by Stacy Borel
I would have killed him.
“What the hell was that, Crew?” Ashton hissed.
I hadn’t heard her come up behind me. Even with tears streaming down her face, her black mascara certainly not waterproof, she was the most beautiful thing I’d seen. “He needed to be taught a lesson.”
“NOBODY needs to be taught like that!” she shouted. “You could have killed him.”
“I wish I had.”
She shook her head, dragging her hands through her hair. I glanced down at my own mangled hands. “What is wrong with you?”
My eyes flashed up to hers. “What’s wrong with me?” Was she serious? “What’s wrong with me?” I laughed at absolutely nothing. I turned and walked a few feet away, then glared at her. “Nothing’s fucking wrong with me aside from the fact that Mac’s still in there breathing the same air we are.”
Fresh tears pooled in her eyes, which appeared even bluer under the fluorescent of the garage’s motion sensor lights. “Crew, I’ve never seen so much anger in someone. You were in a trance in there. You couldn’t hear me, your co-worker, your uncles gurgled cries …”
Sirens blared in the distance, and I knew where they were going. Camden was probably thrilled at the opportunity to see me in cuffs and out of his daughter’s life. Why was he here in the first place? I knew the beating I’d just handed Mac didn’t last long enough for her to call him here. Adrenaline was slowly leaving me, and a deep ache was beginning to form in my hands. I squinted my eyes shut. This was a freaking nightmare. I knew better than to let my emotions control me.
“Why are you here?” My words came out more severe than I’d intended.
She jerked her head back as if I’d slapped her. “To see you.”
Camden was now standing in the doorway of the garage watching me crumple. His dark eyes zeroed in on me, and I felt the rage bubbling back up. I knew better than to start anything with him, though. The man was twice my size, and if I ever took a swing at him, I’d never see Ashton again. He wasn’t worth that kind of sacrifice.
“Why’s he here?”
“We came to invite you back over to the house.” I felt a sucker punch straight to the gut. “You see, Dad decided he’d been wrong about you all along, and he offered to drive me here so he could personally ask you to come by. A peace offering, if you will.” The words kept coming, but they weren’t computing. He wanted me to come over? But why, when he hated me? Her jaw jutted out, and she puffed her chest. “Maybe I was the one who was wrong.”
Yep, that was a fist right into my navel. “Are you kidding me?”
Her head swung back and forth, her hair flipping in her face. “No.” Her lip began to quiver, and her strong façade was cracking as the sirens were close enough to be an annoying scream in our ears. “I’m not sure I can be with someone who carries that kind of anger around. Never in my life have I seen someone lose control like that. Not with a total stranger, and certainly not with their own flesh and blood. If you can do that to him, who’s to say you wouldn’t do that to me?”
I was two seconds from blowing up. My night had officially gone off the deep end of Crazy Town, and I just wanted to crawl into my bed. I flung my arms in the air, and Camden took a step forward but still kept his distance. Don’t worry, big guy, I’d never harm a hair on her head. “That’s the most fucking insane thing I’ve heard all night. And that’s saying something considering what Mac was saying to me before I took his old ass to the ground. Never, and I mean never would I hurt you. I’d rather toss myself inside the cage of starving lions coated in blood before I raised a hand to you.”
A cop car pulled into the drive and shut his siren off. Blue lights were bouncing off the buildings around us. An ambulance was right behind it. “In here,” Camden calmly called to the paramedic.
They brushed past me and disappeared inside. Meantime, the cop approached me cautiously. His hand hovered near his weapon as he eyed the blood covering my hands and clothes. “You good, son?”
I nodded, not wanting to speak to him. My luck, I’d end up in more trouble.
“What happened here?”
Sighing, I knew I wasn’t going to get away with being silent in this situation. I opened my mouth to speak, but Camden chimed in before I could. “The kid was just defending himself, Kade.” I glanced at the officer’s name tag, and it said Hill. He knew him.
Watching me skeptically, Officer Hill didn’t seem to be buying it. “You sure about that? Looks to me like whoever took the beating, this one wasn’t on the receiving end.”
“Nah, I witnessed the whole thing. I’ll come make a statement if you need it, but Crew was just protecting himself and Ashton. Mac took the first swing.”
I dug my nails into my palm to see if I was dreaming. What alternate universe was I living in that Camden Brooks was coming to my defense? I thought he was going to throw me under the bus and take photographs of my hard ass getting tossed into the back of a cop car. Ashton had her arms crossed in front of her in complete defensive mode. She wouldn’t make eye contact no matter how hard I willed her to.
Speaking into his walkie clipped to his shoulder, Hill mumbled something about a suspect and some other police jargon. I was too busy staring at Ashton to give a shit. When he said he was going to head in and speak to Mike, I wondered if Camden’s story would be backed up.
“Keeg has missed seeing your wife at the Thursday aerobics class.”
Officer Hill grinned. “She hasn’t been feeling well. We just found out last month we are expecting baby number three. Morning sickness is getting the best of her.”
Camden slapped him on the back. “That’s great news, man. Congrats!”
They not only knew each other, but they were chummy.
Hill looked at me. “I’ll be back. Don’t go far. I still need to get a statement from you.”
When he disappeared behind the metal door, I spoke. “Why’d you lie for me?”
His jaw worked overtime as he struggled to find the right words. “I didn’t lie about seeing everything that happened tonight. I saw that you lost your cool, you attacked your uncle, and you damn near sent him packing into the light.” I stood with my hands at my sides, waiting for him to hand me the blow I’d been expecting since he pulled me off Mac. But it never came. Instead, he said something that shocked the life out of me. “I also saw that you were defending my daughter. Despite the reason and what that prick saw, you did it because of how he spoke about her, and for that reason alone, I will side with you. Make no mistake, I don’t condone violence, but honestly, if you hadn’t nailed his ass to the floor, he’d be in the same position, laid out, after I’d done the same thing to him.”
My jaw went slack. Ashton gasped on the other side of me. “Daddy, you can’t be serious. He hurt someone.”
“You heard what was said too, Ashton. I don’t care if you are a CIA agent working for the president. If anyone has something to say about you the way he ran his fucking mouth, they’d be piecing them together if they ever found the body parts.”
I looked back and forth between the two of them, my ears hearing every word. He was really defending me to her. I still hadn’t spoken a word about why, but it was enough to him that I defended his daughter, so the rest was gravy. I’d keep it to myself and deal with it on my own. Well, technically, I’d be dealing with it when the rest of the family caught wind, and I had to deal with their questions.
“Oh, so now you suddenly are best friends with him?”
“I never said that. But I don’t know why you’re so quick to ostracize him when he was defending your honor.”
“My honor? What honor was it to beat his own family like that?”
Was she even hearing herself? She knew how much I loathed Mac, and how mean he’d been to me. We were just together, and I was nothing but tender. I’d come apart under her touch. There was never fear in her eyes. Right now, all I saw in those blue depths was her shaken to her core.
“Ashton, fighting someone like that
is never the answer. And yes, it makes it even worse that they are family. But there are exceptions.”
Her mouth formed a thin line. He wasn’t going to win this one, and neither was I. I took a step toward her, and she moved back, exactly as I expected. She was scared of me. Everything I’d built with her was TKO just like my uncle was with that first hit. Couldn’t say I blamed her. Ashton was a very innocent person and hadn’t seen hardness and corruption. She watched episodes of Jersey Shore and Law and Order. A two-dimensional version of life that to her wasn’t real because she’d never been exposed. I felt sick that her first time seeing how far a human could go when they snapped was at my own hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I truly meant it. Not to Mac, and not for giving him what he deserved, but I was sorry for her.
She looked down at her feet. “Dad, is the car unlocked?”
“Yes.”
When she turned, I called out to her. “Ash, please.”
She stiffened, keeping her back to me. “Please don’t contact me.” Her voice cracked. She was about to fall apart, and I couldn’t be there for her.
My chest rose and fell, my heart shouting at me to chase her and make her see that I was still the same Crew she came to surprise. The one who insisted that her pleasure always came before my own. And I was the same one who needed to know she was okay while she worked through her growing pains.
A second paramedic rolled an empty stretcher past me. Camden didn’t bother looking at them. Instead, he stood in front of me and didn’t say anything.
I needed to do something here. My left hand, which was now feeling the sting of every movement, came up, and I scrubbed my forehead. “Look, I couldn’t handle what he’d said about her. I know it wasn’t right what I did. I should’ve never gone at him like that, but I want you to know that was the first and the last time something like that happens. I don’t make it a habit of hitting people because they are being dickwads toward my girlfriend.”
Camden shifted his weight to the other foot. “She doesn’t hate you, you know?”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.”
“I am.”
Not seeing the whole “touch my daughter and I’ll fuck you up” look in his eyes was totally foreign to me. It was like I had to learn all new expressions and what they meant. I had to admit, him hating me made it easy to know what kind of mood the man was in.
“Give her time, Crew. She’ll come around.”
I blinked in the direction of the black SUV. “I’m not so sure about that.”
The two paramedics wheeled a broken and bloodied Mac on the stretcher. He was strapped down, and a white sheet covered most of his body. There was a neck brace on, and his eyes were shut. I wondered if he was even conscious. I didn’t care if he was, but I didn’t know if he kept his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to see me still standing without a single mark marring my skin or face like his.
Camden pulled my attention back to him by placing his hand on my shoulder. He gave it a squeeze and a slight shake. Much like my own father would do. “Trust me.”
He walked back to his car, and they left. I guess if Officer Hill needed something, he knew where to find him. Camden didn’t seem overly concerned about the story he fed him being believable or not. Made me wonder just how respectable and prominent the Brooks family really was in this town.
“Alright, son, if we need anything else, I’ll give you a call, and you can come down to the station. But for now, he’s not pressing any charges.”
I tipped my head. “Should I be worried?”
“Only if your story changes and you tell me you assaulted Mac without due cause. But I’m sure how it happened is exactly as you told me, right?”
I hadn’t actually told him anything. Camden had. “Yes, sir.”
“Drive home safe, and here’s my card if you think of anything.”
I took his white card that was nearly blank aside from a police shield on the left side, and his name with a phone number below it on the right. As he walked away, I slipped it into my pocket and had no idea what I was supposed to do. Locking up the garage, I decided now might be a good time to take my trip back home even though it was a week early. I knew Ashton wasn’t going to be coming over anytime soon and not even to see Foster. God, Foster would probably throw my ass out when he heard what happened tonight.
I was feeling that emptiness I’d grown so fond of settling into the pit of my stomach. It was the kind that reminded me I was alone. It told me Ashton was gone and not coming back. It said I’d royally fucked up, and I didn’t think apologies counted for much of anything. As much as I didn’t want to, I needed to take Camden’s advice and give her some space. Hell, maybe he’d talk to her for me.
Nah, that was giving that man entirely too much credit. A man who had all but thrown me out of his house two weeks ago. I couldn’t assume he was on my team and coaching me from the sidelines. I needed to get back to the apartment and pack. My parents needed to hear about this from me and not Mac when he came out of it.
Ashton
THERE WAS BANGING DOWNSTAIRS, and like a freaking Folgers commercial I’d seen over and over when I was really little, the smell of coffee was strong. So was bacon. I was lying on my stomach, and I blinked, lifting my phone to check the time. What in the ever-loving hell was everyone doing at six in the morning? Last I checked, it might be Christmas morning, but at least we were all almost grown adults now. No excuses existed for the amount of racket I was hearing. I pulled the heavy down blanket over my head and tried to drown it out.
Ho, ho, ho, I wasn’t in the damn mood.
As if an apparition of myself had floated downstairs and told on me that I was awake, there was a knock on the door.
“Go away!”
“Ashton, we’re all up and ready to open presents. Grandma has breakfast in the oven.”
I growled, smelling my own morning breath under here. That wasn’t a code for get up, or there will be consequences, like Foster torturing you. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
As per family tradition, my grandparents didn’t want their boys spending the holidays doing separate Christmases, so on the eve of the twenty-fourth, we all went over to their house and squished under one roof so we could spend the morning together. As a child, I adored every second of it. It was every bit of magical that a kid could want. But right now, I wanted to call in sick to Christmas and try again next year. I was allowed a pass, right?
Right?
The knock was a bit heavier this time. “Ash.”
“I’m coming!” I shouted, throwing the blanket off my head and watching strands of my hair fly up till they landed in my face.
I heard my mom’s footsteps move away from the door. I blew away my hair and looked in the mirror that sat directly across from the bed. At least, I could be grateful that I was the only girl. Having a vagina entitled me to my own bedroom, and I didn’t have to crash on the floor or a blow-up mattress in my grandparents’ five-bedroom house. The only reason I wasn’t stuck on the pull-out sofa in the office was because Wrigley, Hadley, and Chase couldn’t catch a flight out of Chicago with all the snow.
The house was warm, but I was still freezing. I slid on wool-lined slippers but didn’t bother yanking my hair out of my face with a messy ponytail. The family could look at my makeup-smudged self in all its glory right now. “Bunch of crazy asses, waking up like we’re still five. I need a damn cup of coffee.” I was grumbling under my breath, not realizing my dad was behind me.
He chuckled. “Me too, kid.”
I paused mid-step and then continued. “You heard that?”
“Nah, I missed the crazy ass part.”
He was trying to be funny. “Sorry, Dad. I’ve just barely slept.”
“It’s fine. I think I said the same words this morning when your grandma came in to wake us up too.”
I hadn’t spoken about that day. Not with Dad, not with Mom, not with Foster. Those were the three who I knew were awar
e of the incident, but it was unmentionable. My dad tried for three days straight, but I wasn’t having it. I was so taken aback by what I’d seen that I couldn’t unsee it. When I shut my eyes, I’d see Crew sitting on top of a helpless man, swinging his fists over and over again, hitting him in the face. The blood … all the blood splattering and flying in the air as his uncle gurgled beneath him. It was like he was a savage, and he wouldn’t stop till he’d beaten him to death. I knew his anger ran deep when it came to Mac, but I didn’t know that violence was how he meant to settle their family’s score. If I thought about hitting one of my cousins or beating an uncle till they were barely breathing, it made me want to bend at the waist and vomit.
I was lucky in school because when fights broke out, I was never around. I’d see the aftermath, but I felt like it didn’t compare. Or maybe it did. I’d never seen anyone hit face to face. I knew I’d been sheltered from violence, and my dad thought I was being too harsh on Crew. I was convinced that if he could hurt someone like that, what would stop him from doing it to me? It was irrational, but I’d been shaken to my core. Over the past week, I’d thought about how tender he was when he touched me. How endearing his kisses were. The sweet words he said that made my stomach melt into a puddle of warm goodness. All of that came from a man I couldn’t fathom harming a living creature, let alone me.
My mind was waging its own battle, and currently, it needed more sleep and a gallon of coffee.
We walked down the stairs together, heading straight to the noise. Grandma, Mom, Macie, Tristan, Annabelle, and Cannon were all taking sips out of their mugs, some looking more alive than others. There was a mound of cooked bacon sitting on a plate large enough to feed an army. With the boys in the house, there wasn’t a chance any would be left behind. In the oven, I smelled her famous cinnamon rolls. She made them homemade every year but only during the holidays. In fact, under the tree, I knew she would’ve wrapped a package for each of her sons this morning with rolls that would be ready to pop in the oven. She did it every year, and it was their favorite gift. We were a family of traditions, after all.