Steel Country Boxset

by Fields, MJ

  “You have no fucking clue how much I wish that was true!” Gage yells back. “But I have raised—” He stops.

  I look at Grayson, whose head is down. Now, now everything makes sense. He’s ready to bail on the boy. Fucker’s divorced now and probably wants out of the kid’s life, too.

  “The boy. You raised a boy who is no more my son than you are my fucking brother. You’re shit, and he—”

  He comes at me again, nailing me three times in the fucking jaw. I get one hit in before I’m pulled back by one of them.

  “Get him out of here, Kean,” the one who has Gage’s arms jacked back yells.

  “Don’t you fucking dare. We’ve just fucking started,” Gage snarls.

  “You gonna chill the fuck out, then? This isn’t part of what we do. We’re not fucking referees for grown men who need to settle a fucking problem.”

  Grayson walks over with a wad of wet paper towels and rips them in half, handing me a pile before doing the same to Gage.

  “I wanna know my nephew. I want this fucking fixed. I am so damn sick of the lies, the secrets, the fucking pain. I’m sick of running!” Grayson’s voice is that of which I have never heard. It shocks me.

  “Gray...” Gage starts.

  “No, Gage! No! You have shit, too. You know—”

  “Enough!” Gage yell and gives him the look, the one that tells him to shut up. The one that hides his dirty laundry.

  “We’ve got this. Thank you,” he tells the Patricks.

  “You sure about that, man?” one of them asks him.

  “I’m sure.”

  The other Patrick looks at Grayson as he walks toward him with a card in hand. “Shit gets ugly, call us. We’ll be around.”

  “Thank you,” Grayson says, taking the card.

  The other asshole releases my arms, and I can’t help laughing. “Fucking joke. What a fucking joke.”

  “It’s no joke, Garrett. It’s gotta end,” Grayson says before walking into the kitchen.

  “Sit.” Gage points at the couch.

  “I’m not your fucking dog or a kid you hold power over,” I snap at him.

  He bites back whatever it is he wants to say and walks to the couch.

  I look up and see the boy. My boy. The one I have avoided. The one Gage fucking deemed I didn’t deserve after he fucked the girl I was fucking and married her ass. That boy, he’s fucking beautiful.

  Maybe, just maybe, I did something right in my life.

  “Here,” Grayson says, handing Gage a cup of coffee and another to me. “Everything inside me says fucking run. Fucking run away from you two, from Mom, from the damn business, from goddamn life.”

  “Don’t do that. This son of a bitch will drag you right back to hell,” I tell him.

  Gage glares at me, and I glare right back.

  Silence has never been louder or more deadly. I’m ready for whatever it is he has up his fucking sleeve.

  “I need a minute.” He sets his cup on the coffee table and walks into a room I assume is his.

  No one says a word.

  I look at Gray, and he looks at me.

  “We need to fix this shit,” he says, face full of emotions. “He’s hurting, too, Garrett; has been for years. He needs this as much as we do.”

  “I don’t need shit,” I tell him, pulling my smokes out of my pocket.

  “You fucking do, and so does Brandon!”

  His name hurts. Hurts so fucking bad it crushes.

  Before I have the chance to light a cigarette, we hear a loud bang and the sound of glass shattering. Then I hear Gage yell, “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck. You!”

  Running into Gage’s room, Gray opens the bathroom door and walks in.

  “I said I need a fucking minute,” Gage snaps.

  I see Gray’s eyes cloud over and Gage’s fucking pain. We don’t move. We watch and wait for whatever the hell it is that Gage will do next.

  “I don’t know if I can fix it this time. I have no fucking clue if I can.” He pushes past us and out into the living room, where he grabs his keys and heads toward the elevator. “I’ll be back. Don’t either of you fucking leave, or I swear I will fucking let everything go right to hell with me, and then the two of you can kiss your fucking free ride goodbye, you and your parents.”

  “You can’t just leave. You brought us here. Now let’s get shit sorted, or at least try, Gage,” Gray says.

  Gage looks at me and points. “I can’t look at you without seeing him. I’ll never be able to look at him without seeing you.”

  “Welcome to my fucking party, man,” I throw my hands in the air.

  “You could have done something to stop me from being manipulated by that cunt,” he snaps.

  “You took her away from me. You took her that goddamn night because, in your eyes, I will never be good enough. You took her from me. You did that!”

  “I didn’t know she was yours, Garrett! You were having one of your fucking spells. I got her away from you for you, not me!”

  His words, his fucking words, I don’t believe him. I don’t. He knew. He fucking knew! It fucking wrecks me.

  “Bullshit! Bullshit! You thought I couldn’t be a father! You thought I was so fucked up from what happened.” I stop and close my eyes tight.

  “No. No, goddammit, Garrett, I had no fucking clue!”

  “She told me she was pregnant. She told me that night. Don’t you lie to me. Don’t you fucking lie!”

  “Jesus Christ, Garrett. She didn’t say a word to me, not one fucking word. I’m the same fucking person I’ve always been. Tell me when I’ve ever fucking lied to you!”

  “Get off your damn high horse, Gage! You lied for years! You lied for all of us. You lied so I wouldn’t tarnish this family! You, Gage fucking Kelly, lied because you had to be perfect so no one looked at you like you didn’t belong!” I throw his biological father’s name, the dead guy, in his face to hurt him, like he’s hurt me

  “Do you hear yourself, Garrett? Do you hear what you’re saying to him?” Gray yells at me.

  “Shut the fuck up, Grayson! You’re a pussy. You cried yourself to sleep for years because we left Portugal and came back to New Jersey. You have no clue what struggles are. You’ve always been the weak link!”

  Gage grabs Grayson as he lunges at me. “That’s fucking enough! This is a fucking mess! A fucking mess, and not one of us are going to make things any better for Brandon like this! Sit, both of you, sit!”

  What choice do I have, he wants to make this better for Brandon. That’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what I thought he wanted. Fuck! What a fucking mess.

  I sit.

  “This goes no fucking further than this room, regardless of what the fucking outcome is. It goes no fucking further because all of us have a lot to lose. Brand being the most important.” He sits down in the chair opposite the couch and looks at us. “Garrett was, what? Ten?” he asks, looking at me.

  I run my hand through my hair and shake my head. “Eleven when you saw him...when you saw him...” I stop. I can’t go on.

  Gage looks at Grayson. “Old man Afanso hurt Garrett.”

  “What? When?” Grayson asks.

  “He just did, Gray, okay? He just fucking did.” I nearly beg for that to be enough. I don’t want him to know. I don’t want him to look at me the way Gage has since the day that year of hell and torture came to an end.

  Grayson nods his head up and down fast. “Okay. Okay.”

  “He hurt him. I saw it, stopped it, and Garrett made me promise not to tell anyone. For weeks, I wanted to tell. I wanted to, and I told the old fuck to leave, or I would. He just kept coming back to work—”

  “And then he got his,” I say over him, wanting it to end. To go away. To stop. What happened to me, what that fucker did to me, he ruined me. No child deserves that. No one should ever put their hands on a child.

  Bile creeps up my throat just thinking about the pain, both physical and emotional, that he caused me. That pain has car
ried on my whole fucking life. It caused a snowball effect. It has ruined everything. I can’t...I just can’t discuss it.

  “He fell and hit his head on that hammer, and he fucking died. But you could never look at me like I was a man again. You saw me as weak. I’m not fucking weak, Gage. I’m not!”

  “But that’s not fucking true,” Gray cuts in. “He didn’t hit his head on a hammer. Gage threw a rock...Gage threw a rock and hit him in the head. Then he died. Gage threw a rock at him, and he fucking fell and died.”

  I quickly look at Gage, unable to distinguish the look on his face.

  “You killed him?” I ask.

  “Not intentionally. I wanted the fucker to leave, to not come back. I wanted him gone.”

  Gage looks at us as we look at him, expecting more.

  “I was glad he died,” Gage finally continues. “I was glad he hit his fucking head on the hammer. I was so fucking glad because I thought you’d stop having those nightmares, and we’d stop fighting. Then Gray started waking up screaming. It didn’t end it. He died and nothing changed. It just got worse.”

  “Everything changed,” Gray says. “Everything changed and nothing’s ever been the same.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Gage tells him. “I never stopped throwing shit because I hit a sweet spot on accident. I just got better, practiced; made sure I could hit what I was aiming for.”

  “That’s why you played ball,” I say quietly.

  “You bet your ass it is.”

  Grayson nods. “MVP in high school and college.”

  “I didn’t fuck up again, and it didn’t stop me from throwing stones or any other thing I wanted. I just got fucking better at it.”

  “You killed a man,” I whisper with my head in his hands.

  “I killed a piece of shit, and I’d do it again,” he admits.

  I peer up as he sets his coffee down, stands up, and walks to the window.

  He sighs. “What a fucking mess.”

  “But we can fix it now. The three of us can fix it, right?” Gray asks hurriedly.

  “They can’t know. No one can,” I tell him.

  Gage turns around and looks at me. “No one has to know if you get your shit together. My boy...” He stops, and I feel his fucking pain. I feel it because I hold the same pain. “Your son needs you to be a man, and a man faces his fucking demons and throws every fucking stone he has to, to keep the people he loves safe.”

  I don’t say a word, but the impact hits like lightning to the chest. I was going to not only meet my son, he was going to know I was his father. He, Brandon, deserves more than someone like me.

  “You need to sober the fuck up. You need to forgive me for the shit you thought. And God help me, I need to forgive you for fucking up my goddamn life.”

  “If, by some chance, any of those things happen, what the fuck do we tell Brandon? And...” I stand when I realize there’s not a hope in hell I can do this. “I can’t fucking do this. He’ll look at me the same way you did. He’ll think I’m a fucking pussy.”

  “You sure have a lot to learn about that boy and kids in general. He never needs to know what fucked you up. He just needs to see you as a man. And Garrett, you need to know, I’m not walking away from that boy ever.”

  “So, why the fuck am I even here? So I can watch him call you Daddy? No, fuck that.” Confused, I turn, looking for an escape.

  I stayed away so that Brand didn’t have to deal with a broken, fucked up piece for shit like me. I thought...Jesus, I fucking thought Gage knew all along that I was Brand’s father.

  “You’re here to learn how to be one, so when we figure out how to tell him, it doesn’t fuck him up.”

  “You plan on making Juliana the villain?” I ask, knowing some of what has gone down. I will be damned if I allow it to continue.

  “She’s earned that title, the fucking cunt.”

  The way he talks about a woman he knows nothing about pisses me off. “She didn’t do it alone, Gage.”

  “You may think you know her, but she’s a cold and cruel bitch,” he tells me.

  My jaw tightens. “You’re gonna forgive me, but not her?”

  “The bitch is lucky she has Mother on her side, or she would never see him again.”

  “He’s her son, Gage,” Grayson says.

  “She has three years of making up to do for all she did to wrong him.”

  “And I have years, too, yet you’re willing to give me a fucking chance. Fuck, you’re not even giving me a choice. And Gage, I’m not even going to pretend that I’m gonna be okay with any of this.”

  “I’ll give you time, but you have no choice, Garrett. It’s time to man the fuck up.”

  “God, you are such a fucking—”

  He holds up his hand, cutting me off. “I’m done with this conversation tonight. But one last thing; our mother has done really well enabling you both, so much so that you forgot how to be fucking men. I’m not her bitch, and you two better make the same fucking choice.”

  “You blame Mom?” Grayson asks, confused.

  “You bet your ass I do.”

  Gage has dinner delivered to the penthouse, and we all eat quietly as we watch the Yankees play on his television. When the game ends, we all slowly make it to a bedroom.

  Gage opens the door to the bedroom I will be staying in. When the light comes on, I know immediately it is Brandon’s.

  “Might get a sense of who he is surrounded by his things.” Fucking pained him to say it. Pained me to know I was fucking wrong about him knowing. Totally fucking wrong.

  “Thanks, Gage,” I say, not looking at him. I don’t want to see that look, the one that is all Gage—superior, better. It pisses me off, always has.

  When he closes the door, I look around. Three walls are Yankee blue, while the fourth has white pinstripes with the Yankee logo.

  Immediately, anger washes over me. Angry that the little boy I don’t deserve is a Yankees’ fan. Not because I don’t like the Yankees; quite the opposite. I fucking love the Yankees. Some of my fondest, sober memories are with my brothers at “The House That Ruth Built,” “The Big Ballpark in The Bronx,” “The Stadium,” “The Cathedral of Baseball,” the original Yankees’ stadium. I’m angry because I’m the one who should have taken him there. I’m the one. Me.

  My fists clench at my sides and a lump forms in my throat.

  “Get a grip,” I scold myself silently.

  Gage, my half-brother, adopted brother...No, my fucking brother. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t. And for years—for fucking years—I hated him. I hated the man I thought took my son and...her, because I wasn’t worthy. I hated him for that when I should have thanked him. I should have, because I’m not worthy. However, hating him was much easier than realizing the truth.

  Now...Now I want to hate him for giving Brandon the life all kids deserve. A life that has been full of good memories, Yankees games, and one where he has been protected, safe, loved.

  I grab the little glove off his dark cherry wood dresser and hold it to my chest as I sit on the end of his bed and stare at the picture of him and Gage at the new Yankees stadium, one I have never been to.

  Chapter Four

  Chasing Dragons

  (Seven Years Ago)

  Garrett

  I lay in bed, like every night, chasing away demons and looking for angels.

  I found one. I finally found one tonight.

  Juliana Torres.

  Last night, I had my first date, not that she knew it, not that I intended on it being that. My intention was to score. Not to find something that was soft to focus on when I closed my eyes at night. Something...oddly beautiful.

  That night, I slept. The next day, I thought of her. Hell, I even googled her, but nothing came up for a Juliana Torres. I laugh at myself—yes, at myself—because nothing good can be real, not one fucking thing.

  I walked into school the next day, on time, and saw Gage. Mom held him back a year when we moved to
the States, making him a grade above me. Fucking joke, he wasn’t behind. I know she did that shit because of my temper. As usual, he’s surrounded by all this fucking fans. Yeah, fans. Everyone loves him and his best friend, Zandor Steel. I wonder if he told them about me. I wonder that all the time. I have every day for the past five years.

  Once I asked him if they all knew about me. He was pissed, pissed that I called him on it, and he hissed, “No.”

  I don’t believe him.

  I make my way through an entire day of school, hiding under my hood and pissed off. No one fucks with me. Half of them cross the hallway when they see me coming; some of the meatheads walk up and expect me to step out of their way. After the first dozen or so ended up on their asses, only the new kids try that shit anymore.

  I don’t care to make friends. I don’t care to be part of the in-crowd. Hell, I don’t care to be part of any crowd. Ninety percent of the time, I don’t even care to be.

  After school, I drive to the park to sit and smoke. I haven’t had a cigarette all day. Every time I craved one, I thought of her, of Juliana.

  “Where the fuck did you go last night?”

  I look back when I hear Razor’s scratchy voice call out to me.

  I wait until he’s in front of me to answer. “End of Fourth Ave.”

  “What?” he gasps.

  “Shithole you told me about,” I answer, butting the cigarette out on the picnic table.

  “You did what!” he yells.

  “Don’t fucking worry about it. Didn’t even get in the door. Fell through the fucking stairs and saw a girl.”

  I hide the smile in my voice. It’s none of his business. And it’s not his business that I have every intention of going back to feed her again, just to be in her company, and not because I think she’s fucking beautiful. I do. But it’s because I slept last night. I fucking slept.

  He laughs and shakes his head. “You get head?”

  I glare up at him, and he shrugs.

  “The girl, she looks kind of hot, kind of dirty, kind of sad?”

  I don’t answer. That description could be half the population, and I don’t like the way he describes her.

  “You get a blowjob?”