What I didn’t trust was that he wasn’t going to get himself killed in the process.
“Get some rest. I’m taking you back in the morning,” King said, and that was that.
I didn’t even try to sleep right away, knowing full well it would be impossible when I would probably still be able to smell Bear on the sheets. Instead, I sat in the same little rowboat where Bear confessed his feelings for me, except this time, I left it tied to the seawall, not having the strength to fight the current.
I took a swig of the half empty bottle of Jack I’d found in the garage apartment and looked out over the water of the bay. The amber liquid burned my mouth and throat, bypassing my newly broken heart and igniting a fire in my stomach.
With each swig, I swore I could still taste Bear’s lips on the bottle.
It was late. The air was stagnant. The humidity so high that little drops of water beaded up on my arms and dripped into the creases of my elbows.
Everything happened so fast, yet it was like no time passed at all.
How was that even possible?
How long had I even known Bear before he decided to sacrifice himself for me?
Days? Weeks? Months?
Time blended together until it slowed to a stop and I watched in horror as Bear was dragged away.
It hurt that he didn’t tell me what his plan was although I understand why he didn’t tell me.
He knew there was no way in hell I would have let him do it. If I would have known, I would have driven to the sheriff’s station and beat him to the confession.
It’s not like I loved him from the moment I first laid eyes on him. No, I was a just a kid, but I was infatuated. Something inside me changed that day. It may not have been love, but more like an extension of myself walked through that door. From that day on, with Bear’s skull ring tucked under my shirt, it was like I could breathe.
Like I was complete.
I’d reached for Bear’s ring every time Erin Flemming bullied me in the fifth grade, and I drew strength from it on the day I’d finally had enough and socked her square in the stomach. I was sent home from school and didn’t even flinch when my mother grounded me for a month.
It had been totally worth it.
I’d rubbed it for good luck before my shooting matches. I still held the record for most blue-ribbons in three counties. And late at night, I laid in my little twin bed, and held it against my lips, wishing it could somehow make my parents stop fighting.
Even after I learned that the promise I’d been wearing around my neck for eight year’s was an empty one, I was no less elated when Bear had given it back to me.
I pulled the ring out of my shirt and looked down at the one eyed skull. The light of the moon reflected off the diamond, making it look as if it were winking up at me.
The longer Bear was in jail, the more likely it was that he was never coming back out, yet no one would tell me exactly what it was I was supposed to be waiting for.
My heart twisted and bile rose in my throat, the whiskey burned its way back up just as it had burned on the way down.
I couldn’t linger on that thought. I couldn’t let my mind go there.
But I couldn’t just wait either.
Promise me that no matter what, you won’t give up on me. Promise me, Ti.
Fuck waiting.
I launched the bottle into the air with a guttural roar. It spun around and around until landing in the bay with a splash, causing a ripple in the glass-like surface of the water. By the time the ripple reached the boat, I decided that although I trusted Bear, there was no way in hell I was just going to sit back and let his fate rest in the hands of others. I was going to do something at the very first opportunity.
I just had to figure out what exactly that something was.
CHAPTER SIX
Thia
I’m in Bear’s apartment. It’s late. Too late for the burner phone on the nightstand to be ringing. I roll over and answer it. “Hello,” I say, my voice scratchy and rough from sleep. I clear my throat and the voice on the other end chuckles.
Chills break out down my spine and I sit straight up in bed.
“Baby, it’s me. Don’t say a fucking thing. Just let me talk. There is so much I need to say to you but I don’t know where to fucking start. I’ll just start with this. I think about you. Even though it’s only been hours I miss you more than I’ve ever missed anything. I never knew what missing anything even meant until now. I don’t know when we are going to be able to talk again, so I wanted to tell you all of this now, while I still can. Are you still there, Ti?”
“Yes,” I say breathlessly. “Yes, I’m here.”
“I love the way you moan when I make you come. I love the way you get wet just from hearing my voice. But I’m also going to miss the way you chew the ends of your hair when you don’t know what to say. I’ll miss the way you look at me like you’re trying to figure me out, when really I’m a simple guy, I’m usually just thinking about how fucking gorgeous you are and how to get you naked. I’ll miss the way you always say you’re never hungry when I ask, but then eat half of whatever it is I’m eating. I’ll just miss you. I do miss you. I miss the way you make me feel like a person of the world, instead of a problem in it.
“Until you, I felt like nothing. I was nothing. You gave me everything and I plan to do the same for you. You’re too good for me, but I plan to make that up to you with how good I’m going to be for you. With you. Because of you.
I remain silent as I was told, but I can’t silence the tears forming in my eyes.
“The world was dark and you turned on the fucking light switch and now it’s so bright, I’m walking around blind. I’m in fucking jail…and I’ve never been happier. How fucking ridiculous is that? I sound like such a pussy, but in case something happens to me, I just thought you should know all this. You NEED to know all of this.”
“I—” Bear cuts me off.
“No, no talking. I’m crouched in a corner of the most disgusting bathroom I’ve ever been in, in the middle of the night, talking on a burner phone I fished out of an air conditioning vent, so please, Ti, just listen.”
I nod as if he can hear it.
“I have a confession. Every time we’ve fucked, I’ve come inside of you. I’ve been in here for months, longer than you and I’ve been…well, whatever we’ve been. I’ll be really fucking disappointed if you’re not pregnant. If and when I get out of here, I plan on fixing that. I plan on filling you with so much of me that you have no fucking choice but to carry my kid.
“I may not ever be a good man, baby, but unlike my piece of shit old man, I think I’d be a good dad. I want a girl. Pink hair, just like you.
I cover my mouth so Bear won’t hear my sob and hold the phone away for a second so I can sniffle.
“Don’t worry about me,” he continues, his voice cracking ever so slightly. “And for fuck’s sake do what you’re fucking told. There is a plan in place. Bethany is working on getting me out. But it’s gonna take time. Trust me. Trust us. Can you do that for me, baby? Can you trust me?”
Yes. I can.
“Now we can talk, tell me something about you. Something I don’t know. Something that’s not jump-off-a-bridge depressing ’cause there ain’t a lot of shit in here worth smiling at.”
I smile into the phone and say the first thing that comes to mind. “I’ve always wanted a dog. A big one. We had one when I was younger, a Great Dane. My parents never let me get another one after he died, but I’ve always wanted one.”
“I’ll get you one, baby. The biggest one they’ve got. The second I get out.”
“Do you really think you’re coming home?” The question is twofold. Is he really going to get out? And will he really be able to survive this?
“I don’t really know that. But I know this, a lot of people in my life have tried to take me out when I had nothing to live for and they’ve never succeeded, and I see that as a good thing.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“It means now that I have something to live for, they are going to have to come after me with a fucking nuke strapped to their chests in order to take me out, ’cause I’m not going anywhere, Ti. I’m not leaving you. Not now. Not ever. I promise.”
“I believe you,” I say, because I do.
“Now tell me where you are,” Bear says, his voice dropping an octave. “Are you in our bed?” he asks and there is something about his voice mixed with the OUR BED that already has me laying back on the bed and snaking my hand down the front of my stomach.
“I’m in our bed,” I say, practically purring.
“Panties and a tank top?” he asks, citing my preferred sleeping attire.
“Yes,” I say.
“Good, now listen to me, baby. You remember that first time I took you in the truck? Remember how I pushed my cock inside of you. You were so tight, I think it hurt me more than it hurt you when you gave me your sweet virgin pussy.”
I snake my hand down lower. “I remember,” I say and it almost comes out as a moan as I dip my fingers into my panties.
“Are you touching yourself?” Bear asks.
“Yes, I am.”
“Good girl,” he says, his voice straining. “Push your panties down and spread your legs for me.”
I tear off my panties and spread my legs wide as if he were between them viewing what’s his. “Okay,” I say.
“Do you remember the first time I tasted you? The first time my tongue touched your clit, your pussy? Do you remember what it felt like when I fucked you with my tongue until you couldn’t take any more?”
Closing my eyes, I circle my clit with two fingers remembering in vivid detail every single thing that Bear is mentioning. His warm wet tongue, the tightening in my lower stomach when he relentlessly fucked me with it. Faster and faster I circle until I’m already close to the edge. “Yes,” I say.
Bear chuckles. “Keep those legs spread wide. Remember what it felt like to hold on to my hair while my face was between your thighs.” Closer and closer I inch toward the edge, faster and faster I circle my clit. Then harder, until even the slightest of breezes might tip me over. “Bear,” I moan, “I’m so. I’m so…”
“I can’t wait to do that again. But I’m not going to let you come on my tongue next time,” Bear says, and suddenly I’m disappointed.
“You’re not?”
“No, because just when you are about to come in my mouth, I’m going to sit up and pull you onto my cock and slam into you. I’m going to fuck you. HARD. Until we’re both fucking screaming and coming, and coming some more.”
I fall, I fall, and I fall, and just as I am about to crash over the edge into the most beautiful orgasm I’ve ever had using my own hand, there is a commotion in the background. “Fuck. I gotta go, Ti.”
“Wait,” I pant, my eyes spring open. “When are you…?” I say, unsure of what exactly I’m going to ask.
“Love—” The “you” is cut off and the line goes dead. I hang my head between my knees. “He’s going to be okay,” I say aloud, trying to reassure myself.
I am high. I am sad. I am happy. I am anxious.
The phone call with Bear makes me one thing I haven’t been since he’s been gone and that is the thing I want to cling to until the second he’s with me again.
Hopeful.
I hang up the phone and hand it back to King who puts it in his mouth and swallows it in one big gulp.
That’s how I knew the entire call was nothing more than a dream. The reality was that Bear had issued a no-contact rule. I was not to reach out to him and he was not to reach out to me. No calls. No visits. King explained that visiting the man in jail who was accused of murdering my parents didn’t make me look like the innocent Bear was trying to make me out to be.
When I opened my eyes, it really was King who was standing over me, his ginormous body cast in dark shadows, no evidence that he’d ingested any electronic devices. Thankfully, unlike my dream, I was fully dressed in a T-shirt and sweats, although I was still breathing hard, not yet fully recovered from the orgasm I’d almost had in my sleep. “Time to go home.”
Home? I sat up and rubbed my eyes. King instructed me to meet him outside in ten minutes and left the room. I tossed the covers off and made my way to the bathroom to take a shower.
A cold shower.
Home.
Where the fuck is that?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bear
A horn blasted overhead, calling yard time to an end and not a moment too soon. Miller and I went to the nearest exit, never taking our eyes off our new company. “Not you, McAdams,” the guard manning the gate said, pushing me back out into the yard after Miller had already gone back in.
“What the fuck?” Miller asked, looking back as the guard slid the gate closed leaving me alone in the yard with my three former brothers who were making their way across the yard. Miller shot me a sympathetic look as another guard shooed him back inside the building.
“Thought you guys needed a moment alone. A little reunion of sorts,” the guard said with a sneer.
“Fuck you,” I spat, the mother fucking guard knew exactly what the fuck he was doing and I had no doubt he’d been paid off to do it. “Why don’t you come in here and we’ll see how fucking funny you think this is.” The guard chuckled at the hilarity of three against one, twirling a set of keys around on his fingers. With a mock salute he followed Miller back into the cellblock, whistling as he went. The heavy door echoing across the yard as it slammed shut.
I cracked the bones in my neck, preparing myself for the fight of my life. I met the pussies at the picnic table I’d just vacated, and to my surprise, Wolf leaned against the table while Stone and Munch took seats. I’d kind of just assumed they’d get on with it already. Although Miller had just given me a pack of smokes, when I spied a pack in the front pocket of Wolf’s jumpsuit, I reached in and plucked it out along with a book of matches. “Thanks for the smoke,” I said, lighting one and tossing the matchbook onto the table. “You girls ready to try and do this, or what?”
Try being the most important word.
I wasn’t scared of these motherfuckers. The only fear I really had was not seeing Ti again.
I was more annoyed than anything.
Agitated.
All those years and all that time wasted trying to make my brothers better outlaws and this was the best plan they could come up with? “I swear I taught you bitches better than this,” I said, shaking my head. “Taking me out in an open yard in front of a shit ton of cameras. Chop’s been losing his fucking touch for years, but I expected more than this sloppy shit from you three.” I expected them to stand up, puff out their chests, and make their threats against me.
Something.
Munch and Stone looked to the ground while Wolf lit his own cigarette. Before the flame met the paper, I punched him in the eye, and he immediately dropped to the ground.
I was always better at offense.
“Chop sent us, but we ain’t here to take you out, fucker,” Wolf said, rolling on the ground with his hand over his eye.
“Then what the fuck did he send you here for? A fucking tickle fight?” I breathed out the smoke through my nose, and although I had no idea how the next few minutes were going to play out, I felt relaxed amongst the familiar conflict.
At peace.
At home.
Adrenaline built as each second ticked by until I was positive I could flip a fucking truck over if I had the chance.