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  Bear

  “You got any weed?” I asked Ray who was on the couch in the living room.

  “I don’t know, Bear, do you know how to knock?” Ray asked, shooting daggers at me with her eyes.

  “Never knocked before.”

  “I wasn’t breastfeeding before,” Ray said, and that’s when I noticed the little bundle of pink pressed up against Ray’s bare tit. I’d never seen anyone breastfeed a baby before. Not in person at least. I always thought it would be something gross, but I was wrong. Baby attached to it or not, a bare tit is still a bare tit and although I knew my feelings for Ray had never been anything real, she was still fucking beautiful…and her tit was still out.

  “You got any weed?” I asked again, trying not to look at her tit but in the process managing to only look at her tit.

  She grabbed a small blanket from over the couch and slung it over her shoulder. “You can look now.”

  “Don’t think I ever stopped,” I admitted. “But do you? It’s kind of important.” It was actually very important. I’d fucked up. I kissed Thia. I pressed my tongue into her pussy and in all my life I can honestly say that I’d never tasted anything so fucking amazing.

  But then I got up and left her sitting there probably wondering what the fuck she’d done wrong when she’d done nothing wrong. It was the opposite. She’d done everything right.

  Too fucking right.

  She was so responsive and I knew that if I spent any more time with my mouth on her or touching her in any way that she would have come.

  It was the mere thought of her coming around my tongue that set me off and made me start to lose control. Shit¸ it was probably that first fucking kiss. Her innocent tongue finding its way to mine.

  My cock was so hard it fucking hurt and I was seconds away from taking her right there at the edge of the fire pit. If it wasn’t for a crackling of the fire, a reminder of what I’d been through in that very same spot bringing me back to reality there was no doubt that I would have done just that.

  The weed was my peace offering to her. My way to show her that I really did want to make her forget in a way that didn’t involve me plowing through the barrier of her virgin pussy with my cock. I also had something else to tell her. Something that kept me on track with my original plan to get back on the fucking road.

  “You think I can smoke weed while breastfeeding?” Ray asked, calling me back to the present.

  “I take it from the way you’re looking at me like I’m a fuck up that the answer to that is a big resounding motherfucking no?” I asked.

  “You would be right,” Ray said. “King is in his studio, he keeps everything locked up pretty tight these days with the kids around, but he probably has something.” She shifted the baby and her shirt before sliding the cover off. “Now was that so hard?” I liked arguing with Ray almost as much as I liked arguing with Ti.

  HA HA you just admitted you like fighting with her. You have a crush you big fucking pussy!

  I rolled my eyes at Preppy’s mental commentary.

  King was in his new studio, on the other side of the garage from the apartment, just as Ray had said he would be. He was hunched over an angled desk, his pencil moving quickly over the page. I leaned over to check out what he was drawing, it was an old school style dragon, breathing flames and it was one of the most detailed sketches I’d ever seen him do. Dramatic. Bold. “Nice digs,” I said, looking around his new studio. His old one was just a small room in the house, outfitted in neon and posters. This one was cleaner, more grown up. More sterile. Pictures of previous tattoos he’d done hung in frames on the wall, a KING’S TATTOO sign with a skull wearing a crown hung over the door.

  “Thanks. Feels good to have a workspace again since the kids take up every inch of the house and then some. Never knew kids had so much shit,” he said, smudging a line with his pinky, wiping the top of the page with the side of his hand.

  “You always surprise me, brother. This is next level shit right here,” I said, pointing to his dragon.

  “You’ll never fucking guess who it’s for,” King said, spinning around on his stool.

  “Who?”

  “Ray’s dad.”

  “No fucking shit. Senator asshole is getting tatted up? What happened to the good old days when we were planning his quick and timely demise?” I asked as I continued to look around the wall at the different types of tattoos he’d done.

  “Things change. He’s got all sorts of scars where he took the bullet in his chest and his shoulder. Wants a dragon to cover up part of it, reminds him of the old Jet Li movies he likes or some shit like that.”

  “If I had any room left I’d have you put that on me. Shit’s totally fucking tits man,” I said. “Speaking of tits, I just saw Ray up at the house and I was wondering if you’ve got any weed.”

  “Why the fuck did that sentence start with SPEAKING OF TITS?” King asked, tacking his sketch onto a board beside the window and glaring at me like I just told him I fingered her in his bed.

  “’Cause your girl was up there feeding your kid. She was in the living room. Calm down dude, it’s not like I saw nip or anything.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Preppy,” King said. “And the only reason why you’re not dead right now is because you are about to tell me that you covered your eyes, turned your ass around and walked right out the fucking door when you realized she had her tit out.”

  “Sure. Sounds good. That’s exactly what happened,” I said sarcastically. “But seriously you got any weed? I’m out and I need it for something.”

  “Like getting high?” King asked.

  Smartass.

  “Yes, motherfucker, like getting high. But it’s not for me, it’s for Ti. She asked me why I was doing blow and I told her to check out of reality for a bit and she surprised me by begging me for it so she could forget too, I damn near gave in.”

  I neglected to tell him that I also needed it to apologize for tonguing her down without finishing. For promising to help her forget and instead running away right when I was getting to the good part.

  “Why didn’t you let her? Never seen you stop a girl from a good time before,” King said.

  “I didn’t have any left, but it didn’t feel right anyway. She’s not some club whore.”

  “You finally decided she’s not out to get you?” King asked.

  “I guess not.”

  “You figure out what to do with her yet?”

  “Plan hasn’t changed. And I made a call which should help.”

  “What kind of call?” King asked, eyeing me warily.

  “Bethany Fletcher,” I admitted.

  “Wow.”

  “Can’t call club lawyers, they don’t work for me any more. Figure if I can get Ti off the hook for shooting her parents then I can sneak her out of here and drop her off far enough away where the MC won’t ever look for her.”

  “I still can’t believe you called Bethany,” King said.

  “When you’re at war with the devil sometimes you gotta dial up a demon,” I said.

  “Hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do.”

  I had no fucking clue.

  King walked over to the wall where a big painting of a melting clock hung from the ceiling to the floor. He shifted the painting, revealing a hidden safe. He turned the dial and when he opened it there was another safe inside, this one requiring a code.

  “You want me to wait while you dig a key out from the backyard to open safe number three?” I asked.

  “Fuck off,” King said. “Got kids running around here now. Things are different. Can’t have shit everywhere like we used to.”

  It was hard to imagine King, a man who did what he wanted his entire life without giving two shits if it was right or wrong, sneaking off at night to get high in the garage after the kids went night night.

  “My mom did everything and everyone in front of me,” he continued. “I don’t want that for my kids. Want them n
ot knowing about the bad shit. Want them believing in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the goddamn tooth fairy until they’re fucking forty.”

  “Why?” I asked, not understanding what he was trying to get at.

  “’Cause they’re kids. Want them to just be kids. Play with toy guns and not have to worry about using the real deal before they’re old enough to drive. I want their biggest worry to be about whether we’re having pizza or hot dogs for dinner. You and me? We didn’t get the chance to be kids. It was stolen from us by our shit parents, and instead of a childhood we were given a big plate of harsh fucking reality. Not gonna do that to them. I won’t.”

  Since I’d gotten back to Logan’s Beach I was under the assumption that King had gotten soft, but I was wrong. Wanting to protect his kids didn’t make him soft. It made him even more fucking crazy, just in a different way.

  Because he had a different purpose.

  “You’ll get it one day. You’ll have your own to worry about, and then you’ll realize that the psycho you thought you were, the one no one was stupid enough to fuck with, should be very fucking afraid of the psycho you will become to protect your family.”

  “Right now I can’t see past tomorrow, never mind that far into the future. My days are numbered anyway. The MC is gunning for me the second I step out onto their turf. May not live long enough to knock someone up.”

  King tossed me a small ziplock bag and I shoved it into my back pocket. He closed the safe and leaned against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’d turned into a big fucking pussy while you were gone.”

  “Fuck you,” I spat.

  “The old Bear would have phrased that shit differently. Tell me something, man. You still want it? The gavel? Because a few months ago you said you didn’t want it yet you’re wandering around here like you’re a lost fucking puppy dog.”

  “Now the answer is ‘I don’t know,’” I said honestly. “Been asking myself the same fucking thing.”

  “Ain’t gonna find your answer at the bottom of a bottle of Jack.”

  “Oh yeah, since when did you become my fucking mama?”

  “Since an old friend asked me if I remembered who I was and I realized I’d lost touch. Thought you might like the same kind of reminder,” King said, throwing my words back at me that I’d told him months ago. “Do you want to know what that old friend would have just said?”

  “Sure,” I said, because I did want to know.

  “The old Bear wouldn’t have said that the MC was gunning for him the second he stepped on their turf, the old Bear wouldn’t have said shit, but he would have reigned down hellfire on them until it wasn’t their fucking turf anymore,” King said.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to do that? I’m just me. All of my brothers besides one, take their orders from Chop. I’m only one soldier when they have dozens. Going into the MC would be fucking suicide and shit’s fucked up but I’m not ready to go out just yet.”

  “That’s funny, because a second ago it sounded like you were giving up.”

  “I’m not, just doing what I gotta do to get through life, man.”

  “That’s even more funny,” King said, lighting a cigarette.

  “What is?” I asked, growing annoyed with my friend.

  “That you think what you’re doing is living,” King pointed out.

  “Shit is so easy to say coming from someone who’s gone civilian.”

  “I’ll soldier for you,” King said. I was just about to light a cigarette but his words made me pause, the flame flickering inches away from my smoke, swaying in the air while I took in the gravity of what he’d just said.

  “No,” I said finally. “You’ve got Ray and the kids. If she found out you were gonna soldier for me so we could take back the MC she would fucking kill you before they had a chance to.”

  “See? That’s how I know that you don’t know shit,” King said, pointing up to the house through the window. “Ray and my kids are my everything, but she knows and accepts me for who I am and what I need to do. When the time comes, and you see your way clear of all the bullshit you’re insisting in stewing in, I’m in. I’ll soldier. No fucking questions.”

  King had finally lost his goddamned mind. “No. And I’m not saying it just to say it man. I couldn’t let you. If Ray doesn’t kill you, she would most definitely kill me.”

  “Oh yeah?” King said, sitting back down at his desk and turning his back to me. He picked up his pencil and began another sketch. “Then why did she suggest it?”

  I was mulling King’s idea to take back the MC over in my mind. Wondering if it was a real possibility. With every step I took toward the apartment it sank its teeth into my brain and by the time I opened the door it took hold, but the thought didn’t last long because as soon as I opened the door I felt it in the air. I knew before I even peered into the bedroom. I knew before I ran back up to the house to ask Ray if she’d seen her. I knew before I spotted my ring on the coffee table still attached to the chain.

  Thia was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Thia

  The venom of a brown widow spider is six times more powerful than the venom of its cousin, the black widow. But unlike its darker relative, the brown widow’s first response to a threat is to retreat, rarely biting unless direct contact is made. Attacking is its last option.

  A last resort.

  Kind of like me.

  I had more in common with the spider that killed my little brother than I did with Bear.

  Sheriff Donaldson wasn’t ever in his office until after three pm. The town of Jessep may have been big in land mass but we were small in population, so small in fact that our town sheriff only worked part time.

  Jessep was one of the oldest towns in Florida and being old meant a lot of its laws had been written a long time ago. One of its charms is that those laws hadn’t ever been revised, leaving all sorts of backwards southern rules on the books.

  Under Jessep law, men were not permitted to wear women’s clothing, but it didn’t stop there. More specifically, the punishment for those men caught wearing satin strapless gowns would be much more severe than those caught wearing knee-length skirts.

  Showering naked was also a big no-no. Oral sex, even between married couples, was strictly forbidden as well.

  It was illegal to sing in a public place while wearing a swimsuit. The rule makers may not have liked singing at all because it was also illegal to sing to a goat.

  Even on the goat’s birthday.

  It was illegal for a single woman to parachute on Sundays.

  I peddled back into my backwards hometown on a bicycle I’d found in the garage, an old blue beach cruiser with a tattered orange flag attached to the back of the seat. I’d rode all the way back to Jessep without stopping, my need to put distance between me and Bear and my desire to face what I had coming to me head on propelled me forward, faster and faster I’d pedaled until I’d finally slowed when I turned down the road with the Welcome to Jessep sign, Population 64. I’d meant to go straight to the sheriff’s office but it was only two o’clock. I hadn’t meant to go to the house but before I’d realized it, I was still on the bike with my feet on the ground staring at the yellow crime scene tape that had dispatched on one side and was now floating in the wind.

  I walked slowly up the path, taking the bike with me. I didn’t plan on getting off or walking up to the porch or sitting in the old rocking chair inhaling the smell of rotting citrus.

  But I did.

  The afternoon rains had turned my mother’s blood on the side of the house from fresh red to pale brown. Anyone who didn’t know what happened there would have just thought it was a mud stain.

  But I knew what happened here.

  What I didn’t know was what was going to happen next.

  That’s when I saw it.

  The spider.

  I stood on the rickety porch holding an old straw broom with a broken handle. I watc
hed as it turned over a small black bug using a few of its many long and striped legs. It was lingering under the fascia, minding its own business, wrapping up his lunch, while I stood only feet away and planned its imminent demise.

  The sun was beginning to set, one of the only hours of the day