by Lexy Timms
Chapter 3
Grayson
The memories were too much. I needed to get out of that house. I’d spent the entire morning with the estate lawyer, who had lined out the old man’s will and assets. Honestly, I was blown away at what there was to find. As a kid, I thought Anton was wealthy as shit, but didn’t understand the type of wealth the man had. Even by my standards today, the man was wealthy. Millions upon millions in bank accounts, and even millions more in assets strewn around the entire damn world. Anton could have gone anywhere. Literally. He could have traveled anywhere, and retired anywhere! Anywhere!
Why the hell did he choose fucking Stillsville, Illinois?
Most of his assets had been willed to charities. Organizations and things he held dear. Which didn’t shock me at all. Anton and I didn’t talk much after my football injury, but he knew how well I’d done for myself. I threw myself into the vineyard not too long after retiring from the NFL, and that took most of my time. And the more time I spent going over his will and walking the town, the guiltier I felt for not keeping in contact like I should have. The guilt was overwhelming, and with that guilt came memories.
Memories I wanted to drown at the local watering hole.
It was the only bar in town, and I had frequented it as a teenager. They had a reputation for serving underage kids and I’d always found a way to take out my frustrations on the bar patrons. It would be interesting to see who owned and was running the bar now. It would get my mind off the massive blow Anton’s wealth had on my mind, as well as the note I was carrying in my back pocket. The lawyer had it for me, an envelope addressed to me in handwriting I found familiar. Anton had written me a note before he passed, and I didn’t have the heart to open it.
Not without a cold beer in my hand.
I sat down in the bar and ordered myself a drink. The waitress brought me the bottled beer before setting it down on a napkin that looked as if it had already been used. No pride in the town whatsoever for anything they did. I crunched up my nose and slid the napkin away before I downed the beer. I took the note out of my pocket and turned it around in my fingers. A note. From Anton.
When was the last time I’d talked with the man?
Guilt consumed me as I opened it up. The note was short and sweet. One page, maybe. In handwriting that threw me into the past. I shook my head and bit down on the inside of my cheek. I should have called the man more often. Should’ve kept up with him more. Hell, at least I could have hired someone to check up on him.
Then I remembered his will.
He had plenty enough money to do that himself.
That estate meeting left more questions than answers, and maybe those answers were in his note.
Grayson,
I want to start by saying I’m proud of you.
I couldn’t go past that first line. I read it over and over until my stomach felt sick. Proud. The one word I’d wanted to hear from my father for years as he beat me with his closed fist.
Anton was proud of me.
I cleared my throat and kept reading.
Grayson,
I want to start by saying I’m proud of you. I always knew you were a special boy, even if we didn’t always see eye to eye on some things. You were always sneaky, fusing my want for your college days and your own want to play football. Watching you get that scholarship was one of the proudest moments of my life.
But Grayson, I’m not sure if the boy has turned into the man just yet. And I know you’re probably rolling your eyes and preparing a pointless argument, but keep reading. Stay with me for a second. You need to stop isolating yourself in that vineyard of yours. I know your success hasn’t been easy to come by, but you have to stop burying yourself in your work. Stop using work as an excuse to not get close to people. Take stock of your life and the people you want in it. Because in the end, you can’t take that money with you. You can’t take that vineyard with you. Those grapes won’t hold your hand at the end of your life and your memories won’t be reflected in that mansion of yours.
Stop hiding away, Grayson. Step out into the light and become the man you were born to be.
Anton.
I didn’t like how those words made me feel. I looked up and watched the waitress replace my empty beer with another, and I was thankful for it. I was ready to drown those words out of my mind and keep on trucking. I wasn’t isolated. I got out plenty. The problem with wealth, however, is that I never knew who was getting close to me for my money and who was getting close to me because of, well, me.
Surely Anton understood that. Which was why he’d hid his millions away in the first place.
I chugged back my second beer. I needed to relax. To get my mind off this agonizing trip. My heart hurt. My soul hurt. My mind kept spinning. I needed to get out of this town. It was making me think too much about my past. My success was in the future. Not back here. I needed to wrap this shit up and keep pressing on. Just like I’d always done with my life.
Then, a familiar face walked into the bar.
“Gray? Is that you?”
Holy shit. It was Andy Prentice.
That asshole had been my closest comrade in high school. We’d gotten into more than our fair share of trouble, what with drinking at this same bar and running the streets at night after football games. Pulling the best ‘April Fool’ pranks on anyone that crossed our paths. He looked a hell of a lot different, though.
His hair was longer. Not the buzz cut I remembered from high school. Dark blonde and wavy. All the way down to his fucking shoulders. He still had that dangerous brown stare, though. That stare had shocked more than his fair share of teachers into their place. I stood and clapped his back, grinning at all of the great memories bombarding my mind.
“What the hell are you doing in this shithole?” Andy asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said.
“Ah, the oil fields in North Dakota were good to me for a while. But they started laying people off, so I gravitated back towards my roots a few months ago.”
“Sounds like a shitty thing to do,” I said. “Why come back here?”
“I don’t know. It’s familiar. Home. It’s shitty, but its home. Why the hell are you back here?”
He held up his hand and the waitress soon appeared at our side with a beer he chugged back in seconds. Then he handed it off to her and she went to get him another one. It was the motion of someone who was here often. And who frequented a bar more than someone ought to.
I narrowed my eyes at my old friend and watched him prop his feet up on the table.
“I’m here settling Anton’s estate,” I said.
“Yeah, I heard about that old man passing away. Sucks. He still got that massive house on the hill up there?”
“He does,” I said.
“Nice house. I always thought that old man was hiding a secret from everyone. No one makes that kind of money in this town. Not the kind of money he had.”
I kept my mouth shut on what I’d learned about Anton over the course of the morning and let Andy shoot his mouth off like he always did.
“But everyone’s got their secrets,” he said. “Like where the hell you’ve fucking been for the past decade or so. You got out of this town on a football scholarship and didn’t come back!”
“Can you blame me?” I asked.
“Nope. Not one damn bit. This place is a hellhole. A soul-sucking leech. But I’m glad you’re back. We should hang out since you’re back in town for a while,” he said, as he took his second beer from the waitress.
He drained it again before my eyes, then passed the bottle off to her.
This was not the Andy I remembered.
“You good?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. Just some shit at home. Michy will cool down eventually.”
“Michy?” I asked.
“The girlfriend. She followed me here after I lost my job in North Dakota. I’m still not quite sure why I asked her to come sometimes.”
“
You don’t sound too fond of her.”
“She’s warm. Pretty. Doesn’t ride me too much about my music which is nice.”
“High standards.”
“Hey, no one’s perfect,” he said, as he grabbed another beer. “So, are we hanging out or not?”
I leaned back in my chair, trying to put some space between myself and his toxicity.
“I’m not here to stay,” I said. “Just dealing with the estate, then I’m out of here.”
Andy’s eyebrows shot up like a rocket before he started laughing. I sipped on my beer, watching him curiously as his laughter filled the bar. He took his feet off the table and stood up, then came around and slapped me on the back.
A little too hard for my liking.
I had a sudden flashback of the first time my father hit me.
“That takes some balls, let me tell you,” he said.
“What does?” I asked.
“Selling off that old man’s estate! You inherited it, right? And I don’t blame you. Why stick around this shithole of a town when you can take your newfound riches and go somewhere better. You got a place in mind? Need a roommate perhaps?”
“Don’t you already have a roommate?” I asked.
“Ah, she’ll be good. She can afford that place on her own. You know, where we’re living.”
The man I was looking at was a ghost of the boy I’d known in high school. But I didn’t bother correcting him on the details of my stay. He wreaked of someone that would use someone else for their money. It sounded like he was doing that with his poor girlfriend. The woman must not have any sort of self-esteem to stay with this pathetic excuse for a human being that Andy had turned into.
I’d moved beyond high school, but Andy seemed to be stuck in his immature ways.
He sat back down at the table and continued to throw back drinks. I nursed my third beer, trying to pace myself and not overdo it. But Andy seemed to be the very definition. He was hollering across the bar for more beers, and slapping waitresses on their asses. Even though he had someone else at home. She was probably sitting there waiting for him, the poor thing. I wanted to punch Andy in his fucking face. What the hell was this guy doing anyway? Harassing the waitresses and pulling this shit was bad enough, but doing it with a girl at home was pathetic.
That was what this town did to people. It turned them into carcasses of their former youth. It sucked the life out of them and replaced it with a putrid, ill-fitted definition of sub-par.
“Oh, that ass bounced nicely,” Andy said. “Hey, sweet cheeks! I got a friend over here you’re gonna wanna talk to.”
“No thanks, I’m good,” I said.
“Oh come on. The pussy in here’s actually decent.”
“About that girlfriend?”
“It’s not like she gives it up. Not for want of me trying, though. Crazy bitch always has ‘no’ on the tip of her tongue and is quick to grab a baseball bat to make sure I heard. Believe that shit?”
My hand was gripping my beer bottle so hard I thought it was going to burst.
This was who Andy had turned into.
My fucking father.
He tried wrangling some girls over to our table, but I stood up. Andy watched me and tried to mimic my movements, but stumbled the second his feet hit the damn floor. He went toppling into another waitress before he tried grabbing her ass, and she slapped him right across the face.
The look in his eye made me shiver. I knew that look.
It was the look I got from my father before he pulled his fist back.
“I need to go get some sleep,” I said.
“I’ll look ya up soon,” Andy said.
“Don’t bother,” I said, underneath my breath.
I went up to the bar and apologized profusely for his behavior. Then I settled my tab as well as his. They needed to cut him off, but I knew a bar like this would never refuse service. So settling his tab to close it out was all I could do. I also knew Andy would stay good to his word of looking me up, and I didn’t like that at all. The last thing I wanted was somebody around that reminded me of the shitty memories I had of this town. Especially when it came to my father.
I tipped the waitress well, trying to hide it from everyone else before I made my way out into the street.
Anton’s house was walking distance from downtown. At least, it was walking distance for me. Four miles wasn’t anything I’d turn down. It was a leisurely stroll in my world. I was tired though, and a little tipsy. Ready to fall asleep and put all of this behind me. I leaned against fence posts for a minute when I needed to, then took a few deep breaths and kept plugging on. Andy’s face kept flashing through my mind, substituted intermittently with that of my father. I could hear his voice morphing into my dad’s. Seeking the solace of the home that had sheltered me in my youth, I started jogging, stumbling along the side of the road until I finally got to Anton’s.
Once inside, I headed straight for my room and almost immediately fell asleep.
Chapter 4
Michelle
“Andy, what the fuck? Are you k—get off me!”
“Come here, you stingy bitch.”
“No! What are—you’re drunk.”
I put my hand on his face to shove him away, but he grabbed it and twisted it around my back. He pinned me to the wall and licked up the nape of my neck with that disgusting tongue of his. I cringed, as tears welled in my eyes.
“I’m not taking no for an answer tonight.”
“Andy, fucking cut this shit—ow! You’re hurting me!”
“Stop it, Michelle.”
“No! You stop it!”
He pawed at me. Pushed my night shirt up and ground his cock against my ass. It made me sick, his touch on me. He bit into my skin and held me to the wall. How the hell was he so strong when he was drunk? I kicked my feet back as he struggled to get his dick out, and it gave me the chance to wrench away from his grasp.
“Get the hell off me!” I exclaimed.
I pushed him away from me and he stumbled into the television. It went over with a crash and went busting to the floor. He tumbled on top of it and I ran to our room, tears streaming down my face. I pushed our dresser in front of the door as he started pounding on it, my hands shaking with terror.
“Open this door, Michelle! We’re not done talking!”
“We weren’t talking in the first damn place!”
“The perk of having a girlfriend is supposed to be getting laid!”
“Yeah, and the perk of having a boyfriend is to be loved. Not tossed around and raped!”
He banged on the door as tears streamed down my cheeks. What a fucking loser I was. I’d been an idiot. A musician working on an oil rig for extra cash? What the hell had I been thinking? He was an idiot, and I was an idiot for falling for him. For loving him. For taking a chance on him and moving states away from everything I knew in order to be with him. I shoved as many clothes as I could grab into my empty duffel bag before I removed the false bottom in my underwear drawer.
Then, another crash came down onto the door.
Then another.
Then another.
And still, another.
“What the fuck are you doing, Andy?” I asked.
But all he did was continue to bang against the door with something.
I grabbed the little bit of money I’d been stowing away for myself and shoved it into the bag. I slipped into my shoes and tossed the rest of my things in, then zipped it up. I should have known better than to give Andy another shot. I should’ve known better than to think that man could have changed. And I wasn’t sticking around a second longer.
“I want you the fuck out of this house, bitch!”
“No problem,” I said, as I slung the bag over my shoulder. “Already ahead of you on that one.”
“I’ve got a future and it doesn’t include you.”
“I wouldn’t want it to include me even if you did.”
“You don’t deserve the future I’ve g
ot going. I’ve got plans. Big fucking plans.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Tell me about your big, fucking, nonexistent plans. Please. You dead beat no good son of a—”
The dresser came crashing over at me and the door burst open. My eyes widened as that dark brown stare locked onto me. He charged me more quickly than I could have ever thought possible and pinned me against the wall. His arms wrapped around my wrists, keeping me from swinging at him before he pinned them against the window.
He crashed his lips onto mine and I bit down on his lower lip so hard it made him to bleed. Then I shoved past him and jumped over the dresser. Quickly grabbing the few things of mine that were lying around the living room as I passed through, I stormed out of the house.
But not before something knocked me in the head from behind.
I turned around, rubbing my head and saw my shampoo on the ground. Something else hit me in the forehead and it was a bottle of my conditioner. Then my body-wash. My toothbrush. Shoes, socks, hangers. Anything that man could throw that he thought was mine, he tossed straight at me. Hitting me from all angles and not bothering how many times he hurt me or cut me open in the process.
One month.
One month in this fucking town and I no longer had a place to live.
I picked up as much as I could, making sure he didn’t see the wad of money I had in my bag. If I spent it well, it could get me by for three months. But that was it. And that was if I didn’t blow it on rent somewhere. I shoved it all into my duffel bag, picking up what he threw at me. I didn’t have a car, so if it didn’t fit in the duffel bag it didn’t go with me. All the while he was yelling ugly disgusting things at me.
“Yeah, you slob. Take what I give you!”
“Pathetic. I don’t know why I screwed you in the bar that night.”
“Can’t even get a job? Bitch!”
“You’re worthless! I should’ve known the second you told me you had a two-year degree. Who gets a fucking two-year degree?”
Someone who paid for it on their own, that’s who.
I came to Stillsville with Andy after he’d lost his job in the oil fields just outside of Bismarck. A musician at night and a lean, hardworking, chiseled oil man by day. It was enough to get my engines roaring. And fuck, we had the sweetest sex. That stare-into-my-eyes type of sex. When he asked me to move with him, I thought it was forever. An adventure to the middle of nowhere with a man who couldn’t keep his hands off me. His lips off me. His eyes off me. It had all the makings of the adventure of a lifetime.