Craving Absolution

  Holy shit, these people were like rabbits.

  Grease was standing next to the barbeque with two other men, one deeply tanned with long black hair, the other with light brown hair and a slight beer belly. No sign of Slider yet. At the edge of the yard under the trees were three women, one of them Callie, who had Will on her lap.

  They all stood up to greet us as we made our way outside, and I felt my hands tremble as they started walking our way.

  “Gram and Farrah, that’s Dragon and Tommy at the grill. The pretty redhead is Brenna—” Cody said, his words cut off with a growl from the black-haired man. “Obviously Brenna belongs to Dragon, and the brown-haired sweetheart is Trish, Tommy’s wife.”

  I could see why Cody was accepted so easily into the little group. He utilized a perfect mixture of teasing and charm, and it was a side of him I’d never seen before. He was working the people staring at us like a pro.

  Different hellos were called out as the women reached us, and my hands started to shake as Brenna leaned up to kiss Cody’s cheek, her eyes on me.

  “Hey, Casper. You’ve been ignoring us,” she teased.

  My back snapped straight at her insinuation, and it took all I had to keep a pleasant smile on my face.

  “Had some things to deal with,” he replied, wrapping his arm around my waist.

  Just as she was about to say something else, we were interrupted by a small body wrapping itself around my legs.

  “Auntie!” Will yelled, his face covered in something red and sticky.

  “Hello, my William.” I’d never been so thankful for the kid’s lack of respect for personal space.

  “Will! Let go of Farrah, you’re gonna get shit all over her pants,” Grease called out from across the yard.

  My head snapped up in surprise at his tone, and in my peripheral vision I saw Callie’s had as well. My stomach burned, resentment building as I looked up to meet Callie’s apologetic eyes. It killed me that he had the right to warn Will away from me as if I were a passing acquaintance. I turned my head slowly toward Grease, and it took everything I had not to tell him to fuck right off as Will silently let go of my legs.

  “You’re okay, Wilfred,” I said calmly, placing one of my hands on his head. “I can wash these pants, buddy.” My eyes never left Grease’s, the sunglasses not shielding any of my feelings as we stared each other down. The yard was silent until he nodded and turned away, and I knew I’d made my point.

  “Nice to meet you, Farrah,” Trish said. She was nervous, her fingers fiddling with her hair as she pushed it behind her ear, and I instantly liked her.

  “You too,” I replied.

  Cody’s hand squeezed my waist before he pulled away, and I watched him walk toward the men, patting backs and giving weird handshakes as he reached the group. The women around me were speaking, but I ignored them. I was uncomfortable as hell, and wished I were anywhere but there when I heard my name.

  “Are you here long, Farrah?” Trish asked.

  “Actually, I just moved up here.”

  “Oh, to be with Casper?” Brenna interjected.

  I couldn’t decipher the emotion in her voice, but something in it rubbed me the wrong way. What the hell was her problem?

  “No, actually to be with Callie,” I joked back, my smug smile in place. I wasn’t going to let her get to me, even if she was studying me like a bug under a microscope.

  “Farrah and I shared an apartment before we moved here,” Callie informed them as we walked back toward their chairs. “I begged her to move with us. Will and I would be lost without her here.”

  I smiled at my best friend, grateful that she’d jumped into the conversation. She was the yin to my yang, the calm to my storm. Sometimes I forgot for a while, taking her friendship for granted, but it was times like these that I remembered why we fit so well.

  Grease came up and took the forgotten potato salad from my arms as we sat down. His face was blank, no emotion in sight, but I knew why he was there.

  “We cool?” he asked softly.

  “This isn’t the place,” I answered. The conversation was flowing around me, but I knew that everyone was listening. I wasn’t about to give them a show, especially since I knew it was stupid to be pissed at him.

  “Still . . . sorry about that, Farrah.” He turned and walked away, giving a chin lift at the guys as they came to sit with us.

  The men sat in front of their women on the ground, all of us facing the kids as they played in the water. Pretty soon we were listening to Tommy tell a story—who was kind of a dumbass but actually super nice—when the little girl who’d been running in the sprinkler ran up and plopped down on Dragon’s lap. The resemblance between the girl and the fierce biker was uncanny.

  “Let’s sing our song, Papa,” she said.

  He ignored her for a moment, still caught up in Tommy’s story, but eventually had to pay attention when she wrapped her hands in his beard and pulled his face down to hers.

  “Let’s sing our song, Papa!” she repeated.

  “Not now, Trix,” he snapped, untangling her fingers from his beard. It sounded harsh, but I couldn’t really blame him for snapping. Those little fingers in his beard must have hurt like hell.

  The child’s lower lip trembled, but she didn’t make a noise as she nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder. He rubbed her back as she sat there, quiet as a mouse. She didn’t look chastised or afraid; she looked embarrassed as she glanced around at the adults surrounding her.

  “Dragon,” Brenna said curtly as she flicked the back of his head.

  “The fuck?”

  “Look at your daughter.”

  His chin dropped down to glance at Trix, and his gaze softened as he met her eyes. He looked up at us, obviously uncomfortable as hell, but he still whispered something to her, making her whole face light up. She leaned back on his knees, grabbing his leather cut in both hands as she started to sing.

  “All my life has been a series of doors in my face, and then suddenly I bump into you!” she belted out, startling most of us.

  I had to bite my lips to keep the laughter at bay when she started swaying to the song, but what happened next wasn’t funny. With an extremely embarrassed but bravado-filled glance at the adults, Dragon began quietly singing back to her.

  I didn’t know what the song was, but it was pretty clear that they’d sung it before, because Dragon knew exactly when to cut in for his part of the duet. We couldn’t really hear Dragon, his voice was too low, but the picture they painted was enough. Dragon and Trix watched each other as they sang, and Brenna sat behind them, a smile on her face and a hand resting on the small swell of her belly.

  As we took in the scene, Cody leaned his head back into my lap and I ran my fingers over his shaved head, relaxing us both. It occurred to me that if the way she looked at her family was any measure of Brenna, maybe I’d judged her wrong.

  A while after Trix had scrambled off and the men decided that the burgers were done, my original opinion of Brenna was proved right as she got up from her chair and stopped in front of me.

  “Hey, Farrah? Can you help me get the rest of the food out of the fridge?” she asked.

  I barely knew her, even less than the other women in the group, but she’d still asked me to help her. Shit. I was seriously rethinking my decision that she was halfway decent.

  I caught Gram’s eye as I moved past her back into the house. We both knew Brenna was trying to get me alone, and a small shake of Gram’s head indicated she wanted me to stay calm. Easy for her, I thought, as I braced for the confrontation; she wasn’t the one in enemy territory.

  “Here, let me set it all out on the counter and we can just dish up in here,” Brenna said as she leaned into the fridge. “It was nice of you to bring something, you didn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t,” I replied flatly. “Gram made it.”

  “Oh.” She looked surprised to find me standing right behind her, still wearing my sunglasses inside the hous
e.

  I moved past, careful not to brush against her as I grabbed Gram’s bowl and set it on the counter behind her. I wasn’t going to play into her shit or give her an inch. She’d asked me to go inside with her for a reason, and I just wanted her to get to the point.

  “Look, I know you don’t know me, and I almost didn’t say anything, but I just wanted to tell you that Casper is really important to me. To us. I know you’re friends with his sister and her loyalty is probably split, which complicates things . . .”

  “Stop right there,” I ordered coldly. “You don’t get to say anything to me about Cody . . . or Callie, for that matter.”

  “Actually, I think I do. He almost died trying to protect me. We’re close. So I just wanted to warn you that we’re behind him one hundred percent. I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but he showed up at the club last night, and there was obviously something wrong . . .”

  My blood ran cold and I slid my hands into my pockets to hide the way they shook. Her insinuation that he’d been complaining about me was like a bucket of ice water thrown in my face. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Cody knew how I felt about them, and how uncomfortable I was with the entire situation.

  “You don’t know shit about our relationship. Nothing. You call him Casper, for Christ’s sake.” I worked hard to keep my voice from breaking, but I felt like I’d been blindsided. “Keep your fucking opinions to yourself. You got him shot, but I’m the one fucking him. You don’t have shit on me—”

  “Farrah!” Casper’s angry voice cut me off, and it was the impetus I needed to snap my shield of complacency back into place.

  I stood silently, getting my emotions in check as he walked around me. Thank God he’d come in when he had, before I’d really lost my cool and did something stupid. I almost sighed in relief as I waited for him to back me up, to stand up for me, but as he stepped close to Brenna and glared at me, my heart sank.

  “Take those fucking sunglasses off. What the fuck?”

  No.

  No.

  And just like that, I was done.

  I reached up and pulled my shades off, calmly folding them and tucking them into the neck of my shirt before I raised my eyes to his face and looked right through him.

  Fuck him and fuck her and fuck the entire thing. I’d been so worried about how much I’d let him see in the last week, my shields dropping more and more as I desperately tried to reinforce them. I really should have thanked him because he’d finally done what I couldn’t. He’d built them back up for me. Standing there in Brenna’s kitchen, I was once again a blank slate, my armor fully in place.

  His eyes grew wide with comprehension. “Farrah—” he whispered.

  “Thank you for inviting me over,” I told Brenna coldly, my eyes meeting hers. “But I just remembered I had something else planned today.”

  With a small nod of concession in her direction—she’d won, after all—I slowly turned and walked back out the back door. They would not see how bad it hurt for him to take her side, especially right after I’d told her that I was more important to him. I was an idiot and I’d let her get to me. Damn it, I’d let them both get to me.

  I’d never let it happen again.

  I returned to the backyard and made my way toward the women, catching Callie’s stricken look when she saw me. I shook my head at her. She needed to fit in with these people; I couldn’t pull her into the drama.

  “Gram, can I use your car?” I asked woodenly, stopping next to her. “I need to get out of here.”

  Her worried eyes searched my face, glancing between me and the house before she answered me.

  “Sure, baby. I’ll go with you,” she replied.

  Gram rose from the chair before I could stop her, and just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Slider and his wife walked out the back door with Cody and Brenna.

  “I wanna go now, Gram,” I told her under my breath.

  Then I called out to Will across the yard. As anxious as I was to get away from there, I couldn’t leave him without saying good-bye. He came running toward me dripping from the kiddie pool and I swung him up in my arms, unconcerned that his wet shorts were soaking my clothes.

  “Hey, Wilfred. I’m gonna go, but I’ll see you soon, okay?” I said, rubbing his nose with mine. “Be good.”

  We left without any fanfare; the group watching us go without a word, assuming I was dodging Slider. I let them think it. But the truth was, I could have faced him. I could have made nice, been respectful to his wife who probably hated me, and kept things civil. As long as I had Cody there, I was sure I could have done it.

  It wasn’t Slider I was running from as Gram drove us home; seeing him had actually seemed pretty anticlimactic. It was Cody that I had to get away from. He hadn’t said a word to me as I left the house, ignoring me completely as he’d chatted with the guys.

  All of it was too much for me—the bloodstain on the porch, the bullshit with Grease, Brenna thinking she could warn me off, Slider showing up, Cody’s giant fuck-you as he’d sided with his little girlfriend. I wasn’t equipped to handle it, so I shut it down.

  Fuck him. I didn’t need this shit.

  Chapter 11

  Farrah

  When someone started pounding on my door later that night, I was expecting it.

  Gram had taken me to a discount store on the way home from the barbeque, using some bullshit reason that she needed to stop. She’d ended up buying nothing, which hadn’t surprised me, but I’d come home with a new and inexpensive kitchen table and a shit ton of other household goods.

  I’d felt better as we left the store, anxious to get my things home and start setting up, and I was pretty sure that had been Gram’s plan. She’d set out to distract me and it had worked, but only a few hours later I was done washing my new dishes and putting together my furniture, and the distraction had worn off.

  So I sat down in one of my new chairs to wait. I’d been there for almost an hour when he finally showed up.

  “Hey,” I said, swinging open the door and taking a step back as he reached for me. “Come on in.”

  “What the hell happened, Farrah?”

  I made my way to the table, the only furniture in the apartment aside from my bed, and sat down, motioning him to the chair across from me. I didn’t want him close; I couldn’t bear for him to touch me when I felt so raw.

  Cody looked puzzled as he took in my newly furnished kitchen, but quietly sat down, leaning forward on his elbows to watch me closely.

  “Brenna asked me what game I was playing,” I started softly, knowing that sentence would grab his attention. “I hadn’t known what she was talking about at first. When we got there, it seemed like everything was fine. We’d arrived as a couple and I assumed that everyone would respect that.”

  “Farrah—”

  “No, let me finish,” I said, cutting him off. “I didn’t know what she was talking about until she mentioned you going to the club last night, complaining about me.”

  “That’s bullshit!” His chair slid out from behind him as he stood from the table, anger tensing the muscles in his neck and jaw. “I didn’t even see Brenna last night, and I sure as fuck never complained about you.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Cody!” I raised my voice above his ranting, my face a blank mask of serenity. “Can you just sit down?”

  “I didn’t say shit, Ladybug, I swear to God. I wouldn’t do that,” he replied adamantly as he sat back down.

  “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you said anything.” I looked down at the table, trying to focus. The next words were harder to say than I thought they’d be. When I looked back up to meet his eyes, he was staring at me in disbelief.

  “She asked me what game I was playing, and I didn’t understand it at first, but now I do. We have been playing, playing at a relationship, playing house, playing like this could actually work. It was reckless and stupid, and I don’t want to play anymore.” I swallowed h
ard, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I fold.”

  “No, fuck that. No. You don’t,” he said.

  “I’m done.”

  “Because you got in a fucking fight with Brenna? That’s why you don’t want to be with me all of a sudden? That’s bullshit, Farrah!” he shouted. Then he grabbed my brand new ceramic fruit bowl from the center of the table and threw it against the wall.

  I watched it shatter, barely flinching at the noise before I stood.

  “If you’re going to throw a tantrum, could you do it somewhere else?” I asked flatly.

  “Why are you being such a fucking cunt? I didn’t do anything wrong, Farrah! I’m in love with you!” He reached across the table and grabbed me by my arms, pulling me over it as I scrambled to find purchase with my bare toes. “I’m in love with you,” he repeated softly, his face close to mine.

  “I’m sorry for that,” I whispered back.

  It was a direct hit, just as I’d known it would be. His eyes widened for a moment, but instead of the resignation I’d been expecting, something else filled his gaze. He took a step away from me, running his hand over his face as if to calm himself. After a few deep breaths, I watched in panic as his eyes narrowed to slits and he reached for me again. He wrapped his hands around my arms in a gentle but uncompromising grip as his lips pulled back in a menacing grimace.

  “You love me,” he whispered harshly.

  “Of course I do,” I told him sincerely, trying to defuse the situation. “I love all of you. You’re my family. You guys took me in—”

  He shook me once, barely restraining himself, and leaned down into my face. “Bullshit. You’re in love with me. Don’t even try that shit. You want me to be your man so much you can taste it. You want me inside you, wrapped around you, sleeping in your bed.”

  “No,” I whispered. This wasn’t going how I’d planned, and I felt tears of frustration burning my eyes. Why couldn’t he just leave? I didn’t want to argue, I just wanted things to go back to how they were before. Safe. Calm. I needed him to leave so I could start to put my life back together.

  “You’re so fucking afraid of your own shadow, you can’t see what’s right in front of you,” he said.