Her fingers came up to her mouth, tapping at her chapped lips, but she still made no move to let me in. “He needed to pay some bills, and there’s no money in the account she usually uses.”
“So you told John to hunt her down at work and ask her about it? Since when are her paychecks his to spend?”
“I didn’t tell him to do anything. She gets paid every Friday, and her paycheck wasn’t in there. He wanted to know where the money went. He thought I’d taken it out and hidden it somewhere. He went through the whole house looking for it, even though I told him it wasn’t here. It’s gonna take me a month to get this place back in order thanks to whatever meddling you’ve done!”
“Meddling? I’m trying to help. Ivy’s paychecks belong to her. John has his own job, right?”
“Why can’t you leave things alone? Why do you always have to cause problems? We were doing fine. Ivy was perfectly happy working at that restaurant, and now she’s talking about school and wanting things I can’t give her. Why you gotta give her dreams she’ll never make happen?” She started to cough, the watery, rattling sound shaking her slight frame. She’d always had asthma, and John’s smoking certainly did nothing to help it.
I took her by the elbow and led her inside. I could see now why she’d kept me out on the porch. While the place had been a cluttered, disorganized mess before, it now looked like a tornado had ripped through here. Paper and magazines littered the floor, topped with tumbled couch cushions and turned-over bottles. Drawers had been yanked out, their contents dumped on the floor. Things were so much worse than I could ever have imagined. And I’d made it this way.
Ivy had lied about things being okay—unless she hadn’t been here to witness the catastrophe. I wanted a timeline to verify what I hoped wasn’t true.
With a firm grip on my mom’s waist, I navigated a path through the mess to the ancient couch in the living room. It was barely a step up from the one on the front porch. She continued to hack, the rattle growing more pronounced the longer the fit went on.
Wading through the debris, I went to the kitchen and opened a creaky cupboard, locating the glasses. They were the same ones we’d had when I was a kid, the patterns nearly worn off now with washing and age. I filled it from the tap and sank down in front of her, holding it out.
“Here, Moms.”
She took it with shaking hands, spilling some of the contents on her robe. She was already in her pajamas, her shoulder-length hair pulled back in a clip. She looked well beyond her forty five years, lines and creases crowding out any remnants of youthfulness.
I stayed crouched beside her, rubbing circles on her back until she set the glass on the side table. Unlike the one beside John’s recliner, this one was clear of cigarette butts and half-empty beer bottles.
I gestured around the room. “When did this happen?”
“Just ’afore I went to work.”
“Ivy hasn’t seen this?”
She shook her head. “Ivy left early ’cause her manager called her in for a double. John was real upset about the money, Chris. Real upset.”
“Is this the only room he trashed?”
She looked down the hall, toward Ivy’s bedroom. “I haven’t had time to clean it up yet.”
I push out of my crouch, and she grabbed my wrist, her grip startlingly firm. “I’ll clean it up before she gets home. I was already starting.”
I gently pried her fingers away and went down the hall. Ivy’s room had been ripped apart. Her clothes littered the floor, and her bed had been turned over, the mattress hanging over the edge of the metal frame. The few knickknacks she owned lay in pieces on the scuffed parquet.
I stood there for a long while, fists clenching and releasing. I wanted to beat the living fuck out of John. And I could. I’d done it before—the day he’d kicked me out of the house. I’d had nothing left to lose since he’d taken it all anyway.
The problem was, I wasn’t sixteen anymore. As satisfying as it would be to lay him out, he’d press charges for sure, and then what? I’d walk right into the stereotype: deviant loser who beats on an old guy. My mom would never back me up on him having deserved it. On top of that, John was shady, and I was sure he knew shady people. If I laid a beating on him, he’d retaliate. It wasn’t worth the risk for Ivy or me.
I turned to my mom, still sitting on the couch, hands clasped in her lap. “You gotta get out of here,” I told her.
“And go where? Everything I have is here.”
“I’ll help you start over.”
“He was just angry.” She bent down to pick up scattered papers.
“Why are you making excuses for this?”
“You don’t understand. John has had a hard time of things lately being on the road all the time. The jobs haven’t been paying so good, and then me being off for a bit back in February set us back—”
I raised a hand to stop her, and she shrank back. It seemed like a conditioned response.
“I’m not going to hit you, Mom.”
She smoothed a hand over her hair. “Of course not. I’m just jumpy after what happened with John.”
“Is this kind of thing a common occurrence?” I motioned to the mess, in case she wasn’t sure what I was referring to.
“Like I said, it’s been stressful, and John’s trying to be good about the gambl—” She stopped mid-sentence, maybe realizing she’d given me information she shouldn’t have.
“Wait a fucking second. He’s gambling?”
“He’s been better about it, but lately, with all the missed bills—”
I couldn’t listen to her spew more bullshit. She was like a broken record, as if repeating the excuses would somehow change the outcome. I wanted to leave, to walk away from the latest nightmare I’d left my sister to grow up in. But I couldn’t. Because I didn’t want Ivy to see the damage my attempt at helping her had done.
“Hayden and Jamie are in the car. You remember the guys I work with at Inked Armor?”
My mother nodded.
“I’m gonna go get them.”
“But the house is a mess.”
“Exactly. I can’t let Ivy see this. She’ll feel guilty about it like she does everything. And you can’t clean this on your own before she gets home.”
She seemed to realize I was right and slumped back against the couch. I went to get the guys from the car.
Hayden rolled down the window at my approach, a deep frown hardening his features. “You all right, brother?”
“Not so much. I need some help.”
He didn’t ask any more questions. The window went up with a whir, and he cut the engine and opened the door. “What happened? Is your mom okay?”
“That’s a question I really don’t know how to answer without turning it into a therapy session. John trashed the place, including Ivy’s room. I just need to put it back together before she comes home.”
Hayden spun his car keys on his index finger. “You think it’s a good idea for Ivy to stay here?”
“Definitely not, but she won’t leave my mom here on her own, so this is the best I can do for now.”
“We could wait until she comes home and get her to come with us.” Jamie pretzeled himself out of the backseat.
“Tenley and I have plenty of room at our place if she needs somewhere to crash,” Hayden added. “She has options, if she wants them.”
I nodded, but Ivy was as stubborn as me. If she didn’t want to do something, she sure as hell wouldn’t be coerced by us. “I honestly don’t know that she’d go for it.”
“Well, the offer stands. Whatever you need, you got it.” Hayden clapped a palm on my shoulder. “Let’s get things under control, yeah?”
“It’s pretty bad,” I warned. Hayden had issues with clutter. This was going to blow his mind.
“We’ll deal.” Jamie followed us up the steps to the front porch and into the house.
My mom stood in the middle of the living room, holding a black garbage bag.
“
Holy shit,” Hayden breathed on an exhale.
“Sorry about the mess.” My mom patted her hair and ran her hands down the front of her robe, maybe realizing she wasn’t exactly dressed for company. “I should change.”
Jamie graced her with one of his warm smiles. “No worries, Mary. You don’t need to get changed on our account. We’re here to help get everything back in order. Right?” He elbowed Hayden in the side.
“Yeah. Definitely.” Hayden’s eyes bounced around the room.
“You boys have grown up since I last seen you.” She gave them a weak smile.
“Happens like that, doesn’t it? Ivy’s all grown up, too, isn’t she?” Jamie crossed the room and picked up the cushions from the floor, then lined them back up on the couch.
“She is. She’s a real smart girl. You got a girlfriend? Maybe Chris’ll introduce you.”
Jamie laughed, while I tried not to cringe. “I’ve got a fiancée.”
She patted his cheek. “Of course you do. Now I remember Chris telling me about her.”
I tried not to let it affect me, but it was hard to watch her share warmth with other people and keep it from me.
“And you—” She looked to Hayden, eyes soft. “Chris told me you found yourself someone special. Can’t say you don’t deserve someone after everything you’ve been through. Chris says she’s been through her own hard times.”
Hayden shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “She has. Tenley’s the best fu—uh, I love her. I’d probably marry her if she’d let me.”
Both Jamie and I turned to stare at him. Not once in all the years I’d known Hayden had I ever heard him say something like that. Of the three of us, Hayden lived the furthest outside the rules.
“Handsome man like you? She’d be crazy to say no.”
Hayden snorted. “Handsome isn’t a word I hear very often.”
I clapped him on the back. “Pretty is a better way to describe him, wouldn’t you say, Moms?”
She gave me an admonishing look. “Handsome suits you just fine.”
“We should get to it, yeah? What time’s Ivy supposed to be home?”
“She said she’d probably be working late tonight ’cause there’s some big game on, so she won’t be home ’til close to two. She might stay at a friend’s house near her work, though. I don’t like her riding around in the dark on that bike of hers.”
There it was, the façade of parental care. I gritted my teeth.
“She said she’d call to let me know if it wasn’t too late.”
I deliberately turned away and began to work. Hayden was like a machine once he got started, driven to make order out of chaos. I tried to tell him it didn’t matter if everything was perfect, but he couldn’t help himself. It was a compulsion. By the time he was finished, the kitchen was cleaner than it had been in probably twenty years.
It took almost two hours to clean the mess in the living room and Ivy’s bedroom. There was nothing we could do about the broken things, so I tossed them in the garbage with the rest of the trash, hoping she wouldn’t notice. I’d reviewed with my mom that Ivy didn’t need to know about the blowout, otherwise she’d feel responsible, and I didn’t want that. Mom said she was in agreement, but that didn’t ensure her silence. I hoped for Ivy’s sake she would keep this under wraps until it couldn’t do any more harm.
I messaged Ivy around one to make sure she was still at work. I got a response a few minutes later saying she still had a couple of tables, and that she’d be fine to get home.
We left at one-thirty in the morning, passing the bar where Ivy worked on our way out. The closed sign flashed in the window, which meant she’d be home soon. I didn’t bother shooting Sarah a message. She had to be asleep by now. At least I hoped she was. She was in desperate need of rest.
Hayden dropped me off at my place. Beat and filthy, I ignored my mail and the stack of newspapers piled on the floor and climbed the stairs to my apartment. I came to a dead stop at the end of the hall. Propped up against the door was Sarah.
She’d pulled her knees up to her chest, her cheek resting on top of them, long blond hair covering her face. Her purse was tucked into the space between her ass and her feet. A suit hung on the doorknob, the skirt a few inches from touching the floor. I dropped into a crouch and swept the hair away from her face.
“Baby?” I whispered, not wanting to startle her.
It didn’t work. She came awake with a jolt. Her hand went immediately to her purse.
“Hey, hey. It’s cool. It’s just me.”
She blinked a few times, her confusion shifting to relief, then she threw her arms around my neck, setting me off balance. I braced myself against the doorjamb so I didn’t land on top of her and wrapped my free arm around her waist. She held on a long while, her face buried against my neck, lips on my skin.
When she finally let go, I leaned back to look at her. Her eyes were red and a little puffy, whether from just waking up or crying, I didn’t know.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“Lisa said you went to your mom’s, and Jamie messaged her saying you guys were cleaning things up and you’d be a while. I knew you wouldn’t come back to my place. I wanted to make sure you were okay, but then I realized I didn’t have a key any more.”
“You didn’t need to do that. I’m fine.” It wasn’t really true, but worse than all the shit that had gone down tonight, I didn’t like that she’d felt compelled to sit outside my door on grimy carpet to wait for me. Some of the people in this building were real lowlifes.
“Why didn’t you just call me?”
“I didn’t want to be a disruption.”
“You’re not a disruption.” I got to my feet and extended a hand. “I should have let you know what was happening myself. Come on, let’s go inside.”
As we entered she hung her suit on one of the hooks by the front door. Unsteady in her groggy state, she used my chest for support as she kicked off her shoes.
Her arms came around my waist, her forehead resting against the side of my neck. “I was so worried about you. What happened tonight? Lisa said it was bad.”
I absorbed the affection like desert sand soaking up rain. She was so soft and warm, and she smelled like rosemary and mint—better than the stale cigarette smell that had seeped into my clothes from my mom’s house.
“Lisa’s exaggerating. It’s not that big a deal. You’ve got your own stuff going on.”
She lifted her head, fingers gliding along the edge of my jaw. “You can talk to me, Chris, about anything.”
I dropped a kiss on her lips, pulling back before I gave in to the urge to deepen it. “I need a shower. Why don’t you chill out on the couch?”
She stared up at me for a few long seconds. “Do you want company?”
I smoothed my palms down the sides of her neck and tapped my temple. “Usually I’d say yes, but I need a few minutes to get this in order.”
“Okay.” She kissed my cheek and stepped back. “I can go home if you want to be alone.”
“No, baby, I don’t want you to leave.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Give me five.” I kissed her forehead and stepped around her, heading for the bathroom.
I half expected her to be asleep when I came out. But she was lying there on the black leather three-seater, waiting for me. She’d even gotten a beer out of the fridge and made me a sandwich. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I ate it because she made it. I didn’t like how good it made me feel to have her here after a shitstorm like tonight.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” She tucked her toes under my leg.
I set the plate on the table, thinking about how this worn-out apartment was a huge step up from the house I’d been raised in, and how someone like Sarah should be living in a fancy condo, or a house like Hayden and Tenley’s.
“You don’t want to hear about my fucked-up family drama.”
She put
her hand on my forearm and squeezed. “You don’t have to keep this all inside. I know the last few months have been hard with the trial, and now this stuff with your sister. I want to listen, if you want to talk.”
I went with the one basic truth that explained everything and nothing at the same time. “My stepdad’s an asshole. That’s all there really is to say.”
She sat up on her knees, getting in real close. “What happened tonight?”
“I’m tired, baby. We should go to bed. You gotta be up early for your internship, right? I don’t want to be responsible for fucking that up with my garbage.”
I went to push up off the couch, but she grabbed my arm.
“You’re not going to screw up my internship. Just talk to me, please.”
It was such a temptation to unload my shit, to tell her the things I kept locked up inside. All that fear and hate and uncertainty, the sense that I was destined to screw things up, and to screw up the people around me. All the responsibility I felt because I couldn’t get my mom to leave the man who would eventually destroy her. My worry that Ivy would waste all her potential, like my mom had. How I wished I’d been present in Ivy’s life sooner so I could’ve saved her from the things she’d been through. That I worried my early circumstances would follow me forever and pull everyone I cared about down with me.
I wanted to give in and tell her what had gone down tonight. But then I’d be opening a door, one I couldn’t close again. She’d see the weakness and the parts of me I’d worked to keep hidden.
I could get lost in her for a while, though. Fuck out the bad thoughts, replace them with the sound and feel of Sarah, the one good thing I had in my life aside from Inked Armor and my sister.
I swept a thumb along her bottom lip. “You being here is enough. Let me put you to bed.”
There was resignation in her eyes as I leaned in and kissed her. Talking complicated things. But being with Sarah? That was simple. Easy. And right now, I couldn’t handle any more than that.
CHAPTER NINE
Sarah
I didn’t fight Chris as he picked me up off the couch and carried me to his room. As much as I wanted him to tell me what was going on, I hardly had the right to expect him to open up. Not when I was hiding things from him—things that could, and likely would, end us permanently.
Fractures in Ink Page 13
