Yeah, right, I think to myself.
“But you, son, I know you’ve had it real hard since Raelene left us. God bless her soul. So if you wanna sample this fine piece of ass,” he slaps my ass with his wide hand, “you go right ahead, you hear?”
My whole body jumps a little at being slapped and I look at Dornan questioningly.
Jase is glaring at his father and refuses to look at me or even acknowledge my presence. “I don’t need your sloppy seconds,” he says to his father, and I want to vomit. This is so much harder, so much more real, than I ever imagined it would be. The way Jase looks at me, when he does look at me, makes me want to scream.
It is a far cry from the guy who offered me a glass of water and a seat yesterday, and nothing at all like the boy who wanted to save me from all of this once upon a time.
The boy who I used to love.
“Are you sure you’re not one of those fucking faggots?” Dornan asks, clearly pissed off at his son’s blatant rejection of what he no doubt considers to be a generous offer.
Jase just rolls his eyes. “I’m sure, Pop. Go on now, before you miss your chance. That storm is a bitch and it’s only getting worse.”
Lightning cracks on cue overhead and I jump nervously.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jase demands.
I hate storms. I fucking hate them with a passion. When I was a little girl, I used to go and hide under my bedcovers and wait for the fury of Mother Nature to pass.
Sometimes, when we were younger, Jase used to hide with me.
“Nothing,” I say. “I don’t like storms is all.”
Jase eyes me curiously, flicking his eyes up and down me. In that moment, I wonder if he is going to guess who I am eventually. He is clever and shrewd, and I am probably only a few careless remarks away from raising his suspicion.
“They make my hair frizz,” I add, trying to think of other reasons why people might hate storms. “I have to use my hair straightener, like, three times a day when it’s this humid.”
Jase looks at me like one might look at a cockroach squashed on the bottom of their shoe. I shrivel inside under the power of his ambivalence.
You used to love me once.
I can’t think of those things right now. Maybe not ever.
Dornan pulls me towards him and plants his hands firmly on my ass cheeks.
“Gonna miss you, baby girl,” he says, sucking hard at my neck so that I gasp. He’s a grown man giving me a fucking hickey. Marking me as his.
I pull his face to meet mine and kiss him deeply, an I want to fuck you kiss that he must feel all the way to the tips of his toes. He shudders slightly, pulling me towards him, and I feel his hardness against the itch of my fresh ink and tentatively covered scars.
“Do you have to leave?” I ask sweetly, after we break apart. “We only just started having fun.”
“Ugh!” Dornan groans. “You’re killing me, princess. I gotta run. The boys are waiting for me. I’ll see you in a day or two.”
I nod, trying to appear sad, and I yelp as he slaps my ass again.
“Watch her,” he says, stabbing Jase’s chest with his finger. “I’m out.”
He leaves without looking back, and I relax immediately.
“Happy that he’s gone?” Jase asks darkly.
I had forgotten that he was there for a moment. Christ. I really need to keep my wits about me.
“I’m hungry,” I explain. “All the man wants to do is fuck, and I haven’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday.”
He gives me a look so withering, it takes all of my will not to break down and tell him who I really am. I didn’t anticipate having to be in the same room as him, let alone be babysat by him. Being judged like a common whore by him.
Jase strides over to the open window that separates the kitchen from the dining room. “Hey, Carol, you there?” he asks, in a voice more like a teddy bear’s than the asshole tone he’s been using with me.
Before I can think, a woman pops her head around the corner of the kitchen doorway, smiling.
“Hey, Jase,” she says, ruffling his hair. I swallow hard and look for an escape that doesn’t exist.
“Sammi here missed breakfast. Do you think we could grab some cereal or something from the pantry?”
Carol wipes her hands on a dishrag and smiles, looking straight at me. I freeze like a deer in headlights.
She is only forty but looks closer to fifty, a life of excess and violence written in each deep line that draws out from underneath her huge green eyes. Her dark blonde hair sits atop her head in a messy French bun, peppered with fine slivers of grey.
“Hello, Sammi,” Carol says, extending her hand. “You must be new here. I can fix you anything – eggs? Toast?”
“Cereal is fine,” I squeak as I shake my mother’s hand.
Ten
My mother sold me out for a bag of blow.
There.
I said it.
She was a terrible mother, a liar and a whore and a thief. Falling pregnant with me was an accident – she was barely seventeen and had just met my father.
Growing up, my father was like a mother to me as well. And my mother, when she was around, was like a distant older sister who lashed out at me when I did something wrong, and yelled at me whenever I cried. I learned from a very early age never to cry. I perfected my poker face at three years old, the same age I learned how to climb out of my own cot, how to pull up a chair and fix myself breakfast how to call 911 when my mother overdosed on heroin in the bath.
She was a horrid mother, but she was still my mother, and I loved her more than anything.
The day Dornan took me – the day I “died” – was like any other day. My father was still at work at the factory; my mother was tearing at her skin, out of cash and out of meth.
Then Uncle Dornan knocked at the door, flanked by Chad and Maxi. I was a streetwise kid. I’d grown up in the life, in the club. I could see the guns bulging at their waistbands, concealed under thin shirts and patched leather jackets.
My mother answered the door. I was in the kitchen, and heard voices. They were looking for my father, was he home?
When my mother told him that my father was still at work, Dornan burst in, apparently unsatisfied with her answer.
Then his eyes landed on me, and a shit-eating grin grew on his beard-stubbled face.
“You’d better come with us, Juliette,” he said, his voice like sharp gravel scraping against my bare skin.
I looked at my mother, alarmed. Something wasn’t right.
“Why?” my mother asked, picking at her arm like she did when she was hanging for a fix.
Dornan withdrew a knotted baggie of light brown powder from inside his jacket and held it in front of her. Heroin.
“Relax, darlin’,” he said, grinning. I felt my skin prickle as my heart thudded faster. “We’ll have you back here in a few hours.”
My mother looked uncertain. “Why do you need Julie?” she asked. She always called me Julie. Everyone else called me Julz.
Except Dornan. He liked to use my full name.
Dornan shook the baggie. “We just need her to help us find something, Carol. It’s a quick in-and-out job. Nothing untoward.”
My mother bit her lip and looked from Dornan, to me, to the baggie.
“I don’t feel well,” I said to my mother, backing away. “I don’t want to go.”
Dornan stepped closer to me, towering over my five-feet-tall frame. “It’s important, Juliette,” he said, his smile vanishing. “Jason’s waiting for you.”
He grabbed my elbow, steering me towards the front door.
“Mom,” I protested.
Dornan dropped the bag into her open palm and smiled victoriously. “You’re a good woman, Carol. I knew you’d help us.”
“Have her home for dinner,” my mother said, turning and fleeing to the kitchen with her drugs.
Dornan tugged me more forcefully. “Mom!” I yelled. She didn’t answer. S
he ignored my pleading as three men dragged me out of my house and ordered me into the backseat of their car, the engine still running.
“Where are we going?” I asked them, annoyed and upset.
Nobody answered. Dornan didn’t make eye contact with me, just glanced up and down our street before slamming my door shut. A moment later, he was in the driver’s seat, and activated the central locking. I was trapped.
I rested my head against my window and stared at my house for what would be the last time.
I watched my mother through the open curtains as Dornan reversed the car out of our driveway. She looked completely engrossed as she drew up cloudy liquid into a syringe.
She didn’t even look up from fixing her hit as her only daughter was driven to her death.
I sit in stunned silence, shoveling Cheerios into my mouth, thankful that as the grains melt on my tongue, they are washing away the taste of Dornan’s parting kiss.
I am faltering.
I don’t know if I can do this.
Not now that I have seen my own mother stare through me as if I were a complete stranger.
She thinks I’m dead. I am experiencing a type of mourning for her, one that I never expected to feel. She is a traitor, after all. I think she knew what Dornan was planning to do to my father, but she didn’t care. She didn’t leave, or warn my father or me. No, instead she ran to Dornan, begging for money for her meth habit, always begging for money, and even when I supposedly died at his hands, she still didn’t leave this godforsaken place.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Jase says quietly, swinging back on his chair so that only the rear two legs are touching the ground.
I drop my spoon into my milky bowl and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Am I going to get a running commentary the entire time your father is gone?” I ask, pushing my bowl away. “Because I’d rather not.”
He seems surprised at my sudden turn in mood, and, to be honest, so am I. I thought screwing Dornan and having him stare at me like a sick puppy was going to be the most difficult part of this whole thing.
Clearly, I was wrong.
Jase widens his eyes and smiles cheekily. “Hello. Is this the real Samantha? Because I like her more than the fairy floss bullshit you spin in front of Dornan.”
I smile back, but my smile is sour. “Look,” I breathe, leaning over the table, “I like your father, don’t get me wrong. He’s given me a place to stay and money to sort myself out. But–”
“What?” Jase teases, swinging dangerously far back on the chair before slamming the front two legs back onto the ground so that his face is closer to mine. “You don’t like being cooped up inside while Pop goes off with his merry band?”
I drop the smile. “Something like that.”
Jase sniffs and nods, scanning the room. “I get it. This isn’t what you signed up for.”
“Exactly,” I say. “I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong. I’m just a little … overwhelmed right now.”
Jase narrows his eyes, seemingly in deep thought. “Be careful around here,” he says. “Things – people – have a way of getting hurt if they don’t do what they’re told.”
Please Pop, please don’t, they’re hurting her, please stop, STOP STOP STOP.
I just nod, chewing on my lip. “Thanks for the tip.”
“So, you hate storms?” Jase says, cocking his head to the side.
He is still trying to figure me out, I think. He still suspects I’m more than just a fuck buddy of his father’s.
“I hate humidity,” I shrug. “That’s all.”
“Huh.” He is silent for a moment, then stands abruptly. “You wanna come up to the roof for a while?”
Isn’t that where the fucking storm is?
“I mean, unless you’re scared.” It’s an open challenge that he extends to me with an outstretched palm and a cocky grin. Asshole.
I smile, putting my hand in his and standing up. “Only if you straighten my hair afterwards,” I say playfully.
“Ahhh… deal? I guess? How the hell do you straighten your hair anyway?”
“With a flatiron,” I smile. “Game?”
“I guess,” he says, not looking too convinced. As he leads me back to the hallway, he reaches his free arm around the doorway and snipes a bottle of Jack from the kitchen.
“For the light show,” he winks, waving the bottle.
I just smile a lie as my stomach flips and my heart sinks all in one.
Eleven
The clubhouse has few windows and a lot of soundproofing, a dream for a girl who is terrified of thunder and lightning.
The minute we get to the top of the stairwell and Jase opens the fire escape, I am cringing at the bright flashes of light and the menacing thunder that rips through every fiber of my being.
Once the door is open, the noise of the wind and thunder becomes deafening, and I cower at the prospect of going out into it.
“Come on,” Jase yells above the din, pulling my hand. “Trust me!”
Trust him? Of course I trust him. He risked his goddamn life to try and save mine all those years ago.
But does Sammi trust him? Should she?
“Fuck it,” I breathe, unplanting my stubborn feet and following him outside into the howling wind and neon flashes. It’s got to be better that being stuck downstairs with my mother.
I squint my eyes, cringing against the sudden assault of stinging, sharp raindrops that are almost solid enough to be considered hail. They bite at my skin like tiny bullets, baying for my blood.
“Why the hell do you want to be out here?” I yell at Jase. He tugs my hand and we keep running. The visibility is terrible and I can barely see what’s in front of me, apart from thick sheets of icy rain.
Lightning strikes uncomfortably close and I scream, practically jumping on Jase. He laughs, pointing at something in front of us. At first, I don’t realize what it is – it’s a room without walls, and it’s not wet inside.
It’s not magic, it’s a room made entirely of glass. A greenhouse.
How odd, I think, and squeal again when another bolt of lightning strikes less than a hundred feet away. I am practically glued to Jase like a spider monkey stuck to his back.
I breathe a sigh of relief as he opens a door in the glass and pulls me inside, closing it behind us. The storm still rages around us, but at least I feel a little more protected. The room is pretty big, at least twenty feet across and with a stunning view of the Venice Beach coastline.
“What is this place?” I ask. “A marijuana farm?”
Jase smiles. “Used to be. Until the cops started doing aerial surveillance. Now it’s my hangout when I get sick of being down there with my idiot brothers.”
“Do you bring all your father’s whores up here?” I ask him, wringing the extra moisture out of my long brown hair.
Jase chuckles. “Did you just call yourself a whore?”
I smile wickedly. “Let’s keep ourselves firmly planted in reality, shall we? I’m sleeping with your father so he’ll let me stay here in his club. What else would you call me?”
Jase raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know. A girl who had to make some hard decisions to protect herself?”
I shrug, shivering. “That’s a much nicer way of saying it,” I concede.
“Here.” Jase shrugs out of his long-sleeved leather jacket and puts it around my shoulders. I can’t help but notice that the jacket is plain, devoid of any patches or club insignia. That must piss Dornan right off.
“Thanks,” I say, a thrill coursing through me as his fingertips brush my shoulder.
I am amazed. Even after six years, even with him oblivious to who I actually am, there is a chemistry between us that cracks and fizzes like the storm that rages all around us.
“Take a seat,” Jase says, pulling out a couple of upended milk crates. He sits on one and produces a half-empty bag of pretzels to go with the bottle of Jack at his feet. He munches on a pretz
el before offering me the bag.
I take it, eating a pretzel and watching as he unscrews the whiskey and takes a long, deep drink. I imagine how it must burn his throat, his tongue, his lips.
His lips.
“Do you always start drinking at ten in the morning?” I ask him.
He grins cheekily and looks at me from underneath his thick black eyelashes. He has his mother’s dimpled smile, and for that I am eternally grateful.
“Only when I’m babysitting whores,” he jokes, offering me the bottle. I take a swig and the liquid burns all the way down to my stomach.
“You don’t even know me,” I say, popping another pretzel in my mouth. “I don’t even think you like me. Why bother bringing me up here?”
Jase takes the bottle back and takes a swig, gulping the burning liquid down. He studies me for a moment, giving me an uneasy feeling in my belly.
Because he looks at me like he does know me.
“You remind me of a girl I used to know,” he says quietly, looking away.
“Oh, really?” I ask casually, a river of pent-up tears burning a hole in my fucking heart. “Where is she now?”
He looks at the ground for a moment before meeting my gaze again. “She died.”
I swallow back the enormous lump in my throat. I can’t cry. If I cry, this is all over. And it can’t be over, not yet.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, my carefully laid plans threatening to shatter to pieces like the flimsy glass building we are sheltered within.
“It’s fine,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “It was a long time ago.”
We sit there in silence for awhile, munching on pretzels and sharing the Jack. After awhile I start to feel relaxed.
Stop drinking. You need to keep your wits about you.
“Your dad’s a little… full on,” I say finally, piercing the silence.
Jase looks at me with an expression devoid of laughter or light. “He’s one of a kind,” he says, and I can hear the bitterness in his voice.
“You two aren’t close?” Please say no, please say no.
“Huh!” Jase chuckles, but there is no joy in the sound. It is more like a strangled cry of desperation.
Seven Sons Page 5