“Whatever, it’s not mine.” Her blasé attitude almost makes me laugh. She looks at my bike. “You wouldn’t happen to have any peanut butter in that magic bag attached to your motorcycle, would you?”
Now, that makes me laugh.
“Um, no.”
She shrugs her shoulders and shoves another cracker into her mouth.
“It was worth a shot,” she says with her mouth full. “So…what makes a guy like you want to end it all?” she questions, still chewing and already reaching for another cracker. “Cause I’m sixteen…scratch that, seventeen, and I’m pregnant, sitting on the side of the road, eating crackers with a stranger and I don’t want to kill myself. Well, at least not yet. When my dad finds out I’m pregnant that might change…”
Frustration claws at me as I realize she’s not going to let what she saw go. The last thing I want is for this girl to think I’m suicidal.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snap.
It was just a temporary lapse in sanity. I’m fucking fine. Ain’t nothing wrong with me other than a broken heart and a bruised ego and thanks to Green Eyes over here, I’m not even feeling all that buzzed anymore.
“No one was trying to kill themselves,” I tack on, grinding my molars as I glare at her.
“Right, so you were just practicing your high wire act for the circus then. Please, don’t let me interrupt. Do you think you can get me tickets for the show?”
My jaw goes slack at her sarcasm and I study her for a beat. Those green eyes flash with something I can’t quite place. I want to say it’s mischief, but it’s not. Whatever it is, though, it’s refreshing. Here’s this girl who is clearly dealing with her own shit, and yet, she’s not weighed down by it. She’s just rolling with the punches, taking the hits as they come, hyping herself to stand back up.
“Tell me, Magic Water Boy, why do you look so sad?”
I contemplate telling her the truth for about three seconds before I recall what she said earlier.
Things are never as bad as we think they are, there is always someone, somewhere, who is worse off.
Maybe that’s why she’s sitting here with me trying to pick me apart.
What if I’m her escape? The guy worse off than the pregnant teen.
“I don’t want to die,” I blurt, swallowing hard. “I just want to forget.”
She smiles and I can’t figure out if it’s a sad one or one full of victory.
“Now, we’re getting somewhere,” she says, stuffing another cracker into her mouth. “What’re you trying to forget—wait, it’s a girl, isn’t it?”
Am I that fucking transparent?
“Why does it have to be a girl?” I question, my tone of voice sounding way too defensive even to my own ears.
“Hmm…you don’t strike me as a guy who plays for the same team, but, okay, who is he?”
She puts extra emphasis on the he and I can’t help but chuckle.
“I’m not gay, Green Eyes,” I say still laughing.
The laughter soon fades, and I sigh, taking a cracker from the sleeve of Saltine’s she holds in her hand. I pop it into my mouth and turn away.
“It doesn’t matter who it is, she’s someone I can never have.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one, she’s married. She’s also pregnant.”
“Ah, so she did this the right way then,” she quips.
My lips quirk at her sense of humor.
Yeah, Green Eyes is definitely a breath of fresh air in an otherwise suffocating world. I bring my gaze back to her, watching as she drops a hand to her belly. A frown works her mouth and I feel compelled to make her smile appear.
“How far along are you?”
“Three months.”
“What about the baby’s father? He in the picture?”
She lifts her chin and my wish is granted when her lips curve. The smile she gives me is big…bright…fucking beautiful.
“Yeah, he’s been amazing, but no one plans for these things, you know? I mean they do, but those people are older and settled, they’re not two horny teenagers trying to figure out how to give one another an orgasm.”
Luckily for me, her phone beeps and I’m spared from a reply to that bit of information she decided to share. How does one formulate an appropriate response to a seventeen-year-old girl admitting she is horny and inexperienced? Yeah, I’ll pass.
She takes her phone out of her pocket and because I’m a nosey fucker I look at the screen, watching as she pulls up some app with a map.
“I’ve gotta go,” she says as she enlarges the map on the screen.
“What is that?”
“Life 360,” she explains. “It’s a tracking app. My dad installed it on my phone because he works long hours and is rarely home. I don’t think he realizes I can track him too, though.”
“Wait a minute, your dad tracks you?”
She closes the app and lifts her head.
“Yeah, he’s special like that.”
“And still you managed to get knocked up.”
She laughs.
“I never thought of it like that,” she replies as she grabs her water and crackers, moving to stand. Figuring that’s my cue, I stand too and watch as she starts for her car. About halfway towards it she stops and glances over her shoulder.
“It was nice meeting you,” she calls. “Don’t jump, you’re way too pretty and there are plenty of pregnant chicks out there who can use a hero with a magic bag full of water attached to their motorcycle.”
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I smile at her. It isn’t forced or manufactured to hide my pain. It’s genuine.
She turns and rounds her car, sliding into the driver’s seat. The engine purrs to life and she slowly peels away from the curb, honking and waving at me as she passes me by. Another chuckle slips past my lips as I watch her drive off. When her taillights fade from my view, my smile falters and I realize, I never got her name.
It’s a shame, really, because one day I’m gonna think back on this night and the seventeen-year-old girl who saved me, and I’ll wish I knew something other than the fact she had a contagious smile and beautiful green eyes.
-One-
Nico
Two months later
There are two things I love more than anything else in this world, the first is my mother’s crab sauce, and the second is sex. Not necessarily in that order but seeing as how my dick is broken because I’m still hung up on Lacey, my mother’s sauce is currently in the lead. You don’t have to tell me how pathetic that sounds. I’m fully aware it’s a sad situation when a twenty-seven-year-old man rushes home to heat the leftovers his mom packed away in his saddlebags, but that’s where it’s at and until something changes, I’m going to enjoy my mother’s cooking and eat my weight in crabs.
God, it sounds worse than I thought.
Sighing, I kill the engine of my Harley and drop the kickstand. I swing my leg over my bike and stop dead in my tracks, noticing my father’s Harley, Maria’s Cadillac and Frankie’s Maxima—all parked under the carport. I don’t know the cause of the family visit, and I don’t care. I’m not sharing my food with them.
No fucking way.
My father indulges in Maria’s cooking every night and Frankie still lives at home with his mom. If memory serves me correctly, Sophie is a shit cook but can manage a decent pot of sauce, so my brother isn’t starving. I suppose he has our dad to thank for that. Frankie’s mother is Jewish and when my dad decided to marry her and make her his third wife, he told her she needed to learn how to at least make a marinara sauce or the wedding was off. I was just a kid, but I specifically remember visiting my dad on the weekends and always wondering if the fire department was going to have to be called.
So, they’re all living it up, eating well and here I am sustaining on Hot-Pockets, Ellio’s pizza and occasionally, take out.
Yeah, I’m so not fucking sharing.
With my Tupperware tucked safely under m
y arm; I make my way up the walkway. I get about two steps from the door when I hear my dad’s boisterous voice. It’s loud enough to rattle the windows and kill his beloved petunia’s and as he continues to holler, I curse myself for not changing the locks as soon as I moved in.
I know I should turn around with my leftovers and run, but I find myself fitting my key in the lock instead. No one hears me enter the house and if they do, they’re too busy yelling at one another to care. Unfazed by it all, I start for the kitchen.
“For fuck’s sake, Al, you’re going to give yourself another heart attack,” Maria shouts. “Calm down, a baby is a blessing.”
“Your sister’s ass is a blessing! He ruined his life!”
Oh, fuck.
Ever since my eighteen-year-old brother told me the condom broke, I’ve been dreading this moment, and I made the little shit swear on a stack of bibles, he’d give me fair warning so I could get the hell out of town. I hear the Carolinas are a nice place to visit this time of year. If I leave now, I might get there before midnight.
Yes, that’s a fantastic idea.
Turning back around, I quietly move for the door. I barely make it a step before my father calls my name.
“Get in here,” he orders.
Now, there are two ways I can play this shit—I can pretend like I don’t know dick about Frankie knocking up his little girlfriend, or I can be the supportive older brother and attempt to calm our lunatic father. If I go with the latter, I might lose a limb and I’ll never get to eat my mother’s food. That would be a sin.
Stepping into the living room, I look directly at my father and force a smile.
“What’s going on, pop?”
“Where the fuck were you when this happened?” he barks the question.
Jeez, talk about cutting straight to the chase.
“What are you talking about?” I reply, remembering the Tupperware container under my arm. I reluctantly pull it out of the crook and hold it up like the crab sauce is a defense weapon crafted by the military that will save me from the impending strike. “I stopped by mom’s—”
“Your brother got some seventeen-year-old girl pregnant. I’ll ask you again, where the fuck were you when this was happening?”
“Well, I sure as fuck wasn’t there.”
“You’re the oldest, you’re supposed to watch out for your brothers!”
He shouts as he pushes up from the recliner and advances towards me.
“Hey! I did right by him. I gave him the money to take her to the doctor.”
The vein in his head bulges and his eyes go wide as I realize I just stuck my foot in my fucking mouth.
“So you did know!” he hollers, reaching out to smack me upside the head.
“Dad!” Frankie shouts. “Leave him alone. Nico did nothing but help me when I needed him.”
At the sound of my brother’s voice, I turn my head to look at him and freeze. Shock floods my entire being as I stare at the girl sitting beside him. Pretty green eyes lock with mine and her lips form a perfectly shaped O.
It’s the girl from the overpass.
My brother’s girlfriend is the fucking girl who caught me trying to end my goddamn life.
“Look, none of this shouting is going to do anyone any good,” Maria says. “Now Frankie and…what did you say your name was, sweetie?
“Carina,” Frankie supplies. “Her name is Carina.”
For the last two months, I’ve been wondering what her name was. Every night, I drive over the overpass, hoping she returns, and I tell myself it’s only because I didn’t catch her name. I go home and I think about her features and whether she looks like a Tiffany or maybe a Heather. The name Carina never came to mind and I suppose that’s because I couldn’t fathom the idea of my brother’s girlfriend sharing the same name as Green Eyes much less an entire identity.
What the fuck are the odds of that?
The green-eyed beauty-slash-savior breaks our stare off and looks at my brother, nudging him slightly.
“Frankie, we have to tell them,” she whispers.
“Tell us what? What the fuck else can you two possibly have to add to this mess.”
“My last name,” she replies evenly.
Another girl might’ve cowered to my beastly father, but she meets his gaze head on without showing a lick of fear. If I wasn’t so fucking shocked that the girl who basically talked me off a ledge was, in fact, my brothers knocked up girlfriend, I might’ve smiled at her.
“Well, unless your last name is Trump—”
She cuts him off with an exasperated sigh.
“My last name is Ritzer,” Carina reveals, dropping the biggest bomb of all.
“Oh, dear God,” Maria mumbles.
Cringing, I brave a glance at my father, noting how red he looks and how there seems to be a whole family of veins now bulging in his forehead. I wonder if that’s a sign of an aneurysm. Suddenly, he charges for Frankie, grabbing him by his football jersey. He pulls him to his feet and shakes him.
“You knocked up the district attorney’s daughter? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Fuck this trying to stay out of it bullshit. I respect my old man, but that’s my brother. The same kid who applied pressure to my wounds after I was shot.
I move to pull my father off my brother, but I stop myself the second Frankie pushes him off of him. Standing tall, he meets my father’s glare and squares his shoulders back. Gone is the awkward teenager who called me in a frenzy after the condom broke.
“I love her,” he announces.
“Oh,” my father starts. “You love her. Well, that makes everything better.”
Frankie lifts an eyebrow.
“It does?”
I spoke too soon. The awkward teen has returned.
My father slaps him upside the head again.
“I hope you love prison as much as you love her you, idiot. She’s a minor for fuck’s sake!”
Dad shakes his head in disgust before turning and fixing Carina with a glare.
“Does your father know?”
Before Green Eyes can answer him, Frankie moves to stand in front of her and pokes a finger into our father’s chest. I wish the kid would make up his mind. Is he a man, or a confused child pretending to be a man?
“Don’t yell at her,” he orders. “I don’t know why you give a fuck who her father is. I’m not a Knight. I’ve got nothing to do with your precious club. Yeah, she’s seventeen but we’re both in high school. It’s not like I’m a forty-year-old sleazeball who took advantage of her.”
Maybe he’s a man-child.
I hear that’s a thing these days.
“The fact you don’t know how this can explode on all of us just proves you are in no position to father a child,” dad sneers.
“Like you were in any position to father us?” Frankie spats.
I love my dad, really, I do, but when we were kids, he wasn’t much of a father to us. He was too busy climbing the ranks of his club and protecting his club to pay us the attention we deserved. I know he regrets it, but regrets don’t change the past and Frankie just earned another point in the man column with that remark.
“I get it, kid,” dad replies. “I’m a shit father, but I’m all you got and unfortunately for you, that’s not going to bode well when your girlfriend’s father realizes you’re my kid. That man has had a hard-on for the club for years. Why do you think Parrish turned himself in?”
“Not everything in this world centers around your fucking club, dad. This is about us, it’s about the kid we’re going to have. We love each other and I don’t give a shit what you, your club or her father fucking thinks.”
“He’s going to lock you up on statutory rape charges just to spite me, Frank!”
As tough as dad is, every now and again, he breaks. It happened when Maria underwent her mastectomy and it’s happening now.
“If everyone would just stop yelling and smacking each other, I can explain what my father knows and
what he doesn’t,” Green Eyes interrupts, bringing everyone’s attention back to her.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” Frankie argues, and those hypnotizing eyes shoot to him. I watch as she takes his hand and pulls him down onto the couch beside her.
“You know that’s not true,” she murmurs.
“Al, sit down,” Maria orders. “The girl is right. All you’ve done is yell and throw your hands around. Let’s all just calm down for a moment and give Carina a chance to speak.”
Now would be a good time to excuse myself, but instead, I take a seat in one of the armchairs and look at the young couple on the sofa. Clutching Carina’s hand, Frankie stares across the room at our father, giving me a chance to reacquaint myself with Green Eyes.
There are some obvious changes, like the slight curve of her belly and her face looks a little rounder, but those fucking eyes—they remain the same.
Hypnotic.
I wonder if their kid will have her eyes.
“My dad only found out this afternoon. I was in the shower and the doctor’s office called to confirm my appointment for tomorrow. He answered my cell, and that’s when all hell broke loose. I was barely able to get my clothes on before he kicked me out in a fit of rage. He didn’t ask who the baby’s father was, he was too disappointed…too ashamed to care.”
“That’s why we came here,” Frankie adds. “I wasn’t expecting either of you to be here,” he explains, nodding between dad and Maria. “I didn’t know what to do, and I figured Nico…” he pauses to look at me. “…well, I figured you would know what to do. You always know what to do.”
I don’t say anything, mostly because having him believe that is a lot better than telling him his older brother doesn’t know jack shit about anything. The other reason is, I’m partly relieved dad and Maria are here. Imagine how fucking awkward it would be if I had to deal with Green Eyes on my own.
“I swear, Mr. Scotto,” Carina begins. “My dad has no idea Frankie is the baby’s father.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t going to find out, and when he does, you can bet the house; he’s going to go after my son.”
The room falls silent and my gaze travels to Carina. It feels strange knowing her name and I can’t decide if I like it…or if it suits her. I think I’ll stick with Green Eyes until I can come up with something better. After all, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting rid of her anytime soon. She’s carrying my niece or nephew—fucking wild, I know.
Walking The Line (Satan's Knights Prospect Trilogy Book 3) Page 2
