by Nina Levine
4
Hailee
“I need your hands on me, Hails. Tell me what I’ve gotta do for you to stop saying no to me,” Dylan said, a look of defeat on his face.
I flopped down onto his couch next to him and reached for the beer in his hand. After I took a sip, I said, “Dude, I’ve been working these hands and arms all day and I’m exhausted. Maybe if you actually book an appointment with me while I’m at work, you’d have more luck.”
I was sympathetic to his cause—Dylan spent his days laying bricks to make ends meet—but eight-hour-plus shifts massaging people exhausted me.
He grabbed his beer back. “I can’t afford an appointment with you. Your boss charges way too much for massages.”
“That’s only because you’re a tight-ass. I mean, the amount of money you spend on beer could fund a couple of massages a week.”
“Are you two arguing over fucking massages again?”
I glanced up at our bandmate Trent as he entered the living room and sat on the end of the couch. “Aren’t we always?”
He grinned and threw me a wink. “Yeah, at least Dylan’s consistent with his shit. You always know what you’re gonna get with him.”
After close to two years playing with these guys, I knew them inside out, and Trent was right—Dylan was consistent in his hounding me for free massages. Just like Trent was consistent with harassing me to help him with his girlfriend dilemmas.
“How’s Pam going? Have you managed to break up with her yet?” I asked him. He’d been dating her for three weeks and had been complaining about her for almost as long.
He grimaced. “Fuck, I can hardly get a word in with her, Hails.”
“So that would be a no, then? You pussied out again?” He was way too nice and always trying to extricate himself from relationships he didn’t want to be in.
“Who was that guy you were talking to last night before Wayne got there? Looked like he was all over you,” Trent said.
“You trying to change the subject?” I asked.
He grinned. It was the grin that always got him out of trouble. Not that he was in trouble now, but it was his way of telling me he didn’t want to continue the conversation about Pam. “You know me too well.”
I decided to let him off the hook this once. Hell, who was I kidding? Trent was always being let off the hook in one way or another. Everyone loved the guy—enough to let him avoid dealing with whatever problem he’d found himself in. “The guy’s name is Devil, but other than that, I don’t know who he is.”
“Gotta say, I was surprised Wayne didn’t take a shot at him,” Dylan said.
Wayne never would.
And that told me everything I needed to know about my relationship with Wayne. It wasn’t that I wanted him to have a go at another man who gave me attention, but I wanted him to at least feel something about it. Anything. Even if he just made a casual remark about it. I wanted him to acknowledge it in some way. We’d been getting closer over the last few weeks, and I had been looking for a sign from him as to whether the relationship might develop into something more permanent. He could have used Devil’s flirting with me as a way to stake his claim, because even though he hadn’t heard our conversation, he had to have seen Devil lean into me while he spoke into my ear. The fact that didn’t bother him bothered me.
But, the thing about Wayne was that he was safe. He was a good guy, and after the shit I’d been through with my last relationship, all I wanted was a good guy who I could trust to do the right thing by me.
“You see yourself with him for the long haul?” Trent asked.
I pushed up off the couch. I didn’t want to talk about Wayne anymore. Looking down at them both, I said, “Are we gonna practise, or not?”
Trent lifted a brow as he stood. “Look who’s changing the subject now.”
I poked my tongue at him. Continuing to change the subject, I said, “Anyone hear from Hollis today? Are we thinking he’s gonna make it tonight?” Hollis had a record of missing band practice, and tonight was a night I didn’t want him to miss. We had new songs to practise.
“He texted me about an hour ago,” Dylan said as we made our way out to his garage for practice. “He should be here in the next half hour. His boss was making him stay late today.”
Hollis was an accountant, which had surprised me when I’d first met him two years ago. I’d put the call out for musicians to form a band with me, and he’d turned up straight from work in his tie, looking way too respectable to be a drummer. However, the minute he got behind his drum kit and ripped his tie off, he’d blown me away with his talent. These days I never saw the tie. Not even when he was wearing it. All I saw was the dirty-as-fuck drummer who could drink all of us under the table while lining women up to screw. Definitely not too respectable to be a drummer.
“Okay, let’s run through these songs,” I said. “Hollis knows them like the back of his hand, so it’ll be good for us to go through them before he gets here, and then he can just jump in.” While he was a dirty guy always looking for his next lay, Hollis surprised me with his ability to tap into his emotions when it came to writing songs. His lyrics were full of deep thoughts and often about love. He wrote most of our band’s music. I helped when he needed it, and sometimes I came up with new material for him to work into a song.
Dylan picked up his guitar. “I forgot to tell you guys that I booked us for a wedding next Saturday.”
Dylan took care of all our bookings and often forgot to tell us about a gig until the week it was on. I glanced at him. “I’ll make you a deal. You start using that online calendar I showed you last week and log our gigs as soon as you get them, and I’ll start considering giving you a massage every now and then.”
As he began strumming his guitar, he smirked and said, “Come on, Hails, you gotta put out if you want the goods. None of this considering business. For every gig I schedule in your online thing, I want a massage from you.”
God, the shit you had to do to get a man to do the shit he was supposed to do. But at least we might finally know our dates in advance. “You’re on.”
Trent started playing his guitar and I grabbed the mic. It was time to lose ourselves in the beats and drown out everything else in our heads.
“Hailee, are you even listening to me?” Leona asked over lunch in the park the next day. She swept away the few strands of her long blonde hair that had stuck to her face as the wind whipped through the air. The weather was bipolar that day; the morning had kicked off with promised heat, but the wind had slowly crept in, and the forecast was for a storm later.
I’d just finished eating my sandwich and had leant back, resting on my elbows on the grass, but I sat up straight as I answered her. “Kind of, but I’m watching that man over there”—I pointed at the guy in my sights—“because he just kicked his dog.”
Leona and I had worked together for two years and we’d become good friends, so she knew how much I loathed people who hurt animals. “You want me to come with you while you tell him off?”
“You sure?” The last time she’d helped me out, or should I say, the last time I dragged her with me to a protest, she’d been knocked to the ground and broke her wrist.
She pffted and said, “Of course. I’m your ninja warrior sidekick”—she waved her hand in the air—“or some shit like that.” Scrambling to her feet, she added, “Besides, when do I ever get some fun in my life? Jerry has me under lock and key and wrapped in cotton wool when I’m with him. I need you to lead me astray.”
I groaned as I stood. “Jesus, that man of yours must hate you spending time with me.” Some of the situations I’d gotten us in over the years ran through my mind—the time we’d been locked up for half a day, the time we’d managed to cause a brawl in a bar when I’d accidentally pissed a guy off and another one had stood up for me, and not to mention the time we had a minor car accident in her car because I’d distracted her by drawing her attention to a group of hot guys walking down the street. Jer
ry had almost lost his shit with me over that car accident, but being the good friend she was, Leona had placated him with promises of hot sex. Mind you, Jerry’s idea of hot sex and my idea of hot sex were two very different things. I loved Jerry for the good man he was, but no way could I have ever married him. I would have been bored within a week.
“He doesn’t hate you. He just wishes we’d do stuff like… I don’t know, quiet stuff.”
I burst out laughing. “You mean like sitting home on a Saturday night knitting and discussing our menu plan for the next week? That kind of shit?”
She grinned. “Probably that kind of shit.”
My gaze zeroed in on a woman who’d just approached the guy with the dog. She spoke quite angrily and snatched the dog leash from him. I expected him to retaliate, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned and stalked out of the park.
I turned to Leona. “Looks like Jerry is saved from potential stress today.” Reaching for my bag on the ground, I added, “We should probably get back to work. Rachel’s looking for any opportunity to give me a warning these days.” My boss had turned into a raging bitch from hell when her hubby left her for another woman two months ago, and since then my life at work had become a little nightmarish in so far as I never knew what to expect each day. Her moods swung swiftly from happy to fucked off with the world, and I just had to keep on my toes and do my best to stay off her radar.
“Oh God, same! And we’ve got IVF coming up again soon, so we need my pay cheque. I swear, if that bitch fires me, she won’t know what hit her.” Leona may have been one of the nicest people I knew, but even I knew she had a darker side. A “do not fucking cross me” side. I guessed, though, that three unsuccessful years of IVF would be enough to cause any woman to threaten those who crossed her when it came to having a baby.
“Is there anything I can do to help you guys?” It felt like a dumb question, because short of offering up my body to carry a child for them, there wasn’t anything I could do. But the fixer in me needed to ask.
“Can you send a prayer up to the big fella and ask him to please just let me have one kid. Only one. I’m not greedy. Not anymore.” The sadness I felt in her words sliced through my heart. Kids were all Leona and Jerry talked about. They’d been married for five years and had been planning a large family from the beginning. But these days, she would do anything just to have one child.
I reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I can’t remember the last time I prayed, but I’m gonna send one out for you guys tonight.”
She squeezed my hand back and gave me a smile. “Thank you,” she said softly, all her fire over Rachel gone. In its place were all the emotions tied to her pain. God, I hope this round works for her.
Having children wasn’t something I spent a great deal of time thinking about. At this point in my life, getting through the day was sometimes all I could focus on. I’d been on a path two years ago, a path that I thought led somewhere I wanted to go. I’d quickly learnt that the very thing we wished for could turn on us at any moment and bring us crashing down into our own personal form of hell. Getting back on my feet after roaming through that hell had taken time, and most days I still felt like I was learning how to walk again. So thinking past where I was now, into a future that could possibly have children in it wasn’t something I did often.
5
Devil
“You take the back, I’m in the front,” King said to me mid-morning on Friday. We stood outside a run-down old house in Blacktown, with grass almost up to our knees. The paint peeling on the house, the lack of lawn maintenance and the hole in the front door led me to believe no one lived there, but King was convinced the person he was looking for would be inside—the guy that had beaten up Jen.
“Sure,” I said.
As I turned to slip around the side of the house, he grabbed hold of my shirt and halted me. When I glanced back at him, the angry glint I saw there caused me to stiffen. “You taking this seriously, Devil?” His words were too controlled. Hell, King was far too contained. Calm almost. But that was King when he was in the midst of his crazy.
Right before he was about to explode.
The eye of the storm.
“Yeah.” I hadn’t been, though. King had been on a mission all week to find this guy. He’d been in a kind of frenzy, and no one had been able to talk sense into him. Hyde had suggested he slow his shit down and think things through rather than being like a bull at a gate. King had only increased his maniacal efforts after that.
He stepped closer to me, so close I could hear his breathing. “You think I’m going overboard on this, too?”
I’d always been honest with him and wouldn’t stop that now. Even if it earned me his displeasure. “What I’m trying to figure out is why you’re going to such extremes, King? All this for a woman who screwed you over years ago?”
His crazy eyes stared into mine for what felt like minutes. Being under this intense scrutiny from him, though, was the norm, so I was used to it. If there was one thing King drilled into all club members, it was to be able to withstand an interrogation. He did it often enough for us to quickly work out how to hold up under those circumstances. King trusted no one and was all about being prepared for the potential threats that surrounded us. If the cops dragged a member in for questioning, he wanted them to be ready for it, and he’d done a good job prepping us. Each time someone had been interrogated, they’d withstood the cops’ questions and kept the club safe.
Finally, he said, “I respect the fuck out of you, Devil, but you don’t know mine and Jen’s story. No one does. She may have screwed me over, but she had her reasons. Reasons I gave her. She wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for the shit I did to her.”
If there was one thing I knew in this world, it was people making judgements without knowing the full story. Growing up the black sheep of a good catholic family in a country town, I knew all about being judged. Fuck, I’d been tried and convicted in too many people’s minds all my damn life. Always without evidence.
I nodded. “Whatever you need, you’ve got.”
He lifted his chin towards the back of the house. “Go.”
I left him, and when I rounded the corner of the house into the backyard, I dry retched at what I found out there. The filthy fuck who lived there, had left a dog chained up in the heat, and it’s rotting body lay next to an empty bowl that I assumed once held water or food. Flies and maggots swarmed over the dog and the stench filled my nostrils.
Fucking assholes who did that kind of shit should be fucking shot as far as I was concerned.
I made my way to the back door, and when I found it locked, I lifted my boot and kicked hard, forcing it open. I entered the house through a dirty laundry jammed with putrid clothes and the kind of smell I was convinced could bring death to those who inhaled it.
Memories of my time living on the streets and in abandoned houses with filthy fuckers flooded my mind. A part of my life I’d rather forget. But even after twelve years, those memories were clear as day.
“Devil!” King roared from another room. “Need your help, brother.”
I quickly found him in one of the bedrooms. King had a guy by the throat with his gun pointed to his head. A woman lay on the floor, her face full of bruises. Eyeing me, he said, “Devil, tell him what I like to do to men who beat their women up.”
The guy’s terrified eyes met mine. He’d be right to fear King. “He’s been known to cut a guy’s hands off for that.”
King tightened his grip around the asshole’s neck. When the guy grunted, the woman he’d been beating up whimpered on the floor next to the bed. I couldn’t tell if she was scared for herself or for the guy. “I’m looking for Shannon Mercier. You know where he is?”
The guy shook his head. “No, and even if I did, I wouldn’t fucking tell you.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Are you trying to get yourself hurt?”
His gaze met mine again. “Fucking cut my hands off. I’m not tel
ling you where he is.”
King let go of his throat. “Really? You’d give up your hands for him?”
The guy spat in King’s face and opened his mouth to speak, but King punched him before he could utter a word.
As the asshole stumbled backwards, the woman cried out, “Marty!” She had enough sense to stay where she was, though, and leave King to his mission.
I shook my head at her. “Really? You’re upset that the guy who beats you up is getting hurt?” Fuck, I’d never understand some women.
King ignored us, his attention solely on Marty. His entire body was taut with murderous energy as he bellowed, “You fucking spit in my face again and you’ll lose your right hand. Now tell me, does Shannon mean that fucking much to you that you’d sacrifice body parts?”
“He’s my fucking brother. I’m not giving him up.”
“Figures,” King said. “You both like to hit women. Your daddy teach you that shit?”
Marty bared his teeth. “Fuck you.” Lunging at King, he attempted to wrap his arms around King’s waist. However, he underestimated King, who always remained on high alert and anticipated what was to come.
“No, fuck you!” King roared as he raised his knee and jammed it up into Marty’s chin. The force of his thrust knocked Marty onto his ass.
King moved swiftly behind him so he could grip his collar and drag him backwards. He slammed him against the wall, hard enough for his head to hit it and then bounce forward. He stared up at King through dazed eyes but didn’t say a word. Blood streamed out of his mouth, coating his chin.
Crouching in front of him, King said, “Are we getting anywhere, Marty? Or do you need some more encouragement.”
“Just tell him, Marty!” the woman screamed out. She’d scrambled her way up onto the bed, probably in an effort to escape King. At least one of them had some brains.
“Go to hell,” Marty said, barely managing to get the words out.