by Deja Voss
My dad has been pretty cold towards me ever since he found out about Brooks and I. I don’t know if it’s because he just genuinely doesn’t like Brooks or if he thinks I should stay permanently single so he can control my every move. Probably a little of both. Moses and I may have a troubled past, but I’ve always been able to see where he’s coming from. I don’t exactly like his goals for the club, but I also understand why he makes the choices he makes. If anything, I can serve as the bridge between him and my brother, making sure that nobody ends up accidentally dead.
But when Dad freezes me out like this, I feel like there’s nothing I can do. I feel like this is when bad stuff starts to happen.
I settle into my paperwork, printing out the last three months of payroll information while I start filling out quarterly tax sheets. Just as I’m getting into a groove, there’s a knock on the door. My dad peeks his head around the corner. He’s smiling, not in his ready to kill way, but like he’s actually being genuine. My first instinct is to be concerned. The kind of stuff that makes this man happy is the kind of stuff you find on a homicide detective’s desk.
“You mind if I come in?” he asks.
“Sure, Daddy,” I say, taking off my glasses, looking up from my work. “Have a seat. What’s up?”
“Are you ok?” he asks, his tone serious. “I haven’t talked to you in a while and I just want to make sure you’re ok.”
“I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me that. I’m great. Life is great. Are you ok?”
“I just worry about you. With Brooks. I just worry about what he’s up to. I just don’t want to see you get hurt is all.”
“Dad, he’s not up to anything. I’ve known him his whole life. So have you. That man might be fierce and dangerous when it comes to protecting his club, but that includes me.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, grabbing for my hand. “You know he hasn’t been right since his father died. He’s even gone as far as to blame Tanner’s death on me. Can you believe that?”
I can believe it. In the back of my mind, nothing has ever fit together in terms of how Brooks’s dad died, or why he died. He never showed signs of depression. The suicide note was cruel, blaming Brooks for everything. It was a weird situation.
“Has he actually said that to you?”
“No, but you know how people talk. No secrets up here on the mountain. But that boy, he’s always full of secrets. He’s a bad influence on you and your brother. Always has been. Just look at what happened with poor Morgan.”
As far as I know, “poor Morgan” is living a life of luxury with Joe Salazar, and finally out of my hair for good.
“The girl’s been staying with Olive ever since we picked her up. She’s all sorts of messed up, won’t even come around. The only person she’ll talk to is Brooks. You know, the guy who is responsible for selling her off to a crime boss.”
“Daddy, that was all me,” I assure him. “Brooks just brought her along because she wanted to come.” I don’t know why I’m defending him. I’m more concerned about the fact that my dad’s making it sound like they’re in contact behind my back. And Olive was just at my house. Why didn’t she say anything?
She did, though.
She said it all when she asked me if I was keeping my trailer as a place to go in case things got bad. She isn’t stupid. She was warning me without coming right out and saying it.
“You would’ve never done that if he didn’t get in your head. You’re a good person, Esther. That’s why I never got upset about that whole incident, as ridiculous as it was. I knew it wasn’t you. But seeing you two all lovey-dovey and knowing what kind of guy he is, that shit upsets me.”
He’s holding my wrist in his hand a little harder than necessary, and his wrinkled, hardened face just looks sad. He looks defeated. He looks broken, almost remorseful. I only remember seeing this look one time before, sitting there in my Aunt Mary’s living room before he sent me off to my fate. I feel disgust creeping through me, knowing there’s only half-truths in anything my father says, but usually it’s the worst, most hurtful, parts of his words.
He points out everyone else’s bad so his looks a little less worse.
“I’ll take care of it,” I say. “I’m a grown woman. I know what I’m doing.”
At least I’m going to pretend like I do. I’m going to call Brooks and we’re going to talk it out like normal couples do.
“I know you’re grown. It’s hard watching your kids grow up and not be able to do anything about it. I would give everything I had to have you back to six. You were just a lanky little tomboy who wanted to know when you’d start growing a beard like your old man.”
“I wanted to be like you, Dad. I wanted to be a Misfit more than I wanted anything else,” I chuckle, thinking about how much love there was around that table when I was a kid. My grandfather always spoiled Gavin and I, and the door was never closed during meetings. The older we got, the more people died, the darker things became.
“Well now you are, I’m afraid,” he laughs. “And you know I’m not going to be around forever. I need to know that you’re going to keep my legacy safe, Esther. I can’t trust any of your blood brothers to do it; hell, two of them ran off, and Gavin, he’s a dreamer, but not a doer. His only mission in life is to poke holes in everything I say and do just to spite me. He’s holding some sort of long-term grudge, which is ridiculous. The boy’s always gotten everything he wanted. I spoiled him.”
I hate when my father talks like this. I go to stand up, but he’s still holding my wrist tight. Maybe he did spoil Gavin, but he ruined the rest of us.
Even more disturbing is the fact that he thinks I’m like him. I have seen the pain and suffering this man has caused. I have experienced it firsthand. I wasn’t acting like Brooks when I left Morgan with Salazar. I was acting like him, through and through. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“I gotta go, Dad,” I say. “Get off me.”
“If you really care about the club, you’ll listen to what I’m saying. You’re too good for him. If you stay with him, you’re playing a dangerous game. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re not meant to be with him. You have one purpose in this life, and that’s to protect the Misfits, not run around and play house with a boy who you had a crush on when you were a kid. You’re grown-up now, Esther. You have a job. You have a purpose, and as long as I’m alive, you will know exactly what that is. And if this Brooks thing keeps getting in the way of the function of my club, then you know exactly what’s going to have to happen.”
“Don’t threaten him, Dad. He’s one of your own. He’s one of your men.”
“Yeah, well if he hurts my little girl, I’m going to hurt him.”
“What about all the other men you let hurt me, Dad? What about that?”
“That’s not real life, Esther. That’s just acting, and you know it. You don’t let those men inside you. You are always in control.”
“Even when I was eighteen and you left me for dead with the Tigers, when you sold me off? When they actually did hurt me?”
“You had to learn somehow. You know I didn’t think it would get that out of hand. I thought you’d get over it by now, but you’ve always been so dramatic. Think about the men who have died for this club. Think about the way that, every time we go on a raid or a job, we risk getting killed. You get to go party on yachts with rich men who want your body. Sounds like you don’t realize your place, though.”
The room is spinning, and I feel like I’ve been punched repeatedly in the guts. How can he be so wrong and so right at the same time?
I run to the bathroom and lose my breakfast, crying and dry heaving as I try to keep from collapsing on the dirty tile floor. I need to get out of here. I need to be alone. I bolt out of the clubhouse and shield my eyes from the August sun, my lungs burning as I sprint to my trailer.
He’s a no-frills kind of guy, and I like that. He’s not into playing dress up. He just wants me, and it’s hot a
nd exciting and there isn’t a day that goes by where he doesn’t want to pin me to a wall or throw me over his shoulder and carry me up the steps.
“What are you going to do with all this?” she asks.
I browse through the pile, pulling out anything green, his favorite color. Just for a special occasion. I take the purple crushed velvet teddy I was wearing the night I caught him spying on me. That could be fun someday down the line.
“Think there’s a school for strippers I could donate it to?” I laugh. She looks like she’s seriously considering the thought. Olive is definitely not stupid, but she’s got a wild imagination and is a little on the gullible side. “We’ll just put it in storage for now.”
“What are you going to do with this place?” she asks. “Are you going to keep it as a hideout if you guys are fighting or something?”
“People do that?” I ask her. I couldn’t imagine. If Brooks and I get into a fight, I wouldn’t run away. I’d want to work to make things right. Maybe I’m Pollyanna about the way relationships work.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “It just seems like everything is so perfect with you guys. It’s awesome. It gives me hope for love, don’t get me wrong. I guess I just expected there to be some sort of dark secret or something that kept you two from getting together sooner. It’s like everything fell into place all of a sudden.”
I hold up a green corset, looking at myself in the full-length mirror and smiling.
“It’s hard to keep dark secrets up here on this mountain, Olive,” I remind her. “My business has been on blast my entire life. He doesn’t judge me for my past.”
“And you don’t judge him? Not even a little bit?” she asks, cringing. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve chewed my arm off more times than I like to admit. Is it hard seeing girls he’s slept with on a regular basis?”
“I think about it this way, Olive. We’re all looking for something in this life, but there’s this gap of time where we don’t know what that something is. We let ourselves get jaded, we think that whatever we’re looking for, whatever it is, we’re never going to find it or have it. So we just do stuff that makes us feel good. We do stuff to fill the void so that we can feel ok for a little bit, even if it means feeling terrible the next day. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life looking down at him because he was trying to hurt less. If he wanted to be with any of those girls right now, he would. He’s a good man. All these guys in the club are. They’re just really passionate. They know they want something, but they don’t know what it is. And all it really boils down to in the end is a good woman who’s going to love and respect and support them. It doesn’t matter who that is or what she’s done. As long as she’s a kind person with good intentions, the past is irrelevant.”
“God, you’re so smart,” she sighs.
“I am really kind of baffled that I’ve never seen you with anyone, Ollie. You are either really good at keeping your shit on the downlow, or you’re a secret nun. You know how much all these guys love you. What’s holding you back?”
“I dunno.” She shrugs. “I guess this is the first time in my life where I’ve felt like I have a family, a good job, people who care about me, and I care about, too. I feel like every day I’m one accidental drunk hand job in the janitor’s closet away from going back to my old life.”
“You know we’d never let that happen to you,” I assure her. “We love you too much. You deserve to be happy. There’s not much you can do around here that we’ll judge you for, take it from me,” I laugh. “I mean, let’s face it, we can sugarcoat it all we want, but I’ve been literally a whore for the last fifteen years of my life.”
“Nah,” she says, hugging me. “Don’t say that. Brooks has been bragging all month about how you handle business. The fact that you sold Morgan for guns is pretty much the highlight of all of our lives.”
“I didn’t sell her!” I insist. “I lent her out. The fact that the dipshit decided that she wanted to move in permanently with those weirdos is all her. But yeah. I guess it’s one less person I have to see on a daily basis that my man hooked up with. And that IS nice.”
“What do you think about renting this place out, Esther?” she asks. “I think I might be interested.”
“You’re gonna move up here on the mountain with us? I kind of love that idea. It’d be so awesome to have another girlfriend nearby.”
“I love this trailer. Other than the fact that there’s no blinds in your windows. Is that like a stylistic choice or is there something you’re not telling me?”
“A little bit of both,” I laugh.
31
Brooks:
“Esther’s not answering her phone,” I say to Gavin, nervously pacing the campfire. The guys and I have the mash cooking, and by this time tomorrow, we should be able to run the moonshine and jar it up.
“Who cares?” He shrugs. “She’s probably sleeping. Leave her alone.”
I haven’t heard from her all day. No text, no nothing. I know she wants to let me have my time with my friends, and that’s just one of the million reasons why she’s so awesome, but I figured she’d at least check in at some point. I don’t like thinking about her all alone in that big house without anyone to look after her. We’re at least an hour away. Even if something did happen, there’s not much I can do.
“Hey, boys!” a husky voice calls from the darkness. She’s shining a flashlight out in front of her but I can tell by the smell of cheap perfume in the air that it’s Morgan, and she’s not alone. “We figured you could use some company.”
“What are you guys doing here?” Gavin asks, hardly thrilled by the fact that Morgan and a slew of dirty birdies are helping themselves to beers and getting comfy around the campfire.
“Hey, just because you’re whipped doesn’t mean the rest of us deserve to be punished.” Austin shrugs. “I invited them.”
“Whatever. I thought this was supposed to be a men-only work trip,” Gavin says.
“And the men did their work,” Austin laughs. “So unless you want to sit on my lap and whisper all the dirty things you’re going to do to me in my ear, relax.”
“As fun as that sounds, I’m going to bed,” I say. I’m on edge about Esther anyway, and I don’t feel like having to peel Morgan off of me for the rest of the night. I haven’t seen her since we left her at Salazar’s and I’m sure she thinks I owe her something.
“Right behind you, dude,” Gavin says. “You all have fun. 5 a.m. is going to be here real quick, though.”
“We brought supplies just in case!” Morgan smiles, waving a bag of white powder right under my nose. “We can moonshine for the next week straight if you want.”
“No thanks,” I say. Maybe ten years ago I’d be all about doing rails of coke off a slutty bartender’s ass, but that slutty bartender has shown her ass to everyone in the club since then. If I’m going to do drugs, it’s going to be with my old lady.
I unzip my tent and stretch out inside, hoping that tomorrow we can just get all our shit done quickly and I can get back where I belong.
32
Esther:
What am I even doing here? I wonder, laying on top of the comforter of my bed in my old room. I didn’t feel like going back to our house, even though no one is home. I just wanted to be alone, in my own space, in the place where I’ve felt safe and secure and independent for the last fifteen years of my life. I’m frustrated from talking with my father, frustrated about all the half-truths littered in his lines of bullshit.
Brooks has called me at least five times. I don’t feel like dealing with him right now. I don’t want to be mad at him, but if there’s stuff he isn’t telling me, then I have every right to be. I sprawl out on my comforter in the little trailer and look out into the view in my yard. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel so sad. This lonely place that was my home for so long isn’t even where I belong anymore. I don’t know where I belong, but there’s only one person who can make me feel better. And
I need to call him.
The phone rings a few times. He’s probably busy. It’s getting late, and I don’t want to interrupt his night with the guys. He needs that time as much as I need time to be alone.
“Hello?” a girl’s voice answers. “Is this Esther? Oh shit!” she squeals. I know exactly who it is, and it takes everything in me not to just hang the phone up right now and hop on my four-wheeler.
“Where’s Brooks?”
“He’s busy right now. Do you want me to leave him a message?” She giggles.
“I want you to put him on the fucking phone, Morgan. Quit being cute. I’ll deal with you later.”
I hear some shuffling; there’s loud laughter and music in the background. I can tell she’s covering the mouthpiece of the phone by the way everything seems so muffled.
“Here he is, Esther. Have a good night, sis!” she laughs.
“Gimme that fucking thing,” I hear him growl. “And get the hell out of my tent. Esther,” he pleads, “where have you been?”
“What the fuck, Brooks?” I mutter. “Why does Morgan have your phone?”
“I don’t know,” he says. I can tell by the hoarseness of his voice that he was sleeping. “I was sleeping. It must’ve fallen out of my pocket. I’m sorry.”
I jump up from the bed and begin pacing around the trailer, trying to not act crazy. I know how the boys are; there are always a flock of chicks hanging around. And I trust him. But I don’t trust her, and for whatever reason, she has my father thinking there’s something a little more to her and Brooks.
“Do you want me to come home now?” he asks. “They just showed up. Gavin and I went to sleep; you know how it goes.”
