by Tara Oakes
I don’t have time for this shit.
~*~
The knock on my door catches my attention.
“Yeah?”
It opens slightly. “Dawson? I have the deposit from the bar for you.”
I know that voice. It’s two-forty five in the morning, and I’m tired as hell, but I still know that voice.
Angel looks tired and worn out, having survived her first night here, which just happened to be one of the busiest in a long time.
“I’ll take it.” I hold out my hand for the blue vinyl zip-top bag. “How’d you do in tips?”
She smiles. God, there’s something about her smile. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t do it much at all. “So much better than I thought I would.”
I nod while unzipping the bag and counting out a small stack of bills. “For you.”
Her eyes widen. “Th—that’s too much. I’m a glorified bartender. Why are you paying me so much?”
I breathe deep. “Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to give me back money I had given you?”
She bites her lip.
Tossing the deposit bag into the wall safe, I spin the dial locking it up tight. “I’ll walk you out. Anytime you leave you make sure a brother walks you out. People, for the most part, know better than to try stupid shit in our club, but drunk people don’t usually think straight. Safer this way for everybody.”
I hand her the folded bills and nudge her to move as she’s frozen in place.
“I can get Esè to walk me out, really. You look busy,” she offers.
Hmm. “I said I’ll walk you, I’ll walk you.”
She continues to protest as I lead her to the back door. “Dawson, I’ll just hang around and wait for the other girls.”
I know the girls. I don’t want Angel getting caught up in their kind of after-party.
“You got a kid to get home to, Angel. Let’s go.”
She’s dragging her feet, I can tell. What the fuck? I get the whole independent thing she’s got going on, but seriously, you’d think the chick has never had a guy open a door for her the way she’s reacting right now.
“Which one’s yours?” I ask while scanning the still full back lot. Some of the girls leave after we close down for the night but most hang back and party with the brothers for a while.
“Umm, about that,” she can’t look me in the eye.
I start feeling like I’m about to get real fucking pissed off.
“How’d you get here, Angel?” I want a fuckin’ answer, praying it’s not the one I’m pretty damn sure she’s about to give me.
Her eyes cast down, dart around, her fingers fumble with her pocket. “Look, I tried to find another way, really I did. If I took a cab, I’d be late.”
I feel my blood begin to boil as she rattles off her explanation for defying me.
“But, from now on, I promise I’ll make sure to call them early enough. At this rate, I’ll probably have enough cash saved up to buy a decent used car in another week or so.” She’s calling after me as I stride past her, searching the lot for that piece of shit she calls a car.
Once I find it, I stalk off, reaching into my back pocket for my pocketknife, unfolding it so it’s at the ready. Yeah, I could use bullets to do what I’m about to, but the last thing I need on my ass right now is some local fucker calling the cops thinking a gunfight’s breaking out.
I bend down, making my intentions clear.
“Wait!” she shouts, trying to stop me.
The loud, pressurized hissing sound spills out of each tire as I stab them one by one.
“What the fuck are you doing that for?” She tries to grab hold of my shoulder.
I feel the thick vein near my ear throbbing and pulsing. “You serious? I tell you not to do something, you don’t fucking do it, Angel! You thought I wouldn’t find out? Thought I wasn’t serious last night?”
“You’re a fucking animal! You’re crazy!” She stares in shock at the pile of steel that’s now set on the ground in a puddle of deflated tires.
“Get your fucking shit from the car. It’s gonna get torched along with anything inside.”
Angel looks around furiously for anyone to step in and stop me. God help the person who tries, who gets in my business.
“You—you can’t do this!” She tells herself.
I laugh loudly. “Baby, I can do whatever the fuck I want. Right now I want you to get your shit outta that car while I get my bike. I’m taking you home.”
She’s mad. I don’t care. I’m madder. I’m fuckin’ furious at her. I try to calm myself down as I walk around the building to my bike but it’s no use. Every step I take seems to reinforce the anger. Nobody disobeys me. Nobody.
When I return to her, she’s standing with her arms crossed with her cell phone in hand. “I called a cab.”
“Great. Now get on.” I spit out, handing her the helmet.
She scoffs at it. “I said I called a cab.”
I can see how this is gonna go. I dismount, leaving my bike idling and walk closer to her. She takes a step back.
“And I said great. I also said get on the fucking bike, but you seem to be too tired to move on your own, so I’ll give you another minute before I pick you up and put you there myself. Your choice.”
There are tiny little dimples spread out over her chin as she’s snarling at me. “I am not getting on that bike with your Baby right inside that building!”
I shake my head trying to decipher her gibberish. “What the fuck are you talking about? That’s the second time you said something about my baby. I got no baby, Angel. You’re the one with a kid.”
Angel looks at me like I have two heads. “Do you think I’m stupid? The woman who trained me. You keep calling her Baby, and by the looks of it, she’s about seven months pregnant. With yours.”
I nearly choke. So that’s what the fuck that was about!
“That’s her name, Angel. Her name’s Baby just like yours is Angel. She got it a long time ago when she started hanging around. I don’t even remember who gave it to her. Could’ve been her Ol’ man. The one who’s kid she’s carrying. Stitch.”
Her eyes are full of curiosity. “I don’t know….”
I’m losing my patience. “God strike me down now if I’m lying. Now get on the back of the fucking bike.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MOLLY
“You’re going the wrong way,” I shout out.
“What are you talking about? I followed you home myself last night,” he recounts.
This is going to suck, only make things worse. “That wasn’t my place last night.”
I’ve never ridden on the back of a bike before and am holding on to him for dear life, so much so that I can feel every muscle in his back tighten as I make my confession.
“What the fuck you talkin’ about?” I struggle to hear him over the loud noises and rumbling. It’s stupid to even try and have a discussion in an instance like this.
“Left, here.”
He follows the turn by turn directions I give him until we pull into my neighborhood, and finally in front of my place as the bike rolls to a slow stop.
The engine is cut.
“You’ve got to be fucking with me,” his reaction isn’t far off from what I expected.
Holding on to him, I balance myself as best as I can while getting off the tall bike. “It’s not much, I know.”
He eyes me quizzically. “You do know there’s a drug house around the corner, right?”
I shrug my shoulders, undoing the borrowed helmet and holding it out for him. “I figured it was but didn’t know for sure. Thanks for the ride.”
The helmet stays in my outstretched hand, unclaimed.
“How long have you lived here?” He’s a nosy SOB, isn’t he?
Giving up on the helmet, I hang it by the strap on one of the handlebars and turn to walk up the path. “Eight months. See you at work tomorrow.”
It isn’t long before I hea
r the heavy booted steps thudding behind me, following me. I close my eyes tight. Why is he doing this?
“Look,” I turn abruptly. “Really, thanks for everything, but I need to get some sleep. I’ve got to pick Sasha up early in the morning.”
He looks relieved. “Well, at least you had better sense than to have her in there,” he eyes the house behind me, “for another night.”
“First, you ruin my car, now you’re insulting my home--”
He interrupts me. “That’s not a home.”
I throw my hands up in surrender. “Look, it’s what I could afford, alright? It was either this or the street.”
“Don’t give me that shit. There are services for people in that kind of situation. Rent assistance. Especially for mothers with children.”
I shake my head emphatically. “I can’t do that.”
It’s clear he’s getting fed up. He just doesn’t understand. “Why? Because you’re so strong and independent that you can’t possibly accept help or advice from anyone?”
His words serve as a slap across the face and I stand before him stunned. I’ve never let words affect me before, but for some reason his do.
“No, you asshole. Because if I go to any kind of services they’ll take Sasha away from me!” I turn quickly to hide the lone tear that’s welling up in my eye at the thought of her being ripped away.
Practicing deep breaths I move along closer to the front door, fumbling with my keys in the dark. I feel for the familiar ridges and grooves of the key I need now that my eyes are blurry with tears, but the set of them falls from my grasp and lands on the cement stoop with a metallic thud.
Bending down low, I pat the surface of the ground looking for them.
“Here. I’ll find them.” Dawson joins me, helping in the search. “Why would they take your daughter from you? Having an unsafe car and living in a bad neighborhood doesn’t qualify you to have your kid taken away, Angel.”
I sniffle, doing my best to make sure that my words sound anything but whiny. “She’s not my daughter.”
I finally find the keys I’ve been looking for and put them to good use, opening up the apartment. It’s no shock that he follows.
“What do you mean she’s not your kid? You steal her?”
Tossing my bag aside, I reach for a napkin on the kitchen counter to use as a tissue. “No, I didn’t steal her. She’s my niece. Her mother is my older sister.”
His body language and facial expressions are evidence that he doesn’t understand. Other than Lana, my sister, and my mom, not one other living person knows what I’m about to tell him.
“My sister’s a junkie. A bad one. So is Sasha’s father. They split before Sasha was even born. I was away at school and what little information my mom gave me wasn’t exactly the whole deal. We’d hoped having a kid would give Tina a reason to straighten out, to get clean. It did … for a little while. But, like most junkies she went back to her habit and left for long periods of time. She stole from my mom, took out credit cards in her name, and eventually bailed on her kid in the middle of the night, dropping her off on my mom’s porch.”
Dawson seems interested in the story, taking a seat in one of the tall kitchen stools. I can’t help but notice how silly he looks in it. A big guy like him trying to fit on a cheap, flimsy stool.
“So you’re her guardian, then. They can’t take her.”
If only it were that simple.
“No,” I finish the explanation. “I’m not her guardian. Tina never signed any papers. If I go to the courts and seek guardianship they’ll look for Sasha’s dad first, before even considering me. I can’t risk her falling into his hands. He beat my sister, was the one who got her hooked on drugs. He did a lot worse that I can’t even talk about. I can’t let him take Sasha.”
Dawson’s quiet for a moment while he processes the information.
“Look, this isn’t your problem. None of it. I appreciate your concern and listening to me ramble on about it, but it’s not going to change anything. I’ll figure it out--”
“You always do,” he interrupts me, parroting the phrase he’s heard me say before.
With my moment of weakness passed, I throw the tear dampened tissue away and stand straight. “It’s late. You should leave. Go home and get some sleep, Dawson.”
He smirks. “You’re the one giving me orders now?”
I give a half-hearted chuckle at his joke, tired and drained from the events of the night.
Dawson abandons the stool he’s been sitting on and stands, snaking his arms through the holes in his leather vest until he’s free of it, folding it in half and setting it on my kitchen table.
‘What are you doing?” I watch as his black long sleeved shirt is now on display, hugging every muscle underneath.
Next, he kicks out of his black boots. “I doubt you’ll listen to me if I tell you to pack up a bag and come back to my place for the night so I’m camping out on your sofa.”
Holding up my hand, I figuratively stop him in his tracks. “Why on earth would you do that?”
He looks around my small apartment. “Because, Angel. You live in a shithole, despite how hard you’ve tried to make it a home. A shithole surrounded by other shitholes in a shithole neighborhood with shithole drug dens and dealers on the corners. If I knew this last night, you bet your ass I wouldn’t have let you stay here another night. But, now that I do know it, I’m not about to pretend that I don’t. We’ll get you set up in a decent place tomorrow. For now, let’s just get through the night.”
“I--” I begin to protest, but he interrupts me yet again.
“You don’t need my help. You don’t want any help. I got it. Loud and clear. And, Angel, I don’t give a shit. I help who I want, when I want. So don’t waste your time. It’s late. Get some sleep. You’ve got a lot of packing to do tomorrow.”
I’m nowhere near done putting up a fight, but am rendered speechless by what happens next. In one fluid motion, Dawson pulls the tight black shirt overhead and throws it into the pile he started with his cut.
I feel my jaw become slack and open. My legs weaken as I count the perfectly defined muscles in his stomach, and trace with my eyes the notched indent that slants above his hip with my eyes, setting on the very small little hairs that start to show themselves just above the waistband of his low hung jeans.
My throat nearly closes and my mouth dries.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I haven’t seen a man nearly naked in at least a year. Especially one this hot or this close.
“Why are you doing this? Why would you want to help me? Someone you barely know.” It’s a mystery that I’ve been mulling over in my head since yesterday but am no closer to an answer. I find that my voice is a shadow of itself, just a whisper.
His chest, his picture perfect chest rises and falls, with smooth bulges in just the right places. He raises his hand and pushes his fingers back through his hair, breathing out, exasperated.
“No fucking clue, Angel. It’s just something I need to do.” It sounds as if it’s as much of a mystery to him as it is to me.
We lock eyes, each staring curiously at the other, not knowing how the hell we ended up where we find ourselves now. The day-old scruff on his chin, on his jaw, calls to me in some way, just begging for my fingers to pass over it, to caress it.
The smirk on his lips, the gleam in his eye ... I may not have been with a man in a longer time than I care to admit but I’m still a woman. I still know what those things mean.
“Fine then. Good night, Dawson.” I turn on my heels and close myself behind the bedroom door before things get out of hand, before we do something I know I’ll regret.
~*~
What the hell was that?
I waken harshly, bolting upright, breathing frantically. My eyes dart around the darkened room, searching. My brain is sluggish to form thoughts other than the basic instincts to somehow protect myself.
There it is again!
A cra
shing noise rattles through the night on the other side of the bedroom window, directly above my head. My pulse violently thuds and thumps in my ears.
Sasha!
Ripping the soft covers off my legs, I bolt to my bedroom door not caring about whatever danger could be lurking outside. I need to protect the baby. My bare feet move quickly over the old, worn wooden floors of my apartment.
Once I’m in her small room next to my own, I lunge onto her bed to scoop her up. She has terrible nightmares and doesn’t sleep well most nights. I’m surprised the noise didn’t startle her to wake screaming for me.
Closing my arms around the mass in her bed, I struggle to decipher why it’s so soft.
It’s only blankets. Just blankets.
My already quickened breathing is now erratic while searching her small bed. Nothing. Nothing except her bedding. She’s not here.
“Sasha!” I call out, noticing a primal choking sound to my words and I panic.
The apartment is still dark, but I find my way with memorized steps through the small room, calling out for all the while.
I hear nothing, see nothing, although my vision is suddenly razor-sharp, piercing the darkness and shadows.
The front door is wide open, with only the screen door in place.
Shit!
“Sasha!” I throw myself out into the cool night in nothing but my night clothes, feeling warm streaks running down my cheeks as tears of worry and alarm begin to flow freely.
There! In the corner by the trashcans! I see a tall shadow leaning down and I run toward it, my feet landing on patches of dewy grass.
“You drunk son-of-a-bitch!” An angry male’s voice grumbles as I approach. “Think it’s a good idea to touch someone else’s bike?”
What?
I see a large man with moonlight shining off his muscular arms, wrapped around something as he bends low. It’s nearly a full moon tonight, bright enough to see things I ordinarily wouldn’t.
There’s another man with shaggy hair sprawled on the ground at the stronger man’s feet. His head is in some type of chokehold, and I can smell the strong stench of beer radiating off his clothes.
