by Lane Hart
“Well, sorry to bother you, and I know you and Paula don’t need any more stress right now, but, um, I’m in some heat and it may be heading your way,” I warn him.
“Damn, Brede. What’s going on?” he asks, and I hate the sound of disappointment in his voice.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m on my way home.”
“Finally,” he says. “That’s good news.”
“I’m gonna have two people with me. We won’t stay there at the house, but we’ll get a hotel close by.”
“So who are you bringing?” he asks. “Paula’s gonna be so excited. It’ll be good for her to have something to take her mind off everything for a little while.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve found my brother.”
“Seriously? Holy shit, that’s great, Brede! I know you’ve missed Aden. How did you finally find him?”
“Our paths sort of…crossed,” I tell him. “And he had changed his name, which is why I couldn’t ever find Aden Rawls.”
“Oh, that’s awful. And that’s exactly why we never gave you the Willard name. In case your brother ever tried to find you, he wouldn’t have had that problem. It wasn’t because we didn’t want you to be one of us.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I say, my chest filling with warmth at his genuine words. They never treated me as anything less than their own son, which I’m thankful for now, even if I was a little shit to them those first few years. There was so much anger in me throughout my teenage years that it was hard for me to see past it to the effort they constantly made. While I was overseas in the army, I had a lot of quiet time to think back on the comforts of home, and how Paula and Jim went out of their way to show how much they cared about me. Once I was discharged, I tried to do better about expressing my gratitude for everything they’ve done for me.
“So, who’s the other person you’re bringing? Does your brother have a girlfriend?” Jim asks, and my eyes instantly go to Blair.
“No, she’s mine,” I say into the phone.
“Oh. You have a girlfriend?” he asks in surprise since that’s a word I’ve never used to describe a woman before. In high school I dated and fucked girls, but nothing more than that.
“Yeah, she’s my girlfriend,” I say, causing Blair’s hazel eyes to widen. “I can’t wait for you and Paula to meet them both.”
“We can’t either,” he says followed by a chuckle. “Glad to see you finally starting to settle down. So, when do you expect to get to town?”
“Maybe tonight or in the morning,” I tell him, depending on how shit goes down. “Oh, and back to the reason I’m calling. Don’t answer the door for anyone, and try not to go out if you don’t have to, not until we get there, okay?”
“Shit, Brede. Do I need to load my rifle too?” he asks.
“That probably wouldn’t be a bad idea,” I advise him. “And I’ll call before we stop by so you don’t accidentally shoot one of us.”
Blowing out a breath I hear through the phone line, he says, “Now I’m seriously worried.”
“I could be overreacting,” I tell him with a cringe. “I just don’t want to leave you two in the dark in case I’m right.”
“Then I guess we’ll be prepared and see you soon.”
“Yeah.”
“We love you, Brede. Be safe.”
“Me too and will do,” I say before ending the call.
I’ve never told them I love them. Hell, I’ve never told anyone I love them because I didn’t think I was capable of such an emotion. Now, with Blair, I’m starting to think I just might be feeling it for the very first time.
Chapter Eight
Blair
“Girlfriend?” I ask with a grin when Brede ends the call with who I assume was his foster parents in Kentucky that he told me about.
“Ah, yeah,” he says, glancing away and looking uncomfortable as his fingers trail absently over his forearm. “I mean, you are the only living woman I’ve permanently tattooed into my skin.”
“Living?” I ask in confusion.
Coming closer to my chair, he lifts the cuff of his right t-shirt sleeve, revealing all of the tall, weeping angel on his upper arm.
“Your mother?” I ask him.
“Yeah. Not that I remember what she looked like, but I remember the pictures my dad had…”
“She was beautiful,” I tell him, standing up to run my fingers over her long dress. Remembering the prison bars and number on his other arm, my hand goes to it. “This for your dad?”
“It is,” he tells me. “I hated him after what happened because our whole family came apart, but I did look up to him before that. He was a good man, a good dad to us.”
“I think she was pregnant,” I blurt out.
“Who?” Brede asks, his brow furrowed.
“My mother, the day that she…”
“Wait. You think she was pregnant, like, with my dad’s baby?” he asks, his jaw hanging open.
I nod, sitting back down with my legs tucked underneath me.
“Last night, when I…blacked out, I was back there that day in the kitchen. I mean, I’ve relived the scene a thousand times or more, so I’m not sure how I missed it, but I think she was trying to tell my father she was pregnant. And he interrupted her, saying he knew it wasn’t his. Then he…” My body shivers at the reminder. “He stabbed her in the stomach.”
“Fuck. I’m so sorry you had to see that,” Brede says before he leans down and wraps me in his arms. “And I can’t believe…we would’ve had a brother or sister together?”
“Yeah,” I say on an exhale. “Could you imagine in an alternate universe, all of us growing up in a Brady Bunch family under one roof?”
Brede chuckles. “My dad would’ve probably ended up killing me for sleeping with my step-sister.”
I laugh against his chest, wishing we could have all had that life together.
“I also remembered you and Aden from the pool.”
“When I saw my dad, he told me you were the one we always saw there, and I never knew.”
“I didn’t know your names, but one of you would splash me in my face every chance he got, and the other circled me, pretending to be a shark, which I thought was hilarious.”
“I was the shark!” Brede says, pulling away to look down at me with a smile. “I guess I’ve always been the predator chasing you as my prey.”
“You have,” I reply, reaching for his shoulders to pull him down to me so I can kiss him. Eventually, Brede drops to his knees on the floor and then pulls me down so that I’m straddling his waist, with no panties since the ones from yesterday were ruined.
“You’re so damn tempting,” Brede says against my lips with one of his hands flat against my back, and the other sliding up my thigh, under my dress. “And tomorrow, this pussy is mine,” he promises, easing a fingertip over my clit before pulling it away, teasing me. But this kiss with him is different. While I want to pull his cock out of his pants and ride him, I also just like being held and kissed softly and sweetly.
Still on the floor making out is where Aden finds us some time later.
“Let’s go,” he says, setting a white bag on the bed. “You wanna take this first?” He tosses a box at us that Brede catches in the air with one hand before telling Aden we’ll be right out.
After he’s gone, Brede looks at the morning after pill box thoughtfully. I assume he’s reading the directions, before he says, “I don’t want you to take it.”
“What?” I ask in confusion.
“It’s your decision, and I know that you’re really fucking young and that life hasn’t been easy for you, but I promise you it’s gonna get better.”
Whoa. Is he seriously saying that he wants me to get pregnant?
“You look shocked,” he tells me, stroking his thumb over my cheek.
“Um…” Words fail me the first few tries because I’m too overwhelmed by his pronouncement. “So, does that mean that you’re gonna be sticking around indefinitely? What if it’s Aden
’s?” I eventually ask.
“There’s no reason you should trust me after everything that’s happened. But I’m not going anywhere, even if it’s his. It doesn’t matter. Thinking about losing you…nothing has ever hurt so much,” he says with a shake of his head. Tearing open the side of the box, Brede removes the foil that holds a single, life-changing pill, and offers it to me. “Hell, maybe…maybe I’m just tired of dealing with so much death, and now I’m craving a little life. But here, you decide. ”
After I take the pill from his fingers, he lifts me off his lap and sits me on the floor next to him so he can get up. Rummaging through the big bag Aden brought in, Brede pulls on a clean pair of boxer briefs, jeans, and a white tee before slipping on his boots and signature black leather jacket.
“Come on out when you’re dressed and ready,” he says, tossing a clean dress, panties, and sandals down next to me before throwing his old clothes in the bag and walking out the door.
I sit there on the carpet with my back against the bed, holding the foil-covered pill in my hand. For most girls my age, the last thing they probably want is the weight of responsibility that comes with a baby, being tied down, while they lose out on the future they had planned of going to college and partying with friends. But after having nothing in my life but four walls for ten years, all I want is the comfort and stability of a regular family life. Even with all the possibilities in the world open to me, that’s what I want most. I may be crazy and naïve, but Brede is who I want for the rest of my life. Whether or not the wandering man is actually capable of being tied down to a wife and kids, I’m not entirely sure. But even if one day he takes off, I wouldn’t be left behind all alone. Part of him would still be there with me.
Getting to my feet, I change into the clean clothes, thankful to have shoes on my feet again, and grab my family’s photo album we brought in last night. Then I walk out the hotel door, finding Brede and Aden waiting in none other than a black mini-van with tinted windows. If they’re going for inconspicuous, this definitely works.
Shaking my head, I pull open the passenger sliding door and climb inside the bench seat beside Brede.
“Ready?” he asks, and I know his icy blue eyes are questioning more than am I just ready to go.
Reaching for his hand, I place the unopened foil holding the pill into his palm.
“Yeah, let’s go,” I tell him and Aden.
Without looking down, Brede flashes me a grin before slipping the pill into his front jean pocket.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving,” I say, rubbing my grumbling stomach, and imagining what it might feel like in a few months, swollen with the life we created.
“Food first and then Kentucky,” Aden agrees, before backing out of the parking space and pulling away.
Chapter Nine
Aden
“So when did you realize dad was innocent?” Brede asks as we head through Tennessee. The two of us have switched seats, so he’s driving while I sit in the passenger seat and Blair sleeps stretched out in the back.
“Since the day he was arrested,” I tell him. “How could you think our father, the man who worked as a heating and repair guy in the day and a security guard at night to take care of us, and still managed to get up early enough to fix breakfast and get us ready for school, could be a murderer?”
“We were twelve. Everyone said he did it, otherwise why would he get arrested? I had no idea the DA was a piece of shit back then,” Brede argues defensively. “I was angry at dad that he would do something to leave us, and then split us up…
“I was really fucking angry too,” I tell him. “He never even got a chance to say goodbye or assure us that he didn’t do it.” The police took him into custody while we were in school, and by the time the bus dropped us off, social services was waiting for us.
“Yeah, those first few days felt like living in a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from,” Brede says with a shake of his head.
“Those days were nothing compared to the next few years,” I tell him.
“So why did you change your name?” He glances over at me, and then quickly puts his eyes back on the road. “I tried to find you, but Aden Rawls was nowhere to be found.”
“Aden Rawls died in that shithole of a house when I left it,” I mutter, tugging on my seatbelt that suddenly feels like it’s choking me. “After I ran away and turned them in, I ended up working with the feds for several months, helping them set up for the sting. They gave me room and board, kept me up at a hotel near their offices. Watching them, I knew that’s what I wanted to do too, be one of the guys who help innocent people like Dad and other kids in the same situation, you know? I thought it would be easier to help Dad’s case if we didn’t have the same last name. So I changed it, twice, hoping to bury my real one.”
“Oh,” Brede replies. “That explains why I couldn’t find you. But did you ever try to find me?”
“Yes, but there were no license or voter registrations on file for you until you were seventeen, and then a few weeks later you were on active duty in the military. I even hung out around Louisville after you came back, thinking you would show up back in town,” I admit. “When you didn’t, I tapped into your foster parents’ phone and traced you by your cell phone location for a few weeks. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that wherever you went, a man was soon found dead.”
“So you’ve been following me around but didn’t bother to reach out to me?”
“You were killing people, Brede!” I exclaim. “I was doing what I could to try and save dad, and you were doing everything you could to end up right there in prison with him.”
“It wasn’t like I was killing innocent people,” he grumbles, to which I remain silent. “What?” he asks. When he glances over at me, I nod to the back where Blair’s sleeping. “That was desperation,” he replies. “Do you really think I would’ve ever pulled the trigger on her? Because I don’t. I always take the first clear shot, and I had plenty with her.”
“If you had killed her, I would’ve finally turned you in,” I admit to him.
“If I had killed someone as innocent as her, I would’ve deserved nothing less than lethal injection,” he agrees. “But Dad would probably have killed me first. Can you believe she was supposed to be our sister?”
“Yeah, then Dad would’ve killed us for even thinking about touching her,” I snort.
“We used to swim with her. On Saturdays at the pool,” he tells me.
“That was her?” I reply, looking over my shoulder at her sleeping form again. “She was the skinny little girl that the wind could’ve blown away?”
“Yeah, thinking back, Dad always wanted to go to the pool to spend time with her mom.” Brede clears his throat and squirms in his seat, as if he’s uncomfortable before he says, “Blair thinks her mom was pregnant with Dad’s baby when she was killed,” he tells me softly.
“Jesus. Dad’s never mentioned that to me, but I know he’s still really torn up about losing her.”
“Do you think he blames himself, you know, for the DA finding out?” Brede asks.
“Of course he blames himself! That’s why he’s always thought that he belongs in prison, for putting her and Blair in danger and not saving them.”
“Man, we’re gonna end that. We’ll get him out, and then everything can go back to normal,” Brede says.
Right, things may go back to normal for him and Blair. Maybe even Dad can try to move on with his life once he’s a free man. But how the fuck do I move on? There’s no way I can pretend like everything is fine and normal when the past still has me by the dick every second of every day.
Concentrating on my job and getting our dad out of prison is the only thing that helps keep the demons at bay, the ones telling me I’m a sick bastard who only gets off on hurting people. Once he’s released, I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself. I do know that there’s no way I can sit around and watch Brede and Blair play house while I watch from a dista
nce, just close enough to want what I know I’ll never have.
…
Hours later, we arrive in the city where Brede grew up with his new family. After I secure us a suite at a hotel, one that Brede insisted have two bedrooms because he apparently wants us together but separate, he calls his foster parents and tells them we’re coming by.
“Brede! It’s been too long,” a small, balding man old enough to be our grandfather says when he opens the front door of the one-story brick home. The two men embrace, and I’m not sure if it’s jealousy or anger I feel seeing my brother with his surrogate family. “Come in, come in,” he tells me and Blair once they break apart.
We step inside; and after the door shuts, the man looks at the two of us with a smile as Brede makes introductions. “Jim, this is Aden and Blair.”
“Wow. Aden, I’m so glad you two found each other. Brede worried himself to death over you,” the man says. And when he takes a step forward to greet me with a hug, Brede throws his arm between us.
“Go easy, old man,” Brede tells him, but Blair steps forward and hugs him without prompting.
“Such a beauty. Happy to meet you, Blair,” Jim says to her after they embrace, still holding her at an arm’s length. “Paula is gonna love you two. Come in, make yourselves at home.”
Brede leads the way into the living room. And when I walk in, he’s already on his knees beside the thin, frail woman’s recliner, hugging her. I’m more envious than ever of him at that moment because I’ve never had a mother. The woman who gave birth to us killed herself to escape raising us, and the one who took me in was rarely ever seen, either shopping or out partying all night. She only married her asshole husband because he was rich as fuck, old money from several automotive chains. And with his huge trust fund, neither he nor his worthless wife had to work.
Our “mother” knowingly left us there with the man who molested us around the clock. She had to have known that the sick fuck bought us just to play with us like we were dispensable toys, and she didn’t do shit to stop it, which is why she’s serving a prison sentence as well. My foster brother and sister weren’t the first kids to go through their house, and if I hadn’t helped the police bring them down, we wouldn’t have been the last. Why no one reported them before is beyond me. Probably because they thought that if they did, the two rich fuckers would just throw some money around and make the allegations magically disappear.
