by Ashley Lane
“What the hell are you doing here, Maddox? And close the fuckin’ door, you’re letting all the heat out,” Jax gripes from behind me.
I close the oven and turn to face him. “You’re cooking my favorite and you weren’t even going to tell me?” I accuse. “And what do you mean “What the hell am I doing here?” I’m here to see you.”
His eyes turn to slits as he glares at me. “Are you fucking kidding me? It’s been damn near a week since I called you about the girl. I waited two fuckin’ hours for you to show up, but you never did. Just another reminder at where I rank with you, huh Madd? And why didn’t I invite you to dinner?” He shrugs. “Didn’t think you’d care.”
My jaw drops. “Since when wouldn’t I care?” I always care about food. And fuckfuckfuck, I’d forgotten all about the girl.
His jaw clenches in response. “I guess since you decided it’s time for a purge and you need to rid your system of any trace of me,” he says accusingly. “I can’t even remember the last time you were over here, Maddox. Can you?”
My throat tightens in shame at the truth of his words. It’s been years since the truth of my sexuality became a known truth instead of a guarded secret. It was rocky at first and wasn’t something I was capable of fully accepting.
Growing up, my mom did the best she could. For most of my life she was a single mother and did what she could to keep us fed with a roof over our heads. While commendable, there was a downfall. Mainly due to the fact that to give us those things, my mom got dressed each night and lost a piece of her soul as she waited for a John to pick her up from the corner of Collins and Grand.
It was a sacrifice she was willing to make for me and herself, but when the chance to escape that life came, she latched on with both hands.
She married Pete when I was ten years old. We thought he was the answer to all of our dreams. He had a great job, a nice house in a good neighborhood, neighbors with kids that I could play with. Life was finally looking up.
I was twelve years old the first time he raped me, and I realized my happiness had been traded for my mother’s. And while she was in heaven with our new life, I was in hell.
It was a classic child and predator situation. He manipulated my body and used my most private places against me. Taunting me, convincing me that since I came, no one would believe I didn’t want it. When those threats weren’t enough, he reminded me of everything he had given me and my mom and how sad she would be if it all went away.
His plan worked. My mom was everything to me. She hung the moon and stars, and I would do anything to protect her. Even if it meant dying every day at his hands.
For two years, the home that was once a dream had become my nightmare. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that my gym teacher noticed fingerprint bruising along my back and shoulders when I was changing in the locker room before class.
When class was over, he asked me to stay behind and meet him in his office. When I arrived, it was to find not only my gym teacher but also the school counselor and the principal in his office waiting for me.
I was fuckin’ terrified. I didn’t know what I had done to get in trouble, but it didn’t matter, it was going to break my mom’s heart and enrage Pete all at the same time.
After I took a seat, it became clear why I was there. Since my gym teacher and principal were both men, I was wary of them. But with one soft spoken question from the sweet school counselor, the already fraying thread that had been holding me together for the past two years snapped.
I’ll never forget her tears as I cried my truth to them. I’ll also never forget my mother’s face when she was told.
Looking back years later, I still wonder if it would have hurt her less had I told her right away. I’ve always wondered if it was the fact it happened for so long or the fact I hid it that hurt the most.
It’s a question I’ll never get the answer to. The ever-present crack in my chest caves a little deeper, proving yet again that time doesn’t heal all wounds. Mom died the year after I graduated high school in a car accident on her way home from work. At the ripe age of nineteen, I was completely and utterly alone in the world.
Desolation deepens its already firm hold and threatens to pull me even farther into its depths. A shiver races down my spine and I force the dark memories from my head. Trips down memory lane never end well for me and I’m man enough to admit that I’d rather run than face the pain and truths of my past.
When the news came out—or I should say, when Demon—who walked in on us while my tongue was down Jax’s throat, decided it was his civic fuckin’ duty to inform everyone of my sexual orientation, my brothers accepted me with open arms, as have their women.
Still, besides innocent and mostly hidden kisses and flirting at work, I keep our relationship as private as humanly possible. I’m sure you’re wondering, Why the hell would you do that, Maddox? They said they accept you, isn’t that enough? Well, yeah, and that’s great. I’m thankful for that every day, but there’s a difference between knowing your buddy likes dick, and having it thrust in your face. (No pun intended) Knowing and seeing are two different things, and I don’t think I could take the hit of seeing even the slightest hint of disgust on my brothers’ faces if they saw me be one hundred percent open with Jax.
I turn away from the wounded look in his eyes that I’ve become all too familiar with. “What do you want me to say, Jax? That I’ll come around more? Fine. I’ll come around more.”
“Well thanks, you sure know how to make a man feel like he’s number fuckin’ one on your priority list,” he spits and walks out of the kitchen.
I follow after him, hell bent on meeting his ire word for word, but all those stupid, fucked up words die on my lips when I find him sitting on his couch, head dropped forward into his hands.
This is because of me. I did this to him.
When he raises his head, his eyes are bloodshot and swollen from the tears he’s trying to keep at bay.
“I can’t do this anymore, Maddox,” he whispers, sounding every bit as broken as he looks.
I don’t speak because my blood has frozen in my veins. Fuck no. Tell me this isn’t fucking happening.
“It’s like we’re on a fuckin’ merry-go-round. We go round and round until you’re ready to get off, but I’m always left there, Maddox. The ride never ends for me.” Tears run freely down his face, and my own tears are threatening to show as my nose begins to burn.
“Jax—” I start, but he cuts me off with a shake of his head.
“Stop. I don’t want to hear it. I’ve heard it a thousand times and unless I walk away now, I’ll hear it a thousand more.”
“Walk away?” I choke on the words as I close the distance between us and drop to my knees between his spread thighs. My eyes close as my body remembers being here a hundred times before. Only then, there were no words of leaving and goodbyes. Just sighs and moans pulled from a place so deep within our bodies I could feel the love from just a sound.
“Don’t do this,” I beg.
“I have to, Maddox.” He lifts his work roughened hand that’s always touched me as if I was a blank canvas, he the artist, and his hands the brush, always turning me into something beautiful. Painting me into a new beginning with each gentle stroke. When I ultimately destroy his masterpiece, he merely picks up the brush and stars over. His hand never falters, his grip always steady.
“I love you,” he breathes, “But you’re killing me, Maddox. A piece of me goes with you every time you leave, and there’s not much left for you to take.” The words leave his body on a broken heave as if they’re being ripped from his soul.
I understand. I feel like mine is being ripped from me as well. Irrational anger takes the place of my pain and I throw it all on him.
“Why are you doing this to us? Because I need a break every now and then? Big fuckin’ deal, Jax,” I throw at him, itching for a fight.
But Jax doesn’t take the bait. He knows exactly what I’m doing, and I shouldn’
t be surprised. I’m convinced the man knows me better than I know myself.
“It’s more than needing to take a drive to the store to cool off, Maddox. You feel yourself getting too close and you’re gone in the blink of an eye. Sometimes it’s months before I see you again, and we start the ride all over.”
I hate the truth in his words. I hate that despite what I say, I know this is all on me. And I hate most of all that I can’t fucking change it.
“I thought I could fix it for you. I thought… I thought if I loved you enough, gave you enough, that I could erase everything else. Drown out the hate with my love. But it’s hard to fight a battle against an unknown opponent, Madd.” He blows out an unsteady breath and more tears fall from his eyes. “For years I’ve battered myself against the wall you hide your secrets behind but it never falls. I can’t force you to let me in. I’ve given all I can, Madd, and it’s still not enough.”
My fight against my own tears proves useless as one breaks free and glides down my face.
“It’s time for me to walk away. I need you to let me go.”
Let him go. How the fuck am I supposed to let the other half of my soul walk away from me, knowing he’s never coming back? Maybe if you’d told him that he wouldn’t be leaving.
I shake my head, feeling the walls around me closing in. “I can’t do this alone. I need you.”
Jax leans forward and I meet him, my lips greedily taking everything he gives. A voice in the back of my mind screams at me to take it slow, to savor and memorize every second of his touch. But all too soon he’s pulling away.
“I’d give anything in the world for that to be true, but you don’t need me, Maddox.”
“How can you say you love me and walk away, huh? What sense does that make? So now you abandon the people you love, is that it?” I say, not ready to let go of the anger.
“This is the purest love there is, Maddox—the kind I have for you. Can’t you see? I’m walking away, my own heart be damned so that you can find the one who can finally set you free.”
“Jax,” I moan his name as the finality of his words settle in my chest.
“I love you too,” he says, reading my actions for what they really are. The words I’ve never given him because I can’t bring myself to say them. Words that are buried in a place so deep, I’m not sure even I can set them free.
Jax leans forward and gives me one last, chaste kiss. “And I’ll spend forever wishing it was enough.”
CHAPTER 4
OAKLEY
I collapse onto my bed and wince when the metal frame creaks as if it’s in pain.
“One of these days you’re going to do that and go right through to the floor.”
I open my right eye to glare at my roommate, Agnes. Her eyes are filled with mirth, probably wondering how she can help my old bed along so she can witness my demise.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warn, causing her wrinkly, sagging gobbler to sway with the force of her laughter.
“How’d it go today?” her tone changes to one of concern. “Why do you look like you had a fight with the Kool-Aid Man and he won?”
I sigh. How’d it go today?
“Well, it went about like this—I walked twenty minutes across town to this indoor kids playground that I heard were looking for someone to work the ticket counter. By the time I got there, I was drenched in sweat and looked like a drowned kitten. But since it was so far, and walking the same route tomorrow would only bring the same results—I went inside.”
I shuffle on the bed until I’m on my side facing Agnes. She twirls her finger in the air, her way of telling me to continue. “So, things were going well until the woman interviewing me decided to take me out on the floor and show me where I could potentially be working. It all went downhill from there.” I roll my eyes at the memory of my day from hell.
“First, I jammed the ticket machine so badly that they had to call the repairman who regretfully informed them that he couldn’t get there until the end of the week. I was sure I would be a goner, but the woman interviewing me was clearly a saint living among us and took me to the refreshment counter. I found filling the food orders to be much easier to handle than the piece of machinery we had tried first. So things were looking up again… which is right about when I should have been expecting them to go downhill. Not only because that’s what happened, but because that’s always what happens.”
Agnes hides a grin behind her hand, but her eyes are alight with the laughter she’s trying to keep at bay. She already knows me too well.
I raise a hand to stop her. “Wait, it gets better.” I sit up and cross my legs, earning another painful creak from the bedframe. “Another employee stopped on her way by and asked if I could help her bring a pizza to a birthday party she was hosting. Of course I grabbed the pizza and followed closely behind her, being sure to stay out of the way of any missiles—AKA kids. I was two steps away from the birthday table when I tripped on what at the time felt like Mount Everest. In reality, it was a teeny tiny baby shoe.” My rant is abruptly halted when Agnes bursts into a fit of laughter. “A baby shoe?” She slaps her palms on her knees. “You tripped on a baby shoe?”
I give her a mock glare of admonishment. “Okay, you’ve had your fun. Anyway, I watched in horror as the greasy cheese pizza soared like a flying saucer and landed directly on top of the cake.”
With my head in my hands, I sigh. “I couldn’t tell who was more hysterical, the mom or the birthday girl. As I tried to help clean up the disaster only I could cause, my third and final strike occurred. I was elbow deep in pizza and cake, trying in vain to save even a semblance of the birthday celebration when a battering ram—okay, it was a kid—hit my legs causing them to give out. The pizza which had been draped over my arms, went airborne again. Only this time, the target was my face, and it hit a bullseye.”
But Oakley, that doesn’t sound any worse than what you’d already done. Yeah, that’s what I thought. “Apparently when I sat up and pulled the pizza pie from my face, the red sauce dripping down my mangled skin was a more than gruesome scene.”
Lips pursed shut, Agnes’ body shakes with the laughter she’s trying to hold in. “Agnes! One child had to be carried away by a parent because they were so terrified of “the monster”. After I gathered what little pride I had left, I finished cleaning my mess, rinsed off in the restroom, and left without another word.”
Agnes is almost having an asthmatic attack by the time I finish my story. “I’m glad my tales of woe amuse you so much.” I scowl.
A throat clearing puts a halt to all laughter as we turn to find Clarise standing next to our bay.
Dread settles into my stomach as she gives me a warm but hesitant smile. “Any luck today, Oakley?”
My returning smile falls flat. “No. Not today.”
She nods as if it was the answer she was expecting. “Sweetheart, I hate to have to remind you, but it’s policy that I do, so please be aware that your prepaid time will be up the day after tomorrow. At that time, if you are unable to pay the fee, we will have to ask that you relinquish your bed.”
I look around the homeless shelter and my heart hollows out. The shelter has been an absolute Godsend. Staying in a women only shelter gives me a sense of security I haven’t felt in years. Along with a caring staff, a night’s stay comes with access to a bed, showers, one meal, and a laundry room.
Things I used to take for granted quickly became things I realized were the hardest to find since being on the run. Sure, I miss binge watching Netflix and drive-thru food, but those things aren’t necessary to my survival.
I’ve never taken my time at Angel’s Cove for granted, and I’ll always be thankful that I had this place. It’s the longest I’ve been in one place since I left home, and it’s going to hurt to leave.
When I first came here, I used what little money I had to reserve as many nights as I could afford. At ten dollars per night, I knew my time would come to an end sooner rather than later.
I just thought I was going to be able to find a job before then and be able to stay longer.
I look back to Clarise who is watching me with tearful eyes. She’s a mother hen to everyone who enters her doors, and it breaks her heart each time she has to ask someone to leave. Her heart is too soft for this type of work, but she insists it’s what she loves.
“Thank you for letting me know,” I whisper.
***
Waking up and realizing you only have one more night in your safe haven really makes you want to go back to sleep. Alas, such luxuries aren’t something a gal like me is privy to. Now it’s nearing lunch and I’m sitting on a park bench, people watching and wondering what the hell I’m going to do next.
Lost in thought, I don’t notice the woman approaching until she drops onto the bench beside me. “Hi, do you mind if we share your bench?” she chirps, and I can’t help but smile at her bubbly demeanor.
I nod, careful to keep my wave of hair covering the majority of my face. “Of course!” I say, scooting closer to my edge.
“I’m Shelly, and this is my son Logan,” she introduces herself and the small boy hiding behind her shyly.
“Mama, can I go play?” Logan begs.
Shelly nods. “Stay where I can see you. And no talking to strangers!” she yells after him as he takes off toward the playground.
She laughs under her breath. “That boy.”
Shelly keeps her eyes firmly on Logan as she continues to talk. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
I clear my throat, a little uncomfortable that she’s seated on my scarred side. “Oh, sorry about that. I’m Oakley, nice to meet you.”
Shelly glances away from her son and flashes me a wide grin. “I freaking love your accent.”
I grin. “My mama always said, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.”
“Ya darn tootin’.” Shelly tries in the worst southern accent I’ve ever heard and we both burst out laughing.
