“Rafe, you were a child,” I started. “When I was three, my father shot a guy that was holding a man hostage. That man had a son who was with him, but that son was cowering in the corner right along with the woman and child he was holding at gunpoint. Do you think that kid is responsible for what his father did?”
“That kid didn’t live off of the money the father made while those families went bankrupt,” he countered.
I narrowed my eyes. “You paid every cent back that your father stole.”
His mouth fell open. Obviously, he didn’t know that his sister had shared that information.
I grinned.
“Raven’s been talking,” he surmised.
“Raven and I have been talking,” I acknowledged. “But it’s literally one of the only ways I learn about you.”
He moved so fast that my breath caught in my throat.
“Anything you want from me, all you have to do is ask,” he said. “And I’d appreciate it if the next time someone tells you something’s wrong with me, that you share. Just like I’d want you to share something about you if you knew it.”
My brows rose. “I honestly thought that you did know.”
He sighed. “I don’t have any idea how that was kept from me by goddamn everyone. For fucking months. But it would’ve been nice to know that was why you were rushing rushing until life was no fun.”
I rolled my eyes. “That was another song from before my time, old man.”
He grinned. “’I’m In a Hurry’ by Alabama is good stuff. Which, you obviously know seeing as you understood the lyrics I spouted.”
I moved my hand up his side, and then stopped when I reached his armpit.
Then another familiar bout of nausea rose up, and I pushed him. “Oh God. Get up.”
He moved fast, looking around the room for the threat.
I launched myself off the bed while he was searching, and then nearly tripped over both dogs that were lying on my side of the bed.
I made it to the bathroom but didn’t make it to the toilet.
Unfortunately, I threw up on the towel that he’d laid down to dry up the water that had dripped off of us after our shower together.
“Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
I smiled, despite feeling another wave of nausea hit me. “Your dinner of pizza and breadsticks doesn’t agree with your baby.”
“My baby?” he drawled. “What about your baby?”
I shrugged and stood up as the wave left me.
Moments later, I squatted down and gathered the towel, folding it in on itself, then placing it in the hamper.
I’d take care of it after I brushed my teeth and washed my hands.
Only, when I finished those two tasks, I found myself turned around with my ass sitting on the wet bathroom counter.
“When were you going to tell me?” He moved in until his mouth was inches from mine.
His eyes were full of desire, and happiness.
So happy.
I felt my eyes well with tears.
“I didn’t know until my dad suggested I get it together. I walked into the bathroom after you were gone, came back out, and Elliott teasingly asked me if I was pregnant to lighten the mood.”
Rafe’s face transformed as a brilliant smile took over his face.
One that quickly fell.
“I don’t know how to be a good dad. I didn’t have one to show me how,” he admitted.
I waved him away.
“I got a good one. You have a few months to learn from him.”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my nose.
Moments later, I had my legs around his hips as he carried me to his bed, laid me down, then proceeded to make sweet love to me.
Hours later, as I was drifting to sleep, I felt something cool and hard slip on my ring finger.
“You’re supposed to ask, silly.”
He snorted. “Asking would imply that there was an option for you to say no. There’s not.”
I snorted.
Then fell off into sleep, happier than I’d ever been in my life.
Which was saying something, because I had a lot of happy.
Epilogue
She’s actually a very nice person once you feed her.
-Rafe when introducing Janie
Rafe
2 months later
This dress was everything.
My breath caught, and I stared as everything I ever imagined walked toward me down the aisle.
She was wearing a beautiful floor-length white dress. It was big, poofy, and reminded me of one of those Barbie dresses that were meant to be over the top.
The elegant train followed behind her and extended at least five feet in length.
She wasn’t wearing a veil at my request.
I wanted to see her eyes the moment she saw me.
I still had the flask of whiskey in my pocket, but that was for later when the party started.
I didn’t usually drink all that much, but a man should drink a little bit on his wedding night, right?
Janie’s eyes finally moved up and caught mine, and the smile she aimed in my direction was one that stole the oxygen from my lungs.
Her father, who was at her side, chuckled at my expression.
I felt like I’d been poleaxed.
She was so fucking beautiful that it hurt.
And I was one lucky SOB.
“Who gives this woman away?”
Janie’s father swallowed once. “Her mother and I do.”
Janie hiccupped.
And I knew then and there that her wedding photos would show that there hadn’t been but one dry eye in the house—mine.
Because I wouldn’t cry.
And not because a man didn’t cry.
Because I had her. I had our baby. I had everything.
My hand closed around hers, and I pulled her closer to me.
She smiled and came, not resisting at all.
And moments later, when the preacher asked if I took this woman, I said two of the most important words in the English language. “I do.”
Janie
6 months later
I opened my eyes and found a pair of scuffed motorcycle boots kicked up on the end of my bed.
I smiled at seeing Rafe’s feet there, mostly because it meant he’d gone to sleep finally.
He’d been up all night with me and then had stayed up even longer when I’d finally passed out due to exhaustion after giving birth, to care for our new baby girl.
I grinned at his exhausted slump.
“Remember holding you like this like it was yesterday,” Dad said, drawing my attention away from Rafe’s boots to him.
I smiled.
“I was never that small, surely,” I teased.
“Smaller,” Dad said. “You used to fit into two of my hands. Your chunk doesn’t quite fit.”
He showed me how she was overflowing his two hands.
I smiled.
My child was indeed a chunk.
A fat, roly-poly little perfect girl that I loved with all my heart already, and she was only a few hours old.
She looked exactly like her daddy.
She had an uncontrollable head full of black hair, tan skin, and the perfect bow-shaped lips that would grow into every girl’s dream lips one day.
Her eyes were a dark bluish gray, and I had no doubt in my mind that they’d turn even darker like her father’s since it seemed his genes were dominant.
“She’s a chunk for sure,” I agreed. “But she’s a short chunk. She was about eighteen and a half inches. They said she was short and fat.”
“She is,” he agreed. “And adorable.”
I felt my heart fill with love at the sight of grandfather and granddaughter.
“So how does it feel to be a granddad, Dad?” I smiled.
My dad sighed. “It feels like the
whole fuckin’ world was handed to me all over again.”
My eyes filled with tears. “I completely agree with you.”
Twenty-four and a half years ago, he’d said the same thing about me the moment I was placed in his arms. And, when I’d held our little miracle in my own arms for the first time, I’d realized what my father meant when he’d said that to me when I told him I was pregnant.
“Your whole life will change. One second you’ll be just you, and the next your every thought will be of her. You won’t know how to function without first thinking about her.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
My father dropped his lips to the top of Abrielle’s head. “I love you, too, baby girl.”
What’s Next?
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Parker and Kayla’s story
5-4-18
Prologue
Here, hold my morals. I have some sketchy shit to do.
-Parker, age 15
Parker
29 years ago
“Do it or I do your sister.”
I wanted to throw up.
My stomach hurt so bad that I knew I probably would.
I’d done this to myself. At least, that’s what everyone kept telling me.
My sister, who’d been the one to get me into this in the first place, looked at me with fear filled eyes.
I didn’t know what to do.
What he was telling me was something I never ever wanted to do. I thought it’d be fun, being in this gang. But I’d been wrong. So, so wrong.
Now, here I sat, with the most impossible of tasks.
Either slit this older boy’s throat, the one who wanted out, or they do the same to my sister.
It was a lose-lose situation. Either way I looked at it someone would die. My sister, who got me into this nightmare. Or a kid like me that only wanted out, too.
Raglan, my sister’s gang banger boyfriend, dug his knife in a little deeper. The first trail of scarlet snaked down my sister’s throat.
I watched with morbid fascination as it slid down her collarbone and bled into the white fabric of her shirt.
Then my sister started to cry.
“I’ll do it,” I croaked.
***
18 years ago
“You have two options,” my father said. “Either go into the Navy or go to jail. It’s as easy as that.”
I’d finally hit rock bottom. I’d done things I wasn’t proud of—not at all.
I stared at my father as fear climbed its way up my throat.
I knew he was right. I knew it, yet I couldn’t make myself take that final step away from this fucked up life I’d found my way into—gang and all—unless I took the lifeline that my father was holding out for me to drag myself out of the pit I’d found myself in.
I swallowed. “If I leave, they’ll kill Emmie and her son. He might be that douchebag’s kid, but they won’t care. And Mom won’t be safe, either.”
My dad shook his head. “They won’t. I promise.”
My father was wrong. The moment I was gone, so were my mother and sister. Murdered. Their throats slit just like they said would to happen.
***
5 years ago
“Have a good day at school, buddy,” I said to the little boy, my great-nephew’s son that looked so much like my nephew that it hurt.
Dillon, my sister’s son’s boy, laughed. “My name’s Dillon, not buddy!”
Dillon was the spitting image of my sister’s son. When he was born, I thought for sure Joshua would fuck him up. Joshua was a baby himself when Dillon was born—sixteen—and I knew Joshua wasn’t ready for a kid. He was still in school, and he had wanted to be a professional baseball player. Hell, he still could become one. At twenty-one, Joshua could still become anything he wanted to be. And that was all thanks to my father, who’d raised Joshua the way that he should have raised me. But I wasn’t bitter that Joshua was getting what I never did. I was happy that he had someone taking care of him after his mother’s murder.
Especially seeing as I was still busy looking after myself.
“Love you, Uncle Park,” Dillon declared. “Don’t forget that today is party day! We get to have tacos for breakfast!”
I grinned. “I won’t, buddy. I’ll be here.”
Dillon gave me a thumb up, then bailed out of my truck. The teacher who’d opened his door gave me a small wave. “Have a good day, Dad!”
I didn’t correct her. It was easier to wave and smile than tell her that Dillon’s actual father was busy going to his own college classes and unable to take his son to school.
Besides, it wasn’t often that I got to take him. I was here so rarely that it was nice to spend so much time with them when I could fit it in.
As I pulled away, I drove to the store and got the stupid fruit tray that Joshua had signed up for. Then forgotten about.
His mom had been forgetful like that. Always running and forgetting what she was running for. Emmie had been my twin sister. My everything.
I’d follow her to the grave—and almost had a time or two. But I had one sick and twisted guardian angel that refused to let me die, even though I’d done my level best to force his hand a time or fifty.
Yet I was still here.
And as I drove to the store and got a fruit tray that was thirteen damn dollars, I realized that Dillon was probably why. Dillon and Joshua.
I wasn’t here for my dad. I wasn’t here for his new family and my half siblings. I was here for those two.
I had a smile on my face as I walked back up to the school’s front door. “Just come on in. There are so many parents today that we’re not requiring IDs. You remember where Dillon’s class is?”
I nodded.
I had a steel trap for a memory. I could remember every goddamn thing I ever did. Which was also my curse.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.
She winked and waved me away.
The teacher that had let Dillon out of my truck this morning was in front of me, and she slowed to come to a walk at my side.
“I just love Dillon,” she gushed. “I was teaching a lesson the other day. I was asking the class to show me on their fingers how many five was. Well, all of the kids held up one hand, with all five fingers up. But Dillon,” she grinned. “Dillon held it up three on one hand, and two on the other. I then got to teach a lesson to the class that I wasn’t intending to teach this early. That there are sometimes multiple right answers.”
I found myself grinning.
That was Emmie coming out in him. She was always that kind of person, thinking outside the box. I’d say we should do something one way, and she’d suggest another. And most of the time her way was better.
“That’s the kind of…”
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
The fruit from my hand dropped, and automatically I was running, reaching for my side arm as I rushed in the direction of the gunfire.
Only, my gun wasn’t there because I’d taken it off to come inside the school.
Like any sane human being should’ve done.
The gun fire continued, and as I ran, my gorge rose.
Because I was rushing in the direction of Dillon’s classroom.
***
Hours later, I knew that I looked as haunted as I felt.
My eyes were dead as I looked at the FBI agent in charge of the shooting.
“Can you tell me where he went?” he asked.
I pointed to the door that I’d seen the shooter flee through.
Never in my life would I have thought that I’d have to choose something so horrible.
Stay and help a classroom of pre-kindergarten children, four-year-olds, who’d been gunned down in their little chairs made for them, or chase after the man who had gunned them down.
I’d made the decision to stay once I’d seen him exit the building. Then I’d held Dillon as he looked at me with
pain-filled eyes and took his last breath.
After his heart that was so full of life just hours before stopped beating and his tiny body went limp, I’d wept big, racking sobs that tore out of my throat with the anguish that was quaking my core.
I could still feel his cooling hands in my own.
Could see the blank, thousand-yard stare in his dead eyes that I’d never, not ever, wanted to see on someone I loved again.
Putting his little body down had been the hardest thing I’d ever done.
I hadn’t wanted to go with the police outside to talk. I hadn’t wanted to explain what had just happened. Yet, here I was, giving the FBI agent everything that I could possibly give him.
“Can you tell me what he looked like?”
I explained, in detail, the man I’d seen. A kid really. One about Joshua’s age.
“Uncle Parker!”
I moaned low in my throat, then turned to find Joshua standing at the police barricade, his eyes panicked.
“I need a minute,” I said to the agent.
The agent took one look at the kid, my nephew, and nodded once. “I’m done. If I have any further questions, I’ll find you.”
I didn’t say another word to him as he walked away.
Instead, I steeled my spine and walked to where Joshua was standing.
He was dressed in baseball pants, a black t-shirt and cleats.
He must’ve come straight from practice the moment he heard.
His shirt was still stained with sweat, too.
“Uncle Parker…” Joshua’s voice broke. “Is it…”
I nodded.
It was true.
Oh, God, was it true.
It fucking hurt to nod my head. It hurt so goddamn bad that I could barely find it in me to breathe.
“No,” he croaked. “Please, tell me you’re joking.”
Instead of giving him what he so desperately wanted to hear, that this all was just a sick fucking joke, I walked to Joshua and drew him into my arms.
“Joshua…” my voice broke. “I’m so sorry.”
And that was the moment that I watched my sister’s son—all I had left of her—break apart in my arms.
Never to be put back together again.
We’d literally lost everything.
His mother. My sister. His grandmother. My mother. His son. My nephew.
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