Where Souls Spoil

by Jc Emery

  Chapter 8

  “WHAT THE FUCK are you doing home?” Grady snaps and turns to his daughter. Cheyenne takes two tentative steps inside the room and crosses her arms over her chest. Her nose is turned up, and her mouth is turned down. She looks positively grossed out, and truth be told, I can’t blame her. Teenagers don’t expect their parents to be human.

  “Half day, Dad. God,” she says in exasperation. I think for a moment and realize that she’s lying. I tilt my head to the side and watch as she delivers a beautifully crafted lie that, if I didn’t know our school schedule, I’d think was the honest-to-God truth. I could kick her ass for ditching, especially after how much work I’ve been putting into keeping her in school. Oh, we’re going to talk about this.

  She blows out a breath and bounces from foot to foot. “I told you this like last week. You never listen to me.”

  Cheyenne looks down at me, and her eyes bug out. She gives me a questioning glare before her wrath finds its target: her dad. “Holly, really? Oh my God. What the hell! You totally lied to me when I asked if you two were together!”

  Her voice rises into a scream. Unlike the last time he was being screamed at, he doesn’t lunge across the room and scare the crap out of her. His shoulders fall, and he rubs the back of his neck. He may be a big badass when he’s with his club, and he may be an even bigger ass when he’s around me, but he looks like a totally different person in his daughter’s presence.

  “What is your point?” he snaps. “What I do on my time is my business.” And just like that, the big, bad, scary dude is back and in full force. Only, Cheyenne doesn’t wither under his stare. She rolls her eyes and huffs. In a near mimic, he lets out a heavy breath and grunts. If this situation wasn’t so ridiculous and so uncomfortable, I might even find the similarities between the two to be humorous.

  “We have a deal, Dad,” she grumbles. “You promised you wouldn’t do...do…do that.” She points her finger at me then finishes with, “with anybody who works at my school. I mean, is no place sacred? I gave you a pass because I like Holly, but you totally freaking lied to me about it!”

  “Chill out,” he grumbles. “It’s not what you think. And cool it with the attitude, Cheyenne. Do not forget who you’re speaking to.” Cheyenne smashes her lips together and shakes her head.

  “Well,” she says in a slightly less heated manner, “This explains all the sexual tension.”

  Grady and his band of felons have put me in a pretty bad situation here. I’m not about to let my life fall completely apart all because I wanted a burger for lunch. My life is in shambles enough already. The least I can do is to, for once, be proactive, and to do something about my situation.

  “We’re sorry we didn’t tell you,” I say quickly. Grady's head spins around so fast I think the damn thing might fall off. The smile that spreads on my face is almost painful. He doesn’t like this, not at all, which makes it that much more fun. Cheyenne’s eyes grow large with surprise, and her mouth falls open just slightly.

  “We are?” he asks with a raised brow and a look of scorn on his chiseled face. I roll my eyes at him and give Cheyenne a wink.

  “It’s new. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. The truth is, your dad has been chasing me for a while. Then yesterday when I went to The 101 Club on your suggestion, we ran into each other. I just… couldn’t resist his charm any longer.” Not even halfway through my lie, my face is heating and I’m starting to sweat. I’m such an awful liar that I shouldn’t even be attempting to pull this off, but I’m not about to be the only honest one in the room.

  Grady’s eyes slide from me to Cheyenne before returning to me. “And what did we do at The 101 Club?” he asks. From behind him, Cheyenne gives him a confused glance.

  “Nothing. I got sick,” I say in a last-minute surprise of genius. Or stupidity. The jury is still out. “You brought me back here because you said you wanted to take care of me.”

  “Dad wanted to take care of you? Oh man, he must be in love then,” Cheyenne says. Her stare becomes uncomfortable, and then she bursts into laughter. Rich, joyous guffaws emanate from her as her chest shakes and she scrunches her face up. Whatever I’ve said is apparently so funny that she’s nearly in tears with her laughter.

  Grady turns back to me and gives me a hard stare. Feeling emboldened by his daughter’s presence, I stare into his eyes and smirk. “Baby, did you call my boss and Mindy to let them know I stayed over because I was sick?”

  “No,” he says. “That’s not my shit to handle.” I take too long deciding how to react. Now that I’ve dug myself into this ridiculous lie, I have to stick with it, and part of that is pretending to expect him to have called my boss and family to let them know I’m safe. But I’m too late, and Cheyenne reacts for me.

  “Dad, you really didn’t tell anyone she’s here? Can’t she, like, get in trouble for that or something?”

  “I can,” I say sadly and look up at Grady. I’m not sure what’s changed with Cheyenne since the day she flipped out on me in the office, but something obviously has. First with the greeting me in passing, and then the lunch recommendation—no matter how poorly that turned out—and now concern over me losing my job. Regardless of what kind of a father she has, she seems like a good kid who’s just been going through something.

  Grady’s jaw ticks, and he sucks in a deep breath. The more infuriated he becomes with me, the more it eggs me on to keep the lie going. I must have lost a lot of blood to be acting like such an insane person. I’m going to end up lying myself into “the alternative” if I’m not careful.

  “Oh good, you’re up,” an older woman says as she pushes past Cheyenne. She shares Grady’s and Cheyenne’s dark hair and green eyes. She has lines around her eyes, and her natural-looking, sun-kissed skin is free of makeup. As she approaches the bed, I notice that she’s wearing dark-washed denim and a lavender button-up blouse that has spots of dirt smeared on the lower half.

  Standing beside the bed now, the woman who I think might be Grady’s mother turns to Cheyenne and says, “You’re supposed to be in class. Now get your butt back to school.”

  “Half day,” I say instinctively. “Last minute decision on behalf of the staff. Seniors have a half day so the staff can plan their graduation trip.” I give the woman a smile that she doesn’t quite return. She looks speculatively toward Grady and then to Cheyenne.

  “Then go do homework or something,” she says to Cheyenne, who turns around and stomps out. The minute Cheyenne’s footsteps fade into nothingness, Grady turns and glares at me.

  “You fucked up,” he says.

  “No,” I counter. “I was saving my own butt since you were so eager to leave it out to hang. At least now I have a plausible excuse for disappearing for an entire day.”

  “Get one thing straight—you don’t call shots around here,” he barks back. The woman looks between us before lifting her hands in front of her.

  “Oh, Sterling, let’s not fight,” I say sarcastically. If it bothers him that I call him by his first name, after he’s told me not to, he doesn’t let on.

  “Look, just pretend to be saying your goodbyes in here, give the girl her money, and let her go. We’ll tell Chey you were a jerk and she dumped you,” the woman says.

  “Ma,” he says in a plea. “That is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”

  “Well, it’s no worse than that lie she made up,” his mother says. “I was listening from the hall.”

  “You think Chey will buy that?” he asks her.

  A wry smile spreads on her face, and she says, “That you were a jerk? Yes, I think it’ll require that she use her imagination, but I think it’ll work.” I try to keep the laughter building in my chest from erupting, but it’s no use. I dissolve into a fit of chuckles and finally calm down with a happy sigh.

  “You’re hilarious, Ma,” he says. “Now go distract Chey so I can get her out of here.”

  Giving me a small smile, his mother points at her chest and says, “
I’m Lisa.” Before I can even formally introduce myself, Grady is shoving her into the hallway and shutting the door behind her. When he turns around he’s not all easy smiles and sarcastic glances anymore. His face is hard, and a scowl has found its way to his lips.

  “How hard are you going to make this on me?” he asks. I try to summon the strength I need in order to explain myself.

  “I haven’t made anything hard on you. All I did was create an explanation my boss might be able to live with,” I say.

  “Fuck your boss,” he says. The hostility in his voice reminds me of how he stormed out of the office after the incident between Cheyenne and I during her last counseling session. Margot had spent a solid five minutes muttering on and on about something to do with Grady that I wasn’t even paying attention to. But now I’m wondering if I should have.

  “You got any kids?” he asks. I tense at the question. “Of course you don’t. My kid’s mom ain’t around because she’s one fucked up bitch. My brother, Chey’s godfather, is fucking dead, I got work shit, and there’s nothing I can do to make any of that shit any better. But you— she likes you. You think my kid needs to see you at school every day and think we had a relationship that went to shit? You think that’s gonna be good for her?”

  I didn’t know. Cheyenne never mentioned her mom, nor did she mention her godfather. I’d seen the news reports about the biker who died in a head-on collision with a SUV just a week or so ago. I knew it had been a member of Forsaken who died, but… I didn’t know. If there is anything he could say to make me regret my lie, that would be it. I let my shoulders slump as I ingest the weight of his comment. I don’t have kids—not even close to it in fact—and I don’t come from divorced parents. So I guess I really don’t know what any of that’s like. And if my little lie causes Cheyenne any kind of grief, then I’m sorry for that. I was just so focused on aggravating him that I didn’t think about how my lie would affect Cheyenne. Still, twenty-five grand may be nothing to scoff at, but it won’t keep me afloat for even a year. Money or no money, I just can’t afford to lose my job.

  “I need my job,” I say.

  “I don’t really give a shit what you need,” he hisses.

  “That’s pretty damn apparent,” I say, louder than I intend. “I was just doing my job and trying to help a kid that nobody else seemed to give a crap about!”

  “How many times I got to tell you—keep your mouth shut about my kid,” he shouts. His voice booms and practically reverberates off the walls of the room.

  “As many times as it takes for you to listen to me,” I yell back.

  “Shut up!” he screams. He crosses the room, presses his balled fists into the mattress on either side of me. He’s so close that when he huffs, his breath heats my skin. He’s so angry that he’s practically shaking.

  I lean forward so fast that I accidentally ram my nose into his. The impact stings, but I only pull back an inch and force myself not to flinch. I’m so angry and feel so guilty that my heart slams in my chest. When I speak, I keep my voice low and steady.

  “Look, it’s done.” This man has worn the sense right out of me. I can’t think of another situation where I became so thoroughly fed-up that I totally lost myself. Grady is just a special sort of infuriating. I feel awful about Cheyenne, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. “You can’t rewrite history, so just roll with it.”

  “Fuck,” he says, pushing off the bed. He huffs and mumbles to himself a moment before turning around and facing the wall next to the door. His right arm twitches, and he draws back his left leg, brings it forward, and slams it into the wall in front of him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  I sit motionless and wait, praying that he calms down soon. The angrier he gets, the longer it’s going to take me to get out of here. I just want this nightmare to end, but everything I say that’s meant to make things better just ends up making them worse. So I decide to just not say anything else.

  He huffs and grumbles for several more minutes before finally turning to face me again. “Let’s get a few things straight—I am not a patient man. I’ve been kind so far, but make no mistake about it, I do not like improvising. You want to tell the entire fucking world that you fucked me, go right ahead, baby. You tell everybody I put my dick inside you and pummeled you so hard you’re having trouble walking today. You tell everybody how I fucked you hard and fucked you raw. In fact, you want my dick so badly, take it.”

  I cover my face with my hands the moment he reaches down and starts to unbuckle his belt. A moment passes before he says, “Thought so.” And then he disappears. It’s minutes later when Lisa comes into the room. She doesn’t say much except that she’s going to help me up and out of the house. With no little amount of embarrassment, Lisa tells me that my injury is little more than a nasty bruise on my hip from where Grady fell on me and his gun slammed into me, and a mild bullet graze. Even if I’d only been going on with the dramatics in my head, I’m still mortified that I thought I’d been badly shot. All in all, she’s really quite kind about it.

  On my way out, I don’t see Grady or Cheyenne at all. I tell myself that it’s for the best. Really, in all the years I’ve distantly fantasized about the club and the men in it, never did I think I’d be in this position. I walk gingerly to my car, aided by Lisa, and when I climb inside, I find that it’s been cleaned, with no sign that I was bleeding all over the seats just yesterday.

  “Someone will be by with the first payment in a few days,” she says. She’s got her hand on the outside handle of the open driver’s side door.

  “Oh, I don’t really want the cash. I just want to be left alone,” I say.

  “Word of advice? You want to be left alone—take the money and be done with it. Arguing is only going to invite trouble,” she says. I go to defend myself, but she holds her hand up and shakes her head. “I’m just the messenger.”

  She shuts the door and steps away from the car. I take that as my cue and pull out of the driveway then drive slowly away from the Grady residence and back to my normal life.

  Chapter 9

  “YOU’RE SURE— YOU don’t have any ibuprofen?” I ask Margot as I rub my temples. Mr. Beck has been in his office with Jeremy Whelan for the last ten minutes and it’s starting to get loud. It doesn’t matter that the door is shut and his office is all the way down the hall. I can hear practically every single word of what’s being said. Jeremy, a senior who is unlikely to graduate, is asking for a work permit. For the fourth time. He’s awfully persistent and if I didn’t know his story, I might think it a little weird that he wants a job so badly. Most kids are reluctant to work, but Jeremy’s sister, Nic is the only family he has as far as I know. Nic works with Mindy and neither of them make much. I just wish Mr. Beck would give Jeremy a break— even if the kid is being a real pain in the butt.

  My elbows are resting on my desk and I’m hunched over. Everything aches from my ache to my head to my soul. Even the no-longer-bruised spot above my hip aches. It could be cramps or I could be crazy. With how awful I feel right now, it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is that apparently nobody in this godforsaken building has any pain killers and Mr. Beck’s voice carries. I look at the clock on the wall and see that they’ve been in there arguing for longer than I thought. It’s been closer to fifteen minutes of straight-up bitching.

  “Sorry, girl,” Margot says.

  “Hey Margot, what the hell is actually going on in there?” I ask and blow out a frustrated breath. I know Jeremy needs a work permit, and Mr. Beck won’t give him one, but what I don’t understand is why Mr. Beck hasn’t kicked him out of his office yet. Margot wheels around and leans against my desk. Her eyes are wide and excited. I plaster my best friendly smile on my face and wait for the dirt.

  “I thought Sterling would have told you,” she says. We’ve been dancing around the topic of my alleged association with Sterling Grady for a while now. I just shake my head no and try not to fuel her curiosity any further. “Well,
anyway. So Jeremy got a job working at Forsaken Custom Cycle. He came to me for a permit and I had to deny him because his grades are too low. He begged me to give him the permit, but I told him to talk to Mr. Beck.”

  “Yeah,” I say. I knew all of that. “But why hasn’t Mr. Beck kicked him out of his office?” I’ve never seen a student be so flat-out disrespectful to Mr. Beck before. It’s not that Mr. Beck is a particularly tough man or that he’s intimidating, but most students have some kind of respect for his position and try not to tick him off. When I went to school here, the only kids that got away with much of anything are now members of Forsaken.

  “After the second time Mr. Beck denied Jeremy’s permit, Jim Stone came in and personally asked Mr. Beck to approve it. He didn’t and Mr. Stone got pretty mad. I think Mr. Beck is scared of getting another visit from the president of the club.”

  It all makes sense now. Mr. Beck is the typical administrator who thinks he knows better than everyone around him. He’s always avoided confrontation with the club as best he can which is why he won’t expel Cheyenne— or Jeremy for that matter— himself, but he pushes both Margot and I to do it for him. If only I had known this before I made the trip out to Grady’s house, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. I didn’t want trouble from the club, either, but I guess Mr. Beck is really only concerned about keeping his own ass out of the fire. That jerk let me chase after Grady for months— even during summer session— and he never once bothered to tell me who he is and what I was walking into.

  “Jeremy’s family could use the money. Mr. Beck can’t help at all?” I ask. Sure, Nic is with one of the guys in the club now, and I’m sure he’s going to take care of her and their baby, but that doesn’t mean anything for Jeremy, I don’t think. I don’t really know anything about how the club members earn their money aside from the rumors that swirl around town. If Jeremy says he needs the job to help his family, then I trust that he does.