Sink or Swim

by Jamie Canosa

  “How about telling me where you’ve been the past six months.”

  “I went up north. To a city.” She wasn’t about to give him the name. It may not have been paradise by a long shot, but she knew that city. After six months, she knew the people and how things operated there. If she ever needed to bail again, she had no doubt where she’d be heading. The last thing she needed was Dean coming to look for her.

  “A city? Up north? That isn’t much, Al.”

  “It’s what I can give.”

  “All right. Finish you sandwich. We’ll talk more later. I’ve told you before, I’m not giving up on you, Allie.”

  He sat there and watched until she ate every last bite of that damn sandwich. Christ, he could be stubborn. Unfortunately, that meant he was still sitting at her kitchen table when her father came home . . . sloshed.

  “Allison! Where the fuck are you?” He roared his way through the front door before stumbling into the coffee table. Shit. “Get your lazy ass over here!”

  Dean was on his feet in an instant. Super shit! “Hey, Mr. Porter, you need a hand there?”

  “What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Dad slapped Dean’s hand away when he reached to steady him, and Allie sent up a silent prayer that he wasn’t too drunk to remember they had company.

  “Dean was just leaving.” She shot into the living room after them and started ushering Dean toward the door.

  “I can help you get settled upstairs before I go, Mr. Porter.” Dean spoke to her father, but he was looking right at her.

  Allie shook her head at him, and tried to wave him off, but Dean wasn’t taking the hint.

  “How about you get the fuck out of my house before I toss you out on your ass?” Her father’s words were barely decipherable through all of the slurring he was doing. This would only end one way, and Dean needed to be gone first.

  “I got it.” After steadying her father against the living room wall, Allie grabbed Dean by the arm, hauling him toward the front door, which only worked because he allowed her to.

  When they reached the porch, he took on the role of hauler, and yanked her outside with him.

  “How often does he get like that?”

  How the hell he’d lived across the street his entire life and never really seen her father drunk before was beyond her. Sure, Dean was a busy guy, but he wasn’t fucking blind.

  “Not often.” Lie to end all lies.

  Dean looked like he didn’t want to take her word for it, but he couldn’t refute it. “Are you sure you don’t need some help? He looked a little rowdy. Maybe I could just—”

  “No, no. It’s fine, Dean. Really. It’s better if you just go. I’ll get him to bed. No big deal.” Shit, she’d found a bigger lie to tell.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. Just go. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  Dean’s gaze kept shifting back to the door. She knew he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. “All right. Later, then.”

  Allie watched him stroll down the drive and across the street to his own house—taking his sweet-ass time as usual—before going back inside. Her father was still standing in the living room where they’d left him. Ah hell.

  “What the fuck was he doing here? In my house? This is my house! Not your house! You remember that.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I say who comes in here and that boy is not to set one fucking foot inside that door again! Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Don’t you fucking stand there and ‘Yes, Sir’ me!”

  Shit, this was not going well. Not knowing what else to say, Allie opted to keep her stupid mouth shut for a change.

  “You let him in here?”

  She nodded, but kept her eyes trained on the floor.

  “What for? You screwin’ him? Was that what he was doing here?”

  Her eyes nearly popped out of her damn head and she thanked Christ she was still looking at the floor so he couldn’t see them.

  “No, Sir.” She shook my head to reiterate the point, but he wasn’t listening. He’d already made up his mind.

  “This isn’t some fucking whore house! This is a home. My fucking home!” A home, her ass. This had never been a home. “You are an employee in my home, and if you’d like to keep that position, you had better start following the damn rules. No one comes in here without my permission. You understand that? And you don’t set a single toe outside that door unless I tell you to. Is that understood?”

  She really was some kind of goddamn prisoner in her own house.

  “Is it?” he demanded, snapping her out of her thoughts.

  “Yes,” she said it with a little more venom than she meant to let slip.

  The bad thing about avoiding eye contact? She couldn’t see him coming. He was on her before she even realized he’d moved. The best she could do was throw her hands up to shield her face. She already had enough shit to explain to Dean. His forearm came down across her back instead, with enough force to send her to the floor. Where did he learn these fucking moves? He was like a goddamn ninja even while sloppy drunk.

  “Yes, what?” he roared.

  Allie curled into a tight ball to protect herself like some kind of insect. An insect in fear of being stepped on. “Yes, Sir.” And hell, if it didn’t come out as a damn sob. She was pathetic.

  “Damn right. Now get off your lazy ass and make yourself useful around here.” He mumbled off a laundry list of things she should be doing on his way up the stairs.

  Allie stayed curled up on the living room floor. Honestly, she wasn’t convinced she could move even if she wanted to. She wasn’t wearing the same kind of padding she had been the last time he’d used that move on her, and her back hurt like hell.

  She tried to breathe through the pain. It was something she’d taught herself to do years earlier. Sort of like yoga. The coward’s version of yoga. And that’s exactly what she was. A fucking coward, lying there curled up in a pitiful, whimpering ball like some kind of injured animal. Goddammit!

  Why couldn’t she just stand up to the son of a bitch? He was just some drunk asshole. She’d handled herself just fine around plenty of those over the past six months. What the hell was so different about him, then? Why did she always turn into such a fucking push over around him? Hopeless, fucking pathetic, piece of white trash, waste of human space. That’s all she was or ever would be.

  Chapter Eight

  Dean

  Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Leaving Allie in that house with her father so messed up felt wrong on so many fucking levels it was making him physically ill. Dammit. What the hell was he thinking leaving her there?

  Whether she couldn’t or wouldn’t ask for his help, damned if he knew, but that didn’t mean he should have just walked away like that. And, what the hell was up with those phone calls? If some pervert was—

  “Dean, sweetie, can you reach the mixin’ bowl for me, please?”

  He turned in time to catch his mama dropping from her tiptoes with a huff and couldn’t help smiling. She was a petite woman whose head barely reached his shoulder.

  “Sure, Mama.” He reached past her and plucked it from the top shelf before his eyes drifted back to the front door for about the billionth time in the past two hours. She said they could talk later. This qualified. “I think I’m just gonna—”

  “Dean Michael Ritter.” Ah, hell she’d used his full name. He was in for it now. “It is almost supper time. You leave that girl to her family for now and come and join yours at the table.”

  Dean gritted his teeth, but knew better than to argue with his mama when she was using full names. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Amy and Sarah filed into the kitchen and set to helping their mama finish dinner. Dean sat at the table and watched. He used to feel guilty that they wouldn’t let him help, but he’d learned not to mess with the women in his family when they were in a kitchen. Put a wooden spoon in any of their hands and it became a deadly weapon.


  The food was delicious, he was sure. It always was. But Dean didn’t taste a single bite of it. Amy chattered on through the entire meal. That girl could talk a man deaf. But he barely heard a word. All of his focus was on that front door and how quickly he could get through it without being rude.

  “Dean? Are you even listening?”

  “Oh, um . . . Sorry, Amy, what did you say?”

  “I said, I heard Allie’s back in town.”

  “Yeah, she got back about a week ago. She’s home to take care of her mama.”

  “Oh, how is she doing?” Dean’s mama was one of those people who worried about everyone. Even people who had it better than her. She was an amazing woman, his mama.

  “I don’t know. Allie doesn’t really like to talk about it much.”

  “That poor child. Please tell her we send our love when you talk to her.”

  “Course, Mama.”

  “Well, what I want to know is if she’s been back for a whole week already, why the heck hasn’t she come over here to say hi to us?”

  “Amy Lee Ritter!” At least it wasn’t his full name this time. “You cut that girl some slack. She’s takin’ care of her mama and I’m sure she wants to spend as much time with her as she can right now.”

  At least Amy had the good sense to look properly chastised. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. Tell her we miss her, though, won’t you Dean?”

  His sisters looked at him with such hope that it twisted his heart. They both loved Allie. Always had. It was just one more thing he loved about her, too. She fit so perfectly with his family, he’d always dreamed of making her a part of it. Not that he’d ever tell her that. Hell, that would probably send her straight to another fucking planet. But he couldn’t stand the thought of how crushed not just him, but his whole family would be if he’d really messed things up with Allie for good.

  When his mama finally excused everyone and the girls started collecting the dishes, Dean took his chance to escape. He’d waited long enough. It was time to get some answers.

  Chapter Nine

  Allie

  An hour. That’s how long it took Allie to move her useless ass from the floor, on to the couch. The list of chores her father had rattled off? She could only hope he was drunk enough to forget them by morning because there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d be getting any of that done tonight. She was certain she’d sprained or bruised something important, at the very least.

  Allie hadn’t heard a peep from her mother all night and was just drifting off into the welcome oblivion of sleep when she heard a knock at the door. You had to be fucking kidding. With a great deal more effort than it should take even a ninety year old woman, Allie manage to drag herself off the couch and over to the door.

  It was Dean. Surprise, surprise. Could he be a bigger pain in her ass?

  “What?” She only opened the door a crack and wasn’t exactly in the mood for pleasantries.

  “You said we could talk later.”

  “I didn’t mean later today. I meant some ambiguous later, as in, some other fucking time, Dean. Not now.”

  “Why not? Where’s your dad?”

  “In bed.”

  “Then, come on. We can go for a walk.”

  Yeah, a walk. Sound fan-freaking-tastic. If she wanted to end up in traction.

  “I can’t tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  Seriously, this guy was like a dog with a bone.

  “Because, Dean, I’m not feeling up to it, all right?”

  “No, it’s not all right. Why aren’t you feeling up to it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Dean just cocked an eyebrow. “I hurt my back.”

  “You hurt your back?”

  “Helping my mom up. I think I pulled something.” That was a good one.

  “You pulled something in your back helping your mom up?” So, why the hell wasn’t he buying it? “Right after I left you alone with your extremely drunk father?”

  Shit. Fuck. Dammit all to hell. This was exactly why she’d taken off in the first place. They were dangerously close to square one right now.

  “Is it your dad who won’t let you leave the house?”

  Yes! “No.”

  “Then, come on. We don’t have to walk. We can just go back to my place and hang out. Sarah and Amy have been asking about you, anyway.”

  The chance to see Dean’s little sisters was almost enough to make her tempt her father’s wrath. She loved those girls. Almost as much as Dean did. And seeing them together? It made her want to slap up a white picket fence and call it home, too. Sure, things were rough over there, but they all pulled together to make it work, and they loved each other. Like real families were supposed to. The Ritters were the only taste of that she’d ever really had growing up and Allie craved it like a drug.

  But that wasn’t her life. Her life was here, across the fucking River Styx, in hell. And in hell, it was never wise to tempt the devil.

  “Dean, I can’t.”

  “Dammit, Allie, I’m not going to let you lock yourself away in there and deal with whatever shit you’ve got going on alone. You can’t hide from me, Al.”

  That was precisely the problem. “I know that!”

  “Then stop trying!”

  “Fine!” She’d had it. The stress from the past week—hell, the past six months—was catching up with her. Add that to the throbbing pain in her back and she just couldn’t deal anymore. “I can’t leave. I can’t leave because my father doesn’t want me to. And if I do, he’ll be pissed.”

  “Then I guess we’d better make sure he doesn’t find out.” Dean was looking far too smug for his own well-being, and if Allie didn’t know it would hurt like hell to do, she would have smacked him upside the head.

  “How am I supposed to—?”

  “Come on, Allie. He was trashed. You can’t possibly tell me you expect to see him again before sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

  No. That was probably true. Dammit. And Dean knew it.

  “Come with me. Come home with me. Just for a little while. I promise I’ll have you home before he ever knows you’re gone.”

  Seeing no other way around it, she gave in.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  “Allie, sweetheart, are you all right?” Mrs. Ritter’s concerned voice washed over her the moment she stepped into the house.

  She’d done her damnedest to walk like an upright mammal on the way over, but it had taken Dean all of two seconds to notice the kind of pain she was in and insist on helping her. ‘Helping her’ consisted of him pulling one of her arms across his shoulders and wrapping his other arm around her waist, supporting most of her weight and making her look like some freaking invalid. He would have flat out carried her if she hadn’t adamantly refused.

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Ritter. Dean’s just overreacting.”

  “He does tend to do that now and again.” She knew as well as Allie did how overprotective Dean could be when it came to the people he cared about.

  “Overreacting my ass. You could hardly walk. Mama, do we have any painkillers?”

  “I really don’t need—”

  “Shut up and sit down.” Oh great, from overprotective to bossy in two-point-five.

  “It’s best to just do as he says when he gets like this,” Mrs. Ritter warned with a smile. Like she didn’t already know.

  Allie sat at the kitchen table, while Dean disappeared down the hall and his mother went back to the dishes. She would have offered to help if she could stand.

  “Would you like something to eat, sweetheart? You look awfully thin?” The worrying was genetic.

  “No, ma’am. I’m fine. Thank you.”

  “Oh, Allie. How many times do I have to tell you to call me Mary?” She laughed and it sounded like sunshine, and angels singing, and whatever other sappy ass, happy crap there was in this world or the next. “How is your mother doing these days?”

  “She’s as well as can be expected, ma’—” She shot Allie a
stern look that cut her off mid syllable. Yikes, no wonder Dean was so well trained. “Mary.”

  She seriously loved that woman. Why couldn’t her mother be like that? Fun, and loving, and alive . . . and fiercely protective of her children. Two of which came barreling into the kitchen at just that moment. Well, Amy came barreling, Allie was surprised to see Sarah wandering in behind her sister. She’d half expected that one to jump all over her. Even braced for the imminent attack, but she just took up a position near the door and stayed put.

  “Allie!” Amy flopped into the chair beside her all smiles. “I missed you!”

  “I missed you guys, too.”

  “Where have you been? Why did you leave? Why didn’t you say goodbye?”

  “Amy Lee, you give that girl a moment to breathe and quit pestering her or she’ll never want to come back over here.” Mrs. Ritter couldn’t have been further from the truth, but Allie appreciated the reprieve.

  “Sorry, Allie.” Amy sat back in her chair quietly and she realized it wasn’t just Dean who was well trained. That woman was a pro.

  Allie smiled at Amy and was surprised to find it genuine. Amy smiled back and had apparently reached her ‘quiet limit’ at all of about thirty seconds. “So, how’s your mama doin’?”

  “She’s doin’ all right.” Not exactly true, but she wasn’t about to lay all the gory details on a fifteen-year-old.

  Allie glanced at the corner where Sarah was standing. She still hadn’t said a word, but her eyes were practically boring holes through Allie. “Hi, Sarah.”

  “Hi.” Her voice was quiet and she dropped her eyes the moment Allie looked at her. This was not the fun-loving wild child Allie had left behind six months ago.

  “Here, take these.” Dean came back and plunked down four pills in front of her along with a glass of water. The commanding tone was gone, and he settled in the chair beside her, worry creasing his forehead.

  “Are you okay, Allie?” Amy was sporting almost an identical look on her opposite side. It was nearly enough to make her laugh.

  “She’s fine, but I need to talk to her, and you both need to get to bed.”

  Most teenage girls would laugh at an older brother trying to tell them what to do. Not these girls. The moment Dean stepped up and proved himself, they accepted him as the man of the house and treated him with the respect he deserved. Allie loved that about them because he did deserve it.