Finding Fate

by Charisse Spiers

  I grin. It’s not in me to keep my damn mouth shut. “Yet to have such an argument you’ve thought about it.”

  “Leave it alone, Maddox.” He grabs his duffel bag and throws it over his shoulder, already walking toward me. “I’ll meet you at the truck.”

  I place my hand on his chest to stop him as he comes up beside me and look over at him, still smiling because I already know the answer, and in this one situation his method is warranted even though Presley is tender-hearted. She’s also oblivious to people not in her circle, which would primarily be the people living in this house and maybe a few outside of it. While she’s attentive to all of us, Landon included, the problem with that is you’re basically an asshole to everyone on the outside unintentionally, like her sister. Landon saw it, Gabby saw it, and I saw it. They’re idiots if the rest didn’t see it. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there was some jealousy there. While Presley is one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen, Paxtyn is something else entirely. She’s up there with Blondie, but different somehow. I can’t put my finger on it. No guy in his right mind would have done anything different than Landon. I can say that because Gabby is on her own list. No girl will ever compare to her in my eyes. “You going to smooth things over with Presley over the asshole comment you made as to why she left early before you go? She thinks you’re mad at her over ‘Paxtyn being Paxtyn’ because now Paxtyn apparently won’t answer her phone.”

  “Nothing to smooth over. I’m no different with her than I was before her sister got here. If I had been, Konnor would have said something about it. He may be a softy with her but he’s not a pussy. I respect that about him. Not my fight. They can hash it out. I have a plane to catch.”

  I laugh over the Konnor comment, following him through the basement. “You ever gonna fill him in on that little tidbit? You’re the only one left to officially welcome him into the group for him to completely feel like he belongs. He was quite fond of the talkative Landon who was in a better mood because his dick was being serviced by a teenager.”

  “Ugh, shut the fuck up,” he growls, making this so much more fun.

  “Konnor’s little jailbait sister-in-law . . .”

  “Maddox!” he barks, making me chuckle.

  I remember something that Riggan said the night we were talking about it outside. It was covered the day Gabby and me walked in. “Tell me more about this panty tan line. Are we talking like porn star type shit?”

  He stops at the staircase and turns around with a murderous glare. “You still want a trophy piece? I’m about to give you a shiner.”

  I grin. “All you have to do is say you like her and I’ll shut up.”

  “You’re a dick.”

  “No. You’re in denial.”

  “I fucked her more than once. Happy now?”

  I roll my eyes. “She’s not the first girl you’ve gone back for seconds with, dumbass. I’m one of your best friends. I know you. You let her sleep with you and drove her to the airport. That’s the difference.”

  He opens his mouth but remains silent. Yeah, I know about her sleeping in his bed . . . with him in it. “How do you know about that? It started as a bet. We usually had sex when everyone else was going to sleep. It was just easier to end up that way. It means nothing, but still, I was careful. I set my alarm to get on the air mattress. If I woke up before it went off I stayed up.”

  “I get up earlier than most in this house. My body is still on a logger’s schedule. I left something down here I had to get one morning and was using my flashlight on my phone to see. The air mattress was empty. I was curious.”

  His jaw locks for a minute. “I got her number, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet. You go running that mouth of yours to Riggan or anybody else and I’m going to break your nose, Maddox. I don’t need people in my ear. Unlike the rest of you, I’m not looking for marriage and kids anytime soon, if ever.”

  He turns around and stomps up the stairs, clearly angry. I shake my head with a smile on my face as I follow behind. He doesn’t ask for girls’ numbers. They ask for his or get it from someone else. Don’t have feelings for her. Yeah fucking right.

  Thirty-Six

  Gabby

  I glance at the sign on the building of the address Riggan gave me to verify I’m at the right place. Sayler said she’d meet me here after her last final before the holiday break, so I took Maddox’s truck. It’s right at sunset, which is Riggan’s last appointment of the day. When you’re getting a free tattoo you take what you can get.

  I grab the handle of the glass door and pull it open, listening to the bell chime as I walk through the doorway. Riggan is bent over the register counter at the front with his cell phone out in front of him as he types away on it. I guess he’s waiting on me. He looks up as the door shuts back and pockets his phone. “You ready to do this?”

  Excitement fills me and suddenly there is a little pep in my step. It’s been a while since we talked about it in the jacuzzi that night, and many back and forth ideas have been thrown around in spare time to make sure it’s something Maddox and I both like since he wants to get the matching tattoo, which makes my heart happy. Designing it has been something the two of us have done together, and that makes it more meaningful. It will be on our bodies forever, so it should be. I love that about him—that he’ll do things like that with me. He’s always been an all-in kind of guy, and maybe that’s one reason I fell so hard. “You know it. I’ve been waiting impatiently since you showed me the final sketch last week.”

  He smirks. “Maddox didn’t take off early to come with you and babysit my hands? I’d rather do them both at once while it’s in my head.”

  I laugh, remembering that very conversation this morning before he left for work that he was going to try to get here after work and see if Riggan would go ahead and just do his too. “He’s most likely going to pop in at the end.”

  “Figured as much,” he says on a laugh, before bending down to get something behind the counter, and then comes back up with a clipboard of forms and a pen. “Even though I’m doing the ink for free, you still have to sign the waiver, release forms, and I have to make a copy of your license. I’m not the owner. It protects the shop. It’s a rule I have to abide by. Konnor had to do it the first time too.”

  I pull my license out of my wallet and trade it to him for the clipboard he’s handing my way. Placing it on the counter, I quickly fill out the information and sign my name on the signature line of each page while he makes a copy of my ID to keep on file, not reading any of the policies or legal verbiage. Does anyone ever? I finish within five minutes after he’s done, and we exchange again.

  He nods his head for me to follow through the door after putting up my paperwork. We come into a studio with several tattoo stations in no particular order it seems. The building is nothing fancy and in dire need of some remodeling. It’s not all that organized like some tattoo shops I’ve seen, each station covered in supply bottles for easy reach versus visual appeal. I’m assuming everything else is in the drawers.

  He grabs a pair of black, latex gloves from the back station and sits on his stool, already pulling them on when he looks at me. “Any chance you could be pregnant?”

  I blink at him, a little taken aback. “Is that a trick question?”

  “Shop policy to ask. I take it a little more serious than most. I unknowingly tattooed someone pregnant once.” He smirks. “And I happen to know after a certain night in a Tahoe that Maddox isn’t wrapping it up or pulling out. Can’t say it surprises me. He’s been pining away over you for years. You leave him and I’m coming after you.”

  My cheeks heat, and it takes a lot to embarrass me. That night had sort of migrated to the back of my mind. Mine and Maddox’s sex life used to be so secretive I tend to forget we’re public now. We live in our own world; always have. “Isn’t there always a chance when you’re having sex? It’s not likely, though. I’m not.”

  He grabs a new needle and opens th
e package. “Tests are in the bathroom cabinet. Take one so I can mark it on your forms. Owner’s rules. I think some chick tried to sue him once. Bitch didn’t get a cent since she signed the waiver. One ruins it for everyone. Now every girl gets fun paperwork with an extra signature line and to take a pregnancy test in a tattoo shop bathroom.”

  I laugh. “Has anyone ever gone in there to take one and actually come out pregnant?”

  He smiles. “More than you think. Had one just last week. She walked out crying. Guessing it wasn’t good.”

  “Damn. That sucks.” His smile falls as I walk to the tattoo chair to put my stuff down, but his eyes remain on mine. “What?”

  “How did you find out?”

  I like that he’s not afraid to ask questions like the girls in the house. They rarely ask me anything to do with mine and Maddox’s son, even when I can tell they want to. I can see why him and Maddox are such good friends. They balance each other in a lot of ways. “I was in the mall shopping, trying to stay away from my dad, and when I passed by the pretzel shop the smell made me sick to the point that I threw up in the nearest garbage can. I was already late but didn’t think anything of it. I was only fourteen. Thought it was a virus ‘til a week later when I was still throwing up at random. It finally crossed my mind and I went to Wal-Mart. Did the self-checkout and took the test in the bathroom. I was still in denial. I didn’t actually expect it to be positive.”

  “If you could go back and change anything, would you?”

  An age-old question. I shrug. “To change one thing would alter everything. If keeping him meant Maddox would go to jail, no. Trading one bad outcome for another is still a bad outcome. I’ll never wish I could change his existence. Like you and Sayler, we created him accidentally, but it was still in love, and Maddox will always come first, but I believe that’s the way God intended it to be—God, our partner, our kids. People may not understand that mentality, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t care about our child. I love my son. Always will. The pain will never completely heal. Even though he was basically ripped out of my arms, I knew from the beginning I couldn’t keep him if I carried him to term, and I loved him enough to give him a better life than having a fifteen-year-old mother. It’s hard to make myself believe it sometimes, but I stood up to my dad enough to give him life. Though difficult, I can live with the rest.”

  His eyes squint just a little. “You really love him, don’t you?”

  He’s talking about Maddox. I smile. “Did you doubt me?”

  He’s still setting up like he could do it with his eyes closed. “I doubt everyone until they prove otherwise, but seeing how messed up he was over you, it was hard not to wonder how you were sleeping at night.”

  “Socially we’re from two different worlds. To people like my dad we would never work. Raised too different. Expectations too far apart. I’m my dad’s Greek princess. He’s a middle-class country boy that didn’t go to college. Works hard. Plays harder. Loves to get dirty. Is the life of a party. Likes his rock and country as much as his redneck rap. Spits on the ground when he needs to clear his throat or his mouth is dry. Drinks beer over anything else regardless of the calories. Feels guilt over sin much deeper than most. Would only wear a suit to a wedding or funeral. But he’s mine. That’s never going to change. Hot as blazing fire. He’s smart, and funny. He looks good in work clothes or ready to go out. He loves me. Never overlooks me for someone else. Likes my jealousy as much as I like his. We’re an explosive couple. Just the way it is. We’re miserable apart. I fell in love with him when I was just thirteen. I’ll kill a bitch over him. Do anything to protect him. I’ll disown my father to marry him. So yeah, I really love him.” And without another word, I walk through the door marked with a restroom sign and shut it.

  It doesn’t take me long to find the test before it’s in the stream of pee. I cap it just as my phone vibrates on the sink from where I put it when I took it out of my back pocket. I place the stick down flat and smile, already picking it up.

  Maddox: If you’re still getting it on your shoulder, you better not be wearing low riders.

  I respond quickly.

  Me: They make my ass look great.

  Maddox: My fucking point!

  Me: Sorry! Granny-rise jeans were all dirty.

  I laugh, unable to help it. He probably has steam coming out of his ears thinking about me hunched over with my ass crack showing while another guy is right behind me.

  Maddox: You’re going to get it when I get there. Konnor is going to drop me off.

  “Are we tattooing or what?” Riggan asks. I type my response so he doesn’t start blowing up my phone.

  Me: Time to tattoo. See you soon. Love you.

  I pocket my phone and look down at the stick, before grabbing it off the sink and opening the door, walking out. Riggan is waiting on me with the transfer in his hand. He looks at me. “Why do you look like you’re going to be sick.”

  “Can you cut something out of my arm?”

  “Uh, my job tools consist of needles not knives. Why?”

  “Because this stick says I’m pregnant and this thing in my arm is supposed to be birth control.”

  Before he can even develop an expression his eyes veer to the door. Mine follow, landing on a frozen Maddox standing in the doorway, which means he was already here when he was texting me. Fuck!

  Thirty-Seven

  Gabby

  For fuck’s sake, I should be used to that phrase by now. My god, I’ve heard it twice already this year, both within the last six months, but as I stand here in the doorway, unable to move, clearly it’s still a shock when it involves you and not your friends. It feels like summer all over again, when Riggan found out blondie was pregnant and I was by his side, only in reverse.

  At least we did make it out of high school this time. This time. Jesus. We haven’t even really dealt with the other situation yet. I just got her back. I’ve been busy trying to work out an ‘us’ first before jumping waist deep in shit I know nothing about in case it comes to legal advisement. If I’m not careful I could end up drowning.

  Should I really be surprised, though? This is Gabby we’re talking about. My sperm loves her eggs apparently, considering we just started back fucking last month. First time I come in her—pregnant. If it’s showing up on a piss stick it has to at least be a couple of weeks, which means within the first few after we started back having sex of me coming in her—pregnant. It’s like they’re in a race the second I let them out of the gate. Who would honestly believe this shit?

  My eyes drop from hers to the plastic stick in her hand. She quickly hides it behind her back. My steel toe boots start to move forward, my hand already out for it as I close the distance between us. “Let me see it.”

  “I swear to God I thought I was on birth control or I would have made you pull out.” Her thoughts are working overtime, like she’s processing exactly how that sounds. I can see it all over her face. “I am on birth control. I don’t know how this happened. I would never have been this reckless after—”

  “Gabby!” I snap, my patience wearing thin. It never was my strong suit. “We both know I wouldn’t have pulled out. That ship sailed when you were fourteen. I want to see it.”

  Her shoulders drop as she brings it between us. “You mad at me?”

  I shake my head, grabbing the exposed half, but she doesn’t let go yet, waiting for me to answer. “Yeah, I’m real mad this gives me another reason to lock your ass down,” I say sarcastically, picking up the smile she’s forcing back. “We didn’t talk about it. Sex was transitional back then. I knew you weren’t on it. That was the extent of the conversation. I used condoms until I quit. I pulled out until I didn’t. I never knew I got you pregnant until a month ago. With everything happening so quickly birth control never crossed my mind, even with two other knocked up girls in the house. You’ve always made it hard to think rationally.”

  She lets it go, allowing me to bring the test box in my direct line of sight.
Two pink lines. They’re not even faint. Only one thing bothers me from the way she was trying to hide it behind her back. “Had I not been standing there would you have kept this from me?”

  She looks at me, eyes so dark the black center is barely visible. “Maybe until I figured out what happened.”

  I point the stick at her, my anger causing my eyes to narrow. “That’s bullshit, Gabby, especially since I didn’t know I have a goddamn six-year-old somewhere in the world until recently. I don’t want to be left in the dark on one more motherfucking thing for even twenty-four hours. The second you know, I better know. I don’t keep shit from you, even if it puts me in the doghouse.”

  Her temper is flaring. I can tell by the way her nostrils keep widening. She grabs my hand and presses a finger to a place on her arm between her shoulder and elbow. “Feel that?” she grits out, letting me push on something tiny beneath her skin. It’s almost microscopic. If you weren’t looking for something, you’d miss it. “It’s supposed to be a birth control implant. My dad made me get it before I was discharged from the hospital after Madden was born. Had to get it changed my senior year. It’s just now getting close to time to change it again. They’re good for three years. There is no logical reason why I should be pregnant! Maybe it’s wrong.”

  I show her the little box side. “Does that look wrong? It’s solid. Both lines. Neither are faded.”

  She rubs her hands up and down her face. “You still carry a pocketknife. Cut this out of my arm. We can sterilize it. It shouldn’t be deep.”

  She goes for my pocket. I grab her wrist before she can pull my knife out of it that’s hooked on my pocket from the inside. “No one is cutting on your body but a doctor, crazy ass. Especially not if you’re pregnant.”