“Yeah. Mom died when I was fourteen in a car accident. One minute she was there, and then she was just… gone. Fuckin’ worst day of my life.” I felt him shake his head above me. “Dad died last year. He was sick for a long-ass time before that, though, so it was different.”
He spoke the words in a matter-of-fact tone, but I couldn’t imagine that he felt nothing, so I looked up at his face to gauge his mood.
“I’m sorry you had to go through this twice,” I told him quietly, lifting my hand to push back the hair that had fallen in his face.
At my gesture, he moved his face toward mine until our noses were almost touching. “Calliope, what I went through ain’t nothing like the shit you’ve had to deal with. It doesn’t even come close. And I’m so goddamn sorry.” He leaned down further until our foreheads were touching and ran his nose against mine. “But I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna make all of this shit seem like a bad fuckin’ dream. Nobody is gonna take anything from you again. I fuckin’ promise.” He tilted his head so he could touch his lips to mine before pulling back to look me in the eyes again. “Do you believe me?”
His eyes were so dark I could see myself in his pupils, and I swallowed hard before answering. “I believe you,” I whispered back, and I meant it. This man, so different from me and anything I’d ever known, would walk through fire for me. It didn’t make any sense. He didn’t love me. He didn’t even know me. But for some reason, he’d claimed me. And when everything else around me was spinning crazily out of control, he was there, steady and unmoving.
He made a noise deep in his throat and moved in again, taking my mouth in a wet kiss that had me holding my breath. It was deep and sweet and exactly what I needed.
Our lips broke apart, but his arms didn’t leave me when Gram walked into the family room, worrying her lip with her fingers.
“The funeral parlor doesn’t know what the hell is going on,” she told us as she paced. “They don’t even know when they’ll have Danny and Angie. It’s up to the police and the coroner, and they haven’t said a goddamn word to me!” Her steps sped up as she walked from one end of the living room to the other and then she stopped suddenly in front of us, looked at me with fresh grief in her eyes, and told me quietly, “Apparently, it could take weeks. I won’t be able to lay my baby boy to rest for weeks.”
I stood from the couch and wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t know how to comfort her—her loss was so different than mine. She’d grown my father in her belly, nursed him, and watched him grow into a man. He was her baby, her last baby, and now he was gone. So I just stood there, with my arms wrapped around her bent shoulders and let her sob, while tears ran slowly down my cheeks.
I’m not sure how long we stood there before she calmed down enough to move away, but by the time it happened, Poet had walked into the house from wherever he’d been and Cody was sitting on the arm of the couch.
“Rose,” Poet called softly, “I know this is a shit time. And I know you don’t wanna hear this—but Callie ain’t got weeks here. We’ve got two days at the outside before she’s gotta be outta town. Any longer than that and we’re asking for trouble.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.
I was going to miss my parents’ funeral.
I thought, How much worse could my life get? before I quickly erased the question from my mind. My life could be infinitely worse and I didn’t want to make the mistake of asking a question, even in my head, that I didn’t want to know the answer to.
It was as if Poet’s statement had lit a fire under my Gram’s ass, because the show of grief evaporated like mist and she turned into a human tornado—tearing apart the house.
She raced around, packing up what little I kept at her house into two small suitcases while I watched in horror. When she was done, she gave them to Asa to put into the moving truck as she packed us sandwiches and drinks for the road. But she didn’t stop there. She grabbed a black garbage bag and started stuffing kitchen utensils and pots and pans inside as she explained what each was used for. It was like she was trying to impart years of wisdom into an hour of feverish activity, refusing to stop and allow it to sink in that I was leaving.
“Gram?” I asked anxiously as she tried to tell me the recipe for her stuffed pork chops, “I don’t have to leave yet. Right? Poet said I had a couple days!”
She stopped mid-sentence and took a deep breath as she moved away from the cupboard she’d been pulling supplies from. “I know what Poet said, Callie. And I’m not trying to scare you, baby girl. But these men? They aren’t going to wait. I was stupid for thinking we’d have more time. I know better, and so does Poet. He was being kind, darlin’. We don’t have days.” She laid her hand on my cheek. “We have hours.”
She was right.
Less than two hours later I found myself hugging my baby brother goodbye.
“I’ve got my phone, and Gram says she’s going to figure out all the paperwork and shit, so it should be good for a while at least. If I have to get a new one, I’ll call you, okay?” I asked him as I clutched him tight around the waist.
“Yeah. Call the dorm and someone will pick up. I’m not sure what I’ll do if the cell phones get cut off…”
“Don’t worry about it. If I need to, I’ll send you a new one, okay? Call me all the time. I want to hear about everything you’re doing.”
“I will,” he told me with a squeeze. “Be careful, sister.”
With one more squeeze and a kiss on the top of my head, he let me go and I faced Gram. Her chin was high and her shoulders were straight, but the sheen in her eyes told me she was having a hard time keeping it together.
“You call me when you two get there. Asa says he’s going to head straight through to Sacramento, so you should be where you’re headed by late tonight.” Her voice quieted as she spoke directly into my ear, “That boy feels something strong for you Callie. I don’t know what happened between you two that I didn’t see, and it’s not my business… but I’ve been around a lot of men in my life—enough to tell the good ones from the bad—and I’ll tell you one thing, baby, this man’s as good as they come. You trust him, okay? He’ll take care of you.” She pulled me into a hug, but it wasn’t long before she was holding onto my arms and pushing me away. “I’ll be up in a few weeks to help you get settled. You call me if you have any problems, you hear?” She pulled me back in for a kiss and then pushed me lightly toward Asa. “I love you, Callie Rose.”
Asa wrapped his arm around my shoulder and helped me into the moving van that carried his motorcycle and my pitiful four bags before climbing in and starting the engine. I waved as we pulled away and couldn’t help the sob that left my throat when I watched Cody stand next to Gram, setting his arm around her shoulders.
Asa’s friends, Tommy and Dragon, were planning on escorting us north on their bikes and then continuing to Eugene once we’d settled in my new place. We wouldn’t need the extra protection once we met up with the crew in central California, and Asa had explained that it would give him more time with me if the guys didn’t stay with us. I wasn’t sure why their itinerary had anything to do with us, but I didn’t ask about it either. I didn’t care what they were doing as long as Asa could stay as long as possible before leaving me behind.
Poet and his group were going to stay with Gram for the next week to make sure things went smoothly, but they didn’t seem too concerned. The Jimenez gang was only interested in me, and according to Poet, with me out of the picture, they’d lose interest. I think that Poet may have stayed for another reason entirely—to make sure that Gram had everything she needed as she took care of the enormous responsibility of going through my parents’ things and putting them to rest. I was glad that he chose to stay for her when I couldn’t, but it didn’t help the burning in my chest when I thought of her doing those things without me, so I made an effort not to think about it.
I was getting pretty good at not thinking about things.
By the time we hit the
highway, I had controlled my tears for the most part, but I was staring out the window, refusing to look at Asa. Being alone with him for the first time was awkward and uncomfortable, and the fact that he was going to be paying for my entire life made things infinitely worse. Did I say thank you? It seemed so ridiculous to say thank you for such an enormous thing, like the word just didn’t encompass enough to fully express my gratitude.
I was busy feeling uncomfortable, with stray tears running down my face, when he reached out and rubbed his hand up and down my thigh.
“Hey, Sugar. Look at me, would ya?”
I turned my face in his direction, not planning to meet his eyes, but he caught me with them anyway.
“It’s me and you now, yeah? You remember my promise?” he waited until I nodded before looking at the road again. “Why don’t you lay down? It’s been a long fuckin’ day already and we’ve got a long way to go.” He patted his thigh, raising his arm to lay it across the back of the seat and run his hand over the back of my hair.
I thought about saying I wasn’t tired, or spouting something sarcastic about him telling me what to do, but his hand gently smoothing the hair at the back of my head reminded me that he was just taking care of me like he’d promised. I was sixteen years old, alone, and moving away from the only life I’d ever known… and I wanted someone to take care of me. I wasn’t ready to stand on my own two feet, no matter how weak that made me.
So I laid down, my head in his lap and the seatbelt digging into my hip, and I quietly cried myself to sleep as he ran his fingers through my hair and drove us to my new life.
Chapter 22
Callie
My memories of the first few weeks in Sacramento aren’t very clear. They’re mostly a blur of setting up my new place and registering for a new school, but every single one of them has one clear focal point. Asa.
Poet had made some calls while we drove north, and there was an empty apartment waiting for us by the time we’d arrived. The complex was owned by one of the members of the club they belonged to, and according to Asa, the guy had given him a smokin’ deal. He refused to tell me how much he was paying, but when I saw it for the first time, I couldn’t help but think that whatever he was paying had to be too much.
It was clean, but old and small and completely unlike what I was used to. The house I’d grown up in wasn’t a mansion by any means, but my dad had kept the appliances updated, and my mom had taken pride in the way our house was decorated. Needless to say, the avocado green sink, toilet and bathtub set in my new bathroom and the fridge in my new kitchen that made a loud humming noise whenever it kicked on, were a far cry from my old home. But I didn’t say a word.
What was there to say?
I wasn’t about to bitch about the apartment not being up to my snobby standards—it would make him feel like shit. Asa was paying for an apartment that he wouldn’t even be living in, and I had no room to complain, not really. All the appliances appeared to work, there was a lock on the door, and most importantly, it was clean. And if, when I saw my new home the first time, I had to pretend to use the bathroom so I could lock the door and let a few tears escape—well, I’d never admit to it.
The first night we were there, we had to drive to Wal-Mart for blankets and toilet paper, but we were too tired to shop for anything else and ended up sleeping curled up on the floor of the bedroom wrapped in my new blue and yellow comforter set.
Sleeping was a very loose term for what I’d done that night.
The arrival in my new apartment had not only marked the beginning of a new life, but also the start of nightmares that would plague me on and off for the next few years. It was also the first time Asa wrapped me in his arms and calmed me down afterward, but it wasn’t the last.
Our first week was spent outfitting the new apartment with anything and everything I could need, from shampoo to barstools for the kitchen counter. I tried to be as frugal as possible, knowing that even if my parents had some life insurance policy no one knew about, I still wouldn’t be able to pay Asa back any time soon. Asa, however, insisted on buying anything he could get his hands on while I tried to bite my tongue and sneak odds and ends back onto the shelves without him noticing. He didn’t let me get away with it, though, and we ended up backtracking, more often than not, for the items that I’d placed haphazardly around the stores.
I finally snapped in one of the kitchen aisles at the local IKEA.
“We don’t need a freaking orange peeler! Who uses an orange peeler? It’s ridiculous!” I was griping at him, waving the offending peeler in the air while he watched me in amusement. “People have been peeling oranges for hundreds of years, and they’ve never needed one of these stupid things!”
“Not sure why a ninety-nine cent peeler has got your panties in a twist, Sugar,” he mumbled at me quietly.
“Because it’s a waste! Ninety-nice cents here, two ninety-nine there—it freaking adds up, Asa! I’m never going to be able to pay you back for all of this!” I hissed in frustration as I willed tears of embarrassment to stop forming at the back of my eyes.
“I didn’t ask you to pay me back,” he told me, his jaw tight and his eyes angry. “Never once did I tell you that you were paying me back for a goddamn thing.”
“I know that,” I replied, “but you just keep buying things that I don’t really need and it’s making me crazy! I don’t need a coffee table. God, I don’t even need a couch! I can just sit on my bed when I’m home…”
His voice was still slightly pissed off as he reached up and grabbed my chin, lifting my face so he could look directly into my eyes as he spoke, “We need a couch because I wanna sit on the fuckin’ couch when I come home.”
“Home?”
“Yes, home. I might not be living there full time, but me and you? We’re making a fuckin’ home. With a comfortable couch, that we will not be buying here because these couches are too fuckin’ small, and a big-ass TV that I can watch Westerns on. And we’re gonna buy anything you need to cook and organize shit the way you like it. Because, baby? I’m gonna be gone a lot, and I want to know that when I’m gone, you’re going home to a fuckin’ comfortable house where you can relax and feel safe.”
I stared at him for a moment, sifting through everything he’d just said and trying to find an appropriate response, but the only thing I could think of was, “Westerns?”
“Really? That’s all you got?”
“Are you sixty-five?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Do we need to get one of those denture containers for you to put your teeth in at night?”
“Callie…”
“I think we need to go a few aisles back for something like that…wait, do we need to call AARP and make sure they’ve got your change of address?”
I squeaked as he moved toward me, trying to scoot around the cart so I could use it as a barrier, but I couldn’t escape him. He was too quick, and soon I was in his arms and he was tickling my neck with his beard.
“You think you’re so funny,” he grumbled into my throat, his chin digging into my shoulder.
“Westerns!” I hooted, pushing at his shoulder and gaining the attention of the shoppers around us.
My hoot made him redouble his efforts and we knocked into shelves as we scrambled into a position that left little room between our bodies. One of my arms had pushed up his chest and over his shoulder while the other wrapped around his trim waist, my fingers clenched into the back of his belt. I was breathing heavily, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to pull up on his jeans and give him a wedgie, like I would’ve done if he was Cody, or take the safer route of dragging the gray beanie from his head in an attempt to annoy him.
It was all giggling and growling until he opened his mouth against my neck and bit down playfully.
My breath caught in my throat and I froze mid-wiggle. I was suddenly hyperaware of every place our bodies touched, the scrape of his beard on my collarbone, and the heat of his breath on the side of m
y neck. I no longer thought anything was funny, and by the way his growl turned into a deep moan and he bit down harder and start to suck, he didn’t either.
Then I wasn’t thinking of anything.
His arms tightened around me as I felt my eyes falling to half-mast, barely registering a couple starting down the aisle only to quickly move the other way. He pushed his foot in between mine, never letting up on the suction at my neck as he positioned us so that I was just barely straddling his thigh. I was trying to find my balance in our new position, holding back whimpers in my throat and trying to remember why we shouldn’t be doing what we were doing in a very public store when he used the hand at my hips to rock me against him and the one on my back to catch my hair and tilt my head back.
I won the fight against whimpering and stayed silent—but I couldn’t stop my hand from sliding away from his neck and into his beanie, gripping his hair tightly in my fist as I took over the rocking motion with my hips.
I’m not sure what would have happened if an employee hadn’t interrupted us, asking us to cease and desist or she was going to call security. I stumbled back slightly in embarrassment, my face burning as I gaped at Asa’s smug face.
“No need to call security, ma’am. I think she’s learned her lesson,” he told the employee dismissively, grabbing a hold of our cart and sauntering away.
He freaking sauntered away.
I didn’t saunter. I shuffled … with my proverbial tail between my legs.
We were quiet as Asa grabbed the last few things he wanted from the store. I was still completely mortified, scanning the area around us for the employee who’d verbally bitch-slapped me from my Asa fog. God, I never wanted to see her again. How humiliating.
It wasn’t until we were emptying our kitchen utensils onto the check-out belt, and I turned to Asa with a glare, holding not one, but two orange peelers, that he finally spoke.