I didn’t make her my Old Lady. She’s livin’ in my house, takes my cock, and now she’s giving me a kid. She’s a fucking mess, I didn’t realize how big of a mess she was until we started livin’ together. I’ve had to keep her on lockdown in my room because I can’t keep her nose out of cocaine. The exact shit that I did not want in a woman. Fucking hell, but I probably deserve it all.
My phone rings as I speed through town toward the hospital.
“Did you know these mattress orders are all fucked up?” Dragon shouts into my ear.
I grunt, not wishing to talk club business right now. “Dragon, I didn’t, but even if I did, I don’t give a fuck right now. Carrie’s goin’ into labor,” I bark.
“Fuck. Right.”
He ends the call as I skate into the emergency room parking area. “I don’t want this,” Carrie announces.
Looking over to her, I see the dead in her eyes, the same dead that haunts Savanna. I shake my head. “Don’t got a choice, babe. He’s comin’, ready or not,” I state.
She shakes her head. “Didn’t say I wasn’t ready, Silver. I said I don’t want this. I don’t want him. I don’t want you.”
The words feel like a punch to the gut, each and every one of them. Leaning over the center console, I look her in the eye and I grind out. “You don’t want him. He’s mine if you’re there or not. You won’t get a dime from me. No more shit to put up your nose and I won’t give a single fuck about you. In fact, you’ll be lucky you’re breathing. You’re a fucking cunt, Carrie.”
She lifts her chin, her dead eyes serious and focused on me. “Might be a cunt, but I’m not the one in love with another woman. Take this baby to her. Maybe you can be the happy little family then,” she snaps.
Lifting my hand, I run my fingers through my hair, tugging on the ends. “Don’t matter, Carrie. None of it does. You’re in my bed, my baby’s in your belly, what I feel or who I feel it for means fuck all to you.”
We don’t say another word. I climb out of the car, slamming the door before I go to her side. I help her into the hospital, but the bitch denies me in the delivery room. I pace, unable to sit for even a second.
By the time my son comes screaming into the world the entire hospital is full of my brothers, several Old Ladies, even Savanna and Trista show up.
Savanna stays in the corner, her gaze only meeting mine a couple of times. I haven’t seen or talked to her much since our fight. She looks better, healthier, heavier. She looks like a fucking dream. I shouldn’t be lusting after her, especially not right now. Doesn’t change the fact that, that’s exactly what I’m fuckin’ doing.
“Carrie would like to see you now, Mr. Hernandez,” the nurse meekly whispers.
Tearing my gaze away from Savanna, I push off of the wall I’m leaning against, and walk over to the nurse. Following behind her, I wait until she opens a door and allows me to pass through. Carrie is in the room, lying in the bed, a little bundle of blankets in her arms.
“Cristo,” I hiss.
Carrie’s wet gaze meets mine. I close the distance between us and sit on the edge of the bed.
She shrugs. “Maybe. I’m just some junkie, Silver. Someone to carry the baby you wanted with her. It doesn’t escape my notice the way you watch her anytime she’s around. Take him, make a life with her, the life you want.”
“Carrie,” I gulp.
She shakes her head. “Never wanted kids. Not ever. I would be a shit mom. Right now, all I want to do is snort a line, even with him in my arms.”
“No. We’ll make it work,” I demand.
Carrie’s gaze doesn’t waver, her eyes only hold a shimmer of light when she speaks. “I know you fuck whores. I know you think of her when you’re fucking me. I know it all. Thing is, I would probably be cool with it as long as I could continue getting high and you supplied me. You won’t let me do that shit now, though. Not with him, and I wouldn’t want to fuck him up the way my parents did me. I’m trying to do right by him, let me go,” she pleads as she holds the little bundle out to me.
I take him in my arms, my heart filling, then exploding. Mine. My son. Carrie, Savanna, they don’t mean shit in this moment.
The only thing that matters is him. My life suddenly shifts in an instant.
Carrie rolls over to the side, turning her back toward me. A few minutes later the room is filled with the brothers, Carrie ignores them all as they take in my new boy.
Savanna makes her way toward me, as I attempt to give my newborn a bottle. “He’s beautiful,” she whispers.
Lifting my eyes to her, I don’t know what to say. She looks back to Carrie, then over to me. “You have everything you want now. A family,” she whispers.
“Not everything,” I admit.
She nods. “My offer still stands. My heart is still his,” she admits.
Lifting my chin, I hold her gaze steady. “Ain’t down for that, and you know it.”
“But you’d do that to her?” she asks, hitching her thumb behind her to Carrie.
Clearing my throat. “She won’t let me. She knows, and she don’t want any part of me, of us,” I admit, dipping my chin to my son.
“She’s smart to scrape you off now and go. Better than being left with a kid all alone,” she snaps.
Lifting my gaze to her, I narrow my eyes. “You got a whole family at your back. People who love you, who love Trista. You don’t have to work, you get Hawk’s income. You’re young and beautiful, so fucking hard being you, Sav,” I spit.
“Got the love of a man I don’t want. Don’t have the love of the man I want. So yeah, it is hard bein’ me.”
She turns and leaves me, I’m glad for it. She can fuck herself then. I’m done with her ass. Fuck. Her. She doesn’t want me she doesn’t have to have me. I never wanted to fall for her anyway, not ever.
“It’s just you and me baby boy, against the world,” I whisper looking down at my black haired boy.
Shit.
What am I going to do with a newborn who has no mama?
FOUR YEARS LATER
“Uncle Silver,” Trista’s whimpering voice whispers into the phone.
I grunt, shifting the bitch off of my cock. She sits back, pouting but wisely doesn’t speak. “What’s wrong?” I ask my voice harsher than it should be.
“I’m at a party, and it’s bad. I need a ride. My mom will kill me if I call her,” she mutters.
I shake my head at the sixteen-year-old girl. Fuck. I can’t imagine what kind of trouble she’s got herself into, but I stand and hike my jeans over my hips, my wet cock, dissatisfied that it didn’t get to blow its load down this bitch’s throat.
“Text me the address, I’ll be there in five.”
Ending the call, I make my way into the clubhouse. There are a few brothers sitting around. Dragon, Wolfe, and Taz. I explain to them the situation as my phone alerts me to a new incoming text.
“Fuck, why can’t Savanna keep the girl in check?”
I shrug. “She’s Hawk and Sav’s kid. You know she’s bound to be goddamn trouble, especially with no daddy to keep her shit in line,” I mumble.
We roll out and I cringe when we arrive to the party. It’s in a nice part of town, but the owner of the house is a loyal customer of ours. We keep him supplied in coke and he keeps the cops off of our back. He’s also the town mayor.
It doesn’t take us long to extract Trista. She comes running, tears streaming down her face as soon as we kill our bikes’ engines. “You need us to take care of anything?” I ask as soon as she reaches my side.
She shakes her head violently. “No, they were all snorting coke, and they were scaring me. I just wanted to go home, but my friends were partying too.”
“Need to pick better friends, niña.”
She nods. “I do.”
Once I pull into Savanna’s driveway, she hops off of the bike and sprints inside, probably embarrassed as fuck. The four of us follow behind her, except we aren’t running like our ass’s are on fire.<
br />
“What the fuck?” Savanna shouts. This bitch is constantly shouting. I’m not so fucking sure why she has to be as loud as she is.
“Calm down, woman,” Dragon grunts.
I haven’t seen Savanna much over the past four years. I deliver her, her money, but she’s usually scarce when I do. Looking at her now, she still takes my fucking breath away, even though her eyes are still fucking dead.
“Trista called me, she was in a bad place with friends, needed a ride,” I explain.
Her eyes narrow, and she lifts her chin. Anger takes over her features. “She’s not the club’s responsibility. She’s mine. I don’t want her hanging around with you guys,” she snaps.
“Babe, she wasn’t at the clubhouse, she was with her friends. She always got a safe place if she needs help, and that’s me. It’s what I would want for my own boy.”
She leans forward, her finger lifted and pointed straight at me. “I don’t want her thinkin’ any of you are knights in shining armor to save her. Not when you’re all the same. You’re all like Hawk. All no good pieces of shit.”
Dragon rumbles behind me and I shake my head. “We all are, huh? Really? We’re here and where is he? We are always here to help you, Sav. We’ve done nothin’ but help you and you continue to make us eat shit because Hawk is a deadbeat asshole,” I shout.
“You’ll never be him, Silver. No matter how badly you want to, you will never be him,” she screams back at me.
Leaning forward, inches from her face, I give no fucks when I dish the shit right back to her. “I never wanted to be him, Sav. He had it all and he gave it up, walked away from it, like a fucking pussy. But fuck, maybe he was right because your pussy comes with a chain that I’m not sure any man here wants to be attached to.”
She jerks her head back as if I’ve slapped her. “That wasn’t nice,” she whispers.
“Clue in, bitch, you ain’t been nice to any of us the past twelve years. That’s a lot of bullshit we’ve had to choke down from you. I for one, am fucking done,” I grind out.
Turning around, I leave her. I walk away. I don’t go back to the clubhouse though, I decide to go home, to my boy. Buster. The kid punched me in the face the night he was born, practically gave me a black eye. I knew he needed a name that commemorated that moment. I gave him the name, Buster Joel Hernandez. A bit of me, but a name all his own. I didn’t want him to be a junior, it just didn’t seem like it fit for him.
Buster is my life. He is my son. No matter how I feel about Savanna, getting tied up in her shit, it’s not worth it. Not anymore. She thinks I’m a deadbeat dad like Hawk, she can fuck herself. I’ve been raising my boy since the day he was born all by myself.
Carrie took off the second she was released from the hospital and I haven’t seen her since. I keep tabs on her, just in case. She’s livin’ in a trailer in New Mexico, injecting meth into her body because she can’t afford cocaine anymore.
Last I heard, she had a man living with her and they were cookin’ the shit. Thinking about her sends a tremor of guilt through me. But I can’t dwell on the past, on the part I played. We were both using each other.
I’m not Hawk. Savanna isn’t worth my heart, she isn’t worth anything. Pining after a bitch for over twelve years ain’t worth shit either. I’m done with bitches. Clubwhores are where I’m staying. They know how to take it, and do so with little to no talking. They know where they stand, they know the score. And they leave the minute I pull out.
Chapter One
FIVE YEARS LATER
PRESLEY
The boy in front of me is only eight years old. All of my students are, but there is something more working behind this one’s eyes. He looks eight years old on the outside, that is, until you really look into those dark swirling orbs, when you do that, he looks around fifty.
I’d seen kids from bad homes. I’d seen kids from good homes who acted out. What I hadn’t seen, ever, was a kid like Buster Hernandez. His legal name is Buster, and I have a feeling his parents had aptly named him. The boy has a file a mile long, and all of his suspensions and detentions are for fighting, and fighting alone.
“Buster, take out your homework and work on it please,” I gently urge.
He lifts his swirling eyes to meet mine and he smirks. “Yeah, Miss Gray.” He winks at me, and it’s so charismatic that I blink, unsure I saw the sight itself. I mean, he’s eight.
I’m new to this school and to this town. I moved here a month ago and started teaching third grade just three weeks ago when the new school year started. I’ve lived in Phoenix my whole life, but I needed a change. I was stuck there. A little fish in a big town and I felt like I was being suffocated.
As soon as the school year was finished in Phoenix, I started sending my resume out everywhere. A small town near the border of New Mexico and Arizona was the first to respond. They hired me over the phone for a third grade full time teaching position. I’d never been such a mixture of excitement and nervousness all at the same time as I was when I accepted the position.
Much to my parents’ dismay, I moved immediately. My lease was up on my apartment, and I couldn’t leave fast enough. I couldn’t wait to start on my new adventure. Now that I’m here, I’m wondering if I made the right decision or not.
Now that I live in this miniscule town and have discovered that nothing is any better. I’m still nobody. I still sit alone on Friday nights, and I’m still just going through the motions of life. What I’m not doing is living.
“Miss Gray?” Buster asks, shaking me of my self-pitying thoughts. Lifting my head from staring at my ungraded papers, I look up at him. “It’s after four,” he mumbles.
Smiling, I dip my chin. “Okay, go on home. No more fighting though, please?”
He smirks, defiance clearly shimmering in his dark eyes. “Sure, Miss Gray,” he lies.
I shake my head, watching as he hitches his backpack and then rushes out of my classroom. I hear someone clear their throat at the doorway and I look over to see the school counselor, Benjamin, frowning at me. He’s a couple years older than me, his light blond hair beginning to thin and his middle a bit soft.
He’s asked me out, twice already and I’ve avoided answering. It’s not that I think I could do better, I’m not sure that I could, it’s that he looks like someone that is doing the same as I am—going through the motions. I didn’t come here for that. Although, he’s the most promising prospect I have at the moment.
“That one is trouble, steer clear of him, Presley,” Benjamin announces.
My brows snap together, and I look up at him. “He’s eight,” I point out.
Benjamin lifts his hand and I watch as his fingers sift through his hair. “Bad seed, from a bad seed. Stay clear. I wouldn’t even hold him for detention. Just pass him with a C-average and keep your nose down.”
Opening my mouth, he shakes his head. “Trust me,” he states. “You don’t want any part of the shit show that comes with that boy.”
Standing up, my quick temper gets the best of me. “He’s a child. I don’t care what kind of life he comes from, he’s a child. Small minded people like you are what’s wrong with society today,” I state. “No child should ever be put in a category, or box, because of their background. He hasn’t even begun to live life yet, and you’ve already deemed him unworthy of love and compassion and most importantly, an education.”
Benjamin holds up his hands. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, honey.”
He walks away before I can tell him to shove his condescending, honey, up his ass. Too pissed off to stay on campus a second longer, I pack up my things and decide to go home. My heels click down the hall of the school and as soon as I step outside of the building, I let out an involuntary groan as the hot air washes over me.
My once dark blue, now oxidized, Honda stares at me in the Arizona heat, daring me to slip inside and practically burst into flames. Something catches the corner of my eye and I turn to look. My breath hitches at the sight i
n front of me.
There’s a big black motorcycle with a man sitting astride. I can’t make out his features, other than his thick black beard and slightly too long mussed up dark hair. He’s looking down and my eyes shift to follow his, it’s Buster slipping on a helmet. I watch as he climbs on behind the man, wrapping his little boy arms around his middle.
The man on the motorcycle looks up, directly at me, except he doesn’t see me. I can tell that he looks through me like most men do. He revs his engine, turns his bike around and they shoot off down the road.
With a heavy sigh, I make my way toward my car and mentally prepare to enter the depths of hell that is known as my vehicle. Starting the engine, I hear a noise and then a clunk sound. Nothing comes out of the air conditioning vent, and that’s when I know the patch job that the mechanic did before I left Phoenix, has now failed.
“Fuck,” I whimper.
Reaching for the window handle, I crank it down, the air stifling as sweat beads all over my skin. It’s the middle of summer, in Arizona, and I have no air conditioning in my car.
“Fuck,” I say a little louder. “My life fucking sucks,” I hiss.
I should be grateful the old car starts. I shouldn’t bitch. It’s paid off. Spending a few bucks to fix the unit shouldn’t be as upsetting as it feels, but, air conditioning, it’s a need here, not a want. Even though I don’t really have extra money to spend, I’m going to have to do it. Looks like it’s going to be peanut butter sandwiches for the foreseeable future.
It doesn’t take long for me to drive home from campus. My small house comes into view and with sweat pouring from my face, back, and pretty much every part of my body, I let out a small cheer. I won’t be able to do this for too long.
Making my way from the car to my front door, I let out a sigh as I walk through the threshold. I’m alone, always alone. My house is dark, too quiet and there’s a level of sadness that washes over me. When I was young, this is not how I saw my adult life going. I thought I would go to college, meet someone, we’d get married and live in a small house with a white picket fence. We would work for a few years, maybe travel a bit, then we would settle down and have a few kids.
UnScrew Me (Savage Beast MC Book 1) Page 2
