Crush

by J. C. Emery

  “I’m going to have a sister,” I say in astonishment. The idea of having a mini Holly and not a mini Dad pacifies me some.

  “Hey, you’re still my baby girl, okay? I don’t give a shit how old you get or whose old lady you become, got that?”

  I nod my head and take the opportunity to change the subject. I want to feel undiluted happiness for Dad and Holly, but I just can’t shake the fear that I’m going to rate second from now on.

  “You been taking care of Jeremy for me?” I ask.

  Dad gives me a flat look and shakes his head. “Fuck that kid.”

  “Come on, Dad. I love that asshole.” I know he’s only joking—I think—but I want to know. I have to know he’s looking out for him.

  “He the only asshole you love?” He smiles wide.

  I choose not to squander his good mood. “Nah, you’ll always be the first asshole I ever loved.”

  “About Holly?” he says.

  “What about her?” I ask playfully.

  “Yes or no, kid. Quit busting my balls.”

  “If you don’t marry her, I’ll disown you,” I say and give him a soft smile. “Finally picked a winner.” Because he has. Holly is nothing like my mother, and thank God for that. She’s strong and loyal and already a great mom. Once I get over the nagging jealousy of having to share, I know I’m going to be way excited to finally have a sibling. I’ve always wanted someone else to know that the struggle of being Sterling Grady’s child is real.

  “Layla’s fucked up and missing out on the best thing she could ever have,” Dad says. He raises his chin in the air and avoids eye contact, probably because I’ve started crying. The subject of my mom always does that to me. It doesn’t matter how long she’s been absent for or how old I get—she’s still my mom, and I think I’m always going to have an empty spot in my life where she should be. “She’s sick, baby girl. Only reason that keeps her away is her sickness. You gotta know if she could be here and be good to you, she would be.”

  “But she’s not,” I say in a messy, rushed mix of words and tears.

  “No, she’s not, but that’s not on you. That’s on her. Don’t got to like the shit she does to love her.”

  “Fuck.” I wipe my tears, and Dad chuckles lightly and leans over, patting my knee. Subject change. I need another fucking subject change. “Now about Jer...”

  “The best I can promise is that I won’t kill him and I’ll try to keep him from getting killed,” he says reluctantly.

  “Fair enough.”

  We’re quiet for a long while as we watch the sky darken. I can’t really say the sun’s setting since the Sunset District is under a perpetual fog due to its close proximity to the Pacific Ocean. It being late January doesn’t help either.

  Eventually, Dad stands and stretches out. I follow his movements as he cross the porch and opens the front door, saying, “Now, I heard you’re learning about frostings in your new class. Show me my money isn’t being wasted.”

  My mouth parts and then spreads wide in excitement. Dad has taken special interest in my courses because they involve food. He says he likes to test how my skills are coming along, but I know it’s really because he likes to be fed. Just as I close the front door behind me, he says, “By the way—before you get going in the kitchen, you should call your boy. He won’t say it, but he misses you.”

  “He doesn’t sound like he misses me when we talk on the phone.” I’d love to call Jer. I just don’t want to call and get the same bullshit I’ve been getting since I left Fort Bragg for culinary school almost a year ago. It’s just not the same. He’s not the same.

  “Club’s on its way to a good place—a safe place—but the shit that boy is going through to help get us there? Fuck, Chey. Call him and say whatever the fuck it is you two say to each other. Just talk to him. Let the little asshole know you want to know how he’s doing.”

  “Since when do you give me relationship advice?” I ask, taken aback by his attempt at helping my failing relationship. This conversation takes me back to another conversation we had about this same thing—only Dad and I were on opposing ends then.

  “Since he did the right thing and let you go so you could be safe,” he says and disappears down the long hall toward Ratchet’s room in the back of the house.

  “Yeah,” I whisper. “He did.”

  With Dad out of sight, I head for my room where I can have a little privacy. He isn’t one of those people who gives advice freely. I doubt he wanted to say anything about it since he’s not an authority on healthy relationships—he basically lucked out with Holly and her Stockholm Syndrome because, honestly, nothing else could explain it—so he must find this awfully important to bring it up. My cheeks heat at the idea that I matter so much to Jeremy that a few encouraging words from me could turn his mood around. I see it happen with Dad and Holly, but they’re in a very different place than Jeremy and I are.

  It was nearly a year ago now that I thought he and I were going to run away together and get married, but that didn’t happen. Part of me wishes it had turned out differently and that, instead of being in the small room with unfamiliar walls and a rather impersonal décor, I were in another small room tucked into his side as we learn how to live together. But in my fantasy, I’m back home in Fort Bragg with a gold band on the fourth finger of my left hand and with the last name Whelan and maybe, just maybe, one day a baby of our own on the way. But that’s not how life has turned out, and I’m slowly coming to terms with that. Like an idiot, the thought finally occurs to me that if I’m struggling with my new reality, maybe Jeremy is struggling with his new reality as well.

  I grab my phone from the cheap, plastic bedside table where it’s been charging, disconnect the cord, and sit at the foot of my bed. After bringing up my contacts and pressing the touch screen where Jeremy’s face appears, I wait in hopeful anticipation as the phone rings. I shouldn’t be nervous about calling him. I love him, and he says he loves me still, even despite the distance. Even despite how short-lived our quasi-engagement actually was.

  I take a deep breath and force myself to shove off the impending disappointment when his voicemail picks up. When it’s time to leave a message, I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Better not, I guess. I don’t even know what I was going to say to him, much less how to convey exactly how I feel. Because I guess that’s the point of Dad telling me to call him, so that I can tell Jeremy what it means to me.

  The moment my phone starts ringing I swipe my finger across the answer button and I bring it to my ear. I didn’t even check the caller ID before saying, “Hey.” My voice is soft and encouraging. In an attempt to get him to talk to me—really talk to me. Not that bullshit crap he tries to pull where he always says he’s fine and everything is good and that the club is settling. I know all that already. Just because I’m a few hours away doesn’t mean I’ve been exiled from the club. I keep in touch with Alex and occasionally Aunt Ruby—though not as much lately. She’s just not in a place where she’s up for talking, and I don’t really know what else I can say to her. Nothing seems to make anything any better.

  “Hey, babe,” Jeremy’s deep voice says from the other end. “What’s up?”

  Relief washes over me, showing me how disappointed I was at not getting to talk to him. Sometimes I don’t even realize how sad our distance makes me until he’s on the other end of the line telling me bullshit stories about work that mean nothing, matter little, and don’t do shit to make me feel any better.

  “I miss you. I miss you a lot.” So much for easing him into this conversation. But that’s kind of the Forsaken way—bulls in a china shop.

  “Fuck, I miss you, too,” he says. We just saw each other a few weeks ago, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough. And just like that, the imaginary dam we built to keep ourselves safe and the scary emotions at bay during this time apart freaking bursts, and everything comes flowing out. “I was starting to think you were moving on.”

  “Never. I
’m just scared,” I admit. He sucks in a deep breath but doesn’t say anything. “I’m scared we’re going to drift apart, and every time I start thinking about what you’re doing while I’m down here, I have the urge to flambé somebody’s face.”

  “What the fuck is a flambé?” he asks, a light laugh echoing on the other end of the line, followed by static and what I think might be the whistling of the wind.

  I settle in on my bed, not even trying to ignore the fluttery feeling in my stomach. “You know those kitchen blowtorches? The ones that make crème brûlée?” I ask. I almost tell him it’s the thing that Dad forces me to carry with me in my purse. He says it makes an excellent weapon, and I have an excuse for having it. Got a problem? Light ’em on fire. That’s his motto. Since my school doesn’t allow firearms on campus, I can’t bring my handgun with me. We don’t have metal detectors or anything that could bust me for bringing it, but I’d feel like a prisoner if I had to carry it with me everywhere.

  “Is that some kind of cake?” He has to repeat himself because I didn’t hear him the first time. “Sorry the connection sucks. I’m outside waiting on someone.”

  “Someone special?” I ask, almost teasing but not really. I would hate to have to cut a bitch.

  “Just my favorite girl is all,” he says, and I swear I can hear the smile in his voice.

  “Give Robin a hug from her auntie for me, will ya?” He must be on babysitting duty for my little buddy.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he says, brushing off my comment. “So anyway, the cake?”

  “No.” I try to think of how to describe flambé to him. When nothing comes to me, I say, “Alcohol makes fire in a hot pan. It’s lighting food on fire.”

  “Babe, you get my dick hard when you talk about fire and food in the same sentence.” He clears his throat and blows out a shuddered breath. I eye my closed bedroom door and scrunch my face up at what I’m about to do.

  “Is your dick hard now?” I ask, stuttering through the entire sentence. God, I sound like a freaking moron.

  I’m not the only one who wasn’t expecting me to be this forward. “It is now,” he says. “Good thing I got a few minutes.”

  “Aren’t you outside?” I ask. He can’t possibly be… considering… that… outdoors.

  There’s rustling on the other end, and a doorbell chimes in the background. His stomping echoes in the phone, and then a door creaks open and shuts closed. When I hear the lock slide into place, I almost giggle.

  “Can you touch yourself for me?” I ask. Yeah, it’s official. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing, but I’m not hearing any complaints so I go with it. I think he might be at the new coffee shop in town… in the bathroom… about to touch himself. I shouldn’t encourage this kind of behavior, but he’s going to do it anyway. Dad did say to make my boy happy.

  His breathing escalates as he slides his zipper down and frees himself. At least, that’s what he tells me he’s doing. He tells me he’s stroking himself,

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I confess.

  “Just talk,” he says. “I want to hear your voice. Tell me how you make a flambé or whatever it is.” I giggle happily at his difficulty at understanding the meaning of flambé. “I fucking love that sound. Do it again.”

  So I tell him, through giggles, how to flambé a dish. Trying to sound sexy, I note the heat of the fire and the wetness of the alcohol before it burns. I search for any aspect of the process that could help him along, but I’m pretty miserable at it, to be honest.

  Finally, I give up trying to be sexy when I’m not. “I love you, baby, and I wish I were there with you right now.”

  He grunts on the other end of the phone, then gasps and sucks in a frantic breath. I wait until he’s back with me, sounding breathless and pleased and obviously worn out judging from the series of yawns that escape him. Being able to give him this and to hear him pleasure himself is enticing. But I can’t do anything with my dad in this house—it’s bad enough what we just did—so I try to block out the telltale throbbing at the apex of my thighs and my heated skin. Jeremy and I have only been together a few times, and in a lot of ways, it feels like our relationship can’t stay on course like normal adult relationships do.

  “I love you,” he says. He yawns again despite the early hour. “Sorry.”

  “Long day?”

  “Long year,” he says, I think referencing my absence in combination with all the club’s shit.

  And here it is, the topic he never wants to talk about. The toll the club takes on him with the Mancuso situation, and the devastation that’s followed is painful. It hurts me to even think about what we’ve lost, but Jeremy actually lives through it every day. He’s been there through almost all of it, and I know it must weigh on his heart that things are going this direction. It’s just getting more violent and scarier every time he gives me an update. I worry for him so much sometimes that I curl into a ball on the floor and sob for fear that the next call I’ll get will be my dad telling me he’s gone.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I wish I could make it all less painful,” I say in absence of anything more helpful. “I know you don’t want me to have to deal with all that shit, but I want you to talk to me about it. You need to talk about it so you can move forward and get the shit done you need to so we can have our always.”

  And he does.

  I listen while he talks and tells me things I didn’t know, and this time when he asks if I’m still his girl, I say, “Always,” and I know it’s the truth.

  Just as I hang up the phone, Dad knocks and, as always, walks in without notice. He notices my fallen shoulders and sorrowful eyes. He blows out a breath and says, “You talk to him?”

  “Yeah.” I give him a small smile. “I just miss him. I still feel that crushing thing when I think about how long it’s going to be until I’m going to see him again.”

  “Christ, you’re fucking dramatic.” With a huff, I eye the black throw pillow beside me and chuck it at his head. He doesn’t bother with batting it away and lets it bounce off his head. With a raised eyebrow, he says, “If you’re done throwing shit, I want to show you something I brought for you.”

  “If you’re done being insensitive, I’d like to see it,” I say and stand from my bed.

  “Left it outside.” He hitches his thumb in the direction of the front door. I nod my head and follow behind. “Just hope it hasn’t gotten itself lost or run over by now, because I ain’t finding you another one.”

  “Did you get me a puppy?” I ask, way too hopeful. I’ve been asking for a puppy for years, and he has always said no. The day I can afford a puppy on my own, I can have one. But with the dangers the club is facing, maybe he’s changed his mind and gone to that breeder where they got PJ. I could totally dig having my very own PJ.

  “I should have gotten you a dog years ago to avoid this, but no.” He opens the front door halfway, blocking my view outside. I bounce on the balls of my feet and try to peek, but he flicks me in the forehead and shakes his head. “Don’t think I’m happy about this or anything, but here’s your early birthday present.”

  I shove past him, careful to jab my elbow into his side extra hard, and stumble onto the front porch. Looking around, I can’t find anything that might belong to me. Movement down below on the street catches my attention. Sitting on top of my dad’s old bike—the very first bike I ever sat on—is Jeremy. Dad walks out of the house after me and closes the door. I make a move to head down the stairs when Dad places his gorilla-like hand on my shoulder and says, “Wait for it.”

  Jeremy stands from the bike and step away from it. He gives Dad a lift of his chin, which I catch Dad returning. The more time they spend together, the more similar their mannerisms become, which, frankly, freaks me the ever-loving fuck out. Jeremy lifts his arms perpendicular to his body and slowly turns around. His back comes into view, and the weight of this moment hits me like a sledgehammer to my gut. Dad removes his hand from my shoulder and lets out a smal
l chuckle.

  I place my hand over my mouth to cover the gasp as tears explode in my eyes. A wretched sob overtakes me as I find myself taking a single step forward. He’s fully turned around now and a brand new FORSAKEN patch shines from the top of his vest. I got used to seeing his prospect cut with so few patches on it, that this new addition is startling. He finishes his circle and is facing me once again. He drops his arms at his sides and then crooks a finger, calling me over.

  My feet have taken off, and I’m halfway down the stairs when I realize I’m in motion. Once I hit the concrete, I’m grateful that even on autopilot I can at least navigate a flat surface. I don’t slow down when I reach him. Instead, I fling myself into his arms. He hauls me up and swings me around in a circle before placing me on the pavement again.

  “Holy fucking shit,” I say. I’m almost speechless but not quite. I gape at him for a moment before he places one hand behind my head and pulls me to him, crashing his lips against mine. I’m wrapped up in him, sucked into all that he is and what he’s accomplished. I fell in love with a smart-mouthed boy in a prospect cut, and I continue to sink even deeper in love with this man. There’s so little of the boy left in him now, but what’s replaced the immature antics is a man whose word is his law, and his heart is as beautiful as anything I’ve ever known. But I won’t tell him that. He doesn’t like it when I get sappy and shit.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Few days after you left town.” The grin on his face is almost unbelievable. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him look so happy before.

  “That was almost a month ago!” I scream, a rabid, angry-woman scream that I didn’t know I was capable of until we got together.

  “Had to take care of some shit first,” he says with an attitude that makes me want to beat him with his cut. I was home for almost a month over Christmas break and that asshole didn’t call me, come see me, or nothing. Fucking dick.

  “That’s your response? That’s all you got to fucking say for yourself? Really, Jeremy Whelan? Really?”

  “Would you shut the fuck up?” he shouts in my face so loudly that I’m startled into silence. Has he forgotten my dad is on the porch and can rip his goddamn head off for that shit? I slide my eyes to Dad, whose arms are folded over his chest that’s heaving in laughter. No, really? The asshole gets a new patch on his back and suddenly I’m fucking chopped liver?