Later, I realized it was because he had a sister once upon a time … and that he didn't anymore.
Now …
The next morning, I stay barricaded in my room until I hear the roar of an engine, that violent bestial growl that lights up the night like the sound of a wild animal, one made of steel and leather and rubber. I grit my teeth as I listen to Beast pulling out of the driveway, tearing down the street like a shotgun blast.
It's only then that I risk slipping into a pair of sweats and a tank top and heading downstairs.
“Cat isn't here, is he?” I ask Sin when I find him sitting on the couch with his arms thrown across the back, spread wide like the pair of wings he has tattooed on his hips, nice and low and tempting. Too tempting. I've been tempted by Sin since I was fourteen years old.
“Looks like it's your lucky morning,” he tells me, his voice as smooth and practiced as a rockstar's, like he must use those beautiful vocal chords to entertain an audience. Since all he ever does is use them to lull women into his bed, it's a real shame to hear him speak, like I can see all that wasted potential leaking from his tattooed throat.
I grab a sweater from the coat tree near the front door and sling it over my shoulders, wrapping it tightly around me. When I'm with Sin, I feel like I need more clothes, more insulation between us. Which, you know, is ridiculous considering he looks at me like a sister, like a girl instead of a woman.
Except for that one time …
I lick my lips and I don't think about that. I think about Sin driving my mom's SUV with the lucky pink rabbit foot hanging from the rearview mirror, and I think about him watching as Queenie tucked me into bed, of his face at my window, gazing into the yard with his jaw tight and teeth clenched.
“What's he gonna do? Besides sic my brother on me, I mean,” I say as I set foot in the kitchen with its white marble floors—heated floors, too, like a real crime family with money and all that. I don't use it though, the money. Not any of it. Those hundred and twenty dollar pants? I earned those by working at the raptor center (that's birds, not dinosaur fossils) as well as the ice cream shop downtown.
If I had the choice, I wouldn't live in this house either, use its electricity, its water, its internet. It's all dressed in blood, every single square foot, each acre, all of these shiny silver appliances. It's red and dripping and stinking of copper, even if nobody but me can see it.
The couch creaks and I cringe, closing my eyes for a quick moment and opening them to see Sin standing in the entrance to the kitchen. He moves too fast, almost inhuman. If I believed this world was anything but ugly and gray and desolate, I'd think he was something special, a demi-God or a prophet or some hero sent like Hercules to save us all.
I shouldn’t have made conversation, I tell myself as I break open a new jar of peanut butter and set it on the shiny stone countertops. I shouldn't have talked to him at all. I move to a different cabinet—a fancy custom one with scrollwork on the edges—and open it, grabbing a plate. Back in the day, we had orange linoleum counters and an avocado colored fridge that froze things on the bottom shelf and let ones on the top go bad. Mom and Cat were always drinking and shooting up and leaving us to party at the clubhouse.
I'd give anything to go back to that time—my arms, my legs, my eyes, my heart. Because it was ripped out and crushed when my sisters were killed. It was smashed to a pulp and stolen into a night of blood and hate and criminal pissing matches between men like Cat, like Sin, like Grainger and Beast and Crown.
Nellie trying to be a real mom, Cat trying to be a real dad, this big house with all its fucking stuff and that Escalade in the driveway … I hate it all. I'd rather be that little girl, stuffing earbuds into her skull to block out the fucking and the fighting and the drinking. That little girl didn't know how screwed up her life was.
But I do now.
“You shouldn't have gone to that bonfire last night,” Sin says, and even though he's the least intimidating as far as looks go—clean-shaven, younger than the other officers, with a scar that pulls the edge of his right lip up just enough that it looks like he's smiling—I have to remember that he's dangerous.
Mm.
Or really, that he's a fucking asshole.
“Really?” I ask as I lay out two slices of bread and start spreading peanut butter across one of them. “You're on Cat's side now? After all this time?”
“I'm always on Cat's side, Gidget. He's my fucking president.”
I glance over at him, at those stormy silver eyes framed by a bronze-skinned face. You didn't seem to be on his side when you were rescuing me and my sisters from the clubhouse, spending your nights at our place, putting your hands on my hips and …
“Right.” I screw the cap back on the peanut butter and head to the fridge for a jar of blueberry jam. “Because the club comes before all else, because you'd suck Cat's dick if he told you to, because you'd kill me if he asked you to do it.”
Sin's semi-crooked mouth twists into this weird semblance of a smile, like a ghost. No, like a demon because that's what he is, some leathery winged monster riding a red-eyed black stallion behind my pointy-horned father, heading into battle against a host of angels.
God, I wish I lived in a fantasy novel.
Sometimes I think my life would make more sense if I did.
I slop a gob of blue jam on the bread.
“Don't be ridiculous,” Sin says, his voice this dark, angry buzz that somehow never manages to rise above a sensual whisper. “I'm just the road captain, Gidget. If Cat wanted you dead, he'd send Beast.”
I slap the two slices of bread together, refusing to look back up at him again.
There's no secrecy about how Sin managed to earn his nickname.
“Hilarious. Cat, the ex-addict and the womanizer and the—” I start, turning with sandwich in hand and finding Sin's long fingers cupping the side of my face, hard. Pulling me in. Making me drop my food on the floor.
Without even realizing what I'm doing, I raise up on my toes and meet the hard, wild press of his lips. Sin's mouth is like the blade of a knife, double-edged and so easy to cut myself with, so sharp, so shiny and irresistible.
His tongue sweeps mine, just one hot, aching arch and then he's drawing back and drawing me in, face dark and closed-off and empty.
Fuck.
I hate that about him.
My breath comes in harsh pants and my hands shake. God, I'm just trembling inside. Between my legs, I feel that answering heat, the response to the hard bulge in Sin's dark denim.
“You asshole,” I snarl, and then I'm digging my feet into Nellie's wool clogs near the front door, grabbing the dog's leash, and going out for a walk.
Sin follows along behind me … both physically and metaphorically.
“Y'all can stand there and look down at me like I don't matter, but I'm made of tougher stuff,” Reba says, walking between four men dressed in leather Death by Daybreak vests and into the house. I can hear her through the crack in my window, sitting on the edge of my bed with my dog, Feminist.
Yes, I named my male husky Feminist. Cat refuses to say the word (he calls him that fucking dog most of the time) and Nellie just calls him Fem-fem which I hate. I'm not sure why it's a debate on whether men and woman are equal. Must be because of ignorant a-wads like my dad and his club.
“Nellie's bakin' an apple pie,” Reba says, pausing in my doorway with her red waves tucked behind one ear, wearing a white skirt that hits her at mid-calf and a green button-up that looks like she borrowed it from the school secretary.
“Weird, isn't it?” I ask as I glance out the window and see Sin, Crown, Gaz, and Cat standing in a circle on the driveway, their bikes lined up behind them like soldiers. I have no idea what they're talking about and I don't care. At least I'm sure it's not about that kiss.
That kiss.
That fucking kiss.
I dig my fingers into my hair and Reba's eyebrows go up. Way up.
She kicks the door closed behind her and moves to push the dog off the bed. He growls at her, but Reba just stares him down until he moves, slinking into the corner to curl up on his pink and purple dog pillow. It's the only thing in my room with the color pink on it.
“What are they doing here, Gidget? Where did you go last night?”
“They're either the four horsemen of the apocalypse or else Cat's got some new business venture cooking and he's afraid I'll get stabbed to death like my sisters.”
Reba cringes, and I feel this creeping wave crawl over my shoulders, like a cloak of spiders. Lifting my head up, I stare at her through a few loose strands of dark hair, curled and clinging to the front of my face.
“Sin kissed me in the kitchen today.”
Reba closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, reaching out to slap the pack of cigarettes from my hand when I reach for them. I pick it back up and slide out a smoke.
“Colton kissed you,” Reba repeats in a low whisper, using Sin's real name. She says it's not a badge of pride to wear your mistakes as a name tag. I think the name fits him like a goddamn glove. “Gidget, are you—”
“I'm not looking to repeat sophomore year,” I reply, lighting up and using my left foot to push the window up a few more inches. I leave a footprint smudge on the glass, but I almost like it there because it blurs out Sin's face a little bit. As I lean over to blow my smoke out into the orange-yellow afternoon sky, he glances up at me and our eyes meet.
I'd flip him off, but then Cat looks up and so does Gaz.
I turn away and focus on Reba instead.
Her eyes are the color of sea glass, open and inviting. I can see everything that Reba's thinking right there in that clear, sharp gaze of hers. I know what she wants, how she feels, if she's trying to fuck me over. Hint: she never is.
“What happened at the bonfire?” she says softly and I sigh.
“Nothing. Crown picked me up on an errand for Cat. He had Beast burn my clothes, Sin burn my lips, and Grainger …”
“You aren't spending any time with him, are you?” she asks, this sharp quality to her voice that makes me remember all sorts of things that I told myself I'd never think about again.
“He has the morning guard duty shift tomorrow,” I say, closing my eyes and wishing my dad hadn't decided to start caring all of a sudden, that he'd put prospects or even hang-arounds as my bodyguards instead of fucking officers.
Sometimes, when I lie in the dark and think about it, I figure maybe Cat does give a shit, that the reason he's posting his officers instead of his lackeys is because he's actually worried about me, because he doesn't want to bury another daughter. Because Queenie and Posey died horrible deaths. Horrible.
My breath comes in a quick pant and my eyes sting.
I don't cry though.
I haven't cried in years.
The last time … I won't think about that either.
“It’s an unfortunate inevitability,” I say, pausing as the matte white Indian Chieftain outside revs to life and peels out of the driveway. Goodbye and good riddance, Sin, you stupid fucker. “But Cat is pissed about the clothes and the makeup and the sneaking out … I'm grounded with my own personal biker bodyguards.”
There's a long pause before Reba kicks off her shoes and lies back on my bed.
“Please come to church with me on Sunday,” she says, but she's been asking for years and I've never gone.
“Can you imagine that?” I ask as I ash my cigarette out the window. “Dragging one of those assholes to church with me?”
Reba's nostrils flare and she breathes out a long sigh.
“So long as it's not Grainger, you can bring one with you. I just want to see you in those pews.”
I smoke my cigarette and think about it for a minute.
“As long as it isn't Grainger,” I repeat.
It's fucking goddamn Grainger.
“Please don't talk to me,” I whisper as I climb out of the back of Reba's mother's van and find Grainger standing there in his sunglasses, a metropolis of memories and scalding heat, the scars on my soul burning and twinging at the sight of him. “Just don't.”
“I'll talk to you if I goddamn well feel like it,” he says, and that's why I've been avoiding him.
Because I hate him.
“Let's not make God wait, shall we?” Reba says, standing near the foot of the church steps and looking at Grainger like she'd kill him if the Bible didn't explicitly say not to.
“I'm not going in that fucking building,” Grainger says, lifting his glasses up so I can see the soul-deep umber color of his eyes. They kill me, those goddamn eyes of his.
“Why? Afraid you'll catch fire?” I ask, moving back a few steps and wondering how the hell I managed to get permission from Cat to attend church. The only church he attends is the one in the back of the clubhouse, the secret meeting room for him and all his boys to sit around and act like they own the world.
“Because I'm not exactly excited at the prospect of being surrounded by a bunch of self-righteous assholes who think they have all the answers. If Cat hadn't asked me to bring you here, your ass would be locked up in a fucking tower.”
“Oh, fairytale references,” I say, clapping my hands in a slow, sarcastic way that makes Grainger grit his teeth. He bites down so hard on his lip rings that he draws blood. “How manly.”
“Your dad lets you get away with too much shit. Maybe I'll suggest a leash next time I see him.”
“Maybe he'll say yes—after all, seems like you're already wearing one.”
“Really?” Grainger asks, taking a position up on the left of the stairs and planting the rubber sole of his boot against the wall. He lights up a cigarette and scoffs a harsh laugh in my direction. I squint as the sun catches on the silver crescent moon of his belt buckle. “You want to go there, sweetheart?”
I grit my teeth and try to ignore him, heading up the steps in a pair of red flats and skinny jeans, missing my leather pants and high heeled boots already. But Cat … he's on the warpath right now. If he sees that the pants Beast burned the other night in the backyard aren't the only pair of skintight black booty huggers I've got in my closet, he might just raid my room.
Or have the guys raid my room.
I don't ever want any of those bastards in my fucking room.
“He taints the air he breathes,” I tell Faith as we step inside the small foyer, onto a sea of faded burgundy carpet and walls the color of that salted caramel ice cream I've been obsessed with all summer. The room smells like the stale floral perfume my grandmother left on her dressing table when she died, the bottles that even now, ten years later, are still sitting there collecting dust. When Queenie and Posey were murdered, and the four fuckers from hell were dragging me around the city like a dog on a leash, I spent a lot of time at my grandma's place, digging through boxes of mementos. At one point, I popped a gold top on a bottle filled with pale pink fragrance, and gave it a sniff.
I almost choked to death on the stench.
“It smells like ancient history in here,” I say, but in the back of my mind, I'm just glad that it doesn't smell like Grainger, that blazing sensuality that radiates off of him like light from the sun. He's got this fiery bite to his scent, like cumin and saffron, black pepper and vanilla. It's too much.
“Just get on up here and take a seat,” Reba says, putting her arm through mine and tugging me down the fairly sparse aisles to the front row. Even though her relationship with her dad is rough, Reba says the one thing that he knows how to do is inspire others.
I'll believe it when I see it.
“I told you,” Reba whispers as soon as she gets my butt situated on the faded, threadbare cushion of the front right pew, “no Grainger. Why in heck is he here?”
I sigh and lean my head back against the wood, dark hair hanging like a sheet behind me.
“Cat won't talk to me,” I whisper back, staring up at vaulted ceilings and wo
od beams dripping with cobwebs. “As usual,” I add, because there's nothing unusual about my asshole father withholding information from me. I'm not part of his club, not privy to his secrets. “But whether it's just a punishment for the bonfire or some new threat, I've got the boys around the clock.”
“Can't you ask Leroy to give you a different bodyguard?”
I lift my head up and tuck strands of black-on-black hair behind my ear. Both my sisters were blonde, but somehow, I ended up with Cat's—Leroy's—hair color. What a drag.
“And then he'll want to know why,” I say, biting my lower lip, filling my mind flood with the memory. “What am I supposed to tell him then? That Grainger and I—”
“Good morning, y'all!” Wesley Keller says, coming out a small side door and jogging his way to the front of the altar. Just the sight of him makes my lip curl. I cross one denim clad leg over the other and glance to my right, to where Dena and Chardou are sitting. They both look back at me, and Dena curls her bubblegum pink lips into a smile.
Standing up and scurrying across the aisle, the two girls take seats on my right.
“Hey,” Dena says, grinning and giving Wesley a sidelong glance. Her voice is low and conspiratorial. I've never really admitted this to Reba, but I sort of hate her. “You guys want to hang out with us after? Trevone and some of the guys are heading to the lake in a caravan; there's plenty of room.”
I give her a raised brow, like I'm thinking about it, and try to refocus on Wesley. Reba and I have known each other since kindergarten and I've never—never—liked her father. Not only does he think he's better than everyone else, but I've always gotten this vibe off of him, like maybe he doesn't really practice what he preaches …
The sermon starts, but all I can do is sit there and stare at the man who leaves his drunken wife lying in puddles of her own vomit, who judges his daughter based on the length of her skirt, who had a bake sale to raise money for a local billboard so he could print Premarital Sex is Akin to Murder on the front of it.
I Was Born Ruined Page 3