“Three months, sir, but I had a setback last week. That’s why I didn’t show up for the last visit or the court date. I couldn’t let him see me like that.” She sniffles.
My heart breaks for her and for her son.
“Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, would you agree to allow Miss De La Vive these visitations that young Huckleberry has asked for if I award you guardianship?” the judge asks.
A well-dressed couple in the back of the room stands. “Of course, your honor. Anything he wants. We don’t want to separate a mother and child. We just want to give him a home and would welcome Miss De La Vive to be a part of his life if given the honor of being able to give him a forever home.”
Miss De La Vive looks over to the couple and mouths the words thank you to them. They both nod, and the judge orders them to, once again take a seat.
“In the best interest of the minor child, I’m going to award guardianship to Mr. and Mrs. Anderson with expectations of supervised visitation by the young Huckleberry’s biological mother. This court’s goal is not to tear families apart but to put them back together. However, Miss De La Vive, you haven’t been sober long enough, although both I and the court do appreciate your honesty about your struggles. We will reconvene in six months. We will reevaluate the child’s wishes at that time and Miss De La Vive’s progress. I can’t consider any arrangements for adoption in cases where parental rights have not been relinquished, and since we have a mother in this case who is clearly trying to better herself, we will have to wait and see where we stand in six months.”
The judge picks up the gavel and is about to slam it down when the mother stands again.
“Wait!” she says. She turns to Nine. “If I sign off on my rights, will you promise to make sure that he’s okay, even when I can’t?”
Nine nods. “Ma’am, I’m not going anywhere. I made him a promise. I’ll make sure he’s fine. I swear it.”
She clears her throat and looks to the judge. “I’ve been a lousy mother, and Mr. Clearwater is right. Love isn’t enough. Wanting to be a mother isn’t enough. I’d like to sign over my parental rights with the same provisions for visitation along with the addition of required drug tests for me. If I don’t pass even one test, Your Honor, I’d like the visitation to be removed permanently.”
“Ma’am?” the judge asks.
She looks to her hands, then back up to the judge. “I can’t do this to him no more. My boy don’t deserve it. I need to be sober, so I don’t disrupt his life, and if I can’t do that, then it’s better that I’m not in it.”
“Ma’am. I thank you for your honesty, and I will honor that request. I think you will find that being a mother means making the hardest decisions in the best interest of your child and this seems to be one of those hard decisions. If you and the Andersons will stay for a while, I’d like to talk to all of you together, privately in my chambers about how this is all going to work.” He looks to Nine. “Well, done, Mr. Clearwater. I hope to see you in my courtroom again soon. You’ve done a fine job for your young client today.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Nine replies.
I think he says something else, but I can’t hear it. I can’t even see him until he grabs my hand and leads me out of the courtroom because my eyes are filled with tears.
“I thought I saw you back here,” he says.
The second we are in the hallway I grab his face and press a hard kiss to his lips.
“What was that for?” he asks, wrapping his arms around me.
“That’s for what you just did for that boy in there. For those people. It’s got to be so hard, speaking on behalf of someone who can’t speak for himself. It’s…the bravest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
“I didn’t do it for them. I did it for you,” he says.
“You remembered what I told you that night.”
He nods. “I made a promise to myself that night that I would live for you when I thought you couldn’t.”
“I was alive, but I wasn’t even living for myself.” The tears sting my eyes. “And you were doing all of this.”
“Poe, I would fucking breathe for you if I could. You know that, don’t you?” he asks, seeking the answer in my eyes.
“I know that now,” I reply, sniffling back unshed tears.
We leave court hand in hand. On the way to the truck, we pass the post office, and suddenly, I remember something. I reach into my bag for the key that Yuli gave me for box 6969.
“What’s that?” Nine asks.
“It’s the key to the post office box Yuli wanted me to check for her mail. Knowing what I know now, is it even really a mailbox or a pipe bomb waiting to take me out?”
He takes the key from my hand. “There’s only one way to find out. Stay here.” He heads into the building.
After a few seconds, I grow impatient and am heading into the building when Nine emerges.
“Thought I told you to stay out here,” he says, raising an eyebrow at my hand still poised to push open the door.
“Right now, I’m still technically outside,” I say, but it comes out more as a question.
Nine shakes his head and puts an arm around my shoulder, guiding me to a nearby bench. “This is what was inside.” He hands me two envelopes.
The first envelope doesn’t have any postage stamps on it and is simply addressed to Lenny. I tear it open, and inside is a letter from the last person on Earth I ever expected to hear from again.
Jared.
* * *
Lenny,
By the time you read this, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be wondering what the fuck is going on. I can’t tell you all of the details about what I’ve done or why because it’s too dangerous for you to know, but I couldn’t leave without offering you at least a good-bye. I don’t want you to fester on the ‘what-ifs’ or ‘whys’ of my leaving. So hopefully, this letter will give you the closure you need to move on.
Since you have always been a fan of direct, straightforward communication, I’m not going to skip around the truths I can tell you, so I’ll start by saying that there’s someone else, and it’s been going on for a long time.
I never meant to hurt you, but you’re smart, Len. One of the smartest people I’ve ever met. You know as well as I do that we were never meant to be, and maybe, if I was less of a coward, I would have been able to end things with us a long time ago, but I honestly didn’t know how you’d handle things. You’d already lost so much in your life, so each time, I’d chicken out before the words I meant to say ever left my mouth.
The truth is that don’t know how to cope with your anxiety issues, but I also realize I never took the time to really understand them. I think that says a lot. You deserve happiness, Len, someone who really understands you, who can make you better, but I think we both know that person was never going to be me.
I know you have reserves in our joint account to last you through the year while you hunt for a job, but I’ve made sure that more money is going to be added to cover all of the bills and the mortgage for two years. Or, you can sell the house and use the profits to get your GED and go back to school or use them to pursue whatever dreams you might have for your life. I don’t even know what those dreams are, and I’m sorry I never bothered to ask.
I hope you find happiness, and I’m sorry. For taking the coward’s way out. For not being who you deserved. For all the wrong I’ve done.
-Jared
* * *
“It was Yuli who drained my account and wanted me to suffer. She said as much,” I say to Nine, who reads the letter over my shoulder. “It wasn’t Jared.”
“So, when he said that his scheme was his girlfriend’s idea, he wasn’t even talking about you.”
“No, he was talking about Yuli.”
Nine folds up the letter, “I hate him a little less now, even though he’s still a fucking coward, but one who cared about you, in his own way. That is the one thing I can’t fault him for.”
I shrug. “I guess, but i
t doesn’t change anything. You and your friends and the MC are still out a couple of million dollars. You can’t invest in your brother’s company like you wanted.”
He doesn’t seem fazed by my mention of the money, but the truth is it keeps me up most nights. “But does it help? Does it give you some sort of closure?” he asks.
I think for a moment. “Yeah, it does. In a way, but I already had my closure, through golf club therapy.”
Nine smiles and presses a chaste kiss to my forehead. “Then, it’s all that matters.” He picks up the other envelope and tears it open. It’s some sort of official-looking notice from Mutual of America. His eyes go wide.
“What is it?” I ask, fearing what else could possibly go wrong.
He hands the document to me, and it doesn’t take me long to understand the reason behind Nine’s surprised reaction. It’s a life insurance policy Jared had taken out years ago on himself. It states something about his parents who had him declared missing and legally presumed dead and something else about the enclosed death certificate, but that’s not what’s shocking. The benefits, in the amount of three million dollars, are to be paid out at the time of his death to the beneficiary.
I gasp and cover my mouth when I get to the bottom of the page and read the name.
The beneficiary is me.
Epilogue
LENNY
Another month later…
I use Jared’s money to pay back Nine and his friends. At first, Nine refused, promising he’d find some way to pay them back himself, but I told him it was either that or I was tossing the bank check from the top of the causeway.
He gave in.
The remainder of the money was used to donate to a charity, supporting foster children and the volunteers like Nine who represent them in court. A few more training sessions and I will be a guardian of the court as well.
We’re standing in front of one of Dre’s most recent renovation projects. It’s a perfect little old Florida style bungalow with flower boxes and a white fence and I’m in awe of her work. It’s perfect in every way. No detail spared.
“It’s incredible,” I say. “But where’s Dre? Isn’t she meeting us here? I thought she wanted my opinion on the value?”
I turn around to face Nine who's holding up a key.
“No, she didn’t want to wait around and witness what I’m going to do to you inside.” His voice is dark and full of wicked promise.
I shiver under the blazing heat of the sun and his words. “I don’t think she wants us messing around in her house.”
He grins and pulls me to his chest. “It’s not her house. It’s ours.”
“How?”
“Easy. I invested in my brother’s company and had money left over, but I knew before Dre was even done with this place that I would buy it someday for you. So, I did.”
“I can’t believe it. I’m…” I press my hand to his smooth cheek. He leans in and kisses the scars on my palm. It’s him I’m looking at when I say, “I’m home.”
He guides me to the front door, and I open the door to paradise. A clean, contemporary take on a traditional home. Light grey wood floors. White shaker style cabinets, granite counters, and a large metal farm sink on the kitchen island with seating for four.
“Is this what you imagined would happen when you first started stalking me?” I ask Nine as he follows me from room to room while I explore. The master bathroom has a clawfoot tub and small white octagon tile on the floors and walls.
“Stalking is such a strong word. I prefer tracking with interest,” he says with a shrug.
“That's the very definition of stalking,” I argue, turning to him I cross my arms over my chest in challenge. “Try again.”
He raises on the balls of his feet then drops down again. The movement causes rogue strands of hair to fall over his eye. He shakes them away. “What phrase would you prefer?” He takes a step closer. His smile widens. “Pursuing with passion? Hunting with hope?” He reaches out, and I watch as he trails the pads of his index and middle finger up my bare arm.
A shiver erupts within my spine, shaking me to my very core. I fight the urge to close my eyes at the sensation.
His voice is deep yet amused. “Trailing with a trigger?”
“You're not making it any better,” I manage to say, after having to clear my throat to get the words out. My muddled thoughts still focused on the sensation of stroking fingers across my sensitive skin.
He glances down at the hairs on my arm, now standing on end. He raises a pierced brow. “Are you sure about that?”
I gulp. “Yes.”
I crane my neck to meet his eyes. Big mistake. It only heightens my awareness of him touching me. I bite down on the skin inside my cheek to keep from groaning out loud.
“Fine.” He leans in closer and moves his hand lower. Those same fingers are now trailing up my outer thigh. Another shiver courses through me, although this one isn’t in my spine. It’s more…centrally located.
“How about…” his lips are a breath away from mine. “…looking for your lips?”
I press my lips together and shake my head.
“No?” He chuckles, cupping my cheek as his other hand inches up my skirt, rendering me breathless.
His lips skirt over mine as he speaks. His smile is now gone. His words are dark. Serious. The sexiest sounds I’ve ever heard. I'm squirming in my own skin. “Aching to be inside you?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, which is good because I couldn't form one if I tried but also because he presses his lips to mine. Roughly. Passionately. Possessively. Crushing me both body and soul as he lifts me, pushing me against the wall.
The hand up my skirt tugs aside the lace of my panties. He reaches between us to his belt, freeing himself of his jeans.
He presses a long finger inside my wet heat and slowly strokes me, stroking the spot that has me blind with need, rubbing myself on him like an animal in heat, I’m already there, about to burst apart when he lifts me up, and enters me in one long hard thrust.
I raise my hips off the wall as he fucks me furiously. Each time, he brings me closer and closer to the brink until I’m so far gone that I’m only vaguely aware of Nine groaning my name through his own release, flooding me with his warmth. On my way back down from wherever it is that pure bliss has taken me, I hear him counting. “One. Two. Three. Four…”
And so on, until he gets to eight.
I open my eyes. He smiles and drops his forehead to mine, our rapid breaths mingling between us. His voice is a ragged whisper. “Nine.”
“You always stop at Nine,” I tease.
“And I always will,” he says, pressing his lips to mine once more.
“Me, too.” My life is now my own, but I only started living again because of him. I have begun, and I will end the same way our counting game always does.
With Nine.
Bonus Epilogue
NINE
King’s tattoo studio is connected to the garage across the driveway from the main house. King is a fucking artist. If you want a tattoo that looks like something the means something, he’s the man you see. His wife Ray was his apprentice for a few years until she became an artist in her own right.
But his studio isn’t just a for tattoos. It’s sacred. A place where King, Bear, and Preppy get together and lock the rest of the world out. When decisions need to be made, it happens behind those doors.
Which is exactly where they are right now.
I’ve been inside the studio a hundred times. Between King and Ray, they’re solely responsible for every inch of ink on my body, which means that over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time inside that studio.
But never after hours. Never when the three of them are behind that locked door.
Bear, King, and Preppy have been running Logan’s Beach for years. It’s their town. I respect the fuck out of that.
Out of them.
That’s why it doesn’t bother me that I’ve n
ever been invited inside. It’s not my place. Sure, I’ve proven myself to them over the last couple of years, but there’s a difference between earning their respect and thinking I somehow deserve to be in that studio after hours.
Which is why I’m wondering why the fuck King asked me here.
I’m standing outside the closed studio door. It’s after midnight. Preppy’s classic Chevy and Bear’s shiny bike are parked out front. They’re all inside. I don’t bother knocking. They know I’m here. They’ll come for me when they’re ready.
“You in trouble?” Ray asks, with a knowing smirk. She comes down from the porch with their youngest daughter on her hip.
“Beats the hell out of me,” I answer, taking a drag from my smoke. “They called me about an hour ago. Told me to be here. So, I’m here.”
“Well, whatever it is, good luck in there,” she says. Before she goes back inside the house, she stops and turns around. Her face lined with worry. “I mean, it, Nine. Good luck. The guys can get really…intense in there.”
So much for calming my fuckin’ nerves.
She enters the house at the same time the studio door opens and Preppy appears in the doorway.
“Come on, kid,” he says in a voice that doesn’t sound like him. Nothing about him screams this is a casual meeting. His expression is flat. There’s no smile. No joking.
“Are you having a stroke or something,” I ask, stubbing out my smoke as I approach.
He blows out a breath. “Not yet, but the night is young.”
He steps aside, and I enter the studio. It’s completely dark, except for the bright green neon King’s Tattoo logo. It’s a skull wearing a crown and a bow tie. The crown for King, the skull representing Bear and the bikers, and the bow tie for my brother.
The door slams. I spin around to face Preppy, but he’s not there. “Sorry about this brother,” he says from behind me.
“What the fuck?”
Nine, the Tale of Kevin Clearwater Page 24
