by Dawn Martens
She takes Mindy’s hand and leads her inside, then looks back to me. “You guys go on to the living room, and I’ll grab us something to drink.”
I watch Jenna’s ass as she walks towards the kitchen and join Mindy on the couch. “When the hell did she grow up?”
Mindy laughs before she replies. “I’m not sure. I swear she went to bed one night and woke up looking like that.”
“It sure in the hell shocked the shit out of me.”
“I’m sure it did more than just shock you,” she says with a smile, motioning towards my lap.
“Shut the fuck up.”
She laughs again. “You should have been here the first time Chipper saw her in a bikini. I swear I’ve never seen him move so fast. One minute he was sitting beside me, and the next he was running across the room with a towel.”
I nod. “Can’t say I blame him.”
“That was nothing. He completely freaked out when she went out on her first date.”
“Date?” I bark out. “Who the hell’s she dating?”
Mindy shrugs. “No one right now, but she was seeing some guy from school. They broke up a few weeks ago. “
“Good,” slips out before I can stop it.
Mindy’s eyes jerk to mine and a stern look crosses her face. “She’s nearly eighteen. You got a little while before you can go there. When you do, it better be for more than just a quick ride. I won’t be here then, but I can guarantee that I will come back and haunt your ass if you hurt my girl.”
I shake my head and do my best to deny her words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She leans towards me and speaks in a voice that’s barely above a whisper. “That girl has been hung up on you since she first got here. You may have thought of her as kid, but you were every bit as hung up on her. I always knew that once she grew up, you would claim her. She’s yours, and you’re hers. Just make sure that you do it the right way.”
I start to respond, but am cut short by a knock on the door. Jenna rushes into the room and swings the door open. When I see who walks through, my gut clenches and I grab Mindy’s hand. Giving it a squeeze, I hope that she’ll understand.
“Hey, baby,” Sarah says, walking towards me with a smile on her face.
I stand up and look towards Jenna just in time to see the color drain from her face. She looks towards me and the pain reflected back to me in her eyes lends truth to everything Mindy has just told me about Jenna’s feelings. It also makes me realize that Mindy was right about mine. Jenna is mine, and I’m hers.
I feel Sarah paste herself to my side and know there’s no way I can avoid this. It’s not her fault that my life changed as soon as I pulled into my brother’s driveway. Sarah’s a nice woman and she’s been good to me. I can’t just kick her to the curb the same day she uprooted her whole life to move across the state with me.
I stare at Jenna for a moment more before making a decision and placing my hand onto Sarah’s back. I look back towards Mindy and force a smile. “This is Sarah. She’s going to be staying with me for a while.”
I feel Sarah’s body jerk, and she whispers, “For a while?”
I ignore her and continue with my introduction. “This is my sister-in-law, Mindy.”
Then, I turn towards Jenna. “This is my… this is my Jenna.”
Jenna
As soon as dinner was over, I rushed to my room. I just couldn’t stand being around Kidd and that woman any longer. I know he’s not my boyfriend, but I still hate to see him with anyone else. Just the thought of him with her breaks my heart. I barely make it to my bed before the tears start to fall. I’m crying so hard that I don’t even hear the door open.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Mindy asks, walking into my room.
I rush to wipe the tears from my eyes and paste on a fake smile. “I’m fine, just a little tired.”
She closes the door and walks towards my bed. “You weren’t tired before Sarah showed up.”
I shrug. “I stayed up last night. I guess it finally just hit me.”
She sits on my bed and grabs my hand. “You know it’s not nice to lie to a dying woman.”
Anger bubbles up inside me. “Don’t joke about that.”
She releases my hand and lays down, throwing her arm around my waist. “Okay. I’m sorry. I know it bothers you.”
“Thank you,” I whisper out.
We lay quiet for a moment before Mindy starts to talk about the elephant in the room. Actually, I guess it’s the elephant in the other room. “Kidd didn’t mean hurt you.”
“I know.”
“You don’t need to worry about her. She isn’t his old lady. She’s just a hanger on. She’ll never last.”
“Yeah,” I say, even though I’m not sure that she’s right about that. It only took a few minutes of being around them to know that the woman is in love with Kidd. I can’t really say for sure how he feels, but I can tell he cares for her.
“Sweetheart, you’re still young. Give it a little time, and everything will work out.”
I nod and grab her hand, pulling her arm tighter around me. “I love you, Mom.”
She places a soft kiss on the back of my head. “I love you too, sweetheart.”
We lay like that for a long time, neither of us saying anything. I think she just needed to be close to me, and I know I just needed her. I don’t know what I’m going to do when she’s gone. That’s something I don’t even want to think about, but looking down at the frail hand holding mine, I know it’s going to happen soon. I start to close my eyes when I hear the door open. Mindy and I turn around and see Kidd standing in the doorway. “Is this a private party or can anyone join?”
Mindy lets go of my hand and slides out of the bed. “I think it should be a party for two, and I don’t think I need to be one of those two.”
With those words, she walks towards Kidd. When she gets near him, she lays her hand on his shoulder and smiles. Then she walks from the room, shutting the door behind her. I look from the door to Kidd, hoping that he can’t tell I’ve been crying.
“Won’t your girlfriend get mad if you leave her out there by herself too long?” I ask sarcastically. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I start to blush. I know I sounded like a jealous girlfriend, but I couldn’t help it.
Kidd shrugs. “If she does, she’ll get over it. Nothing comes between me and my girl.”
Hearing him call me his girl brings a smile to my face. I finally look up to him and smile. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“I am too, baby doll,” he says as he walks towards me. He crawls into the bed and lays down beside me, pulling me flush to his front. “I missed you, Jenna.”
“I missed you too,” I whisper out, trying to concentrate on the feeling of his body next to mine.
“Tell me what’s been going down while I was gone. I heard you’ve been dating,” he says, sounding harsh.
“I went on a date or two, nothing serious.”
“Do you like this guy?”
“Who?”
He blows out a breath, tickling the back of my neck. “The guy you went out with.”
“Not really. He’s just some boy from school. He was kind of boring.” I shrug, my shoulder sliding across his chest. “He has an old car. Some kind of muscle car. He thought it was the shit, kept bragging about how fast it went. I asked him if he ever drove a Harley, and he said that he wasn’t in to motorcycles. I knew then he wasn’t the guy for me.”
He chuckles, and I can feel the vibrations through my body. “You’re right. When you get a man, he’ll drive a Harley.”
“Yes, he will,” I agree, visions of Kidd on his Harley running through my head.
After that, we lay there quietly. Him holding me, and me enjoying being close to him. Finally, my eyes start to get heavy. I’m just falling to sleep when his lips brush the top of my head. I spend the rest of the night dreaming of his kiss, but in my dreams, his lips are on mine.
Kidd
Sarah senses my mood shift as soon as we step outside. “What’s the matter, baby?”
Fuck, I need to break this to her, but I don’t know how. Over the past eleven months, I’ve grown to care for her. Do I love her? Hell, no. But I do care enough about her not to want to cause her pain. I knew I shouldn’t have ever brought her here. When she asked if she could come along, something inside of my head kept telling me to say no. It’s like it just knew something has always been missing, and now I know what it is. It’s Jenna.
“We’ll talk at the club house,” I grunt out.
She shifts in her seat and asks, “I thought we were going home, baby?”
She’s right. I planned on moving her into my apartment; a place that I don’t stay at very often and that no one from the club ever goes. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I could keep her there and away from Jenna. Now, the thought of having her in my home seems wrong. “Yeah, I changed my mind. We’ll talk at the club house.”
I walk to my bike without saying another word. I can feel her stare boring onto my back, but she stays quiet too.
Ten minutes later, I pull through the gate to the compound and park in my spot. Sarah pulls in beside me as I’m sliding off my bike. She follows me quietly to my room, passing the brothers I haven’t seen in nearly year, but I don’t stop to talk and they don’t call out. Guess my body is giving off the ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe.
I unlock my door and lead Sarah inside. I walk to the bed and sit, leaning forward, and put my head into my hands. Shit, what can I say? There’s no nice way to explain this to her, and she deserves nice.
I feel her walk over to me, but I don’t look up. She sits down beside me and places her hand on my leg. “Baby, what’s going on? Something wrong?”
I snort. “You think? Of course, something’s wrong. My sister-in-law is dying.”
“But that’s not what you’re so upset over, is it?”
I stand up and start pacing the room. “When I brought you here, I thought we could give it a go. You’re a great woman, and an amazing friend. You’re a fucking firecracker in bed; everything a man could want.”
I stop pacing and look at her. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong, but you’re not the woman for me.”
“Who is?” she asks, jumping from the bed. “That kid? She’s what all this is about?”
I can do nothing but nod. “I’m sorry, but the minute I saw her, I knew this wouldn’t work out.”
“What the fuck are you going to do, hook up with a seventeen year old?”
I shake my head. “No, she turns eighteen in four months. I can wait that long, but the minute she’s legal, I’ll be making her mine.”
Sarah says nothing. She just continues to look at me like I’m a piece of shit. Why shouldn’t she? I am a piece of shit after all. “Sarah, I’m so sorry.”
“You talk about her all the time. Your baby girl,” she says, venom lacing through her voice. “You had to know you wanted her, so why the hell did you bring me here?”
“I told you, I thought we could give it shot. I didn’t think my feelings for Jenna were anything more than me looking out for her, but fuck, the feelings I shouldn’t have had for her before I left are still there. Only they’re stronger now. I just can’t keep ignoring them.”
She starts to shake her head. “You can’t do this to me. You were supposed to make me you’re old lady.”
“That’s not fucking true,” I shout, starting to get angry. “I never made you any promises. I made sure you knew that before I brought you here. I told you I didn’t know how long this shit between us would last.”
“No! You just said that. You didn’t mean it. You love me, and I refuse to let you throw me to the side for some little bitch.”
My anger explodes and I grab her by the arm. “I never once said I loved you. I wouldn’t, because I don’t. There’s only one woman I love, and if I ever hear you talk about her like that again, I’ll lay your ass out.”
She pulls away and steps back. “Fine. I won’t say shit about your precious baby girl, but I ain’t leaving. I have nowhere to go. You told me I could work at The Kitty Kat. Let me strip for a few months. You can at least let me stay until I can save up some money.”
I stare at her for a moment before my anger begins to fade. This is my fault. The least I can do is give her a little time to get shit straight. “You’ve got four months.”
CHAPTER Eight
Kidd
Mindy’s gone. I can’t believe it. We’re lucky she lasted as long as she did. We ended up having a lot more time than the doctor thought we would; a little over three months. Thank God I came back when I did. I’m not sure I could have ever forgiven Pop if I hadn’t gotten to talk to her one last time. Seeing her lying in the hospital, taking her last breath, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was also a privilege. It was a privilege to have had her as my sister in this life, a privilege to be her brother-in-law, and a privilege to share in all the goodness that was Mindy.
As I turn to walk away from the casket, I see Jenna standing in the corner of the funeral home crying. I know there’s nothing I can do to take her pain away, but I still walk towards her and pull her into my arms. “I’m so sorry, baby girl.”
She buries her head into my shoulder and lets her pain out. Her body convulses with sobs, and I can feel every ounce of the grief that she has coursing through her body. Even though she’s only known Mindy for a little over a year, I know she’s hurting every bit as much as I did when I lost my mother. “She loved you, Jenna. You were the daughter she always wanted. You made the last year of her life the happiest she’d ever lived.”
She draws in a labored breath, then pulls her face back and looks up to me. “She was the best mom ever, and I’m just not sure I can live without her.”
I give her a tight squeeze and place my forehead on hers. “You can, and you will. It’ll just be hard for a while. As time goes on, you’ll get to a point where you can look back at the time you had with her for the gift it was.”
“It wasn’t a gift. It was a reward,” she whispers out.
“A reward?”
“Yes, I think God sent her to me. She was my reward for all the bad shit that’s happened to me in my life.” Her tears start to come faster as she continues to talk. “I would go through it all again, just to have my Mindy back.”
Hearing her talk about the past, even not going into detail, kills me. I hate that my girl had to go through all that shit. If I could, I’d dig Rig’s ass up just to kill the motherfucker again. I pull my head back and kiss her forehead. “She told me once that you were a gift from God.”
“She told me that too. She said that she used to pray that she could have a baby, but it never happened. Then, I showed up and she knew that I was the baby she had prayed for.” She looks up to me and a sad smile crosses her face. “She said that God knew how much she would’ve hated changing diapers and wiping snotty noses, so he sent her a child that could take care of her own bodily functions.”
I let out a quiet chuckle and start to respond when I see Sarah walking towards us. I let go of Jenna and take a step back. I don’t want to, but I also don’t want Sarah starting any shit here. She’s been pretty good about everything so far, but I can tell she’s ready to explode.
It only took her a few minutes of seeing me with Jenna for her to realize that Jenna meant more to me than she ever would. I should’ve sent Sarah home right away, but I hoped she’d help me keep my hands off Jenna. Needless to say, a woman doe
sn’t like being used as a stand in for the one you really want.
She stops a few feet from us and places her hands on her hips. “Are you ready to sit down yet?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I’m ready to sit down, now,” she says, drawing out the now.
“Well, I’m talking to Jenna right now.”
Her eyes cut to Jenna then back to me. “I can see that, but I think it’d be better if she was up there with Chipper. Don’t you?”
I can see the anger working in her eyes, and I know that I either go with her now, or she’s going to throw a bitch fit in the middle of Mindy’s funeral. I can’t let that happen, so I turn to Jenna. “Baby girl, why don’t you go on and sit by Chipper?”
“Are you not going to sit with us?” she whispers.
I don’t get the chance to respond before Sarah butts her big ass in. “No, we’re going to sit in the back.”
Jenna looks up to me, tears in her eyes. “I really wanted you to sit with us.”
Again, Sarah answers her. “Well, I’m sorry honey. There’s not enough room for Kidd and me in the front row, and I’m Kidd’s woman. I need to be there to comfort him today. A man needs his woman when he’s upset, not some little girl.”
I reach out and grab Sarah’s arm, jerking her to me. I bend down and whisper in her ear, “Shut the fuck up, or I swear I’ll have you packing your shit and heading back to Mateland before the day’s over.”
“I have nowhere to go,” she whispers angrily.
“Then you’ll do what I said and shut the fuck up,” I say before turning to Jenna. “Go on up to Chipper. I’ll talk to you after the service.”
She doesn’t respond, just walks away. She’s only a few feet away, when she looks back to me. The look on her face is full of pain. Not the same pain as she had earlier, but a different kind completely. The kind of pain that someone feels when their best friend betrays them. She shakes her head sadly and turns away, and I know that everything between us has just changed.
