by Jc Emery
"Today?" he says, eyeing Ian. "You choose today of all days?"
Our boy just shrugs in answer.
"No, seriously. Your grandparents are going to be pissed."
"Why would they care? They're not the ones who have to deal with this mess," I say as I step forward and examine their glued-together skin.
"Actually, they are," Jim says with a smirk. "We're going on a ride. Get these two assholes packed up for a sleepover."
"But we can't," I say in desperate realization that their arms are glued together from the wrist to the elbow. Jesus fuck. Sylvia finished her last round of chemo a few weeks back, and she's still not feeling great. I know she loves having the kids around, but that doesn't mean she can handle dealing with this disaster. And Rage, well, he's likely to leave my kids attached like this for us to deal with upon our return from wherever Jim thinks we're going.
"Yeah, Dad. Looks like I get Mom tonight," Ryan says in a smug as fuck tone. He then turns his attention to me, and with big gray eyes, he says, "It kind of hurts."
"I'm sure it does, you little con artist. Pack your own bags. We're dropping you off at Grandma's in twenty." And with that, I walk out of the room and back to the kitchen where I finish my beer and then grab another from the fridge. I love my kids, but Jesus fuck, I could use a night off.
CHAPTER 17
Dropping the boys off at Rage and Sylvia's wasn't fun. Neither was driving them there. First, it took them over half an hour to pack. Ian started whining at some point, and Jim tried to help, but I shut that down real quick. If my boys are stupid enough to Super Glue their arms together, then they can figure out how to work together long enough to pack an overnight bag. Then getting them into the van was another feat, but not nearly as difficult as getting them out was. Still, there was a certain kind of sweetness in seeing the look on Rage's face and hearing his disgruntled promise to get the glue situation taken care of. Sylvia was napping when we got there. Now, as we quietly make out way out of the cabin and toward Jim's bike, I'm grateful that she's still sleeping. She needs her rest, and I can only hope that Rage figures out how to solve that glue issue without having to drag her into it.
"So, where are we going and how long have you been planning this?" I've waited long enough to ask the questions, knowing that Jim only answers when he's good and ready.
"Can't tell you," he says. He climbs on his bike first and puts up the kickstand. I climb on right after him. He revs the engine and drives us through the tall pines toward the road. But just when we're about to turn that direction, Jim stalls the bike.
Shouting over the engine, he says, "Babe, look at that."
I follow the line of his outstretched finger and eye the sight before me. It's gorgeous. Rage and Sylvia's little cabin is surrounded by a nest of pine trees that shields the cabin from the noise from the road. Jim turns the opposite direction and rides through the narrow tree line to the plot behind the cabin. We've never been over here, had no reason to be, but I'm strangely excited about exploring the land. I'm not exactly sure how far back Rage and Sylvia's property goes, but I know the cabin is well insulated.
Just beyond the trees, a large field awaits us. On the right side, the tree line extends as far as my eyes can see. The rest is wide open save for an old red barn that sits off to the left side. Jim pauses the Harley before we ride over an old, worn bridge. I hold my breath and hang on tight with my eyes scrunched closed. I've never been a fan of bridges, especially not old rickety ones that I doubt have been cared for in the last twenty years. It's one of those structures that probably wasn't ever in very good shape, and now we're taking a several-hundred-pound machine across it like it's nothing.
When I open my eyes, we're well across the bridge and into the field. There are pockets of little hills and valleys, making it a bumpy ride. But by the time my stomach starts to feel uneasy, we're past it--just like the bridge, my anxiety about the rough terrain outlasts the terrain itself--and onto a smooth ride through a lush grassy-green field. It's March now, and the winter's rainy season has only barely just let up, leaving a wealth of thriving plants behind. I wasn't sure how I'd take to Fort Bragg at first, with it being so cold and rainy so much of the year, but now that I'm here, I can't imagine living anywhere else.
Right in the middle of the plot of land, just a few yards from the barn, Jim brings the bike to a stop. In the distance, near a dirt road, I can barely make out a sign. It looks like the land is for sale or has been sold. Or maybe it's a sign letting everybody know that something's going to be built here. I can't really tell.
We climb off and survey the property. It's huge, or at least that's how it feels to me. I grew up first in New York and then was sent to Florida when good old Mom and Dad decided that parenting was better suited to my and Esmeralda's maternal grandparents. Our place in New York was a small little flat in a questionable neighborhood of Queens. My grandparents' house in Florida was a ranch no bigger than the house Jim and I live in now. I can't imagine having this much space to call my own.
"You look happy," Jim says as he comes to stand behind me. He tucks me into his chest and rests his chin atop my head.
"It's peaceful out here. Quiet. I like quiet."
He laughs at my response, his joy radiating through the shaking of his chest against my back. "Yeah it is. If I was stuck at home with a couple of idiots who glue themselves together, I'd want a little patch of quiet, too."
"No, seriously. How does that happen?" The question is rhetorical. We've been over this time and time again, and neither of us actually have an answer for what the fuck is wrong with our kids. We've already banned a variety of different chemicals and items in our house in an effort to keep the place from being lit on fire and destroyed from the roof down.
"You know, I thought Ryan was bad on his own, but Ian really gets him going," Jim says, placing a kiss to the side of my head just above my ear.
"Are you blaming my boy?"
The second the words leave my mouth, I tense up. Ian's not my boy--he's our boy. That's one fight Jim and I had shortly after we moved into the house. He got to being pissed about something and took it out on Ryan, and I kind of lost my cool on him, telling him not to talk to my kids like that. He wasn't even pissed that I said Ryan was mine. He was pissed that I'd been saying it for a while but never gave him the same leeway with Ian. It's unfair, and I know it. The difference is that I know I'm always going to be here for Ryan. I'm always going to mother him and love on him. I love Jim, and I want to believe in what we have, but I have a lifetime of experiences of men lying and changing their minds behind me to make it hard to believe even the most well-intentioned of people.
"Our boy," I correct myself.
"Our boy," he says. His tone is gentle, hopeful even. I know that's all he really wants--for me to trust him with my son the way he trusts me with his. And maybe one day I will.
"It's pretty out here." The sun is nowhere near setting, but it's low enough in the sky for the land to bask in a gorgeous yellow and orange light. Jim didn't pawn the boys off on his parents so we could stand in an empty field, so I try to find a way to get my feet to move. My man had plans for us, and the least I can do is not fuck them up for him.
"Dad put this place up for sale." Dad. It's not often that he refers to Rage as his dad, but I hold tight to those moments every time he does.
"Whoever buys it is going to be damn lucky," I say. I want to change the subject, but I don't exactly know why. It's just a piece of land, and it's more than I can afford. I don't know anything about owning land, but all of a sudden, I want it. I want to be on the other side of a tree line from his parents. I want my boys to be able to run over to Grandma's. I want Grandpa close enough to whoop their asses when Jim's not around and they need it. Mostly, I just want some kind of permanency in my life. No matter the amazing things my man says, I still don't feel rooted here. Maybe I'm being pushy, but I need that shit. I need the paper and the deed. I need to know that these kids belong to me and this
man isn't going anywhere. I need to know the place where I live has my name on it. I need all of that, and maybe I should be apologizing for being such a needy bitch, but I won't. If Jim's taught me anything in the last year, it's that it's okay to ask for what you want. I just have to find my voice first.
"What if we bought it?"
I'm stunned in silence at his casual suggestion. Pulling my brain out of self-pity mode for a moment, I try to really listen to what he's said to me. His dad put the place up for sale. A little bit of the tension that's been building leaves my body. This land already belongs to the Stone family. We could buy it. But then we'd be living together on a piece of land either he or I--or both of us--own, and we'd still not have the permanency that being married would provide. So, no, I don't want to buy this land from his dad. I don't want any of it unless I can have all of it.
"And what? The deed will say James Stone and Ruby Buckley. Or maybe just James Stone."
Jim pulls away and walks around to face me. His jaw ticks.
"This again?"
"What do you mean 'this again'? I brought up getting married once and only once. Don't make me feel bad for doing exactly what you've been encouraging me to do."
"You're half a step from pissing me off." His words are cold and callous in a way I'm no longer used to. Unable to stop myself, I flinch in response but refuse to back down.
"Welcome to the fucking party, Jim. I've been pissed off since Thanksgiving." The longer I stew on my rejected marriage proposal, the more bitter I get. He says he loves me, even says he'll walk through fire, burn the world to the ground, and put up with my fucking crying because I'm it for him. But he won't marry me, and he won't tell me why, so how much of that is bullshit?
"Think I don't know that? You think I like everybody asking when I'm gonna lock you down and not being able to tell them why I haven't already? Newsflash, babe. I. Fucking. Don't. I hear the fucking comments you make to my mother about Grady being married to a junkie. Because, hey, at least they're fucking married, right? I hear it in your goddamn voice when you talk about wanting to adopt Ryan, and I want that for you and him. And I want Ian as mine, but I can't right now, so just fucking let it go."
"Tell me. Tell me why." I'm shouting now, unable to contain my anger. Those fucking tears he talks about are threatening to fall down my cheeks. I won't give him that, though. I won't let Jim reduce me to tears. Again. Every time I cry, he holds me and tells me something ridiculous our boys did to distract me from whatever we were fighting about to begin with. And it works almost every time, but not this time. I won't be deterred.
"Can't." His jaw ticks in response. The truth is on the tip of his tongue, and I'm going to get it out of him even if I have to cut the damn appendage out of his mouth myself.
"Tell me," I scream. "Tell me what is so fucking wrong with me. Right now. You don't, Ian and I are gone." Quickly, I scrub my face with my hands and scream into them. I don't mean it. I can't rip Ian away from Ryan and Jim. This is the exact fucking reason I didn't want to get involved with him to begin with. This isn't just about me. I'm trying to protect Ian by forcing the issue, but I might end up taking his family away if I can't get my mouth to shut up and soon.
"Last year, what's one of the first things you told me?" Now he's the one who's screaming. When I don't answer, Jim steps closer, his chest practically pressing into mine. His face is tilted down, and his nostrils flare in anger. "You told me Ian had to trust me. I spent months fucking up before I got that message. There is no you without that boy. Since the day I woke the fuck up and realized that, I've spent every fucking day making sure that kid knows I'm here and he can rely on me."
"So if Ian matters so much to you, why the fuck won't you marry his mother?" Jim using my kid against me has my heart rate spiking. Adrenaline rushes through me, and I push him away from me, but he comes right back, crowding my personal space.
"One fucking week. You couldn't save this shit for another fucking week?" He grabs me by the back of my neck and pulls my face up to meet his. We're so close, our noses brush and our faces heat from the warmth of our breath.
"No, I can't," I say, grinding my teeth in the process.
"Asked our boy what he thought of you two moving in, he was all for it. Couple weeks later, asked him what he thought of us getting married. Little fucker said no. Not until he gets his purple belt. Which he gets next. Fucking. Week."
"What the hell are you even babbling about?" My anger is receding now. What the hell does Ian's karate classes have to do with Jim not wanting to marry me?
Releasing my neck, Jim steps back and fishes his wallet out of his back pocket. He grips a small, worn piece of paper in his hand and stares at it as he puts his wallet back with the other. With a condescending flip of his wrist, he tosses the piece of paper at me and walks away. Once I manage to stop shooting daggers at his back, I retrieve the paper from the grass and unfold it. In bright red crayon, Ian's written out what looks like a contract. The top line reads, "Dad's promise," and right below it, in Jim's writing in black ink, it lays out the promise he's made to Ian. "I, Dad, won't ask Mom to marry me until Ian has his purple belt." Those fucking tears are back, and they're welling in my eyes. Off to the side, shoved in the corner, is an amendment to the agreement that stipulates that Ryan agrees if he and Ian both get new bikes and that video game system I hate so much that all three of my guys are addicted to. Jim's signature sits next to a bright red X, while Ian and Ryan's are written in red and black crayon, respectively, beneath that. In small writing that's almost too difficult to read, Ryan's written, "Don't tell her. Make her sweat," in black crayon. The note is dated from October. My man's been carrying this little piece of paper around with him, keeping a promise and a secret that he could have easily broken, since October. Holy shit.
"You want to marry me?" I choke the words out, barely able to contain the emotion.
Slowly, with a grim smile on his face, Jim stalks back toward me.
"What do you think?"
"You really want to marry me?"
He's standing in front of me again. This time, his anger is gone, but his expression isn't relieved.
"I just broke the trust of both my sons," he says. "Ryan's just a shit. He wants me to ask you in front of him. Because this is a packaged deal and all. Ian just needs to know I won't run. He needs to know I'm not going to hurt him or you. He has to trust me, and I can't get him to trust me if you force my hand and make me tell you everything."
"But you do want to marry me?"
"Yes. Fuck. Christ, yeah. I've wanted to marry you since the night I made VP. I've wanted to fuck you since the moment I met you. I've known that this thing between us was going to be for-fucking-ever since the moment you handed me my ass because I wasn't being the kind of dad our boys deserve. And I was going to take you on a fucking ride today and give you some grand fucking speech about marrying your bitchy ass one day."
"Okay."
"Say you're sorry," he says.
I shake my head and clear my throat. "I had reason to be pissed," I say. I probably should apologize, but my man wants to marry me. He wants to make us a real family, and I won't lie and say I'm sorry for wanting that as desperately as I do.
"Say you're sorry, and I'll let you suck my dick." With a shit-eating grin, Jim leans down and places a kiss to one temple and then the other. All I can do is laugh, but he's crazy if he thinks I'm giving him an "I'm sorry" blow job.
"How about I let you fuck me in this field, and then we can discuss where we're putting the house," I say and reach up to take his cut off.
He laughs softly before his eyes heat. We undress one another in that field, exploring each other's bodies in ways we do every single time we make love. When we're naked and he's on his back, beneath me in the cold, damp grass, I let a single tear fall.
"I was so mad when you got this," I say with my eyes on the tattoo that takes up the whole of the outer side of his right forearm that says HERS in the same thick, black font th
at graces the Forsaken logo.
"That's because you're fucking crazy," he says. One hand works my clit, and the other pulls and twists one of my nipples. A chill runs up my spine that leaves me covered in gooseflesh.
"You make me fucking crazy." The words come out more as a moan than anything else.
"No, you came to me that way," he says dismissively. We continue like that for a few more minutes, with me admiring the tattoo he got for me and him prepping me for his dick. He found out the hard way that with his size I have to be well prepared first. Not that I'm complaining about the extra attention.
"I want one," I say, gliding my wet pussy over his hard cock. We shift and maneuver so he's at my entrance now. His quizzical expression tells me he doesn't understand. "I want one that matches. But only after my name is changed and I've adopted Ryan."
"Fuck yes." He slides inside me, hard and fast. And there's not another word between us aside from the occasional I-love-you as we make love in that cold, damp field that's soon to be our home.
CHAPTER 18
January 1999
My eyes are fixed on the red barn that sits in the middle of our property as Jim stomps his way down there, followed by a bunch of dogs. My man's shoulders heave in anger as he trudges through the mud, lifting his feet high in the air to keep from getting stuck in the soggy landscape. One of the puppies, Spartacus, keeps jumping up as they go, desperate for his dad's attention. But Jim ignores him, which is rare. He never fails to give Spartacus attention. I sigh in frustration and mentally kick myself for not dealing with the boys' mess before he got home.
Jim's not been the same since Sylvia passed just a few months ago. I haven't been the same either, though, and that's part of the problem. We've always been such a strong couple, able to withstand anything. Except this is different. Sylvia Stone did more for me and my boy than any other woman in my life. She took me under her wing and forced me to accept her as family. Not that it was all that hard to sway me, in retrospect.
