by Aubrey Irons
“That's my daughter!” Leonard screeches, gesturing wildly with the gun.
“And that's my son.” My father's shoulders heave as he quickly looks at me and then back at the other man. “Leonard, let's just put these down and talk like men of God.”
The gun comes crashing into my temple, sending blinding light and black stars in front of my eyes as Eva screams. My dad bellows and lunges forward, but he freezes as Leonard brings the gun around to bear right at him.
“I believe my work here with this Center of yours is done, Jacob.”
My dad's eyes narrow to slits, his teeth bared through his beard. “I believe you're goddamn right it is.”
“I tried!” Eva's father roars, standing. “Lord above knows I tried.” He shakes his head, looking deranged as he brandishes the gun around the room. “But there's too much wickedness here, Jacob! Too much sin in this wretched place!”
He whirls back to his wife and daughter. “We’re leaving.”
Ruth’s brow crumples. “Leonard-”
“I said, we are LEAVING!” he bellows at his wife, and she flinches as he takes a step towards her.
“Come along, Evangeline,” she says quietly.
“No, Dad-!”
I ignore the blinding pain in my head as I stumble to my feet, lunging at Leonard and Ruth as they half drag Eva, still wrapped in the sheet towards the door. Leonard lashes out, catching me with the back of his hand again and sending me sprawling before he levels the gun at Silas, Kyle, and my dad.
“We are leaving, Jacob.” He looks down at me, his eyes narrowing. “Do not follow us, and do not ever try and contact my daughter again, or there will be damnation to pay.”
“Dad!” Eva screams, her eyes darting to me lying there on the floor. “Let me go! Let me-!”
“Go,” he growls at his wife. “Now.”
Eva looks at me, her tear-streaked eyes pleading, her lips moving softly.
I'm sorry, they say.
And then they're gone, out the door to the outside staircase.
I'm vaguely aware of lurching towards her again before it all goes black.
Chapter Forty-Five
Rowan
“Easy. Easy, Row!”
Kyle’s voice lances through the dull ache in my head, and I can feel an arm pushing me back down as I try and sit up.
“Get off…” I mumble, my eyes still closed. I go to sit up again, but the arm is back, pushing me down.
My eyes fly open, and I wince.
Fuck.
My mouth feels like cotton, and my head fucking pounds as I slowly close, then re-open my eyes, and look around the room.
I’m in my parents’ living room, on the couch, with all of them hovering over me — Ivy, Silas, Kyle, Vivian, Sierra, Stella, with Carter hiding behind her, Mom, and my dad. Stella’s bent over me, a pair of pliers and some thread in her hands.
“Sit still,” she says with a frown as she leans over me. A sharp pain lances through my head.
“Fuck, Stel!”
She sighs. “Look, sit still or I’m going to mess up the stitches and mess up that handsome mug, okay?”
“Stitches?”
And then it all comes back to me in a horrible rush. The gun. Leonard. Eva screaming as he dragged her away.
I shut my eyes and sink back into the couch, wanting it all to just go away.
Stella finishes her last stitch, but I’m not even feeling it anymore as she applies an adhesive bandage to my temple.
Kyle leans over, his face furrowed. “How you feeling, man?”
“I didn’t think accepting the Holy Spirit was supposed to hurt this much.”
My brother smiles.
“Jesus, man, I’ve taken some hits but pistol whipped by a preacher is a new one,” Silas says with a grin.
“Alright, that’s enough,” my dad rumbles, pushing forward and clearing everyone away. “Give him some space.”
I glance up at him. “Thank you.”
He nods, his face tight.
Gingerly, I swing my legs over the side of the sofa and sit up, grunting at the throb in my head.
“Rowan-”
I groan. “Dad, I know, all right? Fuck,” I swear, dipping my face into my hands. “Do me a favor and spare me the sermon for the moment.”
My dad sits on the couch next to me, his hand resting on my shoulder. “Actually I was going to tell you I love you.”
I smile wryly as I turn to look at him. “Thanks for saving my ass.”
He nods.
“What happened?”
My mom’s brow furrows in worry. “Oh, God, is your memory-?”
“No, no, Mom,” I shake my head. “I mean where the hell did Leonard get a gun?”
“That I don’t know,” my dad growls, his hand tightening on my shoulder.
“Your friend Fiona showed up at the dinner,” Sierra says quietly.
Fuck.
“Yeah…” she trails off, wrinkling her face at the look on mine.
“So now what?”
“Now we make sure you’re okay,” Mom says, moving to sit on my other side and wrapping her arms around me.
“No, I mean with the Center.”
Dad shakes his head. “The Center will be fine. I had Leonard up because I thought it’d be good for him to get out of his own little parish once in a while. I didn’t need him on the project. It’ll be done without him.” He frowns. “The important thing is-”
“I’m fine.” I look at the floor, only seeing Eva’s face flash in front of my eyes.
“I’m sorry, son,” Dad says quietly. “About Eva.”
I nod, looking at the ground.
Eva.
Angel.
And I let her get away.
Yeah, there was a gun, and a fucking psychopathic preacher, but there are things I could have said — then, or even before that.
Things I should have told her.
My sin wasn’t what we did together. It wasn’t the sex, it wasn’t defying the will of her father.
My sin wasn’t even the fact that I fell in love with her.
It was never telling her that.
The second the thought passes through my head, I realize how true it is. There’s never been a single instance in my life where I thought that way about someone. Not one.
I love her, and she’s about to get on a plane and fly right out of my life.
“That Mustang’s running real pretty these days.”
I nod absently. “Great, Dad.”
He sighs. “I said, it’s running real pretty these days.”
I frown. “I heard you, I just…”
I shut my mouth as he presses a set of keys into my hands. I look up, and he winks.
“It’s a fast little thing.”
I sit up, the pain in my head gone. My eyes go wide as I look around at my family.
“The hell am I doing here?”
Sierra grins. “Wasting time?”
I lurch to my feet.
“I’m driving you.”
I shake my head at Silas. “No wa-”
“He’s driving you,” Dad says with a stern look. “Row, you’ve got a gash in your head.”
“And probably a concussion,” Stella adds.
“Fuck it, here.” I pass him the keys. “No guardrails, all right?
He rolls his eyes at me as we head for the front door. “That’s never actually going to be a funny joke, you know that, right?”
“It needs polishing.”
We’re yanking open the garage door, when I hear the voice behind me.
“Hang on, Row.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I groan as I turn towards Big Gus. “Dude, now? Can this wait?”
Silas scowls as he steps forward, his fists balled, but Gus shoots him a look and shakes his head.
“Hold on.” He levels his eyes at me. “Just came by to let you know there’s been a change in management.”
I frown. “Which means?”
�
��A change in management,” Gus says evenly, enunciating each word before smiling.
“Oh.” My mouth snaps shut. “Shit.”
“Nah, I think you'll like them, actually.” He crosses his meaty arms over his broad chest. “I don’t want to own your bar, Row.”
“You don’t?”
Gus shakes his head. “No. I like drinking there too much. It’s what we’d call a conflict of interest in the business world.”
I eye him. “Really.”
“Yeah, really.” Gus grins. “So, how about a buy-out.”
I groan. “How much?”
He shrugs. “Thirty-thousand?”
I swear. “Yeah, dude, let me go cash in my fucking stock options and see what I can-”
Silas shoves me aside. “Done, he'll take it.”
Gus smiles. “Aww that’s great, Row!”
I whirl on my friend. “Thirt-”
“Shut the fuck up,” he hisses before turning back to Gus. “We got a deal?”
Gus grins. “Deal!” He shakes Silas’s hand before turning to me and doing the same. “You still doin’ Thursday night trivia?”
I frown. “What? Oh, yeah, sure.”
“Great. Be seein’ you, Row!”
I glare at Silas once Gus ambles back down my parents’ driveway. “Thirty-thousand, dude? Are you fucking serious?”
Silas rolls his eyes as he shoves me aside and marches back to the car. “You want to owe me or the four-hundred pound psycho who just offed your regular psychopathic loan shark?”
I shut my mouth and he grins.
“We’ll set up a payment plan. Now get in the fucking car. Let’s go get your girl.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Evangeline
“Get dressed, sweetheart.”
I’m numb, standing there in my bedroom of the rental house. I feel cold, and shattered inside as I stand motionless, staring at myself in the mirror above the bureau.
I can hear the sounds of my father bellowing scripture and knocking things over in the other room as he hastily packs his things as we ready to leave. Chastity is doing the same thing in her room, albeit without the yelling. Behind me, my mother wordlessly begins to tuck my clothes away into my suitcase.
She looks up, meeting my eye in the mirror — her mouth going small. “Get dressed, Evangeline.”
“Mom-”
She shakes her head. “Just get dressed, please.”
She folds my clothes in quick, precise movements, her fingers lingering on them as she tucks them into the suitcase laid out across my bed.
“Mom, he can’t just- I mean-” I turn to her, still clutching the sheet from Rowan’s childhood bed around myself. “He can’t make me marry Milton.”
“He’s your father, Eva.”
“He’s not God.”
She whirls, her face tight, and her eyes darting fearfully towards the door, as if somehow my father could have heard over screaming out scripture from Proverbs.
“Please get dressed.”
“Mom-”
“You’ll need your toiletries from the bathroom.”
“Mom-”
“And your books, of course. I’m not sure there’s room in the suitcase for-”
“MOM.”
Her shoulders tense as she freezes, her back to me. “Eva-”
“I love him.”
That’s when the tears come. When I finally say the words I’ve been trying to find inside my heart out loud — when I finally commit them to spoken word and admit them out loud to God, to her, and to myself, that’s when I break.
My mother’s arms are around me, pulling me tight against her as the tears come hot down my cheeks. “There there, sweetheart,” she says quietly.
Restrained.
“I love him,” I whisper into her shoulder.
She pulls back, her eyes sad as she cups my face. “I know you do, sweetheart.”
“These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him!”
My father’s ranting comes bellowing from down the hall, followed by the crash of something and the sound of broken glass.
My mother’s eyes dart back to mine. “Get dressed, Eva.”
“I love him, Mom.”
She presses folded clothes into my hands.
“Get dressed,” she says quickly.
I’m crying, the tears coming freely as I let the sheet that smells like him drop to the ground and slowly start to pull on jeans and a t-shirt.
“Quickly now, we’ll be late,” my mother says stiffly, zipping my suitcase shut and hefting it off the bed. She glances up at me, her mouth twitching into a small smile before she takes my hand and leads me from the room.
She pulls me down the hall, past the sound of my father roaring in their room.
“And that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men!”
“Quickly now,” she whispers, hefting my suitcase in one hand, my hand in the other as she pulls me down the back staircase towards the kitchen. She glances up the staircase as we reach the bottom, her face white and her hand almost unbearably tight on mine as she pulls me towards the back door.
“Mom, where are we-”
“Quickly now, Eva,” she says tightly, pulling us out the door and towards the driveway. She opens the back door of our rental car and shoves my suitcase in before her eyes dart to mine. “Get in the car, sweetheart.”
“Mom-”
“Get in the car!” she says tightly, her eyes pleading.
This is it.
This is me being taken away from this place, back to the life I don’t want, with the man I don’t love, and the path I’ve tried hard to stray away from. My heart sinks, and the tears start to trickle down my cheeks as I open the passenger door and slide in. I sit frozen in the seat, my eyes on the floor as I wait for my father and Chastity to come out.
The driver’s side door slams shut, and the car rumbles to life. I look sharply up out of my daze.
“Mom?”
I gasp as the car lurches forward, tires squealing as she floors the gas and takes us peeling out of the driveway.
“Mom! What are you-!”
But her mouth is tightly shut, her eyes wide and blazing, and her knuckles white on the wheel.
There’s a bellowing sound — my father storming out of the back door, but she doesn’t look back as the tires squeal and the car goes roaring down the road, leaving my father on the back porch of the rental house in the dust.
I gasp, whirling on my mother. “What are you-”
“You asked me before if I ever wanted more,” she says tightly, swallowing quickly. “I did.” She turns the wheel, taking us up a tree-lined street, her eyes darting to the rearview mirror before turning to me.
“For you,” she says quietly.
She yanks the wheel, and I grab at the door handle as the car roars up the driveway and comes screeching to a stop.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Rowan
Silas turns the car off, and the Mustang engine rumbles to a shuddering stop. He exhales slowly as I stare silently out the front windshield of the car, just like I’ve been doing for the whole damn drive back from Logan Airport.
“I’m sorry, man,” he says quietly.
I nod. “Yeah, it’s cool.” I turn to him. “Thanks for trying.”
We missed her plane. Even with Silas slamming down his credit card to get me whatever the hell flight he could that would get me through security.
Airports get funny about a disheveled looking guy with a bloody bandage on his head and a crazy look in his eye getting really specific about a certain flight, apparently.
So that was that, and just like that, she’s gone and out of my life.
“Fuck, man,” Silas swears, shaking his head. “Look, we could head down to Georgia like, tonight, man.”
“Silas.”
“Fuck it, right now. We’ll call your dad from the road, promise to take care of the car, and-”
“Silas.”<
br />
He stops, his shoulders deflating as he hears the emotion in my voice.
I silently stare out the windshield.
Silas nods up at O’Donnell’s, which we’re parked outside of. “You want to go in for a beer or ten?”
I smile, but I shake my head. “Nah, man. I’m good.”
It’s a laughable sentiment, because I’m far from good. And honestly, a drink or twenty sounds great right now, I just don’t have it in me to be around anyone else.
“Thanks again, man.” I clap Silas on the shoulder as I open the door and step out. It’s drizzling out, but, fuck it.
I thank my friend again, promising to call him in the morning before he cranks the car back on and drives off. I turn, letting the drizzle patter over my face as I look up at the sky. And now, it’s time to get back to square one: me, my dive bar, and nothing else.
Simple, the way things were before that angel walked into my life.
I remember what I thought before, about there being only two scenarios with this thing. One was Eva ends up hating me.
The other was me breaking her heart.
And as I slip the key out of my pocket and unlock the front door, I silently hope to God that it’s only the first.
The door clicks shut behind me, and I exhale slowly in the darkness.
“What’re you drinking?”
I jump at the voice, whirling towards the bar with my fists raised.
They drop.
My heart fucking pulses to life inside my chest.
My mouth gets cottony.
And I smile.
The Christmas lights behind the bar flick on, and there she is, smiling at me shyly, that bottom lip caught between her teeth.
“I can make whatever you want, but apparently, I make a mean margarita.”
I don’t need to know what happened.
I don’t need to ask any questions.
I don’t need to blink.
I just need her.
She’s giggling as I take the room in two steps, hurdling the damn bar and scooping her into my arms. Her arms go around my neck, her lips melt to mine, and in that moment, I know I’ve found it.
Faith. Belief. A higher power.
Whatever the fuck I’ve spent most of my life actively not looking for, that’s where I find it.