12. Eagle
CHAPTER 12
EAGLE
When I get back to the compound, I don’t even get out of my truck before calling Linda back. I don’t need an audience for this conversation.
“What’s up?” I say, leaning back in my seat.
“I’ve been trying to reach you all damn day, Eagle.” She isn’t saying anything that I need to respond to, but I can’t help but put her in her place.
“And I’ve had shit to do, Linda, so why don’t you stop trying to fuck with me and tell me what you want,” I say, wanting her to cut to the fucking chase.
“You know, Eagle, you’re a dick.”
“Heard it before, and I’ll hear it again,” I say. “So, why don’t you tell me something I don’t know. Like what you want from me now?”
“What I want from you now? I literally never fucking bother you, Eagle, and I actually do need something, and you’re giving me this shit?”
“Okay,” I say, unfastening my seat belt. “This is going nowhere, and I’ve got places to be?—”
“Eagle, wait.” Linda’s composed now, which sets off alarm bells in my head. She wants something. Between her insistent efforts to reach me and the sudden shift in tone, I’m in for it.
“What?” I demand. “What do you want?”
Linda takes a long, slow breath. I can hear her trying to steady herself, so I stop this line of thought before it goes any further.
“No,” I say. “Unless something’s changed on your end, no.”
Linda curses quietly into the phone. “Eagle,” she says, her voice dripping with anger. “I need that divorce. I want it. So let’s just move ahead and do this.”
“Are you willing to budge?” I ask. “Are you calling to tell me you’ve changed your mind?”
Linda is a little more measured, a little less enraged. “No,” she says, her smoker’s voice still angry, still mean. “You’re the one who pushed me into marrying you…”
We’ve been through this story a hundred fucking thousand times. No, I did not push Linda into marrying me. When we thought she was pregnant, I offered to do the right thing. That was the last right thing that happened between us.
“Linda, I’m not doing this. I’m hanging up now. Unless you’ve changed your mind, I’m not divorcing you.”
“Fuck you, Eagle, you’re a?—”
I have no problem ending the call while she’s talking. I just wish these damn cell phones had a more satisfying smashing sound. I hung up on Linda plenty in the days when we still had a landline at the compound. It may be petty, but before I hang up on her, I press the star key and hold it down so she gets a nice buzzing sound in her ear right before I hang up.
As soon as the call ends, I feel like an asshole. A petty, malicious asshole. I could have just hung up on her, but somehow treating Linda like shit doesn’t land the same as it usually does. I’m either getting soft or—and this is the more likely reality—I’m getting soft on someone else. Someone who makes me want to feel good, not bad. Someone whose texts and calls I want to see, not someone who boils my blood just by being in my contact list.
I climb out of the truck, desperate for a change of clothes and a decent meal. I wander into the compound and find Brute already home from the brunch.
“Yo, asshole. Nice clothes. Why the fuck you still wearing them?” He’s grabbing a beer from the fridge, the dress shirt and pants he wore to brunch at the Lantana already gone, replaced by a frayed Slayer T-shirt and broken-in black jeans.
I follow him to the fridge and grab a beer for myself. “Fuck off.”
I pop the cap and take a long swig of the cold beer. The bubbles fizz in my mouth and remind me of drinking warmish beer in the sun-room with Lacey.
“Dude, did you bang the wedding planner? Is that why you wanted Arrow to swap in for you today?” Brute asks.
“Fuck off,” I tell him again. “I got old lady problems, man. Linda’s on my ass again.”
Brute nods. “Fuck that bitch.”
I hold up the bottle of my beer, and we tip the necks together in a toast. “Fuck Linda.”
Everyone in the club knows the deal with Linda. There’s a long and dirty history between us, and if Linda could just let me loose and not try to fuck with me, my marriage would be over on paper, not just in reality. Not that we ever had a “real” marriage. I think we were legal all of two months when Linda, relieved maybe that she wasn’t knocked up thanks to my carelessness, started hanging around with a rival club and whoring herself out to anyone with a lap and a boner.
She was unfaithful from the get, and rather than let my heart get crushed time and time again, I did my own thing too. We haven’t lived as husband and wife in over twenty years, but that doesn’t keep her from trying to make me miserable every chance she gets.
With a new topic to pick on, Brute slams my old lady a few more times, and I pile on too. She is a bitch, and she deserves every bit of trash we talk about her. If she changes the way she treats me, I’ll leave her alone. Set her free and never look back. But as long as she keeps pulling shit, she’s nothing to me and deserves as much.
“Speaking of bitches,” I ask, pivoting again. “How was the rest of the wedding?”
“That family…” Brute shakes his head. “Fuck ’em, man. That mother of the bride made Lacey’s replacement—what’s her name?”
“Carla.”
“Carla, yeah. They made her cry like three times today.”
I roll my eyes. Not surprising, but I’m sorry Carla had to be on the receiving end of their shit. “Figures. Arrow do okay?”
Brute nods. “Arrow’s straight, man. He did good.”
We shoot the shit a little more, and then I ask when he’s seeing Crow next.
“Tuesday,” Brute confirms. “I’m off tomorrow. I need some sleep and about a thousand beers.”
He wanders off to his room, and I go to mine, stripping out of the tux. I head off to the shower. I’m gonna make it a cold one because I’m still not over Lacey.
By the time I get out of the shower, I have four texts from Linda. I read and delete each one since none of them says anything new.
But then I get a text from Lacey and my heart starts thumping harder in my chest.
It’s ridiculous. I’m like a teenager again, breathless and wondering what the girl I like has to say. I’m an idiot, and I brace myself for the “That was fun, but…” or “Last night was an accident” text.
I force myself to read it once, then a second time. It doesn’t say what I think it’s going to say. She’s not blowing me off, brushing me aside, or acting like what happened didn’t happen.
She’s inviting me over for dinner.
Lacey: My mom’s marinating chicken, and I’m planning on grilling. Want to join us for dinner?
She’s not just inviting me over for dinner. She’s inviting me over for dinner with her mother.
My fingers freeze, and my mind starts to work overtime.
Lacey is my sun, has been for a long time before I even realized she fit into that space. I gravitate toward her like a planet, pulled by a force that’s powerful, and yet somehow, I never understood it. I still don’t see it for what it is, but I can’t care. I know how I feel. I know what I want. Even if it’s only one more afternoon, one chill barbecue chicken dinner with her mom, I want it. I’ll take every minute and morsel Lacey will give me.
Me: Can I bring anything?
It’s a minute or so before Lacey replies with a time and asks if I know her address.
Me: Still got it
Lacey: Maybe bring condoms?
I chuckle and shake my head.
Lacey: Mom’s talking about seeing an early movie with a girlfriend, so…
Me: Looking forward to it .
Since I’m already showered, I’ve got a couple hours to kill before I head back to Lacey’s for dinner. Plenty of time to make a stop. No gentleman goes to a woman’s house for dinner without bringing something. Maybe that fucking suit has changed me after all.