Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
“Trying.”
Back at the cabin, I chopped wood because the weather said I should, and she wrote on her laptop at the table because school still exists even when mayors die and judges fall and boys are pulled out of cages. The normal looked strange on me but somehow started to fit.
Mid-afternoon, Loco rolled in, Juanita riding shotgun in a rental that wanted to be a sports car and wasn’t. They got out with the weight of people who once broke each other and now held each other in respect or enemy regard, I wasn’t quite sure which. We sat on the porch, four chairs, two histories, and a stack of files that didn’t need to be here but are like a habit we can’t shake.
Juanita eyed me, then IvaLeigh and studied the way we interacted. She smiled like a woman recognizing a commitment even if it doesn’t have a ring.
“You look different,” she told me.
“Less ugly?” I asked.
“Less alone,” she shared.
Loco grunted. “Old dog finally brought it to heel.”
“Old dog finally found something worth sitting for,” I stated.
Juanita sipped coffee and watched Loco like she might kiss him or kill him, probably both. “Hampton Stanley’s fallout is going to splash,” she warned me. “Keep your house tight.”
“It’s tight,” I said on a nod, and felt Iva’s hand find mine where it hung over the armrest.
Satisfied with my answer, Loco took Nita back to the hotel she was staying at, leaving me with copies of what had been uncovered in the county deep dive.
When they left, the sun was burnt orange, the shadows long. I pulled IvaLeigh into my lap and we watched day come to a close. I thought about all the years I told myself—told the club, told my kid, told the mirror—I didn’t need what I now had. Exit strategies keep a man moving. They also keep him from arriving.
“I used to keep a go-bag in the truck,” I told her. “Cash, burner, clean shirt, toothbrush, ammo. So if any roof caved in I could be gone in sixty. I’d tell myself I was protecting us. Really I was protecting me from loving anything I couldn’t run with.”
“And now?” she asked, cheek to my throat.
“Now I’m taking it apart,” I said. “Put half of it in your drawer. The rest in the safe. We’ll go together, or we won’t go.”
She shifted to look at me. “Say that again.”
“We’ll go together, or we don’t go.”
Her lashes fluttered like the wind moved them. “Forever it’s you and me.”
“For life,” I responded back.
The words didn’t sound like a prison. They sounded like a place.
That night I did what I do when something is too big for my throat—I wrote it. Paper. Pen. No phone. I wrote three sentences and folded them under her toothbrush because I am a dramatic son of a bitch when no one’s looking:
No secrets.
No sharing.
No exits.
She found it in the morning and pressed it to my chest like a brand.
“You missed one,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Always tell me how it feels.”
I huffed. “It feels like us.”
“Then we’re good.” She smirked.
We were.
The first test came sooner than I liked. Tests always do. Catalina called from a number I shouldn’t have answered and I answered it anyway. Old ghosts don’t need doors to get in.
“Gonzo,” she said, like an accusation and a prayer in one word. “We need to talk.”
“No, Cat,” I tried to contain my aggravation. “We don’t.”
“You think this little college girl—”
“Stop,” I ordered. “You don’t get to swing at her to make yourself feel better. I did you wrong years ago. I did you wrong trying to keep this half alive when I should’ve buried it. That’s on me. But you don’t get to climb in my windows and choke me in my sleep because I finally figured out how to breathe.”
Silence crackled. Then: “You chose them over me. You always did.”
“I chose the club over everyone,” I admitted. “I chose my son. Tonight I’m choosing someone who chose me back without asking me to become a man I can’t be. Take the part that’s me acknowledging my wrong and leave the rest.”
She exhaled like smoke. “You sound different.”
“I am,” I conceded, and ended the call before she could swing the conversation back to something that never fit.
I walked out to the porch where Iva was reading something that looked like it hurt. She looked up. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I explained. “Ghost hunting.”
“You want me to get the salt?” she shot back, so dry I almost choked.
“I want you to stay,” I admitted.
“I thought that was the plan all along,” she stated, like she was telling me the weather.
I liked the comfort between us.
It wasn’t long before we found a rhythm together. The club was running smoothly and staying under the radar while the feds picked apart every person in a county position. Judge Bishop who left us high and dry when Hampton Stanley decided to pull in Judge Walsh didn’t get far enough away. He was facing some serious jail time for bank fraud. That was how Stanley got him to walk away from our deal and get the hell out of dodge. Too bad for him, Stanley going down meant he took everyone he could with him.