by Jessie Evans
(Wild Rush Prequel)
By Jessie Evans
One Wild Night…
One night can change your life...
"Come on, Caitlin, let me help you get what you need."
The way he says it, it’s about so much more than money. It’s about the way he makes my skin hot and my lips tingle, it’s about the way he makes my heart race and banishes the exhaustion that’s been my constant companion since I quit school to be a full-time surrogate parent. It’s about the flicker of hope he lights inside me. That flame isn’t much bigger than a candle right now, but I can sense how easy it would be for it to grow, to rise higher and higher until it sets my world on fire.
I’m standing at the threshold of a moment that will change my life, and not necessarily for the better. I know that, I know it with everything in me, all the way down to the marrow of my bones.
But still I nod. And take his hand. And let him lead me out into the night.
Smashwords Edition c. 2014
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2014 Jessie D. Evans
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Cover image by Conrado for Shutterstock. Cover design by Bootstrap Designs. Edited by Robin Leone Editorial.
CHAPTER ONE
Caitlin
“Forgetting a debt doesn’t mean it’s been paid” –Irish proverb
In a week, it will all be over.
In a week, the pieces of my family will be scattered like dandelion seeds in a hard wind and there’s not a thing I can do about it.
Deep down, I know that. I know this time the Cooneys are so screwed there will be no sweet-talking our way out of trouble. Still, I keep shifting the bills around on the scarred kitchen counter and punching numbers into my calculator, hoping to find a way to keep the balls in the air and the kids out of the system.
But the state doesn’t care that I’ve been running this family since I was seventeen and doing a pretty good job of it until now. My father’s the legal guardian. All it will take is a hard look in our direction—the kind of hard look that will come when we get kicked out of the house and the kids start going to school smelling like they’re living in a van—and it will become obvious that Chuck is an unfit parent. Before you can say “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” the four underage Cooneys will be scooped up by the Department of Human Services and trundled off to separate foster homes.
All of that could be avoided, of course, if the taxman would give me a break. But the government doesn’t care that my father dropped all our mad money at The Sweet Pickle last month, paying off his bar tab before the owner’s grandson, Hal, made good on his threat to beat the money out of Chuck. The taxman wants the delinquent taxes, and the kids, whose lives that measly twelve hundred dollars is going to ruin, be damned.
You’d have the cash if you’d stood up to Chuck and kept your mouth shut about where the money was hidden.
“Right,” I mumble to myself. “And let a guy with a metal plate in his shoulder get beaten half to death.”
“You talking to me, Caitlin?” Danny calls out from the living room, where my twelve-year-old brother has settled in to play one of his bloody video games while the baby is watching Sesame Street upstairs.
“No!” I shout. “And turn that down. I can’t hear myself think.”
Danny ups the volume in response. I grit my teeth and shift the electrical bill to the back of the queue—it’s April and still cool, we can make do without air conditioning if the electricity gets shut off—but that only frees up another hundred and twenty bucks. I can snag a bag of groceries from Sister Maggie down at the church, but that won’t feed this crew for more than a few days.
Three boys between the ages of eight and twelve take down a lot of food, and even Emilie is starting to put away her share. Emmie’s always been on the small side so I’m glad she’s putting on weight, but at the rate these kids are sucking down mac 'n cheese there’s no way I’m paying the property tax without somebody going hungry. Unless a rich old aunt from the old country dies and leaves me her fortune, that twelve hundred, seventy-three dollars, and two cents I need by next Wednesday might as well be twelve million.
My gram always said you couldn’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, and I don’t even have a sow’s ear. I’ve got three little brothers, a two-year-old niece I’ve raised since she was two months old, a father who hasn’t held down a job in six months, a hundred bucks left in my bank account, and bills.
To say this is not the way I was hoping to spend my twentieth birthday would be an understatement.
“Well, look at you.” Daniel breezes into the kitchen, video game controller still in hand, to grab a fistful of pretzels from the bin on the counter. He munches as he looks me up and down, taking in my skintight black jeans and shimmering gold tank top with a curled lip. “Looking slutty. Where you going?”
“Out with Sherry,” I say, with a glare. “And watch your mouth.”
With his dark blonde curls, green eyes, and ski-slope nose, Danny and I resemble each other more than anyone else in the family, but we couldn’t be more different. I spend my life cleaning up other people’s messes; he spends his lighting fires for me to put out. He’s a smart-mouthed troublemaker who’s already made a name for himself with the Giffney P.D. and the only “bad” thing I’ve ever done was drop out of school when I was seventeen to take care of the baby and the other kids after my sister ran off. I work two jobs and do my best to make sure the kids eat healthy and Emmie doesn’t watch too much T.V., while Danny is constantly on the verge of being suspended for conduct code infractions.
The chances of him graduating junior high, let alone high school, without a stint in juvie are looking less likely with every passing year, but still…I keep trying.
It’s not like anyone else around here is going to be the voice of reason.
“Seriously, D,” I say, knocking his hand away when he reaches for my Coke. It was the last one in the fridge and I need caffeine if I’m going to stay awake to celebrate my stupid birthday. “I don’t want another call from Mr. Pitt. You need to pull it together and finish this year strong.”
“Whatever.” Daniel rolls his eyes. “Mr. Pitt can suck my dick.”
“I’m serious, Danny.” He reaches for my soda again and I slap his hand a second time. Harder. “No more language,” I insist in my nag voice, the one I can barely stand to hear myself I’ve used it so much with him. “It’s the straight and narrow for you. Even at home. I don’t have time to deal with any more of your crap this month.”
“What about your crap?” he mumbles. “You cuss all the time.”
“Please, D…” I cross my arms and shake my head, too tired for the usual “but I’m an adult and I work my ass off to feed you so I can do what I want” lecture. “Can you give me a break? Just for a week or two? Until things calm down?”
He sighs, his lips pulling down at the edges as his gaze slides toward the envelopes spread out on the counter. “Everything’s going to be okay though,” he says, the sass gone out of his tone. “We’re not going to lose the house, right?”
“Of course not,” I lie, forcing a smile.
I refuse to let my brothers worry the way I’ve worried my entire life. One stomach full of acid and holes is enough for this family.
“I’m sorting it out,” I continue, gathering the bills into a pile and shoving them back in the shoebox I keep on top of the fridge, wishing I could make our debt disappear as easily. “But if you
’ve got any money left over from all that snow shoveling you did in January, it would help. I can pay you back once tips pick up at the restaurant.”
Daniel shrugs. “You don’t have to pay me back. I’ve only got forty bucks left, anyway. You can just take it.”
“Thanks, booger.” I smile, a real one this time, remembering why I couldn’t have made it through parts of the past few years without this kid.
He’s a pain in my ass, but he’s also my right hand man when I need him.
“I love you,” I say, ruffling his hair. “You know that, right?”
“Puke,” Danny says, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips when he lifts his hands into the air, warding off the hug he can no doubt sense is coming. “I’ll go get the money, but you have to tell Ray to get out of the bathroom. I’ve been trying to get a shower since I got back from practice and he’s been in the bath for a fucking hour and a half.”
“Language!” I call out to my brother’s retreating back. “And check Emmie’s pull-up while you’re upstairs.”
“Whatever,” Danny calls back, but I know he’ll check.
He loves Emmie, probably more than he loves anyone in the world. Danny was a nine-year-old obsessed with monster trucks and boxing robots when our big sister, Aoife, left her daughter at our house and split. Nothing in Danny’s nature up to that point had indicated a paternal streak, but he couldn’t get enough of his baby niece. He carried Emmie all over the house, talking non-stop, and dragged her Pack 'n Play into his room so he could watch over her while she slept.
Even now, Emmie’s toddler bed sits in the corner of Danny’s room, her dolls, baby blocks, and pink toy kitchen a stark contrast to the skateboard posters and skeleton stickers decorating the other side of the room. It’s Danny who Emmie crawls in bed with when she has a bad dream, and Danny who finally got her mostly potty-trained a few weeks back, saving me some much needed money on pull-ups.
The chances that Danny and Emmie will end up in the same foster home are slim to none. And even if they do, I can’t imagine a foster family agreeing to a twelve-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl sharing a room. There are probably rules against that kind of thing, rules that have to be followed no matter how much it’s going to devastate two kids who love each other.
My stomach gurgles and acid burns the back of my throat.
“You’re going to figure it out,” I mutter to myself, crossing to grab an antacid.
I’m on top of the kitchen counter on my knees, reaching up to the top shelf where I’ve kept the medicine since Ray ate a bar of chocolate laxatives when he was seven, when the front door opens and the smell of garlic and melted cheese wafts through the living room into the kitchen.
Immediately, my breath comes easier and my stomach gurgles—with hunger this time—reminding me I haven’t eaten anything since ten o’clock this morning.
“Pizza!” Isaac booms in his relentlessly upbeat voice as the door slams shut behind him. “Come and get it, Cooneys!”
“You’re an angel!” I call out, grinning as I hop down from the counter, antacid forgotten as I make a beeline around the island into the living room.
Footsteps thunder down the stairs, and moments later Isaac is surrounded by jumping kids, and four pairs of grabbing hands.
“Hold on,” he says, holding the pizza out of Danny’s reach, brown eyes crinkling at the edges when he laughs. “Wash your hands first. It’s too hot to eat yet, anyway.”
“Wash ‘em good,” I call out as Danny, Ray—who has apparently decided to emerge from bath time seclusion in the name of supper—and Sean race each other toward the downstairs bathroom.
I scoop Emmie up before she can get trampled and lean in to give Isaac a hug.
“Hey there.” He squishes Emmie and me against a soft brown tee shirt that smells pleasantly of wood-fired pizza oven, pine-scented air freshener, and best friend. “How you holding up?”
“Pretty good,” I say, melting into the hug.
Isaac’s always been a big guy—he played football when we were in high school and at Limestone College until he quit to run the family pizza joint after his dad’s stroke—but since he started working at Frank’s Pies, he’s acquired a tummy to go with the muscles. His girlfriend, Heather, teases him about it, but I kind of like the pudge. There’s something comforting about hugging a guy who feels like a giant, cuddly bear, but is also capable of ripping a bad guy’s head off with his bare hands.
“Pretty good, you think you’ve got the problem licked?” Isaac asks as he pulls away to set the pizza boxes balanced in his free hand on the crumb-covered table. “Or pretty good, you’ve only had seven antacids today instead of twelve?”
I wrinkle my nose, but am spared from answering when Danny skids to a stop beside me and dives for the pizza.
“Hold on a second! Let me get plates and napkins.” I hurry into the kitchen, grabbing plates and the roll of paper towels and sliding them across the island to Isaac, who deals out place settings like a round of cards.
Emmie, still balanced on my hip, starts to squirm—obviously ready to join the big boys at the table—so I hurry over to the sink.
“Let’s get your hands clean, doodle.” I shift her around, balancing her between my body and the sink so our hands can tangle together beneath the cool stream of water.
I focus on her pudgy little fingers, wondering how I’m going to hold up without seeing them every day. Raising a baby and my younger brothers on my own for most of the past two and a half years has been so difficult and time-consuming there hasn’t been much time to think.
No time to think about how they feel like my kids now, not Dad’s or Mom’s or—God forbid—my piece of shit sister’s. No time to think about how much a part of me they are, how my world revolves around them, or how much I would miss the chaos and the laughter and the crazy and even the hard stuff if it were all to suddenly vanish.
This family has cost me my fair share of blood, sweat, and tears, but they are mine and I love them. I need them. So fucking much.
“I think her hands are clean.” The words come from over my shoulder, so close it feels like they’re echoing inside my skull.
I jump and turn to see Isaac standing behind me, arms held out. It’s only then that I realize Emmie’s squirming has become fussing—or as close as she ever gets to fussing.
Emmie’s always been quiet and small. Slow to walk, slower to talk, and always lagging in the pitiful percentiles on the charts the doctor fills out on her well-baby visits. But I don’t pay attention to the pity in Dr. Naper’s eyes when he talks about her developmental delays. Emmie is no dummy. I see her smarts in the clear blue eyes that look up at me when I scoop her up out of bed every morning. One day she’s going to start talking a blue streak and make every doctor who ever threw around words like “fetal alcohol syndrome” eat their words. I believe that—believe in her—with my entire heart.
“No foster parent is going to know her like I do,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes as I hand Emmie over to Isaac. “They won’t fight for her, like I had to fight for Ray when that bitch, Mrs. Porter, wanted to flunk him after Mom left.”
Isaac’s forehead wrinkles, making him look like a sad puppy. “Let me get Emmie in her high chair,” he says softly. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
I nod, rubbing the tears from my eyes with the backs of my fists, ashamed of myself. I don’t cry. I don’t have time, especially not now. I need to focus on pulling a solution out of my ass, not waste time whining about shit that hasn’t even happened yet.
By the time Isaac comes back into the kitchen with two slices of pepperoni on a plate, my boo-hooing is over, replaced by the more familiar waves of acid lapping at the back of my throat. When he tries to hand over the pizza, I shake my head and hold up one hand. “I have to let the stomach volcano calm down first.”
Isaac sets the plate on the counter where, moments before, I was playing Jenga with the bills. “That bad, huh?”
I nod,
biting my lip, refusing to get emotional again. It’s not going to do anyone any good, least of all the kids. “I’ve been over everything a hundred times. I just don’t see how we can swing it.”
“Well…” Isaac lets out a soft sigh as he leans against the counter beside me. “I’ve been thinking… I could give up my apartment and move back in with my parents. That would put me in a position to give you a loan.”
I shake my head more emphatically. “No way. I won’t let you do that. You and Ian would kill each other.”
Ian, Isaac’s little brother, is as big a waste of flesh as my sister. Ian did time for sexual assault—a rape he swore he didn’t commit, but no one who knew him was surprised when he was found guilty. He’s been crashing with his parents since he got out of jail, sitting on his ass for the better part of ten months, whining about how hard it is for a felon to get a job. Meanwhile, Isaac gave up getting his business degree to take over the pizza place, while Ian—who could have worked at his dad’s restaurant, it’s not like it was within two thousand feet of an elementary school or something—said he didn’t have it in him to sweat over an oven after spending a year cooking for the other inmates at the state prison. And, incredibly, their mom humors the asshole, babying Ian while she leans on Isaac so hard it’s a miracle he hasn’t cracked under the pressure.
No, Isaac has enough on his plate. I can’t let him take the kind of hit moving back in with his parents would deliver, not even for the kids.
“We wouldn’t kill each other,” Isaac says. “I might pound him into a bloody smear on the wall now and then, but…he’d survive. Most likely.”
I smile. “And if he didn’t, you’d go to prison, and then whose couch would I crash on when I’m homeless?”
The humor vanishes from Isaac’s expression. “You’re not going to be homeless. We’re going to figure this out, Caitlin.”