Her words made my heart rise, then dive down into my arse. I hadn’t realized I’d made a visible difference on Elijah until she’d said it. So why the shit had he just left?
I didn’t have anything to say about what she’d said, but apparently, the words had knocked my filter off because what I did end up saying was horrific. “I miss his big, pierced willy.”
Lily paused, then grabbed my hand and pulled me down to the end of the bar, shouting, “Give us five,” at her husband as we passed him.
Once she had me in the office, she put her hands on her hips and faced me. “Okay, where’s he pierced.”
“At the top and halfway down.”
“Good lord,” she breathed, her eyes going unfocused for a moment. “Lordy be. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but now that I know, it suits him.” She wasn’t wrong there. “Did it make a difference?”
Moving to sit on top of the desk, I made myself comfortable and started swinging my legs carefully. Any chafeage down there was like sandpaper being rubbed into it, so the key was to make small movements only.
“I don’t have a lot to compare it to. I’ve only been with one other guy, and I was pretty drunk when it happened. But he’s definitely bigger.” Then I muttered to myself, “I wonder what the average is?”
This was apparently fodder for her dirty mind. “How big was the previous guy?” she asked, moving in front of me and holding her fingers in the air like she was measuring. “This big?”
Reaching up, I moved them closer together, then a little more. Then, tilting my head to the side, I tried to recall the first penis I’d ever encountered and moved them together again when I did.
Looking from the gap between them and back up at me, Lily’s mouth opened and closed. “You’ve got to be shitting me?”
“No, I’m fairly certain that’s about accurate.”
“But— That’s—” she spluttered. “Girl, you were practically a virgin!”
“I guess,” I shrugged. “But Elijah was bigger.”
Again, we went through the finger measurements in the air, finally stopping on one that was accurate for Elijah.
“Lord have mercy,” she whispered, looking at her fingers with appreciation this time. “I love my husband fiercely, but just to say, I’m damn glad he’s in proportion.”
Yeah, that would be a crying shame. At six foot six inches tall, if Elijah’s penis had been tiny, that would have been an injustice to humanity.
Which led me to a depressing thought that I’d been trying to smother. “Do you think some other lucky bitch is experiencing his perfect, pierced pecker? No, wait,” I cried, holding my hand up. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
I was in the process of jumping onto the ground, not caring about the pain when she grabbed my hand and stopped me. “No way in hell. I heard what he was like when Shonelle—” she stopped when she saw my expression. “What he looked like that night, and my husband said he looked like he betrayed you just by having a past. A man who feels like that about a woman doesn’t hop from her bed to the next. At least, not if he’s a real man, and Elijah strikes me as one of those.”
Her words gave me hope, even though I was still hurt over how he’d handled it, so when we went back out to the bar and Jackson informed me that he was going to be looking after me and not to give him any lip about it, I didn’t argue. And then he told me that Elijah had texted him before he left to ask him to look in on me, and I almost melted like the lava wax from last night.
If his brother was going to do that, then I had to mean something to Elijah, right? Yeah, he could be doing it for the rest of his family or just because he was a great guy, but I preferred my first answer.
Plus, after hearing about the postcards from Orson, I knew I wouldn’t sleep well if it was just me, so I went with it.
Something I regretted later on.
Five hours later…
The room outside the hole was freaking massive, and this time there was a turkey on the table making my mouth water.
Poking my head out, I looked around for the bloody blue cat, knowing he was going to skate in on ice or torment me somehow. But then my stomach rumbled, and wafts of the scent of the cooked turkey hit me full-on, and I knew I was going to make a run to get some.
A glance behind me at my little matchbox bed showed my table was set up for my feast, and the thimble I’d painted black to look like one of the table decorations was under my arm to act as both a costume and a way to carry the food back. Nothing was holding me back.
Running as fast as I could, I got to the couch and crawled under it until I reached the other side. Then it was a short sprint toward the table, where the decorative Thanksgiving cloth touched the ground for me to pull myself up.
Just as I got to the top, something clattered to the ground behind me, and I had to dive into the flower and gourd centerpiece to stick my hat on. Scanning the room as discreetly as I could, I almost fell over when Betty White walked past me with a plate, followed by the other Golden Girls.
Loading up their plates, they carried them over to a door that led to the lanai—something I didn’t even realize we had, and I’d been living here for eighty years.
As soon as the room was clear, I was on the food, loading my hat up with a pea, some potato, and a ton of turkey. I’d have to come back later for pumpkin pie and dessert.
Turning around to scale my way back down the tablecloth, I came face to face with Tom, but this time his face looked like Orson Riley’s. Suddenly he was straightening up to his full height, and the fact I was a tiny, vulnerable mouse became very, very clear.
“Welcome back, Sadie, love. This time you’re not getting away…”
Sitting up straight in bed, I screamed my arse off. It was like all of the pressure inside of me just burst and came out in an ear-piercing shriek.
The door to the bathroom burst open, and a naked man came running out of it, looking furious and ready to kill someone.
Naked. Man!
I saw everything—franks and beans included—in the dim light from the bathroom behind him and the open door leading to the living room.
It was such a shock that it cut my screech off midstream as I covered my eyes, squealing, “Penis!” instead.
“Fuck, shit, sorry,” Jackson stammered, and I heard him shuffling away from me. “Where’s the fucker who hurt you?”
“Eating Thanksgiving dinner with the Golden Girls?”
“Not the time to be cute, Sadie. You don’t have to protect him, ‘cos I won’t get into trouble for killing him, I promise you. Come out motherfucker,” he bellowed, making me jump and feel sorry for my neighbor again. She might wear a hearing aid that she said she took off at night, but I swear she lied when she said she didn’t hear anything from my apartment.
“Jackson, there’s no one here, I promise. I had a nightmare. I dream vividly, and it’s usually about something I’ve watched or read, which I’ve never understood. Still, apparently, it isn’t that unusual…” I broke off, feeling like a total idiot now.
“You’re safe to look again,” he sighed, and when I lowered my hands, I saw him standing with his hands on his hips, wearing black sweats and no t-shirt. It wasn’t a bad view, but mini Sadie from the south didn’t even raise a finger to wave at him. “So, that was a dream?”
“A nightmare,” I stressed. “When I dream they’re like that as well, but they don’t make me shit my pants. Figuratively,” I added when his face scrunched up, and he took a step back.
I swear, even though it was still relatively dark in the room, I saw his cheeks turn scarlet. “I’m sorry about, well, you know,”—he waved at his lower half with his hand—“Your ugly fat cat puked on my leg, so I jumped in the shower. You were out cold, so I didn’t think you’d wake up. Then I heard the scream when I was drying off, and I didn’t think and—”
That’s when the dam inside of me burst. No, not the tear dam, the laughter one. It came out with so much force that I fell backwar
d on the bed and had to hold my side because I got a stitch.
Ironically, it also rocked me back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, the last thing I remembered was trying not to snort and failing as tears streamed down the sides of my face and into my hair. Oh, and I had a bitch of an ache in my stomach muscles when I sat up. And what made it start all over again was the fact that Jackson blushed as soon as he saw me and struggled to make eye contact with me all morning.
I could see why they said that laughter was the best medicine, though, because I felt lighter than I had in years.
Chapter Ten
Sadie
Two weeks later…
I felt like shit. This morning I’d woken up to three postcards from Orson. Dad had men in charge of getting them before I did and handing them to the police, but somehow he’d managed to bypass them this time. Lucky fucking me. That was problem number one.
Problem number two was what was on them, and it was making me feel nauseous.
“What’s the relevance of this school?” Jackson asked, pointing at the sign on the first one.
Rubbing my face with both hands, I did my best to settle down to try and push the nausea away. “It’s the school I went to—Hawes Down.”
“Fuck,” he hissed. “And the close up of this white door with the number four on it?”
I could see what he was talking about clearly in my mind, seeing as how I’d grown up in that house. “That’s Mum’s house. I grew up in it until she died, and then we rented it out because she owned it outright and moved in with Nan. Before I moved, I discussed it with my brother and sister, and we moved her into it so she could sell hers and have some money to play around with. He sent one before with the street sign on it, The Glade, so now he’s taunting me with the front door, too.”
“Hate to ask it, babe, but the last one—what does this area mean to you?”
I didn’t want to look. Raising my head, I stared at the picture in front of me, seeing the nightmare play out again like it’d only happened yesterday. “That’s the crossing on the road called Pickhurst Lane where Mum was run over by a driver who was five times over the limit.”
“You need to call your dad, honey. Tell him what’s happened, and I’ll put these in a Ziploc bag, okay?” he said gently, rubbing my back with his hand.
It was fair to say that Jackson and I had become good friends over the last two weeks. We laughed a lot, made fun of each other, spoke about stuff, and I’d even helped him with his online college work. Even though I was pissed at his brother—and also even though I understood his reasons for checking out, because I’d done it myself over the years—I liked the guy, but only as a friend.
Nodding, I slowly got up and made the call, listening to Dad lose his shit when I told him what was going on. I only got to his fifth ‘mother fucker’ when I lost the lid on my stomach contents and vomited my soul down the toilet. It was fortunate that I’d been so close to it, otherwise, I would have had a mess that would’ve made me do it again, cleaning it up. It was never-ending, as each spasm deep in my gut brought up everything I had inside me until all I could do was dry heave and pray for death.
A cold, wet cloth being placed gently on my neck was heaven, but the shock of it also made me jerk and whimper.
“Guess who gets to play hooky with me today?”
Welp, seeing as how I wasn’t in a fit state to walk, let alone work, I wasn’t going to argue. I also didn’t argue when he picked me up, flushed the toilet, and took me over to the sink. However, I did hit him weakly in the throat when he told me that if I didn’t brush my pukey breath, he’d make me gargle bleach and set Dobby on me.
Elijah
Three days later…
I’d just thrown the last bag into the back of the truck when the sound of an engine getting close pulled my mind off the mental checklist of things I needed to do. Well, the checklist of things I needed to do here, which was about half the size of the list I needed to do when I got back to Sadie. Then again, a lot of that list included groveling, so there was that.
The most recent report from her dad had come in, and when I’d read that she’d received some postcards from the fucker back in England, I flew into action and packed up. Every report so far said she was okay and Ned was intercepting them, and he was contained, so this had come out of the blue and, I didn’t like it. She wasn’t safe anymore, even with Jackson with her, and I’d spent long enough getting my head together and needed to get back to her. They could say there was no need for concern, but it didn’t make a difference to me now.
Grassy Point in Sarasota Bay, Florida, was where I’d come with Coop, to a small house hidden in some of the undeveloped land that we’d bought together four years ago, and it’d done me well while I kicked my ass for a lot of things. The time away had helped me let go of the lingering guilt I felt about Coop, it’d numbed me to how his family had treated me after he’d died, and it’d just stressed what I already knew—I couldn’t live without Sadie Dahl in my life.
The last one had been strange for me because I hadn’t known her for long in the grand scheme of things, so I’d had to pick that apart a bit more to understand it. My worry was fucking up and going into something that I was reading incorrectly. I didn’t want to hurt her more than she’d already been hurt in her short life. But, after I’d dealt with the other two things, I’d understood even more that I wasn’t going to do that. I finally had focus back in my life, and I felt freer than I had in a long time. It’d also hadn’t involved me getting into fights to work it out, either.
I needed to get back to her and explain what’d happened, as well as apologize for being the kind of asshole who’d have sex with a woman who was a tyrant and a bitch, and not even remember doing it. I get that I was at a bad place in my life back then, and the shit with Levi and Charlotte had made my mood plummet even further, but that wasn’t an excuse for being that level of asshole.
So, I’d packed up and was going to drive straight through after I got my shit in the vehicle. Which was what I was doing, so seeing my brother’s truck coming toward me on its jacked-up wheels confused me.
As soon as he came to a stop, he was out of the cab and striding toward me. At first glance, if you saw Marcus and Jackson together, you’d think they were identical with zero differences. They copied each other’s hairstyles and appearances to fuck with people, but once you got to know them or spent time with them, they couldn’t be more different, including visually.
Smiling widely and happy to see him, I closed the distance and held a hand out. I got as far as saying, “Marcu—" before his big beefy fist hit me on the jaw, almost knocking me off my feet.
“You son of a bitch,” he seethed, glaring at me.
Wiping my mouth with my hand, I was surprised not to see blood on it. “I don’t think mom would like you calling her that.”
“Got a call from Jackson last night saying he’d spoken to Sadie’s dad and found out you’ve been getting reports this whole time. We all thought you didn’t have a clue what was happening, and all this time, you did. Fuck, brother, I haven’t even met her yet, and I’ve done more to help her than you have.”
Holding my hands out in front of me when it looked like he was going to punch me again, I snapped, “Yeah, and the reports all said she was doing okay and was being kept safe. I know ducking out like that was bullshit, but if I’d stayed, I would have been so stuck in my head that I would’ve missed something and ended up putting her life at risk.”
“Bull. Shit. Bull-fucking-shit! You fled with your dick up your ass because you got outed by a woman you didn’t remember fucking. There was no reason to do it like that, and there sure as shit was no reason for you to stay away after reading about the contact he’s been making with her and how fucked up it’s been.”
Holding a finger up, I jogged back to the truck to get the papers out of the bag. Opening the envelope that had them all in, I pulled them out and took them over to where he was still standing.
/> “Read those and show me where she’s been contacted and intimidated. Maybe you misheard what Jackson was saying?”
His eyebrows scrunched as he scanned the pages, one after the other. “I don’t know what to tell you, Elijah, but this is all bullshit. A lot’s been missed out of these reports, and I know I didn’t mishear Jackson because he’s been emailing me stuff for Remy to look into.”
Remy was his best friend, Remington Harper. Together they owned a small ranch where they bred horses. Remy had crazy hacking and computer skills, so he was the one we usually sent stuff to for answers, which would be why Jackson had been keeping them updated.
Licking my dry lips, I struggled not to lose my shit. “What did he find out?”
“Elijah, the last postcards he sent were sent from Heathrow Airport and had her school, her mom’s house, and the crossing where a drunk driver killed her mom. We managed to get a photo of him from his file with the police department where she’s from, and two nights ago, we got a hit on security footage of him. The reason the postcards were posted at the airport was because he was boarding a flight to here.”
Part of my body was filled with fire, the other part felt like it’d just been frozen over. “How? I saw Ned’s copy of his file, and it said he was out on parole and had surrendered his passport.”
He didn’t need to answer the question, his expression said it all.
The fucking bastard had gotten a fake one and changed his identity. It also meant he was in the States.
But how did he know where to go? The man wasn’t a hacker, he didn’t seem to have any sort of skills for that type of shit when we’d looked into him. Sure, he could’ve paid someone to do it, but he also didn’t have a lot of money behind him. Information like that wasn’t cheap.
Great Sass: Providence Family Ties Series Page 12