of chaos, I’ve decided he’s had enough excitement for the day.
I step inside the tangled up branches, and something strange catches my eye. There’s a spot on the ground that looks like footprints dried into a muddy puddle.
Shivers run down my spine. Big boot prints. Obviously someone much larger than me. I slip my feet into the divots and glance through the branches. It’s a perfect view right to my bed. I immediately feel nauseous.
I feel like my personal space has been seriously compromised. My little haven away from the chaos. The only place I have to myself to do the things I want to do with nobody up in my business.
Someone is up in my business.
Someone who’s wallet is laying on the ground next to me feet. It’s just your basic black leather. It could belong to anyone. My heart pumps as I bend over to pick it up. I don’t know if I actually want to know who it belongs to.
Chapter 7
Brooks:
Gavin pulls into my driveway bright and early, laying on the horn of his big black truck. I’m still trying to get myself moving for the day. When I left Esther’s last night, I was just so full of mixed emotions, it was damn near impossible to wind down.
Sadness.
Gloom.
Regret.
And an erection that just wouldn’t quit. I feel like maybe I should’ve called a doctor after four hours like they tell you to do on the Viagra commercials, but the feelings I have for Esther are all natural. It took everything in me not to go back over to her house last night, to see what she was doing after I left. It’s a sick compulsion. And I almost got busted. Almost.
I grab my backpack and toss it in the back seat of the truck. I take a long draw from my big-ass thermos of coffee, hoping I can at least white-knuckle my way through the first couple hours of the day until we get camp set up.
Working on moonshine stills is something Gavin and I have done together since we were young bucks. My father and his grandfather taught us the art. They left it in our hands to keep it alive. Now, we turn a pretty decent profit supplying the two bars the Misfits own and the local strip club with our wares.
The only thing that sucks is that in the mountains of Pennsylvania, you gotta work with the seasons. And the seasons are never predictable. So in the summer, we try to go as hard as possible, get as much product out as we can. We’ve always talked about one day maybe going legit, doing our legacy proud, but that’s just a pipe dream. Maybe when we retire.
“You look like shit,” Gavin says as I hop in the front seat of the truck.
“Sorry, asshole. I didn’t want to get too pretty to spend the next couple days in the woods with you. I know how handsy you get.”
“Fuck off. Did you eat breakfast?”
I barely had time to throw on clothes. He was honking his horn and I was hitting the snooze alarm. I grabbed the same jeans I was wearing yesterday, put together a backpack of essentials, grabbed some coffee, and here I am. Almost all there.
“No.”
“Me neither. Sloan was up with the baby all night. Wanna go to the truck stop while we’re downtown getting supplies?”
“Sounds good to me. We gotta stop at Esther’s and get her trash first. A raccoon got into it last night.”
Gavin stares at me with a goofy smile on his face.
“How’d she con you into that?”
“Can’t we just do nice shit for your sister? She’d do the same for you.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“Brooks, she would take my trash and throw it all over my front yard and then light it on fire just for fun. Don’t even with that shit. You baby her.”
“Well, somebody has to. You think what she does for the club is fun for her? You think it’s easy? She needs to know that we’re looking out for her.”
“Listen. I love my sister as much as you do. Probably more. She has a choice. She’s always had a choice. Nobody’s forcing her to do the things she does. I’m sure the first time she finds a way out, she’ll be long gone and that trailer will turn into a shelter for feral cats. She’s a grown woman. I’ve spent my whole life fighting for her. If she ever asks me for help, I’ll do whatever it takes. But everyone who wants to be a part of this club has to do things they don’t want to do sometimes.”
I don’t even respond. I hear it in his voice, the way he says these things to make himself feel better without really meaning it. If he really meant it, we wouldn’t be pulling into her driveway right now. We grab her trash bags and throw them into the bed of the truck.
“How do you even know about the raccoon anyway?” he asks as we head down the hill to the clubhouse.
“I was dropping off her mail last night.” I shrug.
“Damn, dude. What do you call someone who’s pussy-whipped without the pussy part?”
“It’s called being a human being, Gavin.”
“I’ve known you my whole life, Brooks,” he laughs. “The way you’ve plundered your way through every dark hole that falls into your gravitational pull. You’re definitely not a human being.”
“You can’t judge me. I’m pretty sure you stood in line and waited for me to finish plundering so you could get your turn more than once.”
“You’re fucking gross.”
“You’re fucking ugly.”
It’s going to be a long two days.
Chapter 8
Esther:
I spend most of the day pacing around my trailer, holding my phone in my hand, trying to figure out what the hell I should do.
The one person I usually call in situations like this is the one person that has me in this situation.
Why in the hell would Brooks’s wallet be in that bush? I can’t hardly believe something picked it up and carried it there. That and the boot prints. This wasn’t just something that happened today. How long has it been going on? How much has he seen?
Even more baffling, why?
Why would one of my best friends be spying on me through my bedroom window? We’ve made it perfectly clear that the two of us will never be together. On one hand, I feel kind of repulsed and disgusted.
On the other, the thought of him watching me, the dirty disgusting things going on in his mind while he hides in my bushes and sees me undress, sees me touch myself, sees me cum over and over again, throwing my head back and screaming, praying, crying… imagining him doing the same thing with me. How he feels. How he sounds. How he tastes. I don’t know if my discovery is really such a bad thing.
If I know anything from my time as a Misfit, it’s that leverage will get you everywhere. Leverage will get you everything you want. And this wallet in my hand, these footprints in my shrubs, plain as day, are just that. But the real question is, do I actually want everything I want?
* * *
“What are you all dressed up for?” Morgan scowls at me as I come to relieve her from her shift at the bar. This bitch has always had it out for me. It sucks she’s such a good bartender and the guys like her so much, because I would’ve fired her a long time ago on the grounds of her bad attitude towards me. She can’t keep her filthy hands off of anything with a dick, and she is the first person to throw any other chick slightly more attractive than her under a bus if she has the opportunity.
She’s slept her way through every man in the club with the intention of becoming an old lady, and now all she is is old. Old like me. We’re two peas in a pod; we both fuck in hopes that we’ll get what we want.
Except she wants power, a title, a man to love.
I just want to protect the patch and give the men I do love a chance to keep living the life that we live.
“Laundry day,” I say to her, my short stretchy floral sundress more of a statement of my laziness than a fashion choice.
“Well, you look like you’re getting ready to work the corner. Hot date tonight?” she laughs.
“Morgan, you wouldn’t even make it a day on my corner. You’d fuck anything for free.”
“Damn right I would,” she cackles as Clutch and Austin walk through the front door. They’re both good-looking enough: Clutch, a former military dude with pretty boy tendencies, and Austin, just a big hairy redhead who grunts more than he talks. Not really my cup of tea, but they seem to always have a harem following them wherever they go. “And just in time for my shift drink, too.”
My dad follows behind them, scowling. He looks like a storm cloud, everything about the air around him black, dark, electric. Everyone in the bar goes silent at the same time, and the only sound you can hear besides Heat’s wheezing cough is his footsteps on the ground.
“Esther, I need to see you in the office,” he says, not making eye contact with anyone else in the room.
“Looks like your shift drink is gonna have to wait, Morgan,” I say, sticking my tongue out at her. “Try to keep it in your pants while I’m gone, sweetie.”
Chapter 9
Brooks:
“I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal, Brooks. I’ll get it. Just get me back later.”
We are sitting at the table in the little truck stop diner, and when the waitress brings the check, I reach into my pocket to find my wallet missing. I’m wearing the same jeans as yesterday. There’s really no reason why it shouldn’t be in there.
I guess it could’ve fallen out on the floor of my bedroom. I wasn’t really paying attention this morning while I was getting ready. The thing is, I kind of doubt that’s the case, and I instantly start sweating bullets.
I make Gavin take me back to the house just to double-check, silent the whole way there.
“You’re being ridiculous,” he whines, standing in my bedroom doorway as I look high and low and under my bed for my wallet. “By the time we get out there, it’s going to be dark. We just wasted a whole fucking day. What do you need your wallet in the woods for anyway?”
“Just go,” I say. “We’ll try again tomorrow.” I need to get this figured out. If it’s not here, then it’s definitely there. And if it’s there, then where? I pull out my phone and text Esther, hoping maybe she found it on her kitchen counter or something.
Hey girl, u seen my wallet?
“I’m a busy man, Brooks. My week is jam-packed.”
“Just because you have pet goats doesn’t mean you’re a busy man. It means you do whatever your old lady asks you to do.”
“Hey, she thought they were cute. They kinda are until they break into your house and start chewing up your couch cushions.”
“Just come get me tomorrow morning,” I say. Usually Esther texts back pretty quick. Maybe she’s already at work. Maybe she’s busy. That could be a good thing. I can go over to her house and look for it while she’s gone. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“You’re acting like a real weirdo today. Weirder than usual, Brooks. Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Get out of my house. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say. There’s really nothing I can tell him about the situation that would make it seem less weird than it is. I think my wallet is in the bushes at his sister’s house. The bush that I hide in and watch her from.
Chapter 10
Esther:
“Whiskey?” my dad asks, uncapping the bottle and grabbing two glasses from the shelf behind his desk.
Ugh, I think. I can tell by the way he’s pacing and muttering under his breath that he’s in a mood. The fact that he’s doing the usual ritual involving plying me with alcohol means that I likely have a job coming up. “I’m good,” I tell him. “I gotta close the bar tonight. What’s the damage, Dad?”
He looks nothing short of terrible. Ever since his heart attack, his skin has looked gray to me. His voice that was once gravelly and low now can’t even make it a sentence without hacking his lungs up. Yet here he is, lighting up a cigar and downing Tullamore Dew like he’s still in his thirties. Not my place to say anything. I love my dad, but if he wants to put himself out of his misery at a rapid rate, he’ll be doing us all a favor.
“Salazar,” he says, and I involuntarily cringe. Joe Salazar has more money than he knows what to do with, the kind of money he married into. I could get past his shortness, fatness, and baldness if he wasn’t such a humongous asshole. He’s the kind of man who thinks he can own people because he’s so rich. He’s the kind of man who knows exactly how repulsive he is, but doesn’t give a fuck. He’s used to being able to buy whatever he wants.
I die a little inside every time he ‘buys’ me, even if it’s just for work, just for pretend.
“Dad, you know I hate him. I don’t wanna do deals with him anymore.” Joe always makes me feel like a street beggar. He makes me feel weak, like he’s holding something over my head. He’s not like our other usual clients. “He makes me feel like shit about myself.”
“I know; I’m sorry. I don’t have any other options, though. It’s just pretend, Esther, you know that. Acting. It’s always just pretend. Use your tools.”
I hate when he says that. My ‘tools’ were given to me without my consent. My tools were gifted to me when I was battered, broken, completely alone in
this world, a teenager just looking for someone, anyone, to save her from this nightmare. My tools can put me into a frame of mind where everything is blank, everything was hollow, and I was just a shell of a human being.
“Can’t we send someone else? Honestly, I will do any other damn job you come up with. That man sketches me out, though.”
“We need ARs. Lots of them. If we can’t deliver to the Vipers by the end of the week, we’re all going to be Salazar’s bitches. We need you, Esther.”
I nod back my tears. He doesn’t need to see me cry. He’s right. This is my place in this world. This is my duty to the Misfits, the men I love, the patch that I would lay my life down for.
“I’m working on finding you a replacement anyway.” He shrugs. “It’s not like you’re in your prime anymore.”
The thought makes me shudder. What I was put through when I was ‘in my prime’ is nothing that any self-respecting woman should have to undergo. It’s clear as day that I need to keep doing what I do, not only to protect my club, but to save someone else from a life of misery. He’s not going to live forever, and if I can just hang on until that day, I have faith that Gavin and Brooks will turn this train wreck around.
“No matter who you train, they’ll never have what I have, Dad,” I say. “The one thing that every man you do business wants…”
He raises his eyebrows at me, and smirks. He knows exactly what I’m about to say.