Whiskey Sharp_Unraveled

by Lauren Dane

  “If you’re looking for Vic, he left about an hour ago,” he told her.

  “Look, you and I both know I’m not your girlfriend’s biggest fan, but I was just over at your aunt’s place and I saw her out in her front yard. A big man was there too. He wasn’t yelling, but she looked far from her usual bitchy self. I just...well anyway. You might want to check on her. Don’t tell her I told you though. It’s better if we pretend to hate each other.”

  Women were so weird sometimes.

  “Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate that.”

  She rolled her eyes, grabbed a lollipop on the way out and left without a backward glance.

  He called Maybe but it went to voice mail. She then texted to say she wasn’t feeling well and was trying to sleep and would call him later on.

  He frowned before clearing the rest of his schedule and heading over to her house.

  Her car was out front, but her things were still inside and the doors were unlocked. He grabbed her tote bag and headed around back. She’d given him keys and he knew the codes, but he wouldn’t have just let himself in, not wanting to chance freaking Rachel out if she wasn’t expecting him.

  But she was at work. So he let himself in after texting Maybe that he was there and coming inside. If she truly had been sleeping, it wouldn’t have woken her up. But if she was just avoiding him for some reason, now she’d know it wasn’t a prowler coming in, but him.

  “Why are you here?” she said from under her blankets and then muttered something about Groundhog Day he chose to ignore.

  “Why was your father here? What did he say to make you hide under your covers? Did he hurt you and you don’t want me to see?”

  She popped her head out. “No! Now go back to work. I told you I don’t feel well. Wait. Who told you about my dad coming here?”

  “You live next door to half my family. It could be one of at least a dozen people so it’s one of them. Tell me about what happened.”

  “It was the usual. I really actually left work because I was sick. You’re going to get my cold.”

  “I’ll risk it. I have some tea so drink that and tell me what the hell happened with your father.”

  “Fine.” She began to tell him and by the end, he’d been beyond his ability to speak for a few minutes.

  “I’m not even her guardian! I told him that. She doesn’t need a guardian. So what exactly do they think they’re going to do?”

  “What if he and your mother mean to be her guardians? What do they call it? Conservatorship? Where a responsible person makes the big choices for someone while they’re incapacitated somehow.”

  She went even more pale. “Oh shit. Do you think? No. She’s not a kid. She’s not on drugs or suicidal or in some other way a danger to herself. How could they do this?”

  “Again, we’re supposed to worry more about Rachel than you? Rachel wasn’t here just now getting beaten up by your father. Emotionally, I know,” he added but she shrugged and shifted her gaze away.

  “Physically?” He went very still inside.

  “This all happened a long time ago. So let’s move on.”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “Why? Why do you want to know specifics? He was an emotionally abusive person. He spent most of my childhood trying to break me down. Isn’t that enough? You need examples? How about the time he used to slap me in the face every time I screwed up in softball. The other parents hated it, so did the coach. So I got cut so no one had to see it anymore. He put me on a different team next time and kept the slapping for home. Until I got better at it and he didn’t have to hit me anymore.”

  She closed her eyes a moment. “I’m sorry, that was mean of me.”

  “Did it happen?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m not lying!”

  He removed his shoes and climbed into her bed, wrapping his arms around her. She shivered but relaxed after a short time.

  “I didn’t mean it that way. Of course you aren’t lying. I’d never think such a thing for future reference. I meant, if it happened to you, how can it be mean of you to tell me about it? When I asked you to share it with me?”

  “Because I hurled it at you like a stone. And you weren’t at fault.”

  “I’m strong. I can take it.”

  She snorted.

  “Mainly he didn’t hit. That wasn’t his thing. He didn’t have to. Not really. He used his disdain and disgust to keep me in line. To make me doubt myself for most of my life.”

  “But you’re afraid of him. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “For a really long time I felt like I was under siege. No matter what I did they weren’t satisfied. He constantly nitpicked. If...”

  “If?”

  “If my body showed at all he’d flip out. Be really angry. I developed early.” She shivered again, but this time it wasn’t from fever. “It was his biggest complaint from the time I was about eleven on.”

  “Revealing clothes at eleven?”

  “No. Of course not. But he seemed to think if my boobs showed at all, even just the curve under a T-shirt, that it was me being promiscuous.”

  It was a wonder she was as fantastically open about sex and her sexuality as she was after this mind fuck from her father.

  “Never to Rachel?” he asked.

  “No. She developed later, like her sophomore year she just boom got boobs and hips right before she went into the summer before she was a junior. But they didn’t really react the same.”

  “Is that why you don’t expect her to defend you? They were nicer to her and she doesn’t see how bad you had it?” He was trying, but at times like this, he wanted to rage at Rachel for not being better at protecting Maybe.

  “It’s not her fault though. They don’t see this distinction and I know others have the same problem. But I don’t resent Rachel at all. I love my sister. It’s probably easier for me to say I don’t resent her now that I have Robbie and Teddy, but I can tell you honestly I’ve never blamed her for this imbalance. They don’t like me. And you know, sometimes you just don’t like people in your family, I guess.”

  “This is more than just a situation where parent and child don’t really know how to talk to one another, but there’s love. There’s a shadow in your eyes when you talk about him. He hurt you. Not just physically.” And he wanted to revisit that on the man with his own fists. He tapped her chest over her heart. “But here too. Those wounds heal slowly if at all. You’re afraid of him.”

  “He tried to break me down. Into nothing. He used to tell me it was easier to make a lump of clay into a vase than to make a rock into one. Like I was the rock.”

  * * *

  EVERY NEW DETAIL made him livid. But he also knew if he got too worked up, she’d regret telling him. And he never wanted her to fear him or his anger. She’d had enough.

  “You’re not nothing. You’re everything. Do you understand the difference? He doesn’t know you. Which is a crime because you’re his child and he should. He’s missing out on the joy that is my sweet hummingbird. Chattering about everything under the sun. You deserve to not feel fear when you think about your father.”

  He sighed, pulling her closer, lying there with her in the quiet.

  “I love you, Maybe. I love you and it breaks my heart that they’re missing out on the joy you bring into every room you enter.” He hadn’t planned to tell her in such a way. He’d wanted to put some more finesse into it than this. But she’d needed it. And he’d needed to declare it.

  She turned to face him, snuggling in, her nose against his throat. “Yeah? Like I love this lasagna or I love this woman?”

  “I love lasagna and the woman in my arms right now.”

  “I generally prefer eggplant parmesan. But I do love you too.”

  It was his turn to say “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “I took
cold medicine and I’m pretty high right now, but I totally mean it.”

  He tried not to laugh. He’d noticed the cold medicine bottle and figured that was why she was so loopy. This side to her was adorable too. “I’m glad you’re in the world, Maybe Dolan,” he said against her hair.

  “Don’t tell Rachel,” she mumbled.

  “That I love you?”

  “No, dummy. You can tell everyone that. You can tell Rada twice if you like. I’d shave her eyebrows off if she ever fell asleep around me and I got the chance.”

  She was totally high.

  Keeping a straight face was a challenge, but he kept at it.

  “About my dad and all that stuff I told you. She was just a kid. She doesn’t know a lot of it. Just that it was bad. Don’t tell her and make her feel worse. She can’t fix it.”

  “We’ll talk about all this later on. You need to rest. I’m staying here to make sure you do.” But he disagreed. Rachel needed to know. He wasn’t the one to tell her though.

  “’Kay,” she mumbled and snuffled into sleep.

  * * *

  ALEXSEI LEFT HER SLEEPING, putting the thermos of hot tea nearby, along with more tissues and her phone.

  He needed to pace a little, work out his tension. This ridiculous behavior was getting worse. Or perhaps it had been this bad all along and she never told him until now?

  Renewed anger burst through him as he imagined that sort of harassment on a regular basis over the years and she came to his shop and did her job daily and he never knew?

  No.

  He shook that off. It wasn’t that, he didn’t think. She appeared as surprised and off balance by these outbursts as he was.

  Rachel needed to know, but he understood why it had to be Maybe who told her in her own way. But Alexsei wasn’t willing to continue watching Maybe take the hits to protect her sister. Especially after that story about her softball team.

  But with the bitter there was the sweet too. She loved him.

  He pressed the heel of his hand to his chest over his heart. Her sleepy, cold-medicine-induced confession filled him with pleasure but it had unlocked an even deeper need to protect her.

  She’d push back. He knew. She wasn’t going to tolerate nearly as much protection on his part as he’d prefer.

  He curled his lip at the idea of her father saying all those things to her. A man should love his children, shouldn’t he? How could a father be so casually hateful and destructive to his daughter?

  Finding a pad of paper, he let her know he’d gone back to work but would check in on her later that day.

  Hesitating, he signed love, Lyosha and then left the folded paper leaning against her tissue box where she’d see it when she woke.

  * * *

  THE BAKERY’S KITCHEN was in the basement and that’s where Alexsei found his cousin a few minutes later.

  “Hey! I was just going to take a tea break. Come sit,” Vic told him as he removed the apron he’d been wearing as he’d been making the glaze for the sweet buns, two of which he put on paper plates and left on the table, adding the pot of tea and two mugs.

  “What brings you here this afternoon?” Vic asked as he dropped sugar cubes into his cup.

  “I need to talk to you about something but it can’t be repeated.”

  Vic nodded and that’s all it took. He knew his cousin’s word could be trusted.

  Then Alexsei gave him a brief overview of the situation as he understood it. He kept the specifics about certain details light to protect the most personal things she’d shared. Though he knew Vic would never repeat them, Alexsei respected Maybe’s right to privacy and he knew she was embarrassed about things she shouldn’t be. But he didn’t want to add to her distress.

  “What a cock,” Vic said at the end.

  Alexsei snorted a laugh. “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do?” Vic asked. “I know you. It’s got to be very hard to hold back on this.”

  “I don’t know. I know what I want to do. I’d like to beat the hell out of that piece of garbage and tell him to get the fuck out of Seattle and Maybe’s life.”

  “I’d drive you there.”

  It wasn’t a secret that his cousin was sweet on the eldest Dolan sister. He had been for as long as they’d lived next door to Irena and Pasha.

  “But I don’t think that’s how to fix this.”

  “Why not talk to Rachel about it directly? Seems to me she’d like to know how you feel.”

  Alexsei lifted one shoulder. “Maybe’s very sensitive when it comes to Rachel. Protective. At her own expense, I might add.”

  “Rachel would hate that. She loves Maybe,” Vic countered.

  “That’s what Maybe says too.”

  Vic smiled. “But you don’t think so?”

  “Oh fuck, who knows?” He drank some of his tea, calmed down a little. “It’s not fair to say that. Of course she loves Maybe. I see it every day. I’m just frustrated Maybe so fiercely wants to do right by Rachel that she’s getting in her own way.”

  Vic nodded, understanding. “So you’re pretty much living there now? What’s going on with that?”

  Essentially, he’d decided to just move in slowly. See how long it took her to notice. She’d cleaned out a dresser in her closet for him already. He spent every night there and he’d made no mention of where he’d be going after Gregori and Wren had returned and she hadn’t asked.

  “At some point I’ll have to start helping with the mortgage.” He already bought groceries and did a lot of the cooking, which had enabled him to fit into the household instead of being just a guest.

  “Very serious.”

  “Yes. Once I kissed her, that was pretty much it. She was all I wanted. So I’ll deal with this murky, screwed-up business with her family because I love her and she needs me to be supportive and protective and also let her be independent.” He groaned. “I hate that last part.” But she was who she was.

  Vic laughed. “I bet you do. She’s an entirely different experience than Rada was, huh?”

  “There aren’t even words for how different,” he muttered. He’d lived with Rada in the same place. Being with Maybe was like sharing a life. With a sometimes grumpy, starving bear. Who looked amazing naked.

  “I think you’re extra sensitive here given some of your own childhood shit. Gives you perspective.”

  Alexsei shoved more of the bun into his mouth before he replied, “I think having grown up the way I did probably does affect how I see this, yes.” He hadn’t had a stable father figure until he was fourteen and came to live in Pasha’s household. His uncle did the hard work of parenting. He created discipline, order and an atmosphere where his children were free to be who they were as long as they’d done their homework and chores and didn’t hurt anyone while doing it.

  Richie Dolan plowed into Maybe’s heart, trying to grind her down and manipulate her. To get at the other child. “I have no reason to believe he wouldn’t just toss Maybe aside like trash if he got at Rachel. I’m not going to allow that to happen.”

  “Fair enough,” Vic said. “I’m on your side. Just let me know if you need me for anything.”

  * * *

  CORA JUST STARED at her after Maybe told her about the scene with her dad at the house. She’d come over to deliver soup and in her cold-medicine-addled state, she spilled the story to her best friend.

  “Are you fucking kidding me with this? What an asshole. I’m so sorry, Maybe.” Cora shook her head.

  “You can’t tell Rachel.”

  “Why? She needs to know if they’re planning to hurt her. Through you. Ugh. I really hate them. Rachel’s going to be beside herself when she finds out.”

  “Which is why she has to be told carefully. I’m working on it,” she added before Cora could interrupt. “I don’t want her blindsided by this
. If they go forward with the lawyer thing she needs to be prepared. But she doesn’t need to have to shovel any of this stuff between me and them.”

  “Maybe, she loves you and she’s not stupid.”

  Rachel would cut them out of her life if she knew the whole of it. If for no other reason than out of loyalty to Maybe. And Maybe just didn’t want to be the reason for it. Not when Rachel sorely needed parents. So she said that.

  “Look.” She licked her lips, trying to find the right words. “What they did to me, it’s done. Rachel can’t change it. Can’t go back in time and be mad when it still couldn’t have changed anything. All it does is stress her out more.”

  Cora shook her head. “Fuck them. I don’t want you getting hurt like this anymore. It’s not cool. And it’s not what Rachel would want.”

  “It’s not what she needs. Not right now.”

  “And how is that not you making her choices too? I mean, sure I get the why and I might even agree. But you know, as well as I do, that she would absolutely hate it if she knew what he’d done to you. In your own yard. Threats? Come on! There’s no way Rachel, or me for that matter, I sure as hell bet Alexsei too, would expect you to take that sort of thing.”

  Maybe scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’m trying to be a better person, Cora. Is that so hard to understand? Am I wrong for that?”

  “I’d hug you, but you’re totally sick. So. I’m hugging you in my heart. Anyway. No, you’re not wrong for that at all. I totally understand why you’ve remained quiet about this as long as you have. But I’m firmly in the fuck-these-people camp. She’s got us. She’s got your aunt and uncle. She’s got plenty of support. She doesn’t need it from people who treat you that way. Just think about it. Please. For your sake. Consider just telling her everything and letting her decide on what to do. Even if you feel sort of bad about whatever she chooses. For such a punk rock bitch, you sure do take care of a lot of people.”

  Christ. It was true. No way around it. She had to tell Rachel or end up being as bad as her parents and a total hypocrite to boot.