by Blue Remy
“Earned? How long have you been racing?”
“A while.” He answered but didn’t seem like he was going to provide me with any more information.
“So your plan all along was to meet up with this Risto guy and race for the money? What if you lost?”
“I never lose.” He stated flatly and I rolled my eyes at his overly confident remark. “He’s been whining about racing me for a week. He just got that new car so he wanted to test it out. I wasn’t worried about losing, that car still needs lots of work to be any threat to me. A lesson he just learned.”
“Yeah, but what if you did lose? What would we have done since we didn’t have the two grand to pay him?”
“I never said I didn’t have the money. I just couldn’t access it on a Sunday and you said you needed it first thing Monday morning.” He pulled the wad of cash out of his pocket and handed it to me. I stared at the money for a moment, trying to make sense of it all.
“Why, H? Why would you just give me this kind of money? You barely know me.”
“Because you needed it and I know you’ll do what you said you would with it. Besides that ain’t my money,” he nodded down to the cash in my hands. “It’s Rich Boy Risto’s. He’s got plenty of it and judging by the way he keeps losing to me, he likes parting with it.” He threw his head back and laughed as he increased his speed.
As I sat there with the two grand that would help me start my life over I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His smile, the control he had over a car going nearly a hundred miles an hour down a dark road or maybe it was the leftover adrenaline from his wild stunt. Either way, I’d never been attracted to anyone this much before. I allowed myself to soak in the brightness that surrounded him and hoped to one day find my own light again.
“Thank you, H. You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“It’s nothin’, darlin’.” He replied without taking his eyes off the road. “The name’s Hal Fox. Call me Hal.”
Chapter Ten
Things couldn’t have gone any better the next day. Following the race, H drove me to the motel so I could gather all of my stuff. He insisted I wouldn’t spend another night there. Then after getting a good look at my old beat up Corolla, he drove me straight to Haventown in the Camaro. To him it was a hell of a lot safer.
Mama answered the door at six in the morning, with curlers still in her hair and a bathrobe tied into place.
“Annetta?” She asked looking a bit bewildered. Her eyes shifted between me and H, but her gaze stayed glued on him. “What on earth?”
“Mornin’, Mama. I’m here to get the boys and take them to their new home.” I announced proudly.
“Oh,uh…well, good.” she said, still looking at H. “Who’s this?” Her voice came out shaky as she clutched her robe tighter around her chest.
“This is Hal.” I glanced back at him and smiled, a gesture he returned then gave my mother a small wave. Anxiously, I pushed through the space between Mama and the door then headed to the backroom where the boys were sleeping. I stuffed all of their clothes and toys into their suitcases then handed them to H, who was standing outside on the porch and ignoring Mama’s weary looks as she stayed planted firmly in the foyer. Satisfied that I’d had all of their belongings, I carried my oldest boy, still sleeping, to the car and fastened him in.
“Annetta!” Mama hissed and stomped her foot as I walked past her cradling my youngest in a warm blanket. “Who is that man? Do you even know?”
“I told you, his name is Hal and he’s a good friend of mine.”
“A friend, huh? Oh Lord, we’ll see how long that lasts,” she snorted and threw a sideways glance at H who was sitting in the car. “I hope he doesn’t turn out to be another one of your mistakes.”
“Things are different with me now, Mama. These kids are my everything. All I want is to see them happy.” I kissed my sleeping baby’s cheek. “As for Hal,” I glanced in his direction and whispered on a sigh. “I hope he never sees me as one of his mistakes.”
***
Later that night I closed the door to the boys’ new bedroom and quietly backed away. They were exhausted from a day of activity. We’d picked up the keys to our new home after visiting a second-hand store for furniture, followed by a discount store for a few household items. My last stop was the supermarket so I could make us all a big pot of spaghetti, their favorite. In fact, by the end of the day, we were all exhausted.
Hal hung around the entire day. I thought we would part ways after he took me to my car at the motel. When I returned with groceries, he had all the beds set up, as well as the dining room table and chairs. I knew he’d arranged for fast delivery of the furniture but I didn’t know that he’d plan to stick around in order to get everything put together. Realizing there was no way I could have done it alone I was grateful he was there.
He stayed for our messy spaghetti dinner and even helped me clean up afterward. Once the boys were bathed, I’d put them to bed. They had no problem getting to sleep and I hoped it was a good sign that they were happy in their new home.
When I came out to the living room, Hal was fast asleep on the pile of blankets I’d placed on the living room floor for sitting because the sofa wouldn’t arrive until the following day. I’d forgotten he’d been up all night and hadn’t slept. After driving to Haventown, and then around Columbia he never once complained that he was tired or lost patience after spending hours with cranky toddlers who’d missed their naps. There wasn’t anyone in my life who had ever been so amazing to me.
But he’s not for you, Annie.
I knew I’d figure out a way to screw it up. I only brought out the worst in men, who in return brought out the worst in me. I’d let myself get carried away with the idea of love, something I once felt for my sons’ father until it festered into hatred. The kind of hate that made me want to see him dead.
I used to think Jimmy Bishop hung the moon. He was all I could have ever wanted, wrapped in a dreamy heart shaped box. Handsome, mischievous… and twenty-two. This combination made him irresistible to a teenage girl hell bent on rebelling against her bible-thumping mama.
I skipped school all the time to be with him and was equally absent as much as I attended classes my senior year. By the grace of Mama’s God, I graduated. Before the ink was even dry on the diploma, I threw a couple of bags full of my stuff in the back of Jimmy’s car and left Haventown, South Carolina and didn’t look back.
Jimmy loved to ride, to just get in the car and go. We stayed on the road with no particular destination in mind. We could never afford a motel. A spare room at a friend’s place, the couch of an acquaintance, and even the back seat of the car would be where we called home. It was fun and wild, romantic and rebellious.
We earned money the best way we could though I was the one who usually picked up jobs. Singing gigs or working as a waitress were the easiest to land and the fastest way to earn money. Jimmy had to get much more creative. He’d had plenty of run-ins with the law, so nobody wanted to hire him with his criminal record. It didn’t stop him from coming home with pockets of cash every night. He knew people in just about every state along the east coast. He’d go and meet with an acquaintance and we’d spend a few days while he “worked”, then we moved on. I knew whatever Jimmy was mixed up in was bad news, but I trusted him enough to know what he was doing. Either way, it didn’t matter. We were happy.
Then everything changed.
It was just before Christmas and I’d been gone from home for a little over six months. We’d been staying with Jimmy’s friends, Gino and Theresa in Brooklyn for a couple of weeks and I was over it. I hated New York. To a country girl used to wide-open space, the unfamiliar city felt crammed full of people and smelled like piss. Gino had a delivery business I was sure served as a front for something else. He was paying Jimmy under the table, and very well.
It was early afternoon and I had just woken up because sleeping was all I wanted to do those days. I opened the tiny back bedroom
door we’d been using and as soon as I stepped into the hall, a horrible stench filled my nostrils and turned my stomach. Once I reached the kitchen, Theresa was boiling some sort of meat still on the bone in a stew pot and the aroma was horrid. Unable to stand it a minute longer I ran to the bathroom and hurled. I sat there with my face on the cold tiles as I waited for the wave of nausea to pass. Gino and Theresa’s baby begin to wail and that’s when it hit me that I could be pregnant. A test a few hours later confirmed it.
Jimmy wasn’t happy at all about the news. He accused me of getting pregnant on purpose and I was at a loss for words. I was eighteen years old. Getting pregnant was the last thing on my mind. The accusatory look he gave me that night hurt more than anything. It was the first time during our wild adventure that I missed my Mama.
I didn’t have to wait long to see her because two days later I was standing on the curb in front of my childhood home as Jimmy screeched off in his car. I stood there in disbelief like it was all a big joke and he would turn around, pull me into his arms and tell me it would all be okay. Except he never came back. So I stood there, eighteen, knocked up and alone in front of Mama’s house as the colorful holiday lights twinkled around me.
“Merry Christmas, asshole.” I screamed after Jimmy as the exhaust smoke faded away in the distance.
“Annetta Lynn, what kinda trouble have you gotten into this time, girl?” My mother glared at me with a look I’d never seen before. It was not the usual anger or even disappointment I had grown accustomed to. It was sadness and that hurt much worse. This wasn’t something she could punish me for by taking away my phone privileges. I was having a baby. A whole human being was growing inside me. As I let the realization sink in, I felt a pair of soft arms around my shoulders, followed by the faint scent of roses. It was the first time I remember her hugging me in at least two years and it was just what I needed.
Despite all that, I still took Jimmy back and eventually wound up pregnant with my second child. His reaction was even worse than the first time and dared to imply the baby wasn’t his. What was that saying, “Fool me once...” Yes, I was a total fool many times over except I couldn’t figure out how to make the cycle stop.
Chapter Eleven
“Annette?” Hal called out groggily, cutting through my trip down memory lane. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, stepping forward, “Thanks for everything today. You have no idea how much it means to us.” I lowered myself onto the blanket beside him.
“You don’t have to thank me. I’m happy to see it all worked out.” He sat up rubbing his eyes.
“Me, too.” I smiled and rested my head on my hand and looked up at him. The familiar scent that was all him lingered on the material and I couldn’t help taking deep breaths, enjoying the moment. Why couldn’t I allow myself to fall for a man like him? Wasn’t I allowed to have “good”, or better yet “good for me” in my life?
I only had to accept that it was up to me to choose, to give myself a chance. All I had to do was try.
“If you want, I can have a look at that death trap you’re driving…”
Earlier H had made no secret his concerns over my car. I didn’t think it was as bad as he was carrying on. It had been reliable enough to get me where I needed to go but I loved that he was worried about me all the same. The warm feeling in the pit of my stomach spread over my body and my insides went to mush. I had never felt anything that intense before. The raw need to touch and be touched.
My nipples tightened at the thought of his hands on my skin and before I lost my nerve, I sat up and moved closer to him. He was still talking but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest, and his eyes went wide as soon as I crossed that invisible barrier of personal space.
“Annette?”
“Annie. I liked to be called Annie.” I said before I planted my lips on his. At first, he went still and threw both hands in the air as if he wasn’t sure what to do with them. Then slowly he relaxed and was kissing me back. I parted my mouth as his tongue slipped inside.
The kiss was delicious, no stale cigarettes or trace of liquor on his tongue. I could taste him all day. The same scent I’d grown to crave filled my nose as I inhaled him. Did I say he didn’t know what to do with his hands? Well, that was a lie. He slid his palms under the hem of my shirt and let his fingertips lightly caress my lower back. Goosebumps spread over my skin as I reached to pull his shirt from his jeans. I nipped and sucked on his bottom lip, loving the way he groaned in response.
“Hal.” I whispered against his mouth. “Are you real? Please tell me you’re real.”
He removed his hands from under my top and didn’t answer my question, instead, he chuckled lightly as he pulled his face away from mine, effectively breaking the moment we just had.
“It’s late and I need to go.” He swept a lock of hair from my cheek and tucked it behind my ear. “Donnie is probably out of his mind right now at the club so I’d better get down there. At least show my face.”
I blinked at him several times as I tried to understand what he was saying. Leaving? Was he going to leave? I looked down at the way I was straddling him with my arms around his shoulders and handfuls of his shirt in my palms. It didn’t take a genius to see that I’d been ready to take things further, a lot further and he was going to leave?
“Uh…um... okay,” I said as I unraveled myself and slid away. “Yeah, it’s probably a good idea. I’m pretty tired.” Faking a stretch and a yawn, I tried my best to play it cool without looking as wounded as I felt. H stared at me as if he wanted to say something but thinking better of it.
“I’ll see you at the club tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure. I need to look for a sitter and see about a job that’s going to help me make steady money I can depend on.”
“I can get you a sitter. My little sister Elizabeth is nineteen and taking classes at the community college. She’s looking to earn some extra money. If you want, I can bring her by tomorrow.”
“Wow, really? Yes.” I replied, unable to believe his offer. In the span of twenty-four hours, he’d come up with a solution for every single problem I’d spent the last month trying to solve. In the back of my mind, I wondered if it was all too good to be true. “That would be great. Thank you.” I put on a bright smile.
H flashed me a grin before getting up. I immediately followed and walked him to the door.
“Hal?”
“Yeah?” He turned around to look at me expectantly with his hand on the door knob.
“Why are you so nice to me? Helping me out like this?”
“Because I can, and I know you don’t have anybody else.”
“But I--,” I started to sputter and he put a finger to my lips.
“Take it as a compliment, woman. It’s okay to accept help when you need it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Not everyone is hell bent on letting you down.” With that, he pecked a kiss on my jaw, them my lips before pulling the door open and closing it behind him.
I stood there staring blindly ahead wanting so bad to believe his words. The hard part was letting people in when my experience was that they had always screwed me over, one way or another.
“Lock the door, Annie.” H’s muffled command from the other side of the door snapped me back to focus.
“Yes, sir.” I shouted back in a mock military style voice, then giggled. After the lock and chain were securely in place, I heard the Camaro start up then drive away.
Chapter Twelve
“Drink?” Tammy asked from behind the bar, holding a bottle of top-shelf vodka in her hand.
“No.” I shook my head and took another sip of my ginger ale. Tuesday nights usually were pretty slow so Donnie agreed to let Tammy, the bartender, throw a birthday party for herself, hence the reason she was trying to get others to drink. I’d only planned to show my face just long enough to not seem rude before I headed home. I needed to save every dime especially since my boys were back with
me. Plus, coming home late and drunk wasn’t going to cut it.
Hal’s sister, Elizabeth, had come over earlier in the day. She and the boys spent some time at the park, and then she had lunch with them. Afterward, they seemed to be very comfortable with her, so I asked her to start right away.
“Oh, pooh! You’re no fun, girl!” Tammy pouted for a second before turning a bright smile to H. “How about you, hunk? Drink?” I turned my head to see Hal sitting in one of the bar stools beside me, but from the frown on Tammy’s face, he must have turned her down also.
“How did it go with Elizabeth?” H asked.
“Good. She’s great with them.” I replied and took another sip from my ginger ale. I was faintly aware that he was speaking but I couldn’t make out the words. Something about his presence made me feel self-conscious. I had no idea why but suddenly my blouse felt too low, and I couldn’t resist the urge to look down to see if I’d had an indecent amount of cleavage showing. Granted, I’d worn clothes with less coverage here before. The top seemed fine when I put it on, but now it felt uncomfortable and like my nipples were just barely covered by the thin white low cut blouse.
Discreetly, I tugged up my top in hopes of covering myself a little better. I nodded as he spoke but still barely hearing or processing anything he’d said. Something about Elizabeth, and something about Donnie but I still felt as he spoke his attention was on my breasts even if his gaze wasn’t directed at them. I thought about his smell, our kiss last night, and the way he walked away from a sure lay. When I lifted my glass of ginger ale to my lips, some of it spilled onto my chest.
Oh, my God! Really? Why not just pour the rest of it on me and start a wet t-shirt contest right on the bar top. I was mortified because, in my attempt to draw attention away from my chest, I manage to direct all focus right to it. Grabbing my napkin, I dabbed away the sticky spill, feeling very stupid. The first thing out of my mouth…
