by Bijou Hunter
“You probably did, but you’ve never loved anyone like you love Kelsi. She loves you too, and I know she’s never loved anyone like that. Whatever happens will be okay because you struck gold together.”
Taylor gives me a smile. “You did good.”
“Do you feel better?”
Nodding, she sighs. “I still feel guilty telling you when I know you’re freaked out, but I was already on my way over when I got your text. I couldn’t keep quiet.”
“That evil fuck has ruined enough in this world. I don’t want him stealing your big news or excitement. Do you want to tell the boys? Ooh, and we’ll get Kelsi over here to pamper her.”
“I’m a little nervous,” Taylor says, squeezing my hand.
“About being a mom?”
“I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
“You have so much time to practice, and so many babies to practice on. By the time your little one joins the family, you’ll be an ace.”
Calm again, Taylor looks embarrassed to have gotten upset. She’s the tough one. It’s always been that way. She’s rough with River and Shane, but with me, she can be soft. I knew as soon as I met Taylor that I’d struck gold friend-wise, and I’ve never doubted that feeling.
THE GOLIATH
Rage overwhelms me when Shelby explains that the fucking psycho sent her a threatening letter. I want him dead. I want to feel his hot blood on my hands. I want to rip him limb from limb. Shelby sits on the couch she used as a bed before essentially moving into my place. The boy dog sits next to her while the girl dog follows me as I pace the room.
“I’m going to rip his fucking head off,” I growl, clenching my fists and aching to punch someone.
“I know,” Shelby says, watching me calmly while petting her dog.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a kid.”
“I’m not.”
“You think I’m just talking shit.”
“No, I believe if you’re ever in the same room with the Shasta Slasher that you would, in fact, attempt to rip his head off.”
“Not attempt. I’ll do it.”
“What if he shot himself before you got to him?”
“Why you gotta mess with my shit?” I sneer, and Shelby laughs.
“Come over here and let me touch you while you’re doing your shit.”
“No.”
“Because I laughed?” she asks and then softens her gaze. “Or because you’re scared a monster will take away the person who loves you?”
“No one is taking you from me.”
“I believe that.”
“Good,” I mutter, both liking how well she can read me and also fucking hating how she has me pegged.
“I need to feel you, though,” she says and pats the couch. “Don’t you want to feel me?”
I look at my hands, wanting them wrapped around that fucker’s throat. They aren’t in the mood for her soft skin.
“No,” I mutter, backing up. “I don’t want a hug. I want to kill someone.”
“I know, but we don’t know where he is yet. You’ll have to wait to kill him.”
“Like I planned to kill Fuse? Then he was dead. Next, I was gonna kill Cum Shot. Bam, he’s fucking dead.”
“I wish I could promise that you’ll be the one to end him, but I don’t know how this story plays out. There are a lot of killers looking for him now. But none of them make me feel as safe as you do.”
“Bitch,” I growl, and Shelby grins. “Sneaky fucking bitch.”
Raising her arms, she waves her fingers at me. “Come over and give me a hug.”
“I want blood.”
“I can only offer you pussy,” she says, smiling wider. “Think that’ll tide you over until we find him?”
I hate how she just wraps me around her pretty little finger. I oughta have the right to scream for another hour or two before she goes and makes me soft against her. But Shelby Campbell owns me now. I gotta bend to her will. It’s not even a choice. I try so fucking hard to stay how I want to be, but her witchy ways lure me into her embrace.
I drop onto the couch next to her, pissed at how she’s distracting me from my murder plans. Her hand slides over mine.
“I can’t drive out to your place on my own anymore.”
“Our place,” I mutter, struggling to remain angry when she wraps herself around me. “We need to find something in town. Something with more room.”
“We will,” she murmurs against my lips.
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Yes,” she whispers, kissing my temple. “I’m angry too. I think of him feeling so confident. I want him to live in fear. I need him to suffer, but I can’t have those things yet. I can just keep looking for him.”
“You ain’t finding him, Shelby,” I say in the same voice I use when she’s talking about her ghosts.
“If he’s close enough to see that shitty article in the local paper, he’s close enough for us to find.”
“Then what? We ain’t calling the cops, are we?”
“No. What would they do?” she says, frowning as she slides her leg over mine and straddles my lap. “They’d tell the press, and the press would look hard at us. They’ll care more about the Reapers than they would the killer. The fact is no one cares because the girls he murders are prostitutes. They have no value to people. But I’m going to find him and make him dead. While killing the bastard won’t fix what he did to those poor women, it’ll keep him from doing it to someone else.”
“What if he gets angry about you looking for him and kills a girl as revenge?”
“Why are you trying to make me sad?”
Sighing, I shrug. “I’m unhappy, and I like to spread that shit around.”
Shelby stares at me as if I’m a fucking asshole. She wants to be annoyed, but she can’t help softening her tone for me. Yomp, I got her plenty wrapped around my little finger too.
“I’m going to look at this in a positive way,” she says softly as her lips stroke my forehead. “Like why was he so angry about that article? It mocked the very idea of there being a serial killer. It made fun of my so-called hobby. He should be happy the cops are clueless, and the locals are idiots. But he got riled up over me looking for him. Because for the first time, someone is making his world feel small. He has to worry about being watched. I bet he wakes up every day and looks outside his house to see if any strange cars are parked nearby. When he goes to work, he feels eyes on him. That’s why he lashed out and threatened me. All these years, he was the hunter. Now he’s the prey. That’s what I’m going to tell myself when I get scared. I made a monster flinch. One day, I’m going to make him do more than that too.”
Shelby gets me all confused sometimes. I think of her as a soft, sweet girl who loves her family, friends, and these ugly dogs. She’s harmless, and I’m a bastard for loving her. Nomp, she oughta be with a nice guy.
But then I see her like she is right now. Instead of her beauty distracting me with thoughts of how delicate she is, I’m reminded of how she’s a killer like me. Maybe she ain’t as scary or as hard inside, but she’s got a steel spine. That’s how come she can look at me and swoon even though I should scare her. Shelby’s grown up in a world of blood and tattoos. That’s why when those college fuckers attacked her, she didn’t go to the cops or keep quiet. She had them killed.
“I never get lucky in my life,” I mumble, feeling embarrassed to say what I’m about to admit. “I saw other single moms, poor as fuck, loving their kids just fine. Mine never could. She didn’t like me. I got screwed on that. I thought I got lucky with the Skullz. Then they showed how I was expendable. That somehow hurt more. I’d grown up knowing my mom didn’t love me, but I believed in the Skullz.”
Exhaling, I look in her eyes as she gently strokes my shoulders. “Now I got all this good shit, right? You and a baby and a club that I’m realizing ain’t nothing like the Skullz. You’re even helping me put them house ideas into something that can be built. All this good shit just
sitting in my lap,” I say and rest my hands on her hips. “But it can all go away. I wouldn’t lose much sleep over the house not happening. I could deal with the Reapers treating me like shit. But you ain’t something I can replace. If I lose you, that’s it. I’m done. I got nothing.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“It takes just one moment to lose someone. People are fragile, Shelby. One mistake, and I lose my heart. I don’t think it was doing much of anything for a long time until I met you. I didn’t love anyone. Not my mom. She was an idea I wanted, but I didn’t love the real woman. I didn’t love those girls I lived with. Saw them every damn day, and I felt cold inside. Then you came along and warmed me up.”
Running my fingers over her belly, I lower my voice. “I don’t know if you understand how much it hurt to feel my heart beating so hard and fast after being so cold for so long. I didn’t like that feeling. I fought it. Now that I got used to how it feels, I’m afraid to lose it. Scared like a fucking kid at night with a noise under his bed. If I lose you, how’s my heart gonna survive? I ain’t getting a second chance. You’re my one hope of having something good.”
Shelby leans forward, holding my gaze. “I’m not going to tell you the truth. You know how life isn’t fair and that fucked-up things happen. I’m going to tell you what someone who loves you should say. So, remember that, and don’t tell me to be logical. I’m talking to you with my heart and not my head, okay?”
Nodding, I let myself imagine a world where I lose her. For just a second, I see a horrible future. If I’d known losing her could hurt this much, I’d never have let her close. I’d have stayed lonely. Now I can’t push her away. She literally is my heart.
“You and I were fated to be together,” she says, holding my face in both of her hands. “I knew the moment I saw you that you were mine. Maybe you couldn’t feel it because your mom messed up your heart, but I was sure. That’s why I kept coming back. I knew you were my home, Dean Midkiff.”
After giving me a soft, sweet kiss, she continues, “And no one’s going to take me away from you or you from me. You’ve waited a long time to find someone to love you right, and I’m that someone. We deserve a long life together. I plan to grow old with you. No one is stealing our future. Do you understand?”
When I look in Shelby’s beautiful eyes, I can see the future a bit clearer. It’s right out of reach, though.
That perfect future gets a little closer days later when we go to the local hospital to get a test to check on the baby.
“If the ultrasound tech can’t spot a dick, it’s totally a girl,” Shelby tells Taylor, who comes along. “No way is my boy sporting something tiny.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I say while Taylor texts Shane, who wanted to be the third person in the room but lost a spitting match. “I knew a big guy in prison. Size of a truck. Saw him in the shower, and he was sporting a pinkie-sized cock.”
“Was the water cold?” Taylor asks, snickering.
Shelby looks at where I lift my pinkie and frowns. “Wait, was his dick the size of a person’s pinkie or the size of your pinkie? Because the second one ain’t bad.”
I smile when she kisses the tip of my finger and then gives it a little lick. Before we can start making out, the technician woman enters and has Shelby get on the table. A few minutes later, I’m frowning at a fucked-up thing on the screen.
“It looks wrong,” I mutter.
“They always do,” Shelby says, holding my hand. “Iggy looked like a mutant. Ozzy was a ghoul. They’re both the cutest now, though.”
After another minute or two with the technician moving around the wand on Shelby’s bump, she asks if we’re sure we want to know the baby’s plumbing.
“I don’t like surprises,” Shelby says.
The technician looks at me as if for permission. I don’t think that’s a smart move. Shelby and Taylor can be temperamental when they think someone’s disrespecting them. Fortunately for the technician, neither woman notices her checking with me. I give her a nod, and she says I’m having a girl.
“I did notice a lack of dong in the image,” Taylor says and grins at Shelby. “Are you okay?”
“I wanted a boy.”
“Well, try again after this one.”
“What if she’s awful?” Shelby asks after she can sit up. “What if she’s not cool like you and me? Oh, god, what if she’s like Lily Johansson? I can’t deal with more quilts.”
Laughing, Taylor rolls her eyes. “She’ll have you and Dean as parents. I’m sure she’ll turn out sufficiently weird.”
Shelby smiles big at me, excited about our kid not being normal. Then she loses her smile and asks, “Did you want a boy?”
“I didn’t care, but is Kirby really a name for a girl?”
“Sure. It ends with an ‘E’ sound. It’ll be fine.”
“I liked growing up with a guy name,” Taylor reassures me, and I smile at how she’s my friend now. That’s how the Fearsome Foursome is wired. They work as a team. If one hates something, they all hate it. Once a person’s been claimed by one member, the rest embrace them too.
Once in her SUV, Shelby pauses before starting the engine.
“Kirby Midkiff,” she whispers and rubs her belly. “Our baby feels real now.”
Shelby turns to me and smiles as if she’s looking at her Prince Charming. I swear I’ll never understand her choosing me, but I sure as hell ain’t asking her to change her mind.
THE WEIRDO
On a frigid late January day, Max goes into labor and immediately loses her shit. That first painful contraction hits, causing her to make a noise that sends Hansel under the couch. Then the world turns absolutely wild for the next forty-eight hours.
Admitted to the same small hospital where Ramona gave birth to Iggy and Ozzy, Max is terrified. All her Lamaze training goes out the window. She nearly crawls into River’s arms like a baby. Her fear infects the Band, and they all seem ready to freak out. Ramona’s labor was like a jam session with everyone chilling while she enjoyed a nice epidural. That ain’t happening today.
“We need to dope up Max,” I tell Taylor in the waiting room.
“River’s got it handled.”
“Aren’t you scared?” I demand, overly agitated as if Max’s crazy infected me.
Taylor takes me by the shoulders. “I’m Miss Collins from ‘Carrie,’ and you’re freaking out about your first period. Do you know what comes next?”
Calming immediately, I scowl at her. “Don’t you dare slap me.”
“Don’t you dare make me slap you.”
Taylor hugs me against her, and I settle down. “I wish Goliath was here, but he would be miserable.”
“You’ll see plenty of him after the Majors mob arrives, and they take over your room.”
“Oh, yeah.”
River’s family arrives in mass less than two hours after Max’s first contraction. The nurse nearest to me gasps in either horror or awe at the sight of them. There’s no denying they’re a good-looking bunch of blonds.
Vaughn leads the group while Raven brings up the rear with the twins and their new babies. I’m surprised to see Savannah’s new hubby, Surfer Dude. I think he might have a legal name, but so far, no one’s told it to me, and I haven’t asked.
“How is she?” Vaughn asks Taylor.
“She was losing her shit, but drugs have since been administered.”
“I’m pushing my way into the room,” Raven announces. “I have practice being a bitch in hospitals.”
Savannah and Avery share one of their identical smiles. I turn away from them and whispers to Taylor, “I hope I never have twins.”
“Considering how giant your baby might turn out, I agree with you never carrying two of them at the same time.”
Rubbing my bump, I’m suddenly very aware I’ll be at this hospital in a few months. It’ll be my vagina screaming in horror. Is it possible to start my epidural now, so I never have to feel any pain?
�
�No,” Taylor says without me speaking. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no. Now calm down and act relaxed for River’s sake. He’s bound to come out here, showing off his huge balls for a ball-less Shane.”
“I have balls,” my neutered brother growls since he’s sitting nearby.
“Whatever. We need to be supportive.”
Maverick looks up from his phone and holds my gaze. “River’s fine.”
“Will you cry when your kid is born one day?”
“Sure. Why the fuck not?” he says and looks back at his phone.
Unfortunately, his snarky response—meant for Shasta people—is also overheard by Ellsberg people. Mainly, his sisters, Nevaeh and Sylvie, who creep closer.
“He’s so sensitive,” Nevaeh says to the Majors’ youngest child. “Delicate, like a flower.”
“One day, his flower’s gonna blossom, and he’ll become a woman.”
Maverick pulls deep inside himself to withstand the tormenting he suffers the next ten minutes. Sylvie crawls into his lap while Nevaeh tries to braid his hair.
“You’ll be the Spring Queen!” Denver announces.
“The fucking belle of the ball,” Cavalry adds.
Maverick finally looks to his father, who has silently watched the entire thing. Vaughn shrugs. “What can I do? I’m just an old man, and they outnumber me.”
Sylvie decides her father’s comment means he needs tormenting, so she comes after Vaughn, who runs for the door.
“Hippies make weird kids,” I tell Shane. “I think it’s the wheat germ in their food.”
From where she sits next to her sister as they both hold babies, Avery asks, “You don’t know what wheat germ is, do you?”
“No, bitch, I don’t.”
The twins lean forward in unison, doing their identical-creepy-movements routine. “Keep your voice down,” Savannah instructs. “We are in a place of business.”
I open my mouth to scream literal nonsense. Before shenanigans break out, River appears to announce baby Greer has freed herself from the womb.