by Voss, Deja
Instead, I’m going to have to turn my back on the only life I know. I’m going to have to leave this place and never come back again. She’s sleeping in my arms, and I pull the sheets up over us. As long as I have this woman beside me, everything is going to be just fine. It will all be worth it.
Chapter 26
Present Day:
“Wake up, fuck stick,” the tall blond growls from the doorway of my bedroom.
“Fuck stick?” I laugh, pulling the blankets up around my neck. “Is that any way to talk to your big brother?”
Goob, my youngest brother, is chuckling in the doorway. It’s so crazy seeing him as a man, now. When I left, he was barely eight years old. He was always a wild child. Good kid, but goofy as hell. Now he’s grown, and I can see in his eyes that the club has taken its toll on him.
“Come on,” he urges. “You wanna go on a run with me?”
“I didn’t bring my running shoes,” I say, rolling over.
“Did you bring your ass kicking boots?”
“That kind of run,” I say. “I did, actually.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve worked the family business. Sure, I saw a lot of action when I served overseas, but there’s nothing more thrilling than a little hand-to-hand combat. I slide out of bed with a groan, my joints aching like they always do in the morning.
“You gonna be alright there, grandpa?” he asks.
“Are you going to stand there and stare at my dick for the rest of the day or are you going to let me get ready?”
He slams the door behind me and I pull on my jeans and toss on a t-shirt. I’m going to have to do laundry here quick. This living out of a bag shit is getting old, but I’m dreading the idea of going back to my old apartment to get my stuff. Gary’s going to be pissed. Hell, by the way he keeps texting me, I know he already is tired of covering for me at the bar.
I brush my teeth and slap some cold water on my face, and as I walk out into the living room, Esther comes down the steps in her robe.
“What are you guys doing? It’s not even seven in the morning yet,” she whines. Goob is fixing a pot of coffee, while her cat, Mr. Gingerbread, weaves in and out of my legs, using my jeans as a scratching post.
“I gotta go visit Billy Barns today,” he says. “Figured old pappy and I could go on a little family road trip. I figured it’ll be nice to take him on an adventure before we have to put him in a nursing home.”
“Come over here and old pappy me,” I say. “You’ll be the one who needs a wheelchair.”
Esther giggles and pulls a carton of milk out of the fridge. “Just so you know, I love this. I love having us all together again. Even if somebody ends up with a broken face.”
“What about Gavin?” Goob asks.
“Who?” she teases. “Yeah, he’s alright, too. Seriously, though, it feels good having you guys here with me. I spent so much of my life missing you. Just think, now we can be a normal family. We can have Christmas and birthdays that don’t involve disappointment and dread.”
“We can still have drinking and crying, though right?” I laugh. “Those are my favorite holiday traditions.”
She wraps her arms around me and presses her head to my chest. “Drinking, crying, and explosions.”
“I don’t know what y’all are talking about, but I’m in,” Brooks says, walking down the steps. He sits down on a stool at the island with a groan.
“Why aren’t you calling him grandpa?” I ask Goob.
“Cuz he’s the president. I don’t know what you are. Just some weird old homeless guy who Esther found hanging around the strip club.”
I make my hand into a fist and shake my head.
We sit around drinking coffee, waiting for the sun to come up.
“You guys sure you don’t need back up?” Brooks asks.
“It’s Billy Barns,” Goob grunts. “We can handle it.”
“Yeah, Brooks. They can handle it. Besides, we got work to do around here,” Esther says with a wink. “This baby you want isn’t going to make itself.”
“Gross,” Goob says, making a gagging noise.
“Yeah, gross.”
I hop into his truck and we head off down the road.
“This is nice,” I say, admiring the leather interior.
“Thanks, my last one got totaled when my fiancée got kidnapped by her dad.”
“Well fuck,” I laugh. “Looks like you met your perfect match. Where’d you meet, daddy issues dot com?”
“Yeah,” he chuckles, a goofy grin on his face. “What about you? You got a wife? Kids?”
“No,” I say. It’s crazy. It’s slightly depressing. He’s almost twenty years younger than I am, but he has his shit together more than me. “I didn’t really have time when I was overseas.”
Now I have all the time in the world though, and I have a woman who I want more than anything to make my wife. I just need to do whatever I can to make sure I can give her the best life possible.
“That’s fair,” he shrugs. “I’m glad you’re back, Micah. I never really knew you except as a kid, but when you went away, I always felt like something was missing.”
We pull into the parking lot at the shady-looking adult bookstore. He loads his Glock, and I follow suit, not even thinking twice, just another day in the life of a Misfit.
We are perfect strangers, Goob and I, but for some reason, it works.
He’s my brother through and through, and now we’re going to go do what we were raised to do.
Chapter 27
Amber:
Teaching yoga in a turtleneck is not something I’d ever even imagined, but there was no amount of make-up that would’ve covered up this ugly little love bite, yellowed after a day of marinating. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I had leprosy. I’d take it for him, though. It would be totally worth it.
“Do you have a cold, Amber?” my boss asks when I come in the door, spotting my attire.
“No,” I say. “Just a sore throat. I was practicing my mantras all weekend and lost my voice,” I lie. Unless ‘oh god, oh god,’ counts.
There’s a firm policy at the studio that if we are sick, we need to find a replacement. It’s way too easy for a common cold to wipe out the entire workforce here. I don’t want to miss work. I might be financially set up for the month, but I need something to keep me busy during the days, or I’ll just end up spending all my time at the nursing home being sad with June. At least I’m bettering my life here. My life and the life of all my students.
I love teaching classes, and I know I’m good at it because even my very early morning ones constantly have a wait list. Today was no exception. Time flew by, and before I even had a chance to notice the rumble of my hungry stomach, it was nearly two in the afternoon.
“I’m heading for lunch,” I tell the receptionist. Mondays, I usually hit up the pizza shop at the end of the block for dollar slice day. I sit in a booth in the corner with my back to the door, because Lord knows I’ve been shamed by the other teachers at the studio a few times for my dietary choices, but I can’t help that I run on grease and carbs. I’m just listening to my body, and my body says that pizza sauce counts as a serving of vegetables.
I pull out my cell phone to a text from Micah that makes me smile.
“Hope you’re having a great day, gorgeous. Miss you.”
“Hey, I accidentally made some extra breadsticks,” the guy working behind the counter shouts over to me. “You want ’em?”
Great day? This is shaping up to be a fantastic day, but I’m definitely not high maintenance.
I text Micah back to tell him I’ll call him tonight after I visit Mama in the nursing home.
I munch away, scrolling through my Instagram feed, looking at other yogis and what kind of asanas they are currently working on, trying to get some inspiration for my advanced class this evening.
My phone starts to ring and it’s Aunt June. She’s probably just calling to see what we are going to do abou
t dinner tonight.
“Hey, sweetie, are you busy right now?” she asks.
“I have a class in about an hour. Right now, no. Are you ok?”
She begins to sob and I know something isn’t right. This isn’t her normal afternoon check-in.
“June!” I shout. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? Where’s Tony?”
“I’m fine. It’s your grandma. She’s not with us anymore.”
My heart hurts. I know that we’ve been anticipating this day for so long, and I’ve cried a million tears, grieving the woman she used to be for as long as I can remember. I figured when it came to this point, I’d be ready. I know she’s finally at peace now. I know she can finally stop fighting for a life that really wasn’t even worth living. Still, it sucks. It’s a punch to the guts knowing that the woman I grew up calling my mother is dead.
“Are you at the home?” I ask. She’s crying softly, and I feel the tears start to pour from my eyes, too. “I have to run over to the studio real quick and cancel the rest of my classes and I’ll come meet you.”
“I’m at the house,” she says. “Please don’t drop everything just to come here. You do what you have to do, Amber.”
“They’ll understand,” I say. They know about my situation, they’ve known for years. Lately, everyone has stopped asking me about things, because they are always pretty grim, but I’m fairly certain they will be more than happy to let me have the rest of the day off. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”
I hang up the phone and take my tray to the counter.
“Don’t cry, girl,” the boy working the counter says. “You look so much prettier when you smile.”
I fight the urge to tell him to fuck off. I know he’s just trying to be nice, but if I was ever entitled to ugly cry in a public place, today would be the day.
Instead, I just turn and walk out into the gray April smog and fog. It’s time for me to be strong for my family. You can plan for days like these for years and years, but when the time comes, you realize you’re not as strong as you thought you were. There’s people all around me, but I feel so cold and alone.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to a text from Micah.
Can’t wait to hear your voice.
I want to call him right now and tell him.
I want to let him know how I’m feeling, that I’m not okay. But this isn’t his burden. He doesn’t even know me. He doesn’t know my situation. He’s going to have to wait until later.
Chapter 28
Micah:
I’m not going to lie; I’m fairly relieved we didn’t have to shoot anyone today.
The only casualties were the glass case at the counter that Goob threw Billy Barns through. The sight of a bunch of ‘luxury dildos’ vibrating around on the floor while he laid there in a pool of blood was garish and amusing at the same time. He quickly coughed up the cash he owed the club for a prior gambling debt, and we were out of there in less than a half hour.
“What the fuck?” I shout as Goob tosses this big pink dick onto my lap and it begins to spin around and thrust.
“I dunno, I thought my old lady might like it,” he shrugs.
“I think your old lady might run off with it and leave your ass in the dirt,” I say, handing it back to him.
“You’re probably right.” He tosses it out the window onto the highway, and I put my head in my hands and laugh. I can’t explain how much I’ve missed this. Not necessarily hanging out with Goob, per se, but having a family just as fucked-up as I am to spend my life with. Even though me and my platoon were extremely close in the Marines, it’s a totally different jam being in a motorcycle club. Though both are essentially fighting for freedom, the Misfits are fighting for a very specific type. A freedom that most people don’t understand.
“What now?” I ask.
“I got nowhere to be. I thought we could hang out. Unless you got shit to do?”
“I’m good,” I say. I really would like to start getting the trailer set up for Amber and me, but it can wait. I’ve waited fifteen years to spend a day with my youngest brother, and the time has come for the two of us to get caught up.
We stop at The Bucktail, Gavin’s bar, and Olive fixes us some Bloody Marys.
“You know I shot Dad in the head, right?” he asks, point-blank. I look around us nervously, hoping no one hears him.
“It’s cool, Micah,” Olive says. “Everyone here knows Goob shot him in the head. I’m surprised they haven’t made a statue of him.”
She’s probably right. Moses Boden was one of the most feared men in the tristate area. Feared but not respected. Everyone was just biding their time, waiting for a good shot. Apparently Goob got lucky.
“He ruined us all,” Goob says. “Fucked us all up. Me, you, shit, he kidnapped Esther and was going to sell her to some dark web pervert shit. The day he laid hands on my son, though…”
I’m so proud of him. I never thought the little freckle-faced kid who ran around wearing a motorcycle helmet twenty-four seven was going to be the one who put an end to this cycle of hate.
“Your son, Jesse, right?”
“I’ve got Jesse, he’s five, and a little girl on the way. It’s going to be a full house here pretty quick.”
He looks so proud, so happy, but to me, he still looks like a little kid. He’s so much younger than me, but he has everything a decent man strives for. There’s a pang of jealousy in my guts. Why didn’t I get that? Why didn’t I just man up and do what I needed to do so that I could protect our future generations from that shit.
“So, when I saw the story on the news, they were saying they couldn’t even identify his body except for his teeth. That he was eaten by a dog.”
“Yup,” he smiles. “Old man finally lost at his own game.”
As he explains the day to me, the kidnapping of Azalea and Jesse, the way he found Jesse tied up to the dog cage, his mother mauled to death in the same room, it chills me to the bone.
“How’d you turn out so good?” I ask.
He laughs, slamming down the rest of his Bloody Mary. “No fucking clue,” he stammers. “I’m sorry, Olive. You make a mean Bloody Mary, but your cooking sucks. We gotta go get some food before I’m too drunk to drive us home. I’m pretty sure Az isn’t trying to haul our happy asses around today.”
She scrunches her nose at him and hugs us both before we leave.
“You like truck stop pancakes?” he asks, as we get back in the truck.
“Of course,” I laugh. “I’m a Boden after all.”
Chapter 29
Amber:
“I’m good,” I say, as Tony goes to refill my glass of wine. I’m not in the mood to get buzzed, and I’m a little bit weepy, and a little bit exhausted. I was slightly miffed that Aunt June signed off on Mama’s cremation before I got to see her one last time, but it’s what she wanted.
Back when she was of sane mind, she filled out paperwork saying just so. Burn me up, throw me in the river, save your money. She was always so practical.
The money has been gone for a long time. We sold the house so that she could be in the nicest nursing home possible. We really have nothing left of her. Just our memories, and our bond. My aunt June has been my rock for so long, and I know the feeling is mutual.
The plan all along has been just a casual little memorial service at the house. Mama has been sick for so long, and we are the kind of family that keeps to ourselves, so there’s not many friends who will want to pay their respects. I’m still dreading the idea of standing around letting people hug me and tell me how sorry they are.
“Are you staying here tonight?” June asks. “I just changed the sheets on your bed.”
She looks tired, and I know she’s drunk by the way she’s swaying back and forth in her stool.
“Will you be mad if I go home?” I ask. “I kind of want to be alone.”
“Not at all,” she says. “I understand.”
“Listen, June,” I say, grabbing my
purse. “You know I’m still going to see you every day, right? Just because Mama is gone doesn’t mean anything is going to change between you and I. I love you. I’m here for you. I still expect that we can see each other every day and Tony can cook me dinner most nights of the week.” I let out a little laugh, hoping she knows I’m teasing her, but it’s true. My aunt June is my closest friend, and I don’t want to lose her just because the tie that binds the two of us is gone.
She wraps her arms around me in a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you, Amber. I hope you know that. You just… you turned out so good.”
“Stop it,” I say, smoothing her hair out of her face. “I’ll see you in the morning. You want to do coffee at Bernard’s?”
“Yeah,” she says. “That sounds perfect.”
I know she’ll be okay. My uncle Tony is a good man, and he’s been through this whole ordeal with us. Right now, though, I just want to be by myself. I don’t want to have to worry about how anyone else is feeling, as selfish as that sounds. I just want to go to the quiet of my own apartment, sit in the dark, and think about my life as a whole.
How long I was lied to, but perfectly innocent and unassuming of that fact.
How I really did have a nice upbringing. I always had nice things, I was always well taken care of, and Mama made sure I was always dressed well and on time for school. I never felt anything less than loved.
How I managed to live a life of other people’s lies, but still ended up just fine. How I finally have the ability to go out on my own and live the life that I want. It’s bittersweet and exciting. It’s sad, but exhilarating.