“Did you really?” Mom asks, looking at him.
“Yeah, I mean it was mostly comments and the way he’d be jealous of anyone who got anything. Most people laughed it off, saying he was just hating, but shit like that festers, eventually it’s going to show. I’m just sorry Christine has to deal with it.”
“That’s where my guilt comes from,” I sigh. “She lost her family.”
“No,” Mom reaches out grabbing my hand. “She has her family, what she lost was someone who would eventually turn on her, as we saw he did with us.”
“But what’s going to happen to her?” That’s my biggest fear.
“She’s already looking for another place to live. She’s doing things in her salon she’s wanted to do for years, and she’s also seeing Doc Jones,” Mom tells me. “She’s got us girls too, she’s never going to be alone. Eventually she’ll feel like dating again, maybe welcoming another man into her life, but that will be totally up to her. Of course she’s upset, but Caelin she doesn’t blame you. She even said to us the other day, that if you hadn’t saved Justice, she would have. You’ve got to let this go. The person to blame all of this on, is Steele. Period. End of story.”
I’m not exactly sure I totally believe them, but what they’re saying is making sense.
“What did Doc Jones tell you?” Dad asks.
“She told me positive affirmations. I need to remind myself I’m a hero every day, until I start to believe it.”
“Then that’s what you need to do, and anytime you need to be reminded, you let me know.”
Mom looks like she wants to say something, and I wait longer than I should. Eventually, I squirm. "I can tell you want your piece too."
“Okay, don’t hate me, but I have to ask this. You’re my son, and I have to know. Is this what you want?” She motions to everything around us. “The patch on your back, the motorcycle, the MC, is that what you want? None of us want to force you into something you don’t want.”
“This is all I’ve ever wanted, but I kind of feel like I got picked because there wasn’t anyone else for the job.”
“Fuck that,” Dad gets up, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You were picked because we knew you could do the job, not because you were the only one. We could have put the word out, but we all trust you and want you to carry the patch.”
“You’re not the VP anymore,” Mom reminds him gently. “Stop saying we, you weren’t even part of the decision.”
He gives her a look. “People still respect me, doesn’t matter if I carry the VP patch or not. I’m still a patch holder.”
None of us have any doubt.
“Since we’re being open with each other. Can I talk to you about getting my GED? That school is making me crazy. I quit the football team and now the coach’s daughter is offering me her virginity, it’s like a TV show.”
“What?” Mom screams. “She offered you her virginity? What did you say?”
“I mean I tried to spare her feelings, but I’ve already had someone’s I don’t need hers.”
“Jesus,” she falls back on the bed. “I’ll look into it and see what you have to do.”
“Thanks,” I give her a grin, even though she can’t see it. “Thank you both for being my parents. I’m thankful I got the two of you.”
"We're thankful we got you too," Dad says as he smiles at me. "For so long we weren't sure whether we would or not, and no matter what happens, you're my son first, my brother second."
I stand up, going over to hug him. “I’m honored to be your son, and I’m looking forward to carrying the Blackfoot name into Heaven Hill for years to come.”
Silently I add. Because I’m a hero.
Chapter Five
Two weeks have passed since I spoke with Doc Jones and my parents about all the shit that was bothering me. To say I’m doing better is a huge understatement. I’m happy to wake up in the morning, and I look forward to the days that follow.
I’m checking to see if I have enough credits to graduate early, or if I need to get my GED. Either way, I haven’t had to go back to school, that’s made a huge difference. My new schedule is everything I could have asked for. My mornings are spent at the garage, helping the guys out with anything they need, and then my afternoons are spent in the cave. But I’m moving it. There are way too many memories in that room. Dad and I are adding a room onto the clubhouse with the blessing of Drew and Dalton.
Speaking of Drew, he's heading right toward me and the look on his face makes me want to run. I don't though, I do what I've been taught and stand my ground. As he gets closer, he holds out his hand to me.
“Caelin, good work lately.”
I don’t expect the praise, but I shake his hand just the same. “Thank you.”
“Care to come out back with me? I need to have a smoke, and I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”
What is with everybody wanting to talk to me? I know we have a lot of feelings to unpack, I get it, but I’m not sure how much more I want to unpack. Either way, I can’t tell my pres no. Following behind him, I almost wish I was a smoker as we have a seat on the picnic tables, and he lights up.
“I haven’t yet had a chance to thank you for what you did for Justice. I know it goes without saying, but her mother and I are extremely grateful to you. None of us know where would be if something had happened to her. I know what went down hasn’t been easy for you. It hasn’t been easy for any of us, but thank you.”
I don’t know what to say, and I struggle for a solid minute.
“I think I did what anyone else would have done faced with that situation.”
“No,” Drew shakes his head. “You didn’t. Many others would have been like fuck it, I’m not getting involved. But you did. You showed your bravery, skill, the type of man you really are. You may feel regret, and I get that. Trust me, I do. I have my own regrets about how all that shit went down, but I’m here to tell you, we are thankful.”
Do I tell him? Do I be honest? I juggle it back and forth for longer than I really need to, but in the end, I decide he needs to know. “Doc Jones told me I’m a hero, and I’ve been struggling hard since this all went down. I’m doing my best to believe she’s right in what she’s said to me, but it’s hard.”
“I know it is, nobody goes into a day thinking they’re going to be faced with the choice of putting down a motherfucking piece of shit or letting a child get hurt. I know when I woke up that morning, I had no goddamn idea he’d be gunning for my daughter. Maybe I should have,” he situates himself so that we’re looking right at one another. “Maybe I should have assumed he’d do whatever the fuck it took to piss me right off, but I underestimated him, Caelin. We all did. All of us wanted to think he was the Travis we all knew, but shit wasn’t what it seemed.”
I’m wondering what he’s not telling me. “I feel like I’m missing part of this story.”
“I’ve spoken with Christine and let’s just say some things had been happening in their home that were odd. I can’t say for sure, but there were some mental health issues that ran in his family. She thinks perhaps that was happening during all this.”
“So he could’ve gotten help?”
Drew looks like he doesn’t want to speak to me about this, but we’re being honest with each other. More honest than we’ve ever been, and right now it’s time to lay all our shit out on the table. “Dad told me he approached him years ago when things happened regarding the deal where he asked for money, and Travis refused to admit something was wrong. He seemed to be okay after that, but then all this happened. I mean it makes sense, depending on what you have, there are parts of your life where you have mental breaks. Christine didn’t want to talk about it much and I didn’t want to press her, but there were apparently moments when he couldn’t remember what he’d done. All I’m saying is there were so many things at play with this situation that were out of your control, Caelin. You did the best you could with what you had, and that’s truly all anybody can ask of you.
If you hadn’t killed him, how many would he have killed?”
I don’t know the answer to that question.
“Would Bowling Green have been the next place on TV with a mass killing? I don’t know,” he shrugs. “But it’s a possibility. We don’t know what he wanted, all we do know is we’re alive. Perhaps not okay, but alive.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes. Neither one of us saying much. I’m feeling better about my role in all of this. Good enough to ask a question that’s been at the back of my mind for a long time.
“How’s Justice? I mean, how’s she really doing? She texts me every once in a while, but I haven’t seen her since…” I can’t mention the situation.
“Thank you for letting her text you, I know that’s a bright spot in her day,” he starts off, before he sighs. “I don’t know how she’s doing. She won’t really talk to me or her mom, and I’m starting to get super worried about her. She’s my bleeding heart of the two. Inherently she’s always wanted to believe that people are good, no matter what they’ve done. I think this broke her, Caelin. She doesn’t get angry, she doesn’t get sad, she’s just blank. I want her to show me something, to feel, and it’s like she’s dead inside.”
I can fucking relate. I’m starting to feel happiness again, starting to come through on the other side of sadness, guilt, and sorrow, just like Doc Jones told me I would, but it’s a much slower process than I anticipated it being. “Can I help her?” I find myself asking, although not sure how I could help.
“I think she’d find it very helpful to talk to you,” Drew rests his hands on his thighs. “You were someone who was there with her, you saw what was happening, and you saved her. I think she looks to you as her hero, and I have a feeling she’d be much more open with you than she is with us.”
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m telling him to take me to her. “Is she at school?”
“No,” Drew frowns. “She hasn’t gone to school since this happened. That’s part of the problem. She doesn’t want to be anywhere her family isn’t. Even Harley can’t convince her she’ll be fine in school. Right now she’s at Mom and Dad’s. Every morning, I drop her off, she goes in there, does online school, bakes cakes with Mom and has Dad read her a few books, I pick her up, and we go home, where she barely talks to any of us. Doc Jones said you might be able to help her. Would you?”
“I don’t know what I could do to help her that you aren’t doing, but I’d be willing to give it a shot.”
Drew looks relieved and lighter than I’ve seen him in weeks. “Can we go now?”
"What about the shop?" I glance back to the bay I'd been working in, the car I have a part to change the oil.
“Fuck the shop, someone else can pick up where you left off. Let’s get out of here. If you can help her, I’ll double your salary.”
I stop him by grabbing his arm. “It’s not about the money; all I wanna do is help her. Luckily for me, my sister chewed my ass and got me the help I needed.”
“Sisters are like that aren’t they?” He grins.
“Yeah, especially the one I have, she doesn’t take no for an answer.”
Drew looks at me, from the top of my head down to the boots on my feet. When he speaks, his voice sounds like he’s almost in awe.
“You are a man in a teenager’s body, Caelin Blackfoot and you have my eternal gratitude and respect.”
I’m not sure what to say, so all I do is nod, and follow him to where our personal bikes and vehicles are parked. As I drive behind him, I hope like hell I haven’t gotten involved in something that’s way over my head.
Chapter Six
It’s quiet as we enter the home of Liam and Denise Walker. I’ve been here many times, of course, considering my dad and Liam are best friends. I can’t remember a time though, when I’ve been this nervous.
"Hey Mom," Drew kisses Denise on the cheek as we enter the kitchen. She's standing at the counter, making some lemonade.
“Hey,” she answers back. Her eyes flit over to me, and it’s like she knows why I’m there. “Would you boys like some lemonade? It’s her favorite.”
It goes without saying who they’re talking about.
“How is she today?” Drew asks as he gets some glasses down from a cupboard.
I’ve been in this kitchen numerous times, but I’ve never noticed just how bright and big it is. The Walker family is large, and getting larger by the year, they have to have enough room for everyone. When I hear Denise begin to talk again, I turn my attention back to them.
“Quiet, I don’t know what’s going on with her, but she’s way quieter than she’s been the last few weeks. It’s why I’m making lemonade. I hope it’ll bring her out of whatever funk she’s in. We made cookies earlier and she’s not even touched them. I told her I’d wrap them up and we could send them home for Charity.”
“Oh she’ll eat them. Her sweet tooth is out of this world,” Drew mentions his pregnant wife. “Had my ass at Walmart at three am getting her some damn Oreos. I’ll take those cookies and be fucking grateful.”
We laugh at the expression on his face. “Y’all when she has a craving, you don't get to say no."
“Why don’t you take this out to her,” Denise hands me two glasses of lemonade, almost like she knows why I’m here. “We’re gonna head to the living room and sit a spell. Let us know if you need anything.”
Drew gives me a nod when I look over at him. If he trusts me, then I know I have to do this right, have to do this to the best of my ability. He’s trusting me with his child. The little girl with the soft heart.
When I enter the screened-in porch, she turns to me, a look of surprise crosses her face. “I brought you some lemonade,” I lift up the glass so she can see it over the couch she’s on.
“Thank you.”
She’s so polite, but so stiff as I come around the couch, setting our glasses on the coffee table in between the couch and chair. I have a seat in the chair, getting comfortable. I take off my cut, because it’s stifling hot to me. Not because of the air temperature, but because I know this means so much. What I’m about to say can mean nothing or everything to the little girl sitting in front of me.
I wonder what I should say, and then I remember what Doc Jones always used to ask me when she wanted to get me to talk. “How are you doing?”
“Okay,” she answers, taking a sip from her glass.
She looks so small sitting over there, turned into herself. I’ve got to get her out of her shell, away from her comfort zone, but comfortable enough with me.
“I quit school,” I blurt out.
Her eyes widen. “Your parents let you do that?”
“Yeah, I’m seventeen, so almost an adult. I couldn’t take the stares anymore. Ya know?”
“Yeah, I do know. Everywhere I go, I feel people staring at me. Harley comes home and tells me people ask her horrible questions about what happened to me. I’m scared to go to school, but I’m scared to stay here too. It’s like I’m stuck in the middle.”
“Right? Like you’re trying to figure out who you were before and who you are now. You’re not sure which person wins.”
“Yes!” She yells, setting her glass down. “I don’t know if I can ever be the same person I was before. I was so trusting, and Travis knew that. I’m scared to let people know how I feel and what I think. What if it’s used against me? What if I’m not the same person I used to be?”
I feel all this fear deep to my bones; I know what she’s going through. “Justice, none of us are the same people we used to be. Travis stole that from all of us, and what I’ve figured out in the past few weeks is we aren’t expected to be. We’re just expected to be who we are. The people in this family, they will love us, regardless of what we’ve done or what we’ve been through. You don’t have to be scared with your family.”
“But he was a member of our family,” she protests. “The cuts scare me, and I’ve never been scared by the cuts before.”
Those words bre
ak my heart, and I know there’s only one thing that can help her. I reach over, grabbing the cut I’ve put beside me. “Here, you wanna try it on?”
She shrinks back into the couch, as far away from the piece of leather she can get, shaking her head.
"No, feel it," I slightly push it forward to her. "It's a smooth piece of leather, weathered in the short time I've had it, but it still feels buttery."
She giggles. “That’s a weird word.”
“But it’s true, here,” I go over to sit next to her, cautiously taking her hand and running it along my cut.
I watch as she pushes her little fingers over the patches, feeling in between the indentions, asking me what each of them mean. I’m sure Drew or Liam have done this with her before, but she’s feeling close to me in this moment. “Did you get this one because of what you did,” she points to the patch that reads Communications Officer In Training.
“Yeah, I did. I’m working to make things better though. We’re boarding up his office, so that none of us have to see it every time we go to the clubhouse,” I tell her, because I know she hasn’t been there since this all happened. “Dad and I are working on the room in our spare time.”
She’s quiet for a long time, longer than I would like for her to be, but I know she’s processing. Both of us are, and honestly, it feels good, better than I thought it would.
“Do you think I could help?” She asks out of nowhere.
“Help with what?”
“Building the new office. I think I’d like to help if you’d let me.”
A part of me wants to tell her she might get hurt, another part of me knows this is part of the process she’s got to go through to heal. “If your parents say it’s okay, then I’m good with it.”
“You’ve asked me questions all afternoon,” I take a sip of my long-forgotten lemonade. “Can I ask you one?”
Caelin (Heaven Hill Shorts Book 1) Page 3
