Shred of Decency (Shattered Hearts of Carolina Book 2)

by Jody Kaye

  “My first fight with my wife lasted three weeks. The more I pushed, the more she kept me at bay. Leave Aidy alone until she comes to you,” he said.

  I haven’t gotten it out of my mind how Aidy would feel if I didn’t at least try to contact her. A bed frame rhythmically squeaks above my head. I guess Trig didn’t want to take the same risk much longer either.

  I stumble toward where Aidy is and stand in front of the door with my knuckle raised to rap. Stopping myself, I worry if after all I’ve put her through today, she’s finally resting. It’s unfair to wake her. My palm flattens to the smooth white five-panel wood, jumping back as if I’ve been burned when light streams under the door onto the floor by my feet.

  She’s up. She’s here. And if she’s here, then maybe there’s a chance we’re still together. As I go to knock, the shadows change. She’s approaching the door. I wait with bated breath, but it doesn’t open.

  For the first time, there’s an ocean between us spanning good and evil, rich and poor, just and unjust. I’m not sure we can cross it. Yet, I remain rooted in place, unwilling to admit defeat. I deserve her anger and to lose her, but I’m not ready to concede what little hope life’s begun offering me.

  Deep down, I know she’s on the opposite side of this door feeling the same way and I swallow hard.

  “Sweet Pea.” I choke on my words, clearing my throat. “Open up, please?”

  The door’s seam cracks. What little of her face I see is pale and blotchy. The sunk-in black circles under her eyes are back. But there’s also a softness to her gaze and I inhale with relief that my callousness hasn’t frozen all of her feelings toward me.

  “I’m so sorry. I should have told you.”

  “And you didn’t because of this protection? You’ve admitted things have happened to you that are far worse, but Hailey being Jasper’s girlfriend had to stay secret? I’m not a relationship expert, Morgan, but that’s not normal.”

  “You have every right to be angry.”

  “Yes, I do. You lied and, from what everyone is telling me, I have to accept you’ll keep on lying.”

  “Not about the important things.”

  “Only about the illegal ones?” Aidy’s arms cross over her chest in defiance. Her fire is smoldering. Her glare isn’t icy. If she accepts me back, she will make me pay every time I’m forced to deceive her and I’ll gladly grovel at her feet for forgiveness.

  Trig is right. I’m six feet under with both mill business and the way I love this woman. I don’t want any life but the one I’m leading because the people I’m surrounded by are decent at their core, and they’re forcing me to be better.

  It might make little sense to Aidy now, but it will. Each instance I stand up for what I believe in, even if it costs me. Every time I take responsibility for my actions.

  “Aidy, if I’d known about where Hailey was before our first date, I would have gotten the go-ahead to tell you. But I screwed it up by not asking because I’d become too focused on something more important.”

  “What the hell are you doing that’s more important?” her voice raises, the flames of her anger lick at my soul.

  “Brandon.”

  My one-word answer has Aidy covering her mouth. Tears brim in her eyes. “You’re going after him?”

  Tonight, Carver took me aside and told me, “We didn’t set out to do what we do to hurt anyone. Now, we do what’s best for us all to get ahead. A man can only take the high road for so long while another waits for him to stumble and refuses to hold out a helping hand.” He went on to say that they’d all been in my shoes in some way or another and each of them had hit the point where the straw broke the camel’s back and putting the people they loved came first, no matter the cost.

  “Brandon needs to be taken down.” I pull Aidy close to me as she begins shaking. Her chin rests at my shoulder and I press my lips to her hair. “There are things you don’t know, Sweet Pea. I won’t tell you because I can’t bear to see your heart have to handle more than it has.”

  “You’ll go back to jail,” she cries.

  “No. No, I won’t if it goes according to plan.” I cup her cheeks, looking into her blue eyes, promising myself I’ll always tell Aidy everything I can up to the point she’s no longer safeguarded from my actions.

  “If it doesn’t?”

  “You won’t ever have to worry.”

  “I’m worried now, Morgan. Don’t you get it? My boyfriend, the friend I was closest to, Kimber, Trig, my brother, They’re all wrapped up in this same world you live in. I can’t go home, ignoring that I can’t protect any of you. I can’t even protect my parents if anyone else finds out why you went after Brandon.”

  “They won’t find out. We’re all in this together.”

  Aidy cocks her chin. An acute awareness flashes across her features. “This was what Hailey meant. I’m not supposed to ask questions.”

  “I’m being honest because you deserve to know that scum will get his due.” But she can’t ask me the day or time, or even what specific person acted.

  I push past Aidy, grabbing the strap to her bag. Before lifting it, I look for her agreement. I won’t force her into anything she’s not ready for. “I swear I won’t keep any information from you that you’re entitled to. Please, Sweet Pea, come back upstairs?”

  Morgan loops my open bag over his shoulder as I nod. He holds out his hand. I clasp it, letting him lead me up the stairs to his room on the third floor. I won’t say I’m not scared of what I’m committing to. But Kimber’s words have replayed over in my head. I’m upset by what Hailey and Morgan did, but how much more hurt will come from the void not knowing if I ran away too soon.

  I’ve wondered all day if I’d bolted before or if I hid from my troubles while I healed. If I did run, perhaps it was into the arms of a man who was as troubled and victimized as me. Whatever we have fills me up. With Morgan I’m not searching for happiness, I am happy. Together, our broken souls have stitched a life raft and I’m not adrift in the ocean of my fears.

  Morgan drops my things in the corner. My feet still in the center of the empty room. There’s so much space to fill and even when I ask Morgan why he only has a bed, pushed against the wall, I know what he’ll answer before he speaks: He needed the constant open space to embrace his freedom the way he used the blanket of sand that slips through our toes at the beach. He was seeking something on the horizon. Hope, love, opportunities, a way to resurrect the life he’d wanted to lead.

  “I wasn’t sure if I was staying. I didn’t want to put anyone out,” he says into my messy hair, wrapping his arms around me from behind.

  There’s a confidence I admire in his statement. Like me, Morgan’s been rebuilding his faith in himself. Yet, it hadn’t meant he’d given up on putting others first. He hadn’t when he picked me up from the university in the middle of the night and took me to Wrightsville. Or when he put me on his old athletic study schedule to raise my grades. Every time he lends a hand to Trig and Kimber with being asked. And I have to be honest with myself that watching the way he cares for my brother, makes me realize there’s a future within our grasp. I’d be stupid to give up a man who will make a wonderful father someday.

  I worry he’ll be taken from me too soon. That Morgan will go back to prison holding onto secrets he can’t share for my own good. But what if he doesn’t and I’ve given up all those years of happiness for naught?

  Morgan guides me to the bed, pulling down the comforter so I can lie down. Face to face in the darkness, I see only him and the promise of forever growing in the distance the way day breaks over the dunes. He rolls on top of me, caging me in with his elbows, and brushing my hair back. There’s no insinuation in his touch. He doesn’t expect our first time together to be make-up sex or even blind forgiveness from me. When his lips touch mine all Morgan needs to know is in this moment his heart is safe in my hands and I’m willing to try to trust mine with him again.

  I stare at this man. A man I hadn’t thought wou
ld ever want me as I was, feeling cherished and offering him a small part of me I’d held back. “I found out about my father today. Who he was. Where I came from.”

  “How do you feel about knowing?”

  “Like I’ve gathered all of the pieces to put me back together, stronger than I was.”

  We’re young enough I won’t fool myself into believing our feelings can’t change. Morgan’s associations beyond what he’ll reveal have the capacity for destruction somewhere down the road. But every woman I know in this same situation has reached out and offered their support. Kimber, Sloan, Hailey, even Cece have become some of the closest friends I’ve ever had. We’re so diverse, yet it’s a sisterhood. Leaving now—leaving Morgan and accepting that emptiness is better for me—means leaving the others behind.

  Falling in love is bigger than falling for a single person. It’s accepting who they are and those they surround themselves with because every relationship, every experience, weaves together, making a person whole and unique and worth loving. If I can’t accept Morgan’s choices, then I can’t in good faith accept the life Trig and Kimber lead. One on the surface seemingly so loving and normal that I hadn’t judged it as less than the one my parents lead together. I’ve always known Trig puts Kimber on a pedestal. And because he isn’t hiding his determination to go after Brandon, I believe Morgan will do anything for me. Am I the same kind of selfless person?

  Morgan smiles and tips my chin to kiss me again. It’s not sultry or seductive, but filled with pride the way he’d acted when I had shown him my final grades.

  “There will always be ‘what ifs’ dangling on the precipice of my subconscious. What if my biological parents raised me? What if they loved me over those eighteen years, through thick and an awful lot of thin? Kimber was honest about their struggles and she alone understood my best chance was being rocked in my mom’s arms. What if someone else was the fortunate infant adopted by Ghillie and Don Fairley and I didn’t get the benefit of parents so desperate to have a baby of their own that they made her the center of their world?

  “I want my mom and dad to see you the way I do, Morgan. It may be futile attempting to change their minds, but I have to try. I want you there, by my side, showing them there is more to you, more to us.

  “My parents are two of the most important people in my life, yet I lie every day to keep my rape from affecting their lives. I do it to protect them and I’d have swiftly eased into hypocrisy, leaving Brighton without hearing your side the way they refused to hear me out. For as much I’d never trade my childhood, I don’t want to make the mistake my biological father made when he left Kimber. I’m not ready to give up the person who reminds me all I have to do is look inside of myself to find I have the strength to keep going.”

  “Is that me?” His brow raises with the cocky quirk he had when I’d told him he was the closest to a hot boyfriend I’d ever get.

  “Yeah,” I let out a feminine giggle and his cheeks broaden. “I didn’t know that when everything was lost, I’d wind up finding you.”

  “You’re what makes everything I gave up worthwhile, Sweet Pea.” Morgan’s nose brushes mine and our forehead rests together as our lips connect, wordlessly exploring parts of ourselves we haven’t yet shown one another.

  My father was Kimber’s first love and my heart is certain Morgan is mine. Someday soon, I’ll be ready to give all of myself to this man. And because of our pasts, he’ll accept that gift with a keen understanding of its value.

  In college I slept with girls in my bed, but waking with the woman you love is wholly different. The past few years have given me an appreciation for why Aidy and I take things slower. The number of times I’ve gotten blue balls aside, I savor each time I touch her and that all the moments aren’t jam-packed into one big three-ringed circus of drunken sex acts. I don’t want Aidy just to fuck her. Although, I definitely want to fuck her with the reckless abandon, knowing she’s sharing her body with no one but me.

  She’s mine. She’s my person. My silver lining. The reason I’m still walking this earth is to give her every damn thing she deserves; support, love, justice, hopefully a baby on her hip someday after she’s had the opportunity to graduate and focus on her own dreams. And while I’m doing all of this, I’m proving to myself there’s still reasons to have goals. To want more for me so I can provide a little hope to someone else the way Cece and I had wanted to when we were kids.

  I play with Aidy’s lavender locks splayed out over my pillow until I can’t stand not hearing the sound of her voice and the lilt in her laugh any longer. Then I drag clothes up over every inch of her body I’d kissed last night and bring Aidy down the stairs to where the clock on the microwave oven reads well past noon.

  Since it’s Christmas Eve, there are no installs lined up. Trig is the only one dressed. He’s already left to get Owen. We’re expected back there in a few hours. Carver throws a lot of parties, but this one is what he calls “family only”.

  Aidy’s never set foot in the old factory. It’s been apparent the lot of them will do anything for her because of her closeness to Kimber. Yet, her place in my life doesn’t seem tied to or overshadowed by that, almost the way Aidy’s explains Kimber and Ghillie don’t compete for her affections. I’m anxious to introduce her to the rest of the gang for the first time as my girlfriend.

  She sits at the table with her palms worshipping a freshly brewed cup, chatting with her bio-mom who is on her second pot of the day. From their matched appearances, Kimber hasn’t been out of bed much longer than we have.

  Trig leans next to me against the kitchen counter, a mug in his hand, and snorts.

  “I didn’t get until I met her that women aren’t supposed to be that beautiful. We’re both hopeless and ungrateful motherfuckers.”

  It’s a cool, cloudless day outside. The bright light streams in the back window making both of them look ethereal.

  My chin lifts and I chuckle, agreeing with Trig’s turn of phrase. Well, all except the last part. I’m grateful the girl with her messy purple bun and long flannel pajama pants has given me all the hope I need.

  Trig and I listen to the girls’ animated conversation until we all have to go get ready to leave.

  I take a quick cat-bath and shave, letting Aidy have the bathroom for most of the time. She ducks in there with a sunny yellow dress I can’t wait to see on her and walks out later, twisting her hair out of the way, exposing her skin.

  “Button me up?”

  It could have come as a command. I’ll do anything for her.

  There are a half dozen loops to secure the top tight to her neck, which she hasn’t been able to reach on her own. Interesting how demure the back is considering the front of this dress has a huge cut-out piece. From this vantage point, I can see past the delicate lace trim straight down between her cleavage. The color contrasts with her purple locks. Highlights bounce off of it, creating shades of lavender and lilac. Underneath it’s darker. I want to eat her up like a juicy plum.

  When I’m finished, I pull Aidy to my chest. My hand slides up the skirt, searching for her panties.

  She ducks her head as my other hand reaches up toward her breasts.

  “I was so concerned I had the right bra, I forgot my underwear in my bag,” she says a little embarrassed. Her breath hitches the way it does right before I kiss her, letting me know she’s a lot turned on.

  “Forgot intentionally, Sweet Pea?”

  “No,” she squeaks as my hand keeps exploring under her dress. The tips of her ears pinken, a dead giveaway she’s bending the truth. They get redder when she’s exhausted.

  “Forgot and then saw the benefit of forgetting?” I whisper, kissing the soft spot behind her ear. She hasn’t told me to stop and I can feel the dampness between her legs. “You’re wet. When you realized you didn’t have your panties, it started you thinking about what we did last night, didn’t you?”

  Aidy lets out a whimper, acknowledging she had.

  “I’ve
thought about it too. I think about being with you, Aidy. But now isn’t the time to spread you out, make you understand how much making love to you means to me, and do it right.”

  Her body relaxes at my words to the point I’m holding her up. “Your trust means everything to me.” I lean her forward, snaking a hand between the fabric of her top and her soft skin. She gives me an approving moan as I knead her breast and caress her ass.

  “Take off those heels.”

  “You said—”

  “There may not be enough time for some things, but there’s more than enough to make you feel good.”

  The shoes come off with less protest than her mouth is making. There’s no way she’ll be able to keep her balance with them on. Not without practice anyway.

  Two fingers from my other hand slide between her legs with ease. She’s so hot and ready and I’m hard as a rock knowing she is. There’s no fear. No trepidation. Aidy knew what she wanted when she entered the bedroom. She was setting this up. I don’t think she had any idea what I’d do to her, but I’m sure she wanted to see where using a ploy to gain my attention led.

  Her back arches with each stroke of her pussy. I’m slow and steady. Her body doesn’t like it when my fingers come too far out, or maybe she does because she leans to my touch, searching out the next.

  “Mmm…Morgan.” A little flutter follows her words, dampening her thighs more.

  I may be rusty, but I can do better than this.

  I’ve never encountered a woman so into this. So willing to let me do what I want to their body with the faith I won’t let them down. Maybe it’s Aidy’s limited experience. Whatever it is, I’ll make sure she gets no less than what she deserves.

  I ease up on her breast and guide Aidy so she’s bent over the bed. Her heart-shaped ass is in the air and, if she likes this position now, I’m doubtless it will be one of her favorites later. I stand behind her and move my tit-grabbing hand to her clit. Two fingers spread her lips and I glide them forward and back, opposite the timing of my other hand.