Beard Up

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Though my parents had been pissed off at first, they now didn’t even notice that she was no longer there.

  Not that I wanted them anywhere near her.

  I’d learned of their dubious machinations while I was recovering from nearly dying in that fire, and what I’d learned…I shook my head. What I’d learned was that they were lucky I’d been too weak to even lift a pencil. That, and they hadn’t come anywhere near me. Otherwise, if I could have lifted a fuckin’ pencil, I would’ve stabbed it straight into their cold, dead hearts.

  “This is crazy, you know,” Ellen said to me from my side.

  I looked down at her.

  “How do you figure?” I asked.

  “They’re so close to us. How do they not see you?”

  They were close, but the excitement of the fans around us had them paying attention to only what was in front and beside them, not what was behind them.

  “The excitement of the game?” I offered.

  I didn’t know. It’d been a skill of mine since I was younger. I was always able to blend in, even when I became bigger and less easy to conceal.

  Ellen gave me a doubtful look.

  “How did you know what seats to get?” she continued to pester me.

  I gritted my teeth. “Found the tickets on her counter.”

  “You were in her house?” Ellen whispered, eyes wide.

  I nodded. “I’m in her house all the time.”

  “Ghost…” she hesitated. “I know I don’t know all of it, and I realize you held some back because I was there, but maybe it’s time you tell us what in the hell is going on.”

  “I told you most of it,” I finally admitted. “But everything else? That you can’t know. You can’t know because if you knew, it’d put you in danger, and I’m not going to do that to any of you.”

  My words were almost sub-vocal, but she heard anyway.

  And she chose to leave it be.

  Thank fuck.

  A loud crack had my head turning to see who’d hit the ball, causing my head to whip around so fast that my head spun.

  I saw the ball and knew it was headed straight toward us. Her.

  I only had a split second to react. One moment in time where I either did something or not.

  And there was no way in hell I was letting that ball come anywhere near my woman.

  I reached out and forward, spread my fingers wide, making as big of a target as I could as I leaned over the man that was between me and Mina—her date who I despised, who I did not want anywhere near my woman, and who I wanted to choke on a hot dog—and stopped the ball with my arm.

  The foul ball hit the muscle just over my tattoo—the one I got the day my skin was healthy enough to take one after that day—and I grunted in pain.

  The ball rolled down my arm and into Mina’s lap, and she caught it with her hands that had been enfolded in her lap nearly the entire game, almost instinctively.

  It missed hitting her temple by the width of my arm.

  She inhaled sharply, and her head turned so she could get a look at the man who’d just saved her life, and her lips formed into the cutest little O that I’d ever seen.

  Though, that was saying something because she had made that expression frequently since the day I first met her.

  The past slammed into me like a freight train.

  ***

  I walked down the steps of the front porch, and the hot, humid summer air slapped me in the face like a still-damp towel straight from the dryer.

  I was already sweating, and I hadn’t even done anything but walk outside.

  Wonderful.

  That would convince her to come inside.

  Not.

  Everyone wanted to hang out with a sweating seventeen-year-old, right?

  Whatever, I couldn’t help what my body did.

  I took the last step and tapped my foot seven times on the last step, gritting my teeth as I did.

  I didn’t want to do the things that I did, but I couldn’t help it, either.

  I had OCD. A mild form of it, yes, but OCD nonetheless.

  I was an awkward teen, and that was due to the fact that most people found me weird.

  No one could understand why I had to tap seven times on the last step. Nor the fact that I usually only stuttered on my Ys and Ps. Then there were the other things like the constant need to wash my hands, the need to always walk on the left, even when you’re supposed to walk on the right. Oh, and let’s not forget the most fun one—the overwhelming need to count absolutely everything. That one always made me the latest.

  It didn’t matter where I was, or what I was doing, I always had to know the number of people in the room. That was why I’d only gone to a pep rally one time and only that one time.

  Leaving that rally unsure exactly how many people had been in the gym had left me upset for days.

  But as I finally walked down the path to the old, beat up car that was parked at the end of our half-moon driveway, I was determined to make this happen.

  I would not watch her sweat her tiny ass off in that car one more day. I would bring her inside, keeping her out of my parents’ view, and have her stay in my room with me until her mother was ready to leave. Then I’d sneak her back down and deposit her back into her car with no one any the wiser.

  I just couldn’t stand to watch her suffer one more day.

  It was terrible, and it happened every day her mother worked for us.

  Even if she thought I was a weirdo.

  I tapped on the roof of the car and started to speak, startling her.

  “Y-y-you need to come inside with me,” I cajoled. “I hate seeing y-y-you suffer.”

  Then her eyes met mine, and everything in my mind went quiet. Everything. Absolutely-freaking-everything.

  No longer did I care that there were fifteen people on the grounds, eight of those from the grass company, four of them from the landscaping, and three looking at the pool.

  No longer did I need to do anything that my disorder usually demanded that I do.

  Why?

  Because I couldn’t take my eyes off of this girl in front of me.

  She was beautiful. Absolutely stunning, and I wanted to wrap her in my arms and never let her go.

  “Hey,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”

  I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Y-y-you don’t look okay.”

  Holy crap.

  This girl didn’t know it, but she was a miracle worker. My head was quiet for the first time that I could remember.

  “But I’m really…” I interrupted her lie.

  “You’re sweating, your face is really red, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen you take a drink of water the entire time your mother has been cleaning,” I pointed out.

  She looked down at her lap.

  “My mother said I was to wait right here and not move,” she said stiffly, then shook her head as if she couldn’t believe she was even telling me this. “If I move, she’ll get pissed.”

  “Seems to me your mother’s too busy to know if you moved or not,” I said. “I haven’t once seen her look out a window to check on you.”

  “You’re certain?” she bit her lip, sounding slightly more hopeful now. “Because even getting out of the car will help.” She looked at the trees on the edge of the lawn. “Being in this car feels like an oven every day, but if she finds out, the repercussions will be worse than this hot car.”

  A hot flash of anger rolled through me at the idea of this girl having any ‘repercussions’ for protecting herself from the hot Louisiana sun.

  She looked up at me with those soulful brown eyes, and I realized right then and there that this girl was going to save me.

  And when she stepped out of that car? Her little frame came up to just above chest height on me, and I realized that despite being tiny, she had the ability to change my world.

  ***

  “Thank you,” my wife wh
ispered.

  Thank God for the shades that were covering my eyes.

  I knew that my face was different enough, but my eyes weren’t. And I’d only seen three people with the exact same color as my eyes before. My daughter, my sister and Lynn.

  I nodded instead of speaking, not trusting my voice with her.

  And not because I thought she would recognize it.

  She wouldn’t. The smoke inhalation had permanently damaged my larynx and vocal chords. I didn’t sound the same, not even close.

  But I knew my voice would crack the moment that I spoke to her.

  She turned around, albeit a bit reluctantly, and I sat back in my chair.

  Josh glared at me and bared his teeth. He knew exactly who I was, even if his companion didn’t.

  I wanted to punch those perfect teeth of his right down his throat, wait for him to shit them out and then force him to swallow them again.

  I didn’t do that.

  But boy, did I want to.

  Then, my worst nightmare at any major league game popped up, and the kisscam was on the large screens above the uppermost stands.

  And it was directly on Mina and Josh.

  I stiffened.

  Mina stiffened. Josh answered his phone.

  “Thank fucking Christ,” I muttered to myself.

  The camera stayed zeroed in on Mina and Josh, with Josh none the wiser, and Mina looked down at her lap while fans booed all around us.

  The screen, after staying on the two for over a minute, moved backwards to Ellen and I, and I shook my head.

  “Sorry, darlin’,” I told her. “I’m not saving face here only to get it fucked up when I drop you off.”

  Ellen started giggling. “He wouldn’t dare.”

  My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket.

  Jessie (1344 hours): Don’t you fucking dare.

  I showed it to Ellen, and she had the nerve to bat her eyelashes at me.

  I sighed and typed back a quick message, then shoved it back into my pocket.

  “You knew that he would do that,” I pointed out. “He told us he’d be watching it.”

  “Which, by the way, he was really jealous about,” she said. “They’re playing his favorite team today.”

  I didn’t much care for baseball, and I never had. My game was hockey because of the physicality of the sport. Sometimes I could watch football, but only if it was college ball.

  It was embarrassing to watch a bunch of millionaires run around the field and cry when they got roughed up too bad. It was an embarrassment to all the men who came before them that we now had so many rules that’d been put in place that took away from the spirit of the game. They couldn’t do this, and they couldn’t do that. Blah, blah, blah.

  My thoughts were abruptly cut off when Mina stood.

  “I have to use the restroom,” she whispered to Josh, who, I might add, was still on his phone.

  Dumb mother fucker.

  I didn’t want him talking to her, not at all, but it was still rude as hell to bring someone on a date, or whatever it was, and stay on your phone for the majority of the time.

  “Let me tell you something, mother fucker,” I growled, leaning forward. “You may have forced me into doing this, allowing you to have her, but that doesn’t mean that once I figure out how to get her out of this, I won’t beat your ass for every single time you’ve hurt or embarrassed her. Watch it.”

  Josh didn’t so much as stop his conversation, but I could tell he’d heard me by the stiffening of his spine.

  “Let’s go get something to eat, Elle.” I offered Ellen my arm.

  She took it, and I led her out to the aisle where we went to find something to eat, only to come to a halt when I spied Mina in the line for the bathroom, her head down and tears running down her cheeks.

  “Will you go talk to her?” I begged.

  Ellen didn’t even hesitate. Instead, she walked straight to my woman and struck up a conversation.

  By the time they made it into the bathroom, Mina was laughing.

  I spotted something on the ground where the two women had been talking, and walked over to it, stooping down to pick it up.

  At first, I thought it was a wallet, and then realized quickly that it was a phone wrapped in a leather case.

  I flipped it open and pressed the home button on the screen, and nearly had a heart attack when I saw my daughter’s smiling face staring back at me.

  A huge kick to the gut ensued, and I swiped the phone open, staring blankly when I saw the passcode.

  It was six digits long.

  I pursed my lips, and then I typed in Mina’s birthday, followed next by Sienna’s when that didn’t work.

  Then I smiled and typed in my birthday, and the phone slid open with a click.

  My heart stopped when I saw the lock screen. This time it wasn’t my daughter staring back at me, but me.

  Or the old me, anyway.

  “Damn,” I muttered.

  Then, like any curious man would, I went through her phone for the fifteen minutes it took for the ladies to get out of the bathroom.

  And not once did I stop reading the messages that Josh had been sending my woman, and my woman’s clear and unhidden animosity toward the man.

  I felt like shit, then.

  It was very apparent that Mina wanted nothing to do with the man. The only reason she was even giving him the time of day was due to the fact that he’d blackmailed her into it. She’d tried, multiple times, to get out of it, and he hadn’t taken no for an answer.

  The motherfucker would die. A slow, agonizing death. Soon.

  Chapter 10

  I would marry the fuck out of you.

  -Coffee Cup

  Mina

  By the time I arrived home that night, I was exhausted.

  Josh had forced me to go to this game after getting off of work that night, and I knew I’d be tired as hell tomorrow.

  Seeing as it was ten to eleven now, I went straight to bed, only stopping briefly to check on Sienna, who was sleeping peacefully in her bed.

  Which was a drastic change from how she’d been acting when I’d left.

  She had most assuredly not been happy to find out that I was going out on a date. She’d said some mean things to me, and I’d gathered her into a long hug before I’d left her with Baylee and Sebastian for the evening.

  I’d arrived home to the two of them talking quietly on the front porch, but I was thankful that they didn’t linger too long, wanting to talk.

  They could plainly see that I was exhausted.

  I was also not up for any questions.

  Thankfully, they’d given me that reprieve. Although I knew that they’d be asking about my date sooner or later.

  As I laid down in my bed—mine and my husband’s—and stared blankly at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but compare this date with those I’d had with Tunnel.

  Tunnel had always tried to make our dates fun, and we never ever went to places that the other didn’t like. That meant that we never ate sushi, because he hated raw fish. I hate spaghetti, so we never went out to eat Italian.

  And, to this day, I’d yet to ever go out to an Italian or a sushi restaurant since Tunnel had passed.

  I rolled over onto my side and stared at the empty pillow on Tunnel’s side of the bed, and carefully reached my hand over to rub along the empty spot.

  It was often that I went to bed like this alone, and if I concentrated hard enough, I could still pretend that he was still coming home, that he wasn’t off of his shift yet.

  ***

  I closed my eyes and let my mind slip into a sort of dream state. One that was meant to be interrupted.

  I wouldn’t go to sleep for real until Tunnel arrived home. When he did, I’d hear the alarm disable, then I’d hear him come in, lock the door, then rearm the security console.

  Shortly after that, I’d listen to him as he walke
d quietly—which was never all that quiet since he was a big guy and his footsteps were heavy—to the cat food bowl which he’d then fill to the brim because our cat hated eating out of a bowl that wasn’t filled to maximum capacity.

  That way, Taco, as Tunnel liked to call her, wouldn’t bother us until the morning.

  Then I heard him stop in the kitchen, and watched as the light flicked on and then off, seven times.

  I smiled.

  A lot of people didn’t even realize that Tunnel had this problem.

  And honestly, it wasn’t so much a problem any more as much as it was just one of his quirks.

  Tunnel told me many times that he had OCD. Yet, if I hadn’t known or wasn’t told by Tunnel himself, I wouldn’t have even realized that he did the odd things that he did.

  When he kissed me seven times, I didn’t care. Not like he thought I cared.

  In fact, I loved that he kissed me seven times. Seven times was six more times than most women got, and I was happy to have anything he was willing to give.

  Sure, it was a little odd to have him turn around, head back into the house and go through his departure routine not once or twice but three times. It wasn’t a big deal, certainly not something that would make or break us. I just planned accordingly and allowed him the time he needed to go through this process.

  Luckily, it was only when we were leaving—and only when he was leaving our home —that he had a routine he had to follow.

  The soft tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap of Tunnel’s boot hitting the bottom step that led into our bedroom had me rolling over onto my belly and glancing at him as he moved surely through the dark toward the bed.

  He knew I was awake and didn’t try to be quiet.

  “What time did you go to sleep, baby?” he asked, dropping his keys down onto the nightstand.

  His gun soon followed, and he bent down and put that one into the floor safe—something he’d been doing since the day that Sienna was born.

  The next thing to go was his utility belt, followed by his flashlight being plugged in.