Trap: A Salvation Society Novel

by Jennifer Rebecca

  “Tomorrow then?” he asks and I can’t help but wonder why he would think that I’d be back. Maybe they think I’m a glutton for punishment. Maybe they think it’s all a joke, how much I love her when she never loved me. I just don’t know anything anymore.

  “No,” I say and then take a deep breath. “Not ever. Take care of her, okay?”

  “That’s it?” Hooter prompts. He looks pissed and I don’t understand why. I always felt like he had feelings for her, so why he’s mad now, I don’t understand.

  “Yeah, man, that’s it.” I take another step down the path toward my truck when his words stop me in my tracks.

  “You’re just going to walk away?” he asks, and I can tell he’s pissed. I guess maybe I get it, too. He probably thinks I’m walking out on her. That the going got tough and I got going. “Just like that?”

  “She doesn’t want me,” I blurt out and then slam my eyes shut. God, how much more pathetic can I get?

  “You’re an idiot,” he says, shaking his head.

  I am. I’ve been mooning for months over a woman who doesn’t return my feelings for her and never did. I should have listened to her when she wanted to talk before she left. Instead, I just steamrolled her right into a relationship that she never wanted.

  “No, I’m not. Look, she doesn’t love me. She doesn’t want me,” I admit and it’s like a knife to my heart. “I have been calling and coming by, and nothing. I can’t make her love me like I love her.”

  “A fucking idiot,” he mutters shaking his head. How much more abuse do I need to take from these two? Can’t they see that my heart is in tatters? That I’m hanging on by a fucking thread. What more do they want from me?

  “Would you shut up!” I snap. I can’t take it anymore and I won’t. It’s time I figured out what to do with my life and that search is going to start at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey.

  “She’s in love with you,” he says sadly. “I’ve been in love with her for years. She’s never once intimated that she felt the same way. And when she met you, we could all see it was different. You were a game changer, so I was happy to sit back and watch a good friend find a man who would love and appreciate her for her, like I would if given the chance.”

  “It’s not like that,” I murmur lamely. I don’t know why he’s fighting me so hard. He should be happy. I’m out of his way and he can make moves on her. She’d clearly be more receptive to him than to me.

  “Isn’t it though?” he asks me, but before I can answer, he says, “She’s beautiful, and she’s broken, but still there’s a lot there to love. If you walk out on her now, Cinco and I are going to put in the work to put the pieces of Mack back together, but it won’t be for your benefit. When she’s ready, I’m moving in.”

  And there it is. What I’ve always known, that when given the chance he’ll move in on my woman. Well it’s good to know that he wasn't a friend after all.

  “Fuck you,” I bite out caustically. I can’t believe the balls he has to rub my face in his win and my heartbreak.

  “You could have her still,” he adds sadly. “I’ll step aside if you walk back in that house right now, but I can already tell you’re not going to, so I’m just telling you how I feel. It was nice knowing you. I really mean that.”

  I have no idea what to make of that. Could he really mean it? That he’d step aside so that she could be happy with me? I doubt it. It was all a lie to make me feel like shit. Like I could sink any lower because don’t they know I’m already at rock bottom?

  I watch as they move through her front door. I stand at the front window and watch them pull a container of soup out of a paper bag. Cinco spoon feeds her while Hooter picks up some trash around the room.

  They take care of her and provide for her like I want to, like something deep inside of me is calling to me to do. I’m jealous of them and what they have with her, what she allows them to have. His words ring in my head. Is it possible that she loves me, but is too scared to allow someone to help her heal her wounds?

  No. I shake off the mental image. She said it herself; she doesn’t love me. I can only hope she’ll be happy with him. I guess he’s a good guy after all, so I know she will be.

  I say a silent goodbye, and then I turn on my heel and leave.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  MacKenzie

  Clipped wings

  “What are you doing, Mack?” Hooter asks me as he hovers around the room.

  “Nothing,” I answer, not making any effort to mask the bitter tone of my voice. “Not one damn thing.”

  “You know that man is in love with you,” he says quietly. “He loves you in a way that if you let him walk out of your life, you’ll have nothing left but regrets.”

  “Regrets are all I have,” I say angrily.

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Cinco inserts as he spoons a bite of soup into my mouth.

  They’ve been handling me with kid gloves for days, nursing me back to health from the brink of death, but honestly, it would have been more of a kindness if they had just let me go. I was practically dead when they found me, and they should have left me that way, because here, there is no life worth living.

  “Yes, it does,” I reply, pushing to sit up. Can’t they see that I’m dying inside? I just need them to let me be. Leave me to my misery.

  “But why?” he asks, and I just… snap.

  “Look at me!” I scream. “Really look at me. Is this someone to love? Do I look like someone who’s worthy of that man’s love?”

  “Yes,” they both answer immediately, and the honesty that rings in their voices only makes me angrier. I’m broken and weak. The only thing he could possibly feel for me is pity, not love.

  “Look closer!” I cry. “I can’t fly. I can’t leave my house. And do you know why? Because I’m scared. I’m fucking terrified to go outside. I can’t set foot anywhere near an airplane. In fact, they had to sedate me to come home, because I fucking lost it. So now answer me. Is that someone worthy of a man like Kyle Garrett?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or maybe, just maybe, I’m doing him a favor,” I keep going, warming to my cause. I need them to understand, I need to make them see it like I see it. “He deserves to live a happy life with someone who’s not so… broken. He deserves to be happy.”

  “I think he was happy with you, honey,” Cinco says quietly.

  “One day, he’ll be thankful he wasn’t saddled with me,” I reply just as quietly. I can feel the tears well up and burn in the back of my throat. Goddammit I don’t want to cry again. I’m tired of crying. I’m tired of feeling so sad and hopeless. I just want it all to end. I want to be numb. Why does everything about Kyle Garrett make me feel?

  “I don’t think he feels that way at all,” Hooter says.

  “Well, he’ll get over it.”

  “But will you?” Cinco asks, and he watches me closely. Too closely.

  “No,” I answer honestly. I’ll never get over what happened to me, to us. I’ll never get over Kyle Garrett because someone like that comes along once in a lifetime and he was mine. But then I had to let him go so he could find a way to be happy with someone whole.

  “Mack—” Hooter starts, but I can’t let him finish. I can’t let them see how much it hurts to not have Kyle near me. Knowing I could have him if only I asked, but also knowing I’m not worth it and that, when the day comes that he finally realizes as much, it’ll kill me because I won’t have anything left.

  “I’m tired,” I interrupt. I can’t hear any more of their arguments. It’s slowly wearing me down. It hurts too much. I don’t want to hurt anymore; I want to be numb. I need to exorcize these emotions so that, eventually, I can feel nothing. That’s one thing I’m certain of, I never want to feel anything again. “I’m going to go to bed. You guys can see yourselves out.”

  And then I head up the stairs. Alone. And I swear I hear Hoots say, “Like I said, a fucking idiot.”

  And Cinco replies, “Then let�
��s do something about it.”

  But I don’t stop to listen. I make my way up to my bedroom and lie down on the bed. I don’t pull back the covers or change clothes or shower, all of which are sorely needed. I just lie on top of the blankets and contemplate what my world looks like all alone with permanently clipped wings.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kyle

  Go to bed

  I drive around San Diego for an hour or maybe longer. I don’t know. I have nowhere to go. I’ve been living out of a suitcase in a hotel, waiting, hoping MacKenzie would want me and would let me come home.

  But I guess it’s like they say—hope in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first. Hope has left me empty handed, and yet I still can’t seem to walk away. Even though I told the guys I was leaving and not coming back, I’ve done nothing but drive around La Jolla and then hop on the I-805 toward Miramar.

  Like a ghost, I haunt the places where MacKenzie and I were together before she left. Before she was taken. Before everything went to shit.

  Somehow, I end up at The Underdog, the bar where I met Mack and her friends. It feels like it was years ago Sean and I walked into the dive bar near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and I saw the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. There was just something about her. I knew with one look that she was different, a game changer. I knew I would never meet another woman, as long as I live, who flips all my switches like she does.

  I pull into the parking lot and let my head hang forward after I shut off the ignition. I don’t want to be here without her. But like everything else in life, I don’t have a choice. I pull my keys from the ignition and climb out of my truck.

  The air is crisp. The sun had set, painting the sky in pastels before going dark while I was driving around the city I called home for several years. Now, I’m going to have to pack up the last of my life here and drag it back with me to Virginia Beach. Alone.

  I walk through the parking lot of the bar and push open the door. It’s crowded, and I hate it instantly. All around, people are laughing and talking, drinking and having a great time. What’s that saying about misery loving company? Right now, I don’t want anyone to get to have the time of their lives; I want them to know the pain I’m feeling. It’s raw and visceral in a way that I know it’ll be never ending.

  I pull in a deep breath and make my way through the crowd to the bar. I pull up a seat at the end and sit down. A woman turns toward me. She’s giving off all the right signals—if I were willing, but I’m not. I turn away from her and give off a serious “back the fuck up” vibe for anyone else who might try to join my pity party of one.

  “What’ll it be?” the bartender asks when he makes it to this end of the bar.

  “Whiskey,” I reply. “Neat.”

  He takes a glass from below the bar and flips it over on the scarred wood top that separates us. He takes a bottle from the shelf behind him and pours a heavy three fingers in the glass before pushing it toward me. I nod my thanks, lift the glass to my lips, and belt back a healthy swig. It burns. Like everything else in my life right now, it fucking stings.

  And then comes the heat. The warmth that will surely warm my body when I feel so cold that I’m numb.

  I keep to myself, sipping my whiskey. The bell over the door chimes, and my training kicks in. I’d like to keep to myself and shut out the world, but I can’t. I have to be hyperaware. It’s second nature—ingrained in us so that we don’t wind up dead.

  Even though it might be better if someone got the drop on me and put me out of my fucking misery. I turn and look to see who else would join the merry revelry of those who still have hope that there’s anything decent left for them in the world.

  My eyes clash with those of Hooter and then Cinco as they walk into a crowd of obviously familiar faces. Before I look away, I swear they both look… disappointed in me.

  A woman wraps her arms around Hooter’s waist, and he looks down at her with a smile. He’s clearly familiar with her. I feel a frown pull at my face. If he’s in love with Mack, then why the fuck is he here with this woman? She doesn’t deserve this. And neither does the woman on his arm. What the fuck is going on here?

  I turn back to the bar and throw back the rest of my whiskey as my phone rings. I set my empty glass on the scarred wood and slip my phone from the pocket of my jeans. I slide my thumb across the screen to unlock it and answer. “Garrett.”

  “It’s Dempsey,” he replies when I answer.

  “Look, man,” I tell him honestly. “I’m not really in the mood to catch up right now. There’s some heavy shit going down.”

  “So I heard,” he says. “Look, I’m going to level with you. I never thought it would be sunshine and rainbows when we got her back stateside. Hell, I wasn’t even sure we’d find her alive.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I growl. I don’t want to hear this. I want to be left the fuck alone so that I can get fucking drunk. Why doesn’t anyone want me to get fucking drunk? This is bullshit. I need new friends.

  “Because,” he replies with that same level tone of voice he always uses. “Everyone knew it was going to be rough. It was never going to be an easy path to forge, but it was always your path to take. Do you think I should have walked away from my wife when the going got tough?”

  “No,” I answer because everyone knows the story of how Dreamboat and his wife got together. Their story was not an easy one, but it was theirs and everyone can tell by the way that they openly love each other that neither one regrets the heartache that they had to endure to bring them together.

  “Of course not,” he replies. “It was fucking hard as hell, but it was worth every second of pain because now I have my family, I have her. Don’t be an idiot, Tarzan. Go get the girl.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I tell him solemnly because truthfully, there’s nothing else I can do. I’m going to think about it all—about every minute with MacKenzie, good or bad—until I die because I’m helpless to do otherwise.

  “You do that,” he says. “I’ll talk to you later.” And then he disconnects the call.

  I turn back to my whiskey and down the contents of my glass and realize that it’s empty. I tap my fingertips on the bar top and the bartender comes down the line to pour me another round.

  I stare at the amber contents of my glass and wonder how I could have fucked up my life so badly, but I’m not sure. What could I have done, in this life or another one, to warrant such a fucked up destiny? I sip my whiskey when my phone buzzes again. I hadn’t put it away after Dempsey’s call, instead, I left it on the bar top. It buzzes around while an east Texas number flashes on the screen and I pick it up sliding my finger across the screen to answer the call.

  “Garrett,” I answer.

  “What the fuck did you do to my sister, you asshole?” is growled through the phone, and I can assume that it’s no one other than Ryan Black. But I don’t have time for that right now.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. If something has happened to MacKenzie I need to know. “What happened?”

  “You tell me, shit stain,” he demands. “I left for my hotel to shower and check in with my very pregnant wife, and the next thing I know when I get back to Mack, she’s in her bed sobbing her fucking heart out. So you tell me what’s happened.”

  “She told me that she didn’t love me,” I say quietly. “She told me to go and never come back.”

  He groans, “What a pigheaded, stubborn mule—”

  “Yeah,” I interrupt softly. “But there’s nothing I can do. I can’t change her mind.”

  “But can’t you?” he asks me, and I wonder if he’s right. Am I just as stubborn as Mack is? “Look. If you ever cared for my sister, which I think you do, then see this through.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Garrett. There has only ever been one man, in their entire lives, that I thought was good enough for one of my sisters and that man was y
ou. I’m not usually wrong about people so I figure I’d lay it out for you. But if you walk away now, you’re an idiot too.” And then he hangs up.

  I tap the corner of my phone twice on the bar top and think. Is he right? Did I give up too soon? Because if I’m the one who walked away when I shouldn’t have, then I’m all kinds of foolish, just like Black said I was.

  And what about the guys? They said Mack is in love with me and called me an idiot too. We never shared our feelings. I was so afraid that I would spook her when she was prepping to leave, but what if it was a mistake not to? What if MacKenzie isn’t confident in how I feel about her, because I never told her? I might have showed her how I really felt, but I never said the actual words.

  Fuck. I think I fucked up, but I’m going to fix it.

  I stand up, pull enough bills from my wallet to cover my tab and then some. I drop them on the counter, and set my glass on top of them, grabbing my keys and make my way through the crowded bar. My eyes snag on Hooter where he stands, talking to his companions with his arms wrapped around the woman from earlier. He nods to me as I pass and I swear to fucking Christ, there’s a Goddamn twinkle in his eye. The fucker was telling the truth, he wants me for her and so does her brother. There’s only one thing left to do; I need to convince her of the same.

  I push through the glass doors and hear the bells jingle, and then I make my way through the parking lot to my truck. I climb in and start the engine. I pull out of the lot and head back to the 805. When I get to La Jolla, I make my way through the smaller streets to the beach where she lives. I pull up to the curb in front of her condo and park before climbing out and make my way up the walk to knock on the door. Black answers almost immediately.

  “It’s about fucking time,” he says before holding the door open to me so I can enter. “She’s upstairs.”

  I nod to him before making my way up the first flight of stairs and then the next. I can hear her sobbing through the door as I make my way down the hall toward her room, and it fucking kills me. I don’t knock; I just gently pull open the door and close it behind me. She doesn’t hear the door open or close she’s so lost in the torrential downpour of emotions that are tearing her apart.