by Kate Stewart
“What are you going to do for me, Laz?”
“Lucy, you are taking too many liberties with that fucking mouth. You should be more careful. But don’t worry, I’m going to remedy that. Tell him to meet me there in twenty minutes.”
“Fine.”
“Twenty minutes.”
Perry’s eyes closed as he gripped Lucy’s hair while she bobbed on his cock.
“Fuck yes, prom queen, suck it.” She began to choke as he fucked her mouth.
“Goddamn, Laz, get some of this.”
I tossed weighed bags aside and scraped the remaining powder onto a foil. I took a hit and watched Lucy squirm on her knees while she clawed at his thighs. “She’s baggage, man, all yours.”
Perry leaned down and winked at her as she tried her best to keep up with his hips. “Hear that, baby? You’re all mine.”
Perry would do. He had a similar build and enough ink, and with Lucy by his side and the right clothes, he could pass. I had no doubts Cedric had eyes on us, and I needed them both on board without too many fucking questions. I couldn’t let word get out that I was leaving. It was too risky with the amount of vultures after my supply. And with Perry, I could be at two places at once. He could also keep Lucy occupied.
“Fuck yes, bitch.” Lucy gagged as Perry wasted himself in her mouth and then pushed her to the floor while she gasped for air. “I’ve got a lot more where that came from. Hope you like the taste.” Lucy glared at him as he buttoned his jeans. With a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, he joined me at the table. “So, what’s all this about?”
“You know how you’ve been asking to get dealt in?”
“Yeah, man. I’ve been ready.”
“I’m about to give you a fucking hand of aces.”
“Laz, don’t move.”
“I’m not moving, Red.”
“I can’t do this. Please don’t make me.”
“The fuck you can’t.”
“I don’t want to hurt you!”
“Then don’t, baby. You’ve got this.”
The guys stood around me, laughing as she aimed the pistol.
Taylor’s eyes shot to them, and she shook her head. Her voice quivering, she said, “Laz, I can’t.”
“Look at me. Fuck them, okay? School them, baby, show them what’s up.”
Taylor aimed and shot the beer can out of my hand.
The guys quieted as she took aim again and hit it on the ground where it landed.
The reaction was instant.
“Goddamn, man, watch your balls.”
“Fuck, man, better keep one eye open at night.”
I held out my hand. “Pay up, motherfuckers.”
Taylor smiled as I came toward her with a fistful of cash. I scooped her up in my arms and kissed her deep. When I pulled away, she looked up at me. I grinned down at her, my chest filled with pride. “Told you.”
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into that. You weren’t worried?”
“Not for a single second.”
“That was so stupid.”
I inhaled her smell. “You like living on the edge.”
“No,” she whispered. “No, I don’t.”
But I knew better. The guys huddled around our circle of trucks in the middle of the hayfield, giving us shit for our PDA. I shot the bird over my shoulder as someone turned some music on and fresh beers were popped.
“I bet you’re wet.”
Taylor smiled as I leaned in.
“And I bet it’s not just ’cause I kissed you.”
She lifted a brow. “Bet you won’t ever find out.”
I ran with her in my arms as she threw her head back, laughed, and tightened her legs around me.
“Where are you taking me, Laz? There’s a mile of field around. They can see us.”
I tossed her in my truck and sped out of out of the circle as empty beer cans were tossed our way, hitting the side of my truck.
“Laz, I don’t have to be home yet.”
“I’m not taking you home, home, baby.”
Taylor slid next to me as I raced down the gravel road to the Mason farm a few miles away. “What’s going on?”
“I need to make you mine.”
“I am yours,” she said with a glance my way.
I slid to a stop in front of the barn. Taylor glanced around, uneasy.
“Laz, they’ll catch us.”
“He’s at a horse show. He asked me to keep an eye on the place.” Out of the truck, I gripped her hand and slid open the door. It reeked of damp hay, but it didn’t matter. I saw her smile as I sat her down on the pile of quilts I’d laid down.
“You planned this?”
“I just thought . . .” My chest ached with a feeling I couldn’t control when I was around her. “I know you hate that motel.”
She nodded as she looked over to me.
“You’re high.”
“Please don’t. Just don’t, okay?” I kissed her and felt it the moment she gave into me. My eyes stung from the ache that burned in my chest, while my heart hammered for her. I kissed her deep before I slowly pulled off her jeans. She panted beneath me, her eyes a little fearful.
“I want you so much, Taylor. It’s all I can think about.”
“Laz.”
“You’re all mine.” I pulled her panties down as she tentatively watched me and parted her thighs.
“You won’t remember this,” she objected. “Not the way you’re supposed to.”
I pressed her hand to my chest. “This is all you. All of it.”
Her breaths came fast as I closed my eyes, moved in, and tasted her.
“Oh my God.”
She tugged at my hair as she squirmed. I slid my tongue over my coated lips. “Stay still, baby. I promise you this is going to feel so good.”
“Okay.”
Trust.
That was what I saw in her eyes as I dipped my head again and darted my tongue out. I added a finger and her back arched as she wrapped her legs around my head and moaned.
“Laz.” Her voice was hoarse as I licked and sucked until her body shuddered.
Bracing myself over her, I leaned in and kissed her while she opened for me. Completely wrapped in each other, she pulled off my shirt before she unzipped my jeans. It was permission, and I took it. I leaned in on a whisper. “I love you.”
I centered myself at her middle and dipped my fingers in to stretch her, determined to take what had always belonged to me.
Breaks squeaked outside the barn just as I began to push inside her. “Laz, you in here?”
Taylor was up in a split second, struggling to get back in her jeans just as old man Mason opened the barn door.
And when she snuck back through her window that night, her mother was waiting. She wore fresh bruises the next day when I pulled up to her walking home from school.
“Don’t Laz, drive away. She’s got Amber in the closet until I get home. You have to get. My mother is watching.”
“Fuck that bitch. I’ll take care of this. Get in the truck.”
Taylor stopped and threw her hands up. “Amber is in a closet! You can’t take care of anything!” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re high right now. You don’t understand this. You don’t have to live there. My baby sister is in a closet! I have to get home!”
I pulled the truck to a stop and nailed her to it. The side of her face was swollen and purple. She cried as I tried to console her but pushed at my chest. “I have to get out of here! I have to get the fuck out of here!”
“Baby, I’m sorry. I’m working on it.”
“Lies, more lies. She’s suffering because of me. It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I have to go, Laz.” She fought me as I tried to wrap myself around her. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Go smoke another foil, you fucking liar!”
I jerked back as she ripped a hole straight through me with her tongue. “All you do is lie. You don�
�t love me. You won’t help me. You’re just like my mother! Look at you!”
“That’s bullshit,” I defended weakly.
“Yeah?” she challenged. “Then let’s leave now. Let’s just go. Screw the money. We can just grab Amber and leave. You promised me, and I’m holding you to it, right now. I don’t care what happens, Laz, get us out of here!”
“Now, today?”
“Now, today. If you love me, let’s go. Right now.”
I looked at the ground between us. “We can’t do it today.”
“She could kill me, Laz. Kill us both.”
“Red, I know it’s hard. Just give it some more time.”
Even disguised in anger, I saw disgust. I looked at the road between us.
“I’m taking back all my hopes I had for you, Lazarus Walker.”
I snapped my head up and took a step forward as my chest exploded. “You don’t mean that.”
“Leave me alone,” she barked as she stalked toward her house.
“Take that shit back, Taylor!” She was just out of reach before she began to sprint.
“I won’t. Stay away from me!”
“Red!”
She ran on as I jumped into my truck and beat on the wheel until she disappeared. I reached into my glove box then grabbed and lit a foil. I swore I would make her eat her words. I would pull her through. I swore it.
But instead, I smoked her away.
I wiped my face of the memory as I sped down I-40.
She forgave me a week later, and the week after that.
And still, I smoked her away.
And she took away my hopes for her when she left.
Then the smoke stopped working.
She tossed my love aside like trash, whored herself out to some man she hardly knew just to get away from me. He would get his too. I waited too long. But I knew one day she would come back for Amber.
But she came back with another man beside her.
He is probably fucking her right now.
I saw red as I pressed the pedal to the floor and tore through the Blue Ridge mountains. I might one day be able to forgive her. And it was time she came home, one way or another, permanently. The boy she left in the motel was a pussy in love. I was a new man now. And that man would erase everything that stood in the way of her homecoming.
Perry’s piece of shit truck blew smoke midway between Dyer and Charleston. I was forced off the road for a full fucking day while I waited on repairs.
I’d spent my first day staking out Taylor’s condo. Hate brewed as I watched my son come and go in the arms of his lying whore of a mother with a few of Cedric’s fucking minions on her heels. I only caught sight of Taylor as she drove past to reach her garage. Her condo was locked up tight. There were eyes on them both. It would be a hard breach but not impossible. Apparently, when it came to opportunity, Derek was always looking at doors and never thought about the windows.
Taylor and I were good at windows.
Just when it seemed I couldn’t catch a break, the minute I pulled onto Bay Street I spotted the building Derek described. And with the silky stroke of lady luck, I managed to catch Taylor’s boyfriend pull into the garage in his SUV. Slipping in behind him, I drove past the elevated security bar.
When the SUV pulled to a stop, I tucked my pistol in my waistband and followed him into the elevator. Awareness struck as I crossed the threshold. He turned on me lightning fast, but I already had the barrel aimed as the doors closed.
“’Sup, motherfucker.”
“Mommy, have some?” Joseph squeaked in offering to his doting mother.
“No, baby, that’s your ice cream.”
He sat in a high chair, managing to get his chocolate scoop everywhere but in his mouth as Amber watched on in pure adoration. It had been the perfect two days. According to Cedric, Laz was still in Tennessee, so we took our freedom and spent the last few days with Joseph at the beach and took turns with him on our hips playing in waves of salt water as they rolled through us. Joseph loved the water and even more so running through the crowds of seagulls who fled as he screamed his way past them. We built sun castles, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and fell asleep under our umbrella. With Laz safely in Dyer, we dismissed our sweaty security to embrace our new dynamic. Amber and I exchanged happy smiles as we, for the first time in our lives, lived like two sisters, like family, without fear.
She texted Laz regularly to keep him in “the loop,” and his replies raised no red flags. The night we brought Joseph home, we’d sipped champagne late into the night and talked candidly in an attempt to close the remaining space between us. It was one of the best nights of my life. My sister was warm, caring, had an incredible sense of humor, and was extremely quick-witted and intuitive despite her lack of healthy education. She was a capable woman despite the life she’d been forced to endure, and I was proud. Proud of her strength and resilience.
Not only had she bounced back from addiction, Amber looked radiant and the happiest I’d ever seen her. Her healthy smile was a mix of her getting her bearings and her little boy back, a boy who owned her heart and had managed to steal a piece of mine in less than a few days. He reminded me of another man who had consumed me, especially when he misspoke my name.
“Let’s grill,” I declared as she wiped Joseph’s face. “Sound good?”
She glanced at the small gas grill on the porch as I slid open the glass door adjacent to the dining room and glanced at the marsh. It had been another perfect day.
“You ever used that thing?” Amber laughed as I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to light it.
“Nope,” I replied as I found the safety switch and got it going.
“Nope,” Joseph mimicked. “Nope, Aylor.”
Every time he said my name, my heart sang in a way I never imagined possible.
“So, I guess you two should look forward to burned chicken.”
“Nuggets,” Joseph declared with an open mouth and excited eyes for his mother.
“Black nuggets,” Amber piped sarcastically in reply before she turned to me with a grin.
I shrugged. “One of us has to be the man of the family.”
“He’s right here,” Amber said as she readjusted the bib around Joseph’s neck. It was no use. The ice cream was on every imaginable surface and crevice of his little body.
He stuck his fingers in his mouth managing to coat his chin. “Let’s give it a year or two before we put him on grill duty.”
“Maybe until he’s out of diapers.” Amber chuckled. “Better fill up on this, buddy, or you’ll starve.”
I deadpanned, “Keep it up, you will too.”
She didn’t let up. “Have you ever cooked in your life?”
“Does macaroni and cheese count?”
She shook her head with an incredulous laugh. “No.”
“Well then, no.”
“Spoiled ass, better let me handle this,” she said as she moved to help me.
“No, let me have this. Really. And cooking for one never appealed to me.” I looked down at Joseph just as he managed to get the chocolate in his hair. “Is it weird I’m excited about it?” Looking up at me with a sincere smile, she shook her head. I felt the same burn in my throat I’d had for the last few days. It wasn’t painful; it was freeing and close to what felt like healing. Understanding passed between us. Something as ordinary as grilling for my family had me emotional. To other people, we might seem like lunatics, but for us every second was monumental. Every new experience was a finish line. Ignoring the fear that always accompanied me when I allowed myself to feel, I moved to the fridge to grab a beer and begin dinner when a text pinged on my phone. I spent a few minutes gathering ingredients before I glanced at it.
Cedric: Get the fuck out of there!!
My heart seized as fear sent a shock wave through my body. I heard the glass door from the patio slide open. A wave of cigarette smoke hit my nostrils, and a chill went straight up my spine when I heard his
voice.
“Well, isn’t this just a fucking Hallmark moment.”
“Da!”
I leaped for my cabinet where I knew my special sat.
“Don’t bother, momma bear, I took that one off your hands.” I pulled at the cabinet anyway and felt my heart sink when I found it empty. He’d climbed up the goddamned balcony. I turned to see Amber paling rapidly as she snatched Joseph from the highchair and hugged him to her chest.
Laz glared at her with disgust, his voice filled with the promise of punishment. “I fucking knew it, you lying bitch.”
Amber started rambling nervously as Joseph looked at his father, clearly sensing the tension. “Da!”
Amber began rambling quickly. “Laz, I just got him. I just wanted to get him used to me again.”
“So, you had to lie about it?” Laz dipped down to be eye level with Joseph, who gave him a sideways smile before burying his head in his mother’s chest. Laz ignored his son’s dismissal and lifted accusing eyes at Amber. “You think I didn’t know the minute my son crossed state lines? Fucking stupid.” It was if the devil himself had walked into my house. Dressed in blue jeans, a T-shirt, and boots, he towered over my sister in silent threat. His menacing presence pushed my fear into the back seat as I braced myself for his wrath.
“It was my fault. I told her to lie to you.” Laz turned his volatile eyes in my direction. He looked sick. His skin was gray, and his hair was a slick mess. He was beauty hidden behind his disgusting drug. The best years of his life had been wasted, as was he.
“Of course you did. We’ll get to you soon enough. That’s a promise, Red.” Laz moved toward Amber and gripped her chin. “Get your fucking shit and get in the car.”
Amber’s first tears appeared. “No, Laz, please, we’re happy here. Please, we can work this out!”
“This isn’t his home, Amber. And if you think for one fucking second I’m about to let this happen, you’re wrong.”
“Please,” she pleaded. “I have a job here, and Joseph loves the water.”