Simply Sinful: Lost Angels MC, page 3
It wasn't even two, though you'd never know with how dark it was. The rain is really coming down out there. I shouldn't leave the house, but it’s his birthday. Knowing his mom would have forgotten, I didn't want to let him down. Not after he told me about his birthday three years ago. He spent half the night in the hospital when his mom overdosed. That's no way to spend a birthday. I would call him, but with Dad grounding me for the last few days he’s watching that “privilege” very closely. He even took my keys so I couldn’t use the car!
So with my mind already made up I don my sweatshirt, pulling up the hood so to not be a completely drowned rat by the time I make it to his house. Though when I finally get there twenty minutes later his truck isn't there. Not knowing what else to do, or another option I knock on the door.
I’ve only seen his mom a few times, but the longest being a few minutes. So when she looks out into the rain, with a smoky haze wafting out of her house, in only a robe partially opened showing more than I ever wanted to see, we both look at each other with a lack of response. It takes me a few seconds to remember why I knocked in the first place.
“Umm, Mrs. Myers, do you know where Cole is?” I ask wiping the free strand that has been soaked by the rain back behind my ear.
“Who?” she tilts her head, and the move exposes her neck, her robe slipping down farther revealing her slender collarbone and...bruising. She must register I notice and she pulls the robe tighter around her, finally covering herself. Her thin hands wrap around the top, making a collar around her neck with the well-worn yellow fabric.
“Who the fuck is it, Claudine?” A voice calls from inside the house. The sound angry, and impatient, as if I interrupted something. Being that Mrs. Myers was in only a robe I can imagine what it had been.
I didn’t dare look past her, and ask again but using his given name, “Nicholas, have you seen Nicholas?”
There is some recognition in her eyes, but before she can say anything she is pushed out of the way. She doesn’t even blink or even curl away as she takes the impact to the door, making it swing wider and letting the larger man through to fill the doorway. He wears only boxers at an awkward angle, the band of it disappearing under his belly. The man might have been handsome at one time, but time hasn't been kind to him. “What do you want,” he scowls down at me, punctuating every word, his annoyance dripping from his pores.
I force myself to not shrink away and stand tall. I’m my father's daughter, “I’m looking for Nicholas.”
“Can’t have that waste of space here when I stop by. I kicked him out the moment I got in. The little shit always tries to start a fight,” he grabs hold of Cole’s mother by the arm so tight I know there will be bruises, moves her out of the way of the door, and slams it in my face.
Okay not here. I’m hesitant to leave Cole’s mom here alone, but what can I do? When I look around, I notice the lights on next door, and quickly relay that I believe there was domestic violence happening right next door to them. The older lady that answered the door nods in agreement, “I’ve called about it dear, but every time she says nothing, and he always comes back.”
If she wouldn't save herself then I couldn’t do it for her. I thank the nice lady with the little curlers in her white hair, and a moo moo blanketing her.
Taking one last look at Cole’s place I start my trek home. I can’t walk around for hours trying to figure out where he is. I’ll see him on Monday anyways, he’s always waiting at my locker in the morning. I smile every time I think of him. How handsome he is, even with his shield of rebellion, and standoffish demeanor. If anyone took the time to chip even a little piece of him away, they’d discover that what’s behind the surface is nothing like that.
About a block from his house I notice a truck that looks just like his across the street. Black, with a white stripe down the side, but when I see the sticker he took from my room I know it is the one in the same. I’m still surprised every time I see it, that it’s held up, and that he even bothered to stick it on his prized possession. It’s a bright blob in the rain, but that little troll with the neon pink hair is hard to miss.
I cross the street and walk towards the sticker on the bumper just to make sure. I smile when it is. I start to walk up the side of the truck, and I can see him in the side mirror, but I stop when I see Candy swing herself on top of him. I’m paralyzed in a sick trance, I can’t tear my eyes from the scene as it plays out in front of me, my feet rooted to the spot as I watch them. His fingers come up around her biceps as she giggles and the moment their lips touch, I’m freed. I run as fast as I can from the truck, from him...and the only noise aside from my slapping feet in the rain is a truck horn.
“Em?” Cole says as he looks at me with concern.
When my eyes refocus, I only see him through a blur and realize I’m crying. I wipe at the tears frantically. “Then why? Why was Candy in your truck…”
He looks confused, “What? What does she have to do with us?”
“Answer the question, Cole,” the words come out strangled.
Again, he looks confused. “You know Candy was a friend, and my next-door neighbor, she rode with me to school every day, you know that.”
“That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it,” I can feel myself get angry, the hurt rising through my thickened skin to the surface. “Your sixteenth birthday.”
“You expect me to remember that far back?” He throws his hands up in frustration, they find purchase in his hair and they start to tug. “It's not like I marked the fucking day in my calendar,” he says under his breath, but we're so close there's no way I couldn't have heard it.
I gasp and look up. I hadn't noticed how dark it had gotten, or the huge rain clouds that were now over us. Another drop hits my cheek. “How fitting,” I say. I hold out a palm and watch as the drops turn from one to two.
He wipes away the rain that hits my cheek. “What, the rain? Why is that fitting?”
My eyes lock with his, his hands falling away, “Because it was raining that night.” Again with the confusion, but I know the moment he no longer sees me. His eyes are unfocused, moving erratically, his brows furrow then releasing. “Fuck,” he breathes. His eyes are back on me.
“What did you see?” he asks in a rush.
“Really?! What would make me leave?!”
“It's not what you think.”
I scoff. “If only that phrase hasn't been used on me before.” I can feel whatever calm I had gained slip right back into the recesses from where it hides when he's around. As if the weather imitates me, it opens up and pours down on us as it had that night.
“Unlike whoever the fuck said that, there's a big difference between him and me, and it's the fact I have never lied to you.”
“Omitted truths are still a lie.”
He shoves his soaked hair that falls in his face with a jerky moment. “So what, you expected me to tell you everything from the moment I woke to when I fell asleep?! You know how my life was back then, it was easier to just forget.”
“Of course not! Though kissing someone else while you were with me would have been the decent thing.”
His mouth whitens. “The decent thing, right. Like how you left without a word? That was decent of you, and mature.”
“We're not talking about me,” I say trying to force righteousness in my tone, but damn it, he’s right.
“Maybe we should.”
I ball my hands into fists. “It’s obvious why I left, and as a teenager you can't really put maturity on a scale. We were all trying to be older than we were, but when I saw her in your arms it stripped me from my rational self. I became a young girl that was losing someone else in her life, but this time it was on purpose.” The last sentence is choked out, the pain in it heard by both of us.
“God dammit,” he says, and I'm not sure why I let him take my face into his hands, or lean in so close he shields me from most of the rain that hits my face, “I would never purposely hurt you. She caught me off guard, but I never kissed her back. I pushed her off of me and took her home right after. When she slammed that truck door, I forgot all about it. I just wanted the day to end, but couldn't go home. I sat in front of your house all night long, ask Ric, he saw me from the bay window, but that's why I was parked there in the morning. When I saw you getting in your car the next morning refusing to talk to me, I didn't once think it was about Candy, because it meant nothing.”
“Or you thought you hadn't gotten caught. Why should I believe you?”
He sighs, "I don't have a reason to lie to you, and I already said I wouldn't. It’s not going to get me what I want, and it would only widen the chasm between us. So why would I start now?”
“Because I'd never forgive you if what happened that night is how I believe it to be.”
He seems to think that over as he looks into my eyes. “Apparently, I've already been guilty for the past eighteen years, for something I haven't done. I've been punished enough. I've had to live without you, and it's been hell. But I'd still not lie to you even if it took you away for the rest of my life. I was built without a filter.” That fact brings a small smile to my lips, and his eyes don't miss a thing.
His fingers glide against my cheeks, dipping his fingers into my dimples. With the intensity of his gaze my smile soon fades. When he looks up his eyes not leaving mine, he says, “I wouldn't take her to school anymore after that.” He lets that hang in the air between us. “If you don't believe me, I'll take you see her right now.”
“Okay.”
There's a look of hurt on his face, and when it disappears, when he lets me go, it doesn't leave his eyes. “Get in the car, I'll drive.”
We say nothing as he drives us across town. I realize how big of an ass I'm being, but I can't let what I've believed for this long go, just on a say so. We pull up in her old driveway. I look at him bewildered. “She still lives here?”
“She was never one for big dreams or aspirations.” He doesn't look my way as he responds. “She even has the same waitressing job at Danny's that she had in high school.”
“How do you know if she's home?” I try to ask the question as if the answer doesn't matter, but I can tell it falls flat by the way he side eyes me.
He points, “Her car's here.”
I can feel myself blush. How had I missed that? Jesus she's driving her dad's old car, I'm not sure how that's even possible. Well maybe if she's so basic in her life's goals she may only use it to go to work and back. I have a newfound appreciation that I've seen more of the world.
“You want to wait for a break in the storm or knock now?”
“No need,” I say as I point towards the house. On the porch, under an umbrella she stands. It's coming down too hard to tell how she feels about us being in her driveway, but as she moves towards us, we'll know soon.
He's rolling down the window before she gets the chance to tap on the glass, her scowl morphs into a huge smile. “Cole?!” she squeals his name. “Oh my God I wasn't expecting you,” she strokes her hair down, and quickly checks her attire as if she could take back the leggings and baggy t-shirt combo. “It's been like,” he leans back and she stops short. “...Oh hi,” her face tightens.
“Please don't let me stop you from finishing that sentence,” I say.
“...Emmaline? Is that you?” She squints as if she needs glasses, and I gap when she pulls them from a pocket in her pants to produce some, perching them on her nose, her face registers shock. “Holy cow, it is you,” she looks between us for a second, her expression morphing quickly into curiosity, her brows pinching hard together. “What are you two doing here?”
“Em wants to ask you something,” he points over his shoulder at me.
“Oh?” she looks me straight in the eye. “Sure, as long as she answers something for me.”
When I give a small nod, she straightens. “Good, now either you come in or I get in the car, but I know one thing I'm done crouching over like this. I do it enough at Danny's.”
“I'll follow you in a minute,” I respond.
Cole takes his seat belt off. “Not without me you don't.”
“Whatever, you guys work it out. I'm going in,” Candy says before turning and following through.
“I'm not letting you go in there alone, there's no telling what she'll tell you,” his hand on the wheel turns white, the other balls up on his leg showing me just how nervous he is of the outcome, and his frustration that he has no control over it.
“You've just voiced the reason of why I should go alone. I don't need her to filter her words while you're around. How else can I trust she's not just saying whatever it is to get into your graces again. No, if I want anything from her it'll be while it's just the two of us. You're staying in the car,” I hand him the list. “Make yourself useful and make some calls,” I jump out of the car before he has a chance to argue.
When I knock on the door, I get a quick response telling me to come in. The house isn’t as I remember it, though I’d only been in a few times back in high school so not necessarily the best of recollections. At least then I knew it felt homey, now with its bare walls and sparse furniture there’s little to keep your eyes from the homeowner, and I admit I wasn’t ready for that. It’s been years but she still looks like she should be on the cheer squad. She takes another puff from her cigarette and points to the lone chair across from her.
“So I guess you’re here about that night I kissed Cole.”
I admit I’m taken aback, and she seems pleased to have caught me off guard. “How’d you…”
“I caught you watching when I climbed on top of him,” she shakes her head while she flicks her ash into the tray on her lap. “It was adorable how confused you looked, but still held hope he wasn’t that type of man.”
She’s always been this way. Nice as a sweet peach on a hot day while around him, but the moment he turned his back a sneer curled her lips giving away that in fact the peach is rotten. Oh and she is rotten, her name contradicted everything she is, if you were to crack open to see her insides. I’m not sure how Cole or rather anyone let her pleasant demeanor fool them. I suppose I was fortunate to learn that early.
“You did it just to fuck with me?”
“And to prove something I'd always known, that he had been mine first, that he's going to be until the end…,” she scowls, letting the smoke flow from her mouth and nostrils. “At least until my stunt backfired. He pushed me so hard I hit his steering wheel, and the look he gave me...I knew his blinders were ripped off,” she looks down into the ashes as she taps another pile in. “When you left, he acted like he didn't even know me. I lost my best friend, my only real friend, and it's something I've regretted,” she looks up and notices me again, her scowl returns. “It sucked the joy of you being out of the picture dry.”
“You're still in love with him, aren't you?”
“Aren't you? If you weren't you wouldn't have bothered coming here. So what does that say about the pair of us?”
I knew she was right, of course she was. Who would confront the past if she wasn't hoping for a future? “Proving the age-old quote, you can't help who you fall for true.”
“So if you loved him so much, why didn't you fight, why didn't you stay? The worst part, even more than losing him, was to watch him fade away. It was like all that made Cole up piggybacked right along with you, which left this angry empty man behind. What are those things called...husks, golems? Created in the image of their maker, but empty without purpose if left to their own devices. Once he got picked up by the system it only got worse, at least that's what I heard.”
My eyes fill with tears as she gives her description. I can’t imagine him being anything other than the boy I fell in love with, but then all her words register, “In the system? What do you mean?” I brush away the few errant tears from my cheeks.
Her eyes go round before she composes herself with another inhale of her cigarette. “Have you been living under a rock? He found his mom after she overdosed, he was put in the system since no one knew of any relatives.”
“When?” My heart squeezes to think he had to go through that alone.
She looks past me, and it isn’t her voice that answers me. “It doesn’t matter.” I jump out of the chair like a groundhog on its day and swivel to see a drenched Cole, beautiful even with a frown turning his lips down. “You about done in here? Apparently, we are late for a meeting.”
“What?...oh shit.” The florist. I look back over to Candy and she’s already forgotten me, making eyes at Cole. I thank her for her time anyways, her answer is smoke accompanied with an insincere smile. I grab Cole’s hand as I rush us back out of her door.
Chapter 7
When we get close to the car, I shake our hands free. I catch a glimpse of disappointment in the tilt of her lips, but she says nothing as she gets in. When we are in the car, I pray she doesn't bring up anything she and Candy talked about. I back us from the driveway and onto the streets.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” she says, and I realize it was wishful thinking.
“I’m not,” I can hear the bitterness in my own voice. My mom has always been a sore subject for me. I could never understand her inability to see past her next fix. It hurt me more than I tried to let on, but I found solace in Em and I let myself be weak. I vented my feelings when I no longer knew how to keep them caged. It felt like another betrayal on my mom’s part, another way she failed at being a mother, but Em was no longer the woman I could turn to for release of my toxic thoughts.
You could try to trust her again. A part of me tries to convince, but I push it back, not ready to listen. I may never be. The day she trusts me again I might reconsider, but today isn't that day.
“You don't mean that,” she says, and I can feel her eyes on me.
“What would you know? You made it clear you've changed, newsflash, so have I and I'm not who you remember.”
