by Marika Ray
“I’m aware of that,” I replied wryly.
Lukas punched me in the arm. Pain ricocheted up my shoulder. Maybe I was glad he didn’t punch me in the face after all. The guy packed some heat in that punch.
“Don’t pull that shit with my sister. You embarrass her again and I’ll make you regret it. We clear?”
Between the pain and the verbal shaming, I wanted to pop him in the face to remind him those ten years may not have given me wisdom, but they’d given me time to get a hell of a lot stronger than him. He just might want to watch who he was threatening. I clenched my jaw to tamp down the surge of testosterone, knowing I deserved it and more.
“Yeah. Got it. Now get out.” I opened the door, the sounds of the five protestors left in the parking lot hitting my ears. Sounded more like a Saturday night party than a protest what with the chants egging on Clyde to chug the whole red Solo cup of beer, but what did I know about how they did things here in Hell?
Lukas walked to his car and Clyde wiped his mouth with his sleeve, followed by the longest burp in Hell history.
“Hey, you want one, Jayden?” Clyde extended another cup to me, full of some craft beer they were going on about.
I stepped out of the shop and joined my protestors. “Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks.”
We clinked cups and I chugged it, spurred on by the others cheering for me. The day hadn’t turned out total shit. I started with positive feedback from Poppy and a plan to turn the tide and ended the day sharing a beer with the very people who supposedly hated me.
Clyde bent down to refill my cup from the keg by our feet, his whisper louder than a jackhammer in the middle of the night.
“I like you, buddy, but the pastor ain’t too happy with your business. Any chance you could make it an actual hardware store? I’m tired of driving two towns over to get all the stuff I need to remodel my house.”
I snorted. Yeah, that would have been a hell of a lot easier. “Sorry. I’m not really set up to be that kind of store. If this whole thing doesn’t work out, though, I might look into that.”
I looked off into the distance and saw the little white A-frame church across the roundabout. It looked like one of those buildings that had been around a lot longer than any of us had been on this green earth. There didn’t really seem a way to bridge the gap between good old-fashioned religious doctrines and selling sex toys in the modern age.
Maybe I just needed to call it quits.
Admit defeat.
Later that night, I had the keys to my house in my pocket and a bumbling Red on my hip. The movers had taken mercy on me and brought over my mattress with promises of returning the next day to move in all the rest that was packed away in the truck. At least the two of us would have a place to sleep tonight that was all ours. As decent as the Hell Hotel was—and by decent I mean I didn’t contract any weird diseases—and as much as I missed the glaring darts of hate spat at me by Amelia every time we crossed paths, I yearned for my own space again.
The two movers had just left and Red and I were snuggled up on the mattress, staring up at the huge vaulted wood ceiling in the master bedroom when the doorbell rang. The peal of geese honking was different than my doorbell in my condo, but it was nice. Pleasant even if you closed your eyes and envisioned the beach just a half mile away. What wasn’t pleasant was when the person at your door jammed their finger on the doorbell and geese chimed over and over again until you thought you might just lose your goddamn mind.
“What do you want?” I shouted, which made Red giggle hysterically as I walked to the door and juggled him in my hands. Damn, that kid’s laugh could make the steaming pile of shit that was my life seem like paradise.
I swung open my new door to find my brother, Titus, and Rip standing there, each holding a six-pack of beer.
My smile matched Red’s. “I’m starting to really like this town.”
I stepped back and they came in, giving me bro hugs and patting Red on the head. Titus handed me the six-pack and took Red out of my arms. He swooped him high above his head and ran around the room with him, filling the space with Red’s whoops and giggles. I shook my head at their antics and waved the other two toward my kitchen.
We stopped up short when we realized I didn’t have a refrigerator to put the beer in.
“Guess we’ll just have to drink ’em fast.” Rip was an excellent problem solver.
We headed to the empty living room and plopped down on the plush carpet, our backs to the wall. Titus finally brought Red in and set him down in the middle of the room to play with the plastic toy truck we didn’t go anywhere without. The four of us each cracked open a beer and took a heavy pull before speaking.
“We gave you a few days to sulk, but now we’re here to solve all your problems for you.” Bain looked smug. The type of look deliriously happily married people had when life was grand and they forgot the rest of us were stumbling around with our hearts bleeding all over our shoes.
Rip snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that. These Hell Raisers can’t be tamed or explained. You just have to ride it out and hope you survive it in the end.”
I looked at him like he had two heads. “This is your pep talk? Jeez, Rip, you might want to work on it.”
He spread his hands wide, beer bottle threatening to dump its contents on my new-to-me carpet. “I’m a realist. Just stating facts.”
“Okay, hold up. Let’s not get into the fact that you’re as far from a realist as Red is to a grown man,” Titus interrupted.
Our gazes all swung to Red, where he had a finger up his nose and his foot stuck in the back bed of the toy truck. That’s my boy.
“What I think Jayden needs is our encouragement and maybe some brainstorming on how to get back in the town’s good graces and back in Lenora’s pants. Am I right?” Titus winked at me.
The side of my face contracted at the crass way he talked about Lenora, but he wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t know I wanted in her heart even more than I wanted in her pants, which was something I never thought I’d say.
“I appreciate that, but I think I’ve already found a way to get the town to rally around me. Or at least not protest my business. I’ve been delivering free boxes of goodies to select women around town. My hope is they start a grassroots movement of accepting that spicing up sex lives is not the abomination Nora’s parents think it is.”
Bain frowned. “Please don’t deliver one to Lucy. She’s wearing me out, man. Those pregnancy hormones made her a demanding sex beast and even almost a year after Roxy’s been born, she’s still all over me. No toys, you got me?”
Titus and Rip started snickering.
“What? You’d understand if your dick was developing calluses too.” Bain pouted.
We all burst out laughing at that.
“Cheers to Lucy,” I said, holding up my beer. Titus and Rip lifted their bottles too while Bain just folded his arms across his chest and glared at me.
“But I’m all ears if you have ideas on how to get Nora back.” Seriously, Rip and Titus had known Nora their whole lives. Maybe they could give me insight.
“Do you want her back, like, for good? Or just someone to warm your bed on occasion?” Rip asked with a deadpan face. He was always gruff, but I wondered if there was some heat behind his question given their lifelong friendship. I wouldn’t blame him one bit.
I set my beer down and leaned forward, all pretense of joking and relaxing put aside.
“I want her back for good. I want to run this business or any other business we have together with her. I want to wake up to her warm hug every morning. I want to see her show Red what a good mother looks like. I want to grow old with her in this crazy-ass town and reminisce about the time I tried to open up a sex shop diagonal from the church her father ran. I want everything with her.”
The boys were dead silent, the sound of Red chewing wetly on his finger the only noise in the room.
“You’re in love with her,” Titus finally stated in awe.
I nodded, no longer afraid of it. Only afraid of never having it again with her. “Fuck yeah, I am. And I need your help to get her back. What do I do?”
Bain clapped his hands and we jumped. “Press conference. Worked for me with Lucy. Bare your heart publicly so she knows you mean business. Be willing to sacrifice literally everything to get her back. That’s how she’ll know.”
“Actions. Not words,” said Rip, nodding slowly.
I jumped up, too keyed up to remain sitting, the energy of finally having a plan to win Nora back giving me renewed life. “I’ll call the newspaper tomorrow and get it set up. If the town won’t accept this business, I’ll shut it down, take the financial hit, and do something else. I didn’t want to run the business anyway. Why am I fighting so hard for something that doesn’t matter? Nora matters. I need to be fighting hard for her.”
Bain stood up and clapped me on the shoulder, a smile of pride on his face. “Now you’re getting it.”
“And it only took one beer,” Rip added, a hint of a smile on his face. “We’re just that good.”
A clink of glass had us looking down. Titus set down an empty beer bottle next to two other empty ones in a row right by his side. He must have heard the silence and looked back up, confused.
“What?”
“Jesus…” Bain reached down and hauled him up. “We gotta get going.”
We said hurried goodbyes as they all left, Bain driving them home as the designated driver. I swooped up Red and headed to the master bedroom to get ready for bed. I had a woman to fight for tomorrow and I needed my sleep.
Red popped his finger out of his mouth. “Na-na?”
“That’s right. We’re going to get ourselves Na-na tomorrow. You gotta be on your best behavior.”
Red chanted Na-na the entire time I gave him a bath in my new jetted tub. Right as we drifted off to sleep on the mattress on the floor, he murmured, “Na-na,” one last time.
“Little did we know she’d end up sneaking into both our hearts, huh, buddy?” I whispered back.
Come hell or high water, I’d do my best to get Nora back. If it didn’t work, at least I could tell Red—and my heart—I tried.
21
Lenora
Friday dawned bright and hot. I could have really used an overcast, rainy day to match my mood, but no, summer in Hell was hotter than blazes and beautiful without even trying. I’d applied to some jobs online yesterday, but a quick scan of my emails while slamming a cup of coffee showed nothing for my labor. Apparently there were a lot of marketing graduates vying for all the same entry-level jobs.
I’d been dragging the whole week and frankly, I was tired of it. Down in the dumps wasn’t the most fun place to reside and I yearned for the carefree days of giving out hugs and gliding through life with my heart intact. So, as the uber knowledgeable “they” said, I was going to fake it till I made it.
I grabbed the piece of paper off the printer and a roll of packing tape and headed out the door for a day of giving rides to perfect strangers. If I couldn’t find a marketing job, I’d make my fortune one ride share at a time and hope to run into my future sugar daddy. It was a sketchy plan, but since I hadn’t made a concrete plan B or C for my life, it was the best I could come up with on short notice.
“Be safe out there,” Lukas grumbled at me as I sailed past him hunched over a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table. “Lots of crazies outside of Hell.”
I snorted. “Lots of crazies inside Hell too.”
“True dat.”
I left the house, shaking my head at Lukas. As I slid further and further into the dumps this week, he’d become more and more protective, which was just weird. Since when did my little brother care about what was going on in my life? He’d been so consumed with all his teenage angsty drama, we hadn’t really and truly talked in years. The thought that maybe he and I would become friends despite the ten-year gap between us made me smile. An expression that felt brittle as it pulled on my cheeks.
Climbing into the back seat of my car, I taped the paper to the back of the passenger headrest. It stated in black and white Life is hard. The hugs are free. Life had thrown some crap at me, but I felt ready to wrestle for control. Lenora didn’t go down like that at the first sign of trouble. I climbed in front and fired up my app. Time to get back to normal: rides and hugs.
My first pick-up came a few minutes later one town over. When I got the elderly man to the airport in San Jose, I helped him get his bag out of the trunk and onto the curb.
“I wouldn’t mind one of those freebies,” he said hesitantly.
Warmth flooded my chest and at least this one small thing in my life was as it should be. I reached out and wrapped his fragile body in a hug. He patted me on the back and then pulled away, his eyes glassy.
“Haven’t had a good hug since my wife passed two years ago.” He tipped a nonexistent hat in my direction and then shuffled across the curb to the sliding glass doors, his bag rolling behind him.
A layer of tears coated my eyes and even though my chest still ached from the weight of a pile of bricks with Jayden’s name on them, a tiny ribbon of content found its way in and gave me hope. I’d always given out hugs as a service to others, a way to make other people feel better. Maybe giving out hugs could also do the reverse and heal me.
The day continued, one ride after the other, quite a few people requesting a hug and even when they didn’t, I gave one anyway. One lady ran from my hug, but she couldn’t escape me entirely. I made a heart shape with my hands and then pointed at her when she glanced back over her shoulder. The gesture only made her depart faster, but hey, not being able to receive love said more about her than it did about me. Am I right?
My last ride of the day was a tall brunette in a skintight white blouse and fitted trousers. She looked like she was attempting a business look, but the number of buttons currently not doing their buttoning job and letting cleavage spill out everywhere told me she must have had a very different kind of business job. Her black stilettos were killer, though. Immediately my mind went to Jayden and how much he liked mine that day at the office.
“Hill Hotel in Auburn Hill, please,” the woman snapped from the back seat.
“You got it.” Determined to remain cheerful even if it killed me, I offered her a five-star riding experience. “Feel free to take a mint and I’m all ears if you want someone to talk to.”
She sniffed. “I have a therapist for that.”
I smirked and hoped she couldn’t see it. I bet she had a therapist to help with that mean girl vibe emanating from her stronger than her perfume. What would a woman like her be doing staying at Hell Hotel in a tiny little town?
Silence remained the entire drive, which was fine by me. I could use the time to train my brain not to think about Jayden every second of the day. Given a month or two, I might even go a whole ten minutes without thinking of him holding Red on one hip, that little dimple lighting up and speaking straight to my girly parts.
We hit the roundabout and I nearly screamed at myself to keep my eyes on the road and not look up at The Hardware Store. It was none of my concern if there were still protestors. Or if Jayden was standing right there. Or if the shop was finally open.
“Not my business, not my business,” I muttered.
“Did you say something?” The woman leaned forward, a look of disgust on her face.
I smiled and wondered what had happened to her to make her such a beautiful grouch.
“Oh no. Just learning a new language. Have you ever had a bad breakup?”
She looked startled in the rearview mirror. I didn’t think she’d answer, but after a moment of hesitation she did. “All the time, honey. Men can be such douchecanoes.” She sighed and I felt connected on a cosmic level with her.
“Total dickweazels.” I nodded.
She snorted lightly and we had a moment. However, the friendship spell seemed to shatter the second I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. The woman f
ixed her hair and like a mask sliding into place, her features became cold and distant again.
I parked and got out to collect her bag from the trunk. Amelia ran out the front door, her dark hair flying behind her. She normally greeted guests as they arrived, but not at a sprint.
“Hi, welcome to Hell—um, I mean—Hill Hotel. I’ll be right with you.” Amelia rushed through a greeting as the woman stood next to my car, oblivious to anything around her, painting her lips in a bright red shade while using a handheld mirror.
Amelia grabbed my arm and whispered furiously, “Addi’s back. You need to get to The Hardware Store now. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
I screwed my eyes shut and blinked them back open. Of all the things Amelia could have told me, that wasn’t what I was expecting.
“What?” I sputtered.
Instead of repeating herself, she shoved me back into my car and slammed my door shut. Then she flapped her arms like my mom used to do when us kids would be in the kitchen while she was trying to cook dinner.
My brain finally latched on to her words. Addi was back? That could mean only one thing.
Jayden and Red needed me.
An angry inferno the size of the Pacific lit inside my belly and I peeled out of the parking lot, heading straight for The Hardware Store. That bitch better stay away from my man and my adorable little boy. She had no right to show up here and uproot their lives just because she felt like being a mom today.
No more free hugs.
I was gearing up for a free ass kicking.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
Poppy looked ready to roll some heads when I pulled up to The Hardware Store. Hands on hips, her ample bosom pressed into Addi, standing her ground. The crowd behind her was no longer facing the shop with protest signs. In fact, they looked like they were the front lines to protecting Jayden from the interloper in our midst. Though I looked thoroughly through a red haze of anger, I didn’t see him in the throng of people. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, like a mama bear about to protect her cub.