by Lewis, R. J.
Ever since that night, Heath obsessed over our finances. Everything was about money and having enough in case of emergencies. While I understood his panic, I also missed him and would have preferred having more time with him than all the riches in the world. I just wished he felt the same too.
“I’m sure everything will be alright,” I told him. “He’s a beautiful, healthy boy.”
He nodded, but his face stated otherwise. When he let his guard down, I could read him so clearly. Other times, I was not so fortunate.
He held me to him for a little while, and when we started kissing again, his insatiable thirst returned. He climbed back over me and took me gently and slowly. This time there was no rush. Just the simple, quiet thrusts accompanied by his loving kisses and warm eyes. He watched me intently, knowing when I was close, and holding off on his own pleasure until I got there. He came with me this time, panting hard against me as we rode it out together.
I was limp and thoroughly fucked after that. So when the sound of a frustrated cry erupted, I groaned in exhaustion. With a sigh, I made to move when Heath’s hand pushed me back down.
“I’ll take care of him,” he whispered. “You need to sleep.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I need to spend time with my little man anyway. Missed him too much. I’ll be in there. Get your rest.”
Fighting with him on this was futile. He always won. So I gave him a quick kiss in thanks and watched him leave the bedroom, completely nude and sexy. To my surprise, it was merely minutes before sleep won me over.
Three
Heath
He was tiny. So damn tiny, he was swimming in his warm suit. He fidgeted, that mouth opening wide, reminding me of the jaws of a shark before it consumed. And that’s all Kayden did: consumed. His stomach was a bottomless pit, and after every bottle, that tiny belly of his would bloat and poke through his baggy clothes. Soon after, he’d burp and a bit of milk would spurt out from that mouth. It would trickle down the corner of his red, thin lips and to his chin. I wiped it away before it pooled along his neck fat – the fat that spoke of how well fed he was.
Kayden.
This was my Kayden.
Nobody could take me away from him. I soaked up every minute of him and yet it was never enough. I thought about him all day at work. Of his cheeky smile. Of the way his blue eyes would open up and stare at the world around him, looking so fascinated and engrossed in his surroundings. I loved the tiny noises he made. I loved when he grunted in frustration and cried to be held. The way he squirmed and kicked his blanket off when he started to get hungry, or the way he suckled your finger with that toothless mouth. What I liked the most, though, was when those blue eyes stared deeply into my own like I was his entire world. Every one of these moments we shared, those eyes drank me in, and I felt connected to him in a way I never anticipated. I didn’t think of these things during Allie’s pregnancy. I’d only set my eyes on her and what she needed. Never before would I have thought I’d have fallen so deeply in love with a fussy, stubborn baby that made my life before him seem empty and bleak. That old me had died. It had fallen into a sinkhole, buried away in darkness, never to be returned again.
It was life changing. My heart always beat harder when I had quiet moments like this with him. Staring down at him in my arms as he slowly dozed back to sleep after a bottle and a half. I stroked the top of his fuzzy head and took in his every feature. He had Lawson all over him. The same chin, the same brows and ears. He had Allie’s eyes and the same pale skin, and as much as I tried not to see it, he had Ryker’s thin lips.
If I was being honest about it, deep inside I really did like seeing Ryker in him. In a way, I wanted to save a Lawson and give him opportunities kids like Ryker and I would have dreamed of. However, personally, I envisioned Kayden as a tiny little Ryker, only this time he was growing up the right way. And goddammit, nothing was going to take him away from me. I was going to make sure of that.
If I wanted the best for Kayden, I had to be sure I could always provide. It was becoming difficult as of lately. Street fighting in Hedley was growing in popularity. It was also attracting more cut throat men that were damn good at it. I thought of the crazy man I fought tonight. I could tell straight off the bat he was some drug-deprived monkey in need of his next hit. Most of the fighters needed money, or they did it for the attention. Sometimes they even did it to prove something to themselves. However, there were ones that came through that went far more than that. They did it because they were desperate, and you could never underestimate the power a man in need of a drug had. Addiction turned people into animals.
So, yeah, he fought hard, but I fought harder in the end. I walked away with a wad of money that was going to easily see us through for a good while. While I was somewhat desperate, the image of the duffel bag loaded with cash always came back to me.
Nobody came looking for me for that fifty thousand dollar debt. That day came and went, and it had been spent pacing with nerves until the early hours of the morning. I waited the day after that and still nothing. It was like the calm before the storm. I’d stayed up throughout the night over the course of two weeks, expecting the door to get knocked down and to be sent to my death by enraged drug dealers who knew I’d stolen their money.
Only… that didn’t happen.
Instead, the streets descended into chaos. Ryker’s gang had emerged and revealed themselves. The Syndicate, they called themselves, and they turned against the small gangs they supplied, knocking them out one after the other until shootings around Hedley were so commonplace, people stayed in their homes just to wait it out. The sound of police sirens became background noise for a long while after Ricardo’s death, and nobody understood what was going on. They didn’t know what the falling out between them was in regards to.
Except me.
I knew everything.
This was the chain reaction I’d hoped for. While the Syndicate tried to avenge Ricardo’s death by going against others, I lurked in the shadows, completely untraceable.
Nobody came for me. I’d probably been shelved. An unimportant debt that didn’t need tending to until they got to the bottom of what happened. They probably cared about the money more than Ricardo beaten to death. After all, it was over a hundred thousand dollars. A hundred thousand dollars I’d buried away next to a marked tree in the middle of the bush forty minutes outside of Hedley.
It was money that couldn’t be touched. I needed to lay low, not flaunt my sudden wealth to people. I had to make do without it and continue living and providing by my own means. It was harder than I thought it would be. That temptation to not fight grew every day that passed with Kayden. I didn’t want to come home with bruises and have to lie to a little boy about where they came from. I wanted to be better than that. I wanted to be someone he could look up to. Being a street fighter just wasn’t enough anymore, and the money buried away became all the more alluring.
I couldn’t explore options or get it off my chest by bringing it to Allie. I couldn’t tell her about the money because I couldn’t endanger her life if they sniffed around here and demanded answers. At times, truth was a burden, and telling it meant someone else had to carry it with you. Allie didn’t deserve to know. She needed to focus on her education and her little boy. She needed to trust that I would take care of it all.
But I had a plan. It was dangerous, it was crazy, and it warranted help from someone equally as fucked up as me. It was the only way to get to my goal of ensuring a good life for the ones I loved – something I’d obsessed about for a very long time.
And as always, when I thought of everything that happened, I reflected on seeing Ryker after Kayden had been born. I wanted peace. I wanted him to tell me everything, but fuck, that guy was stubborn.
When I saw his face, I knew he wanted nothing more than to kill me. He dragged his feet, apprehensive about getting any closer to me, all the while frowning like he had a reason to be angry.
My entire body was tense and wound up tight by the time he sat on the bolted down chair. We said nothing for a while. The silence was loud somehow, drowning out my riotous heart beats. We were hardly even breathing.
Ryker looked older by some means. His cheeks were covered in stubble, his hair a little longer than he’d ever let it grow before. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. His eyes wandered about my face, and for a moment it was like he was staring at someone unfamiliar to him. I knew I was different. I felt different. Ever since I killed a man, I’d lost a part of my identity, and I wasn’t sure it could be reclaimed.
“Are we just going to sit here and stare at each other all day?” I said, breaking the silence.
He didn’t respond. He continued staring at me, barely blinking.
“Stop acting like I’m the one that fucked up,” I growled, leaning forward to look at him closely. “I never asked for any of this, Ryker. All of it happened, and it wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for you and your stupidity. You’re sitting on that side of the table because you fucked up, and I’m still the one cleaning up after your mistakes. So how about you open your goddamn mouth and talk like a man?”
He smirked at me. If I’d spoken to him like this before, he’d have fought me tooth and nail to show me that he was a man. I’d played this game many times before, saying things that I knew would push his buttons. I was seeking a reaction, trying to stir him out of his silence in order to talk to me. Even if he spoke in anger.
“I’m thinkin’ about how I’m going to kill you,” he said softly, tilting his head to the side. “Thinkin’ about how I’m going to cut your fucking throat after I’ve torn you limb from limb.”
I scoffed, completely unbothered by his words. “If anyone deserves to get killed, it’s your ass. You want to play this sob story? Bet you’re telling yourself I’m some thief: took your woman, took your kid, took a life you could have had and all that bullshit losers like to tell themselves when they’ve fucked up. That’s what you’re doing, right? Well, listen here, you little shit, I’m not a thief. I got given all your responsibilities, and unlike you, I’m not fucking it up. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and it could have been the best thing to ever happen to you too. But it isn’t. And that’s because you threw it all away.”
“You don’t know shit about me,” he retorted, swallowing hard. “You don’t know what I’ve been through to get where I am right now. So how about you get the fuck out of my face? I’m not going to sit here and take your insults like you know one cent about me –”
“I’m here because we’re going to talk, Ryker,” I interrupted sharply. “We’re going to talk about it all, or as much as we can in the half hour I’ve got.”
“I’ve got nothing to say –”
“Bullshit you don’t! You sit here telling me I don’t know one thing about you. How about you start opening your mouth and filling me in? The only way to mend this shit is by being honest –”
“I’m not mendin’ shit with you! And last I heard, honesty wasn’t your fuckin’ priority when you sat across from me like you are right now, promising me you’ll take care of my woman.”
My woman, he said. Like Allie still belonged to him. It had me boiling in anger because she wasn’t his. She was mine now.
He saw my reaction and leaned forward, that smirk intensifying. “She’s with you out of convenience, Heath. Because you’re looking after her. The second I’m out of here, she’ll come back to me, like she always has. Every fight we ever had, every time she ever walked away from me, I always got her back. Always made her realize she was only half of herself without me. And it’s going to happen again, Heath.”
“Fuck you,” I spat out. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
He didn’t relent. Instead, there was mischief in his eyes as he curiously asked, “How does it feel to know she was with me first? I was her first kiss. Her first fuck. She’d kept her virginity close to her, Heath, and she gave it to me. Did you know that? Did you know she held onto it and waited for the perfect guy? That’s what she called me, Heath: the ‘perfect guy’. I was there for her when her father died. She cried on my shoulder. She listened to me soothe her. She told me things she’ll probably never open up to you. We have a history you’ll never touch. Memories you’ll never have.”
I was trembling. It was painful hearing it because a lot of it was true. He was her first everything, and I felt like the rebound sometimes. But then I reflected on the way she looked at me. With warmth and love. No, she loved me. She was with me because I was the right guy for her.
“If you were so spectacular,” I said on a sneer, “then why didn’t she wait for you?”
The protruding vein at the base of his throat twitched. His eyes hardened and just as much as I was hurting at hearing what he was saying, I realized he was hurting worse. Fuck, I hadn’t come here for this.
“Ryker –”
“Fuck off and don’t come back again.” He stood up and made to leave.
“Ryker, I’m sorry,” I quickly apologized. “Look, man, I’m not here to fight. I just want to talk. Please, just talk. Tell me everything. We can work this out! Remove her from the picture for two minutes and just talk to me, man. You’re my brother.”
“We’re not brothers,” he snapped back as he took a step away from me. “And there’s nothing more to say.”
I snapped out of that memory, shuddering at the guilt that swamped me every time I remembered his pain. It was dangerous thinking back on it. It made me wonder too much about his relationship with Allie and if they really did have something better between them. I wanted to be her best memories. I needed to believe I was.
As soon as Kayden fell back asleep, I set up the bassinet in the bedroom next to our bed. Then I moved Kayden to it, making sure his pacifier was in his mouth and he was dry and changed. He was a smelly little man, farted up a storm after every feed. He’d eaten a lot just now and nine times out of ten he slept through until five in the morning. Hopefully he wouldn’t fuss and wake Allie up while I was away. She didn’t need to know I was gone.
I slipped on my black hoodie and changed into dark jeans. I grabbed my keys and a pocket knife from inside my work bag and stuffed them in my pocket. Before leaving, I crawled into bed and held Allie for a couple minutes. Her days were long and hard. She was so exhausted she didn’t even stir. My chest felt heavy with my love for her, and for a moment I considered getting the job done tomorrow.
But I couldn’t. It wasn’t practical. It wasn’t the plan. I needed to do this now even if it meant I’d be gone for three hours and probably be a walking zombie by the morning. Besides, tomorrow was a Friday, and the night wouldn’t be as desolate as today.
“Fuckin’ adore you, baby,” I whispered in her ear. I kissed her shoulder and pulled the covers over her. Just as I moved off the bed, I heard a series of knocks from the front door.
Frowning, I hurried out of the room, shutting the door behind me to keep Allie from waking up. On my way, I stopped by the knife block on the kitchen counter and grabbed a blade. You just never know, right?
Settling against the front door and hearing another eager series of knocks, I looked into the peephole. Instantly, the tension eased away. I dropped the knife to my side and unlocked the door. Swinging it open, I growled out, “The fuck you doin’ at my door, man?”
Marko rolled his eyes and shoved past me. “Been waiting for you out front for a while now. Fuck, am I the only punctual one left in this piece of shit town?”
“I got a phone, you know. That’s what normal people use when they want to talk to people late at night. They fucking call them up. You can thank Alexander Graham Bell for that.”
Marko shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t have time to talk on a phone that locks you to a stupid plan you can’t get out of unless you pay an exorbitant amount of money.”
“Exorbitant amount of money? Point of that is to find a plan you can afford and not have to get out of
it.”
“Same shit.”
“Well, you can’t keep doing this shit. I’ve got a kid and a woman sleeping feet away from us.”
“Yeah, but I can smell the sex all over you, so I’m sure you’re in a better mood than you were earlier today. Fuckin’ cunt attitude, man. Boys didn’t deserve that.”
I glowered at him and stared in the direction of the bedroom. I didn’t want Allie waking up to Marko in our apartment. She didn’t like him. Never did since she saw him slay me at the fight all those months ago. To be fair, he was an incredibly skilled fighter. Now our matches were unpredictable, and we were even in wins and losses. This made our fights the most talked about. People loved watching a blood fest you couldn’t predict until the end. It made the betting process interesting and risky.
Fighting aside, Marko was my best buddy. He showed up at the shop weeks after he’d slayed me seeking a mechanic’s job. We’d only just opened a position and dozens of resumes had streamed in. But the second our boss set eyes on Marko stepping foot into the office with his shoulders practically wide as the doorframe, he gave him the job on the spot. I wasn’t sure if he was just intimidated by Marko. I wouldn’t blame him. He’d had a hard look about him – he still did – but that day his demeanour had said, “You don’t give me this fucking job, I’ll come back and burn your precious shop to the ground… with you in it.”
So he got the job. I didn’t want to like the guy. In fact, I loathed him for a while. But on a certain level, we were the exact same people, and we ended up bonding without even realizing it. We were working a job we hated, fought on the side to make ends meet, and had fallen head over heels in love with women we weren’t supposed to love. The only difference?