by Mj Fields
She strums her fingers on his name. “So, last Saturday night, when you let them get the beach house?”
I laugh and nod.
“Then you went out with your brothers to take care of some Steel issue?” she tsks.
“Birdie, they are Steel issues. More lately than before,” I sigh.
“Spill it.” She traces his name over and over.
“Kids at school have boxing matches.”
Her eyes spring up.
“Justice decided to try his fists at a few rounds.”
She traces my face. “So the bruises he was hiding …?”
I flip her over again. “So, you’re hiding shit from me now?”
She smiles. “It’s not shit. It’s Steel issues, and I’m a Steel.”
I lean in and whisper, “My favorite Steel.” Then I nip her neck.
She rubs her nose against mine. “Did he win?”
“He got knocked down a few times, got back up, his opponent tapped out. So, technically, yeah.”
“And do we know his opponent?”
I move her hand to Truth’s name. “Here’s a hint.”
“It’s not the Reeves boy.” She laughs.
“Birdie, you almost knocked him out. JT would have killed him.”
I don’t tell her Truth kissed the little prick. Honestly, I want to just pretend it didn’t happen.
I roll her over, and she looks at me while she’s deep in thought.
“The boy who wouldn’t come in, the one you keep saying pissed himself when he saw you?”
I laugh. “Birdie, he did.”
“Gabrielle showed me a picture of him before Truth came up. She told me he was the best kind of guy there is.”
Fuck, I think as I run my hands up and down her outer thighs.
“Was that’s who she was with the other night? She wouldn’t tell me.”
I nod and take her hands.
“Did you threaten him?”
I sigh. “Oddly, no.”
“Then why is she so mad at you still? Surely she didn’t think she wouldn’t be grounded for a bit.”
I drag my ass up on the bed and rest my back against the headboard. “Gotta tell you something that involves a lot of shit, but it’s our girl and that boy I want to hate more than I want to have this conversation that are getting the shit end of the deal.”
“Wait—you actually like him?” She smiles.
“He did right by our girl, our boy, and us. Kids don’t do that these days unless they have good hearts.”
She smiles big, bright, and beautifully. “You like him.”
“Birdie, it’s complicated.”
“Says the man who chose me to save.”
“Fuck, baby.” I pull her in and hold her tight. “I love you.”
“I know,” she says and sits back, looks down at Truth’s name, and outlines it. “Tell me.”
So, I do. I tell her everything he told me, and she cries, but she doesn’t fall apart, and she doesn’t fade away. She never does, but fuck if I’m not terrified that someday she will. And I know that’s not because she’s weak. She’s one of the strongest people I know. It’s because I will do everything in my power to keep her that way. And this … this is big.
When she’s done crying, she looks at me as I wipe her tears. “Do you think he loves her?”
“They’re kids, Tara,” I sigh.
“I was eighteen, remember?”
“Do I fucking remember?” I give her a look like are you fucking nuts. “Birdie, you owned me from that moment until forever.”
“We have to do the right thing, even if it’s the hardest thing to do, like tell your kids you were a stripper.” She closes her eyes.
“A virgin stripper,” I remind her. “We do have another problem, though.”
“Bigger than that?” She looks shocked now. Fuck.
“He’s not okay with who his father is. He thinks if he …” I pause and shake my head. “This is not shit I wanna talk about. It’s shit they should do behind my back and do it safely.”
“Sex then.” She nods.
I shake my head, and she grabs my cheeks and makes me nod.
“As Truth’s mother and a woman, I hope someday she has as good a man as her daddy in every way.”
“Is that so?” I ask.
“Of course it is.”
“Not sure he’s the one.”
“Regardless of DNA, the man he showed you he was, he has my vote.”
“You one hundred and ten percent positive on this?”
“I’m not taking away her chance with someone who may love her like you love me.”
I nod. “Well, this went better than expected.”
She pulls the string on my sweats and slides them down my legs.
“Well, fuck, Birdie, way better than expected.”
“The more Steel I get, the more Steel I become.”
I look down at her. “You love my cock, Birdie?”
She nods her head up and down then takes me into the back of her throat.
“So fucking hot. So fucking mine,” I groan as she begins to bob her head up and down.
“Go hard and go fast,” I growl as she has all but an inch of me in her mouth. “You got about sixty seconds before I drag your hot little cunt up my body and sit you on my face.”
I count it down aloud when she gets to ten. “Nine seconds, and I’m shoving my tongue so far up inside you I may pop an ovary. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two …” She doesn’t get one. I pull her up as I shimmy my body down.
As soon as my tongue slips just inside her slit, her knees crush the sides of my head, and I lick a little harder than I had planned, but fuck if she doesn’t taste like honey. I lick down then slowly up again, sucking her clit until her thighs start to shake. She’s going to come quick. It’s been a couple of hellish days, and she needs a release, and I need to be the one she releases on.
She moans and grabs my hair as I shove my tongue deeper, lapping at her wet lips, then plunging deep inside again as she tightens around my tongue.
“Oh, good, real good … I think … oh … I think …” She cries out as her knees crush my ears and she rides my face as she comes.
Dragging her down my chest, I take my time so I can feel her slick, hot cunt all over me. She’s about on my cock when bells start chirping from my phone.
We both freeze, and then she rolls off me and grabs her robe as I grab my phone to check the security system.
“It’s the back door,” I say, hopping out of bed and fixing my fucking sweats as I take off down the stairs, knowing damn well what I’m gonna find.
I skid across the floor and come to a stop at the end of an empty bed, Birdie hot on my heels.
“I’m gonna ground her until she’s thirty!” I snarl.
Tara holds up a note. “Well, at least she left a note this time.”
“Fucking kids.”
Justice comes into her room. “You want me to go get her?”
“No, Tyson, we got this,” I snap at him.
“What?” he asks.
“Don’t play dumb.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. I was asleep.”
“It can wait until morning,” Tara says as she pecks him on the cheek. “We love you.” She grabs my hand and tugs me. “Come on.”
Chapter Twenty Five
Tobias
Three days of barely just getting by. Three days since I’ve seen her. Three days that I’ve felt like, if I did, she’d look at me with contempt. Three days of not giving a fuck if she did. I just needed to know she was okay.
I have missed enough school, due to the fact I beat myself up emotionally over him dying because I knew what that money was being used for, yet I kept doling it out like a dealer to a junkie, knowing he’d stay away if I did, that I didn’t have the luxury of missing school now.
I didn’t hit the gym, and I avoided her crew at school the best I could. I expected Justice and Patrick to try to fu
ck me up when they came into the locker room after my PE class, but they didn’t. They just both thanked me for taking care of her that night at the lake.
I wanted to ask them if they knew, but it was obvious they didn’t. Then Patrick laughed and told me, “She told Aunt Tara she wasn’t going to school until Cyrus tells her he’s sorry.”
That night, I got a call from an unknown number and, for some reason, I answered it.
“You doin’ okay?” was all he asked.
I knew it was Cyrus as soon as I heard his voice, but I thought I might have been wishfully thinking, because why the hell would he call me? Why would he care if I was okay? He should never want to hear my name or see my face again.
“Yeah.”
He then asked, “Need anything?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
I wanted to ask him what his angle was and tell him I wasn’t going to try to corrupt his daughter like the other half of my gene pool tried to do to his wife. That was the pissed-off, woe-is-me part of me. The part that lies inside the walls of my chest. A part of me believes he wanted to know if I was okay.
“Less than three months, Mr. Steel, and I’ll be out of this place, so yeah.”
“Tobias, it’s Cyrus.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d seen enough crap in my life, enough people who pretended to give a fuck, opened up enough to feel like it mattered, just to drive a knee to your nuts.
“Goodnight, Mr. Steel.”
Day two, Gabrielle asked me where Truth was and told me she had tried to message her. Then she told me she didn’t think Truth had even read it. What I wanted to say was so fucking what, but the reality is that Gabrielle had issues and I always tried to help her out. So, I acted like I didn’t give a fuck, which had been easy for all these past months, until she ended up at my house and I nearly lost my shit.
That night, there was a bag of takeout from a barbecue place inland and a note.
Good shit,
C.S
Knowing how much he must hate me, and that he could possibly try to fucking poison me, and that if I died here, it would take a few days for someone to even check it out, I tossed it.
Day three, today, has been the hardest. Justice asked me what was going on with Truth and me, and I told him nothing happened, and nothing was gonna. He asked me why, and I knew right then that he didn’t know about my shit, so I told him a half-truth, that I was looking forward to starting over.
Another bag of food was at my door when I got home, and it pissed me off. If he was trying to kill me, he was persistent. And if he was thinking I was starving and couldn’t take care of myself, that pissed me off, too. But if he was being nice, making me his cause so I stayed away from his daughter, he obviously not only doubted my word but was a manipulating asshole. I’d had enough of that with every other fucking male, father figure or otherwise, for a lifetime, and it enraged me enough that I put it in the fridge and planned to deliver it to his own fucking doorstep at five in the fucking morning with a note that told him to fuck off.
Now I’m lying in bed, not touching my junk, while I picture her laying here the other night, because it feels wrong, which is another reason I know there’s no way in hell I can do this shit anymore.
As soon as I turn off SportsCenter, I hear my door open, knowing damn well it was locked. The clock reads ten p.m., and I know I’m not expecting company.
I get up, reach under my bed for my baseball bat, and then quietly walk to my bedroom door and look out.
I see her, in what appears to be pajamas and slippers, hair all knotted up on top of her head, silently scolding herself as she walks in circles. One second, her hands are above her head, then on her hips, and then gripping her hair. She’s basically mirroring how I feel on the inside. I can’t watch that shit, and she can’t be here. I’ll have to be a dick so she’ll leave.
“You can’t just walk in here whenever you fucking want to.” I toss the bat on my bed then shut the door behind me.
“I need to talk to you.” She smiles and shakes her head. “I need to tell you I’m not gonna stop myself from falling in—”
“Shut your mouth, Truth. Just shut up and leave.” I swallow down the bile that is boiling inside of me and tell her, “I have company.”
She plops down on my floor, pulls her knees to her chest, and hugs them as she shakes her head. “Make her leave.”
“Truth—”
“Make. Her. Leave. Now!” she screams.
“Truth.” I walk over and grab her elbow.
She yanks it away and screams, “Make her leave, and I’ll pretend this didn’t happen, and I won’t go fuck Harrison Reeves or—”
“Shut the fuck up, Truth, and leave!” I seethe, my voice shaking in rage and pain.
She looks up at me, tears falling down her face. “I will, you know. I will, and it will be all your fault!”
Surprising me, she jumps up, dodges my reach, and runs toward my door. I grab her just as she turns the handle and kicks it open, screaming, “Get out! Get out!” Her legs are strong as fuck as she kicks at the air, and when she twists, I lose the shitty grip I have on her, and she runs and jumps on my empty bed. Her expression is shocked as she looks around, but when she looks at me, it’s as if I betrayed her.
“What’s my name!” she demands.
“Don’t start. Just leave,” I say, gripping the top of the doorjamb to keep myself in place.
“I’ll leave when you tell me what you said to my dad.”
“Guess you’ll have to ask him. He’s your dad. I’m nothing to you.”
She shakes her head and knots the comforter. “I heard them tonight. I was listening at their door, and I heard some things that doesn’t make sense.”
Fuck. I sigh and nod once. “I’m not the person to clear it up for you, and that’s the truth.”
“You’re the one person who should! You’re supposed to tell me everything, Tobias.”
“What the hell are you—”
“I know I’m falling in love with you—”
“Don’t—”
“I know you are, too, so you don’t get to lie to me. Love doesn’t work that way!” She sniffs.
“We can’t happen. We won’t—”
“Newsflash: we’re already doing it, and it’s supposed to be beautiful, Tobias. It’s supposed to give you butterflies and not make you sick! I want those butterflies back, and I’m not leaving until you answer me. And if you think I’m gonna give a shit if the cops have to drag me out of here, you’re wrong! I’d rather be in jail than in the hell you’ve put me in!” Sniff. “They said something about my mom being a virgin stripper, and …” She wipes her tears and sniffs again. “It makes no sense. And it makes no sense that it even matters, ’cause so what? It’s her before.”
“Before what?” I ask hesitantly.
“Before life made sense to her. Before life got beautiful. Before she found her person to get through the tough times and celebrate the good. Before she found her one true love.”
When my phone rings on my nightstand, her face scrunches up. “You better tell her not to call you again or …” She stops when I walk toward it, and then lunges and grabs it.
“Truth, give me the phone now.”
“He doesn’t want you!” she yells into the receiver. “Lose his number, you … you—” Her hand starts to shake, and then her eyes widen. “Why are you calling him?”
“Truth, give me my phone or I won’t call the cops; I’ll call your father.”
She holds up my phone and tosses it at me. “He beat you to it. And you better tell him I’m not leaving. And if he thinks he can make me, I’ll move out, or I’ll run away.”
“The fuck you will!” I snap at her.
“Then tell me, Tobias, just tell me!”
I hold the phone to my ear, walk out of the room, unable to stomach seeing her upset, and straight up ask him, “You coming to get her?”
“You need to have a talk with her,
Tobias. She needs to hear it from you. This is making her a different person.”
“Why haven’t you?” I snap.
“Wasn’t sure how I was gonna tell my wife, and I was trying to deal with a heartbroken little girl. Now I have talked to —”
“I can’t—"
“You think you love my girl, Easton, it’s your job to tell her, because she’s no longer listening to me. You got an hour. I’d rather her not drive in the state she’s in, so we’ll come get her then. If you need us to come sooner, you know my number.”
“I don’t want to do this.”
“You think you love her, you do what’s best by her always. You don’t, I will.” He hangs up.
“Fuck!” I yell as I throw my phone across the room and watch it bounce off the wall.
I look back, and she’s at the door, looking a mess, as she waits expectantly yet still somewhat patiently.
“It’s not normal for people to act like this, Truth,” I tell her as calmly as I possibly can at present time.
“It’s not normal to feel like this, either.” She rubs her sleeve under her nose.
“I’m gonna talk, you’re gonna listen, and then you’re gonna leave with your father, and you’re going to process this shit and let me do the same.”
“That’s not how normal people deal with things, Tobias,” she sneers.
“We don’t get normal once I open this up to you. We get shit, Truth. We get ugly, we get nasty, we get doubt, and then we more than likely get done. So, come out here and sit your ass down and listen.”
She turns and walks into my room, and I watch her climb onto my bed and sit her ass in the middle of it.
“Do you ever just listen?”
“Not anymore,” she says, crossing her arms stubbornly.
It’s not easy telling her all the shit that I never wanted to taint her, but I do it. When she cries, I feel worse. When she lies down and hugs my pillow then reaches out and links her pinky with mine, I tell her the shit I didn’t tell her dad—all of it. The truth.
I tell her that I can never forgive myself for sending him money, because I’d do it a hundred times over so her mom didn’t have to see him—my fucking father—again.
I tell her that I can’t wait to get out of here, because I’m not much better than a stripper and a pig who not only abused women but exploited them, because the shit I’m doing to survive isn’t all that legal either, and I need a fresh start.