Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MICAH
“Micah, for someone so sweet, you’re kinda brutal on the takedowns.” Will laughed when he was thoroughly trounced by me again.
The rest of them weren’t any better. After five hands, no one was within four hundred points of catching me. At first, I was embarrassed and thought about throwing a hand, but Daddy’s encouragement to keep going was irresistible. He crowed on my behalf.
Tonight ranked as one of the best nights of my life. Being a couple with Calvin was amazing, glorious, outstanding, and a few other words I couldn’t remember right now. Daddy gave me sweet kisses, handed me silverware, and absently twirled a strand of curls in his fingers.
We all agreed we’d had fun and made casual plans to do it again. Daddy and Will discussed gaps in grants for practical but decidedly unglamorous needs within the community. I loved how Daddy listened to people and considered their words so carefully. And I especially appreciated how unintentionally sexy he was in his jeans, boots, dark-rimmed glasses, and tight sweater.
We said our goodbyes at the door, and Daddy installed me in the passenger seat of his car. The engine purred to life, and he eased our way out of the driveway. As always, his hand rested possessively on my thigh. Its warm weight was the anchor that kept me from floating away. After being untethered for so long, nothing felt better.
“I owe you an apology.”
“What are you talking about? You don’t owe me anything.” I racked my brain, thinking back to anything he’d said or done that warranted one, and I drew a complete blank.
“When we get home, I need you to head straight to bed. I’ll be up in a few minutes so we can talk.”
His hand hadn’t moved off me and was lightly squeezing my leg. If he were upset with a situation involving me, surely he wouldn’t have been so touchy-feely tonight. I hoped not because it was so wonderful to feel his hands on me when there was no reason apart from him wanting to touch me and be close to me. It made me feel so loved. Daddy didn’t love me, but pretending he did was fine. He’d shown me a level of respect I’d never imagined and certainly never experienced for myself. It humbled me.
I was nothing in the grand scheme of the world, but he treated me like I was someone who mattered. I loved this man fiercely, but that was a tidbit to be squirreled away and never examined. It needed to stay tucked away because that was the only way I’d survive. To protect myself, I had to believe there was no future, no point, and no chance.
As instructed, I headed upstairs, but Daddy called me back before I was halfway up for a quick kiss and a check to ensure I was still wearing my cage. Now that I’d become accustomed to the restriction, I felt naked when it was off. I hoped he wasn’t about to tell me he was tired of this part of us. Every night, he removed it and replaced it in the morning. If he left extra early, he wouldn’t disturb me by putting it on, and I’d wake up to see it on the bedside table. Please don’t take it away, Daddy.
“You’re such a good boy, little one,” Daddy announced when he joined me upstairs. “Give me a second to change, and then we’ll talk.”
“Have I done something wrong?”
“Absolutely not, you’re perfect.”
“Hardly,” I snorted.
Daddy came to stand next to my side of the bed and loomed over me. I shrank back when he leaned over and bracketed me between his arms.
“You are perfection, from your beautiful curls that I’m obsessed with, to your eyes that I want to drown in, to your brain that amazes me, and to your perfectly sized peen. Pure fucking perfection.”
My stomach flip-flopped at his words. Daddy wasn’t acting differently than usual, but something was off tonight. It felt like there was an intention behind his words and actions that wasn’t usually present. I couldn’t have pinpointed a specific moment or action, but something had changed.
After another kiss, this time with tongue, making my toes curl with excitement, Daddy strode with his long legs to the closet to strip and put on sleep pants. He always ended up naked within two minutes of getting under the covers, so it never made sense, but he wore sleep pants every night without fail. I continued cataloging potential missteps while I waited, but I came up empty once again. The only thing left to do was wait.
“Oh no, boring you to sleep already?” Daddy asked with a chuckle when he slipped under the covers beside me.
The jostling of the bed woke me up with a start from a quick cat nap, and I immediately turned to him and cuddled close. His solid, warm—bordering on toasty—body enveloped me.
“Daddy, you could never bore me,” I murmured against his chest.
“You’re a sweet one.” Daddy kissed my head and continued, “But I owe you an apology. I haven’t been a good Daddy to you.”
“What are you talking about?” I reared back to see his face and figure out if he was serious. Daddy coaxed me into lying down again and threaded his fingers through my hair. He scooted down and looked directly at me, eye to eye. His dark, double-lashed eyes were serious and uncompromising.
“I owe you an apology for not clarifying how much you belong here.”
What I wanted to say bubbled in my chest, but I hastily and firmly pushed it back into silence. Daddy wasn’t looking for a confession of love. The feeling of being out of his element was disconcerting to him because he was a man who always understood the right thing to do and say.
“Daddy, I know where I belong.” I kept my voice firm and calm. Now that I understood what was going on, I could handle it. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
The words I wanted to say crawled up my throat. The question I wanted answered was directly behind it. If I loved him, could he ever feel anything close to the same for me?
“Are you sure? Because I want you to stay when your college classes start again. You’re able to go back in the fall?”
“Yes, I’ll be able to apply for aid in the spring. I called about aid for the spring or summer terms, but they’re based on the previous year. Plus, I’ve got to wait anyway because some prerequisites aren’t available until the fall.”
“I can’t do anything about the class schedule, but you don’t need to apply for aid.”
“Classes aren’t free, so I do.”
“I’ll cover it.”
I should have known this was coming. I didn’t need to be more indebted than I already was. Kyle’s demands had rapidly eaten through my paychecks, and I was now dipping into the deposit Daddy had made into the account. I hated it. Every time I tried to tell him I wouldn’t pay anymore, he threatened to expose Daddy as a man who picked up homeless sex workers and brought them into his house. It wasn’t technically an accurate description of what happened, but close enough. Unfortunately, I doubted his business partners or his family would care about the non-sketchy details.
“Daddy, can we talk about this later?” Diversion was the best. “I’m exhausted.”
“Of course, baby. Let me take your cage off.” He moved to roll over when I put a hand on his chest to stop him.
“Daddy, could I sleep with it on tonight? Please.” He shot me a quizzical look. “I want the reminder tonight.”
“What reminder?”
“Of where I belong.”
“Chef, I’m okay to go on my break?”
“Yeah, go ahead. See you in thirty.”
I shrugged on my jacket and headed out the back door. Since I was no longer riding my bike, my trips to the bank for Kyle’s blood money had to happen over my dinner break. Each time he came, he demanded more from me. I regretted opening my big mouth and giving him the ammunition he used against me. He’d have never known about the shed or the streets if I’d kept my temper in check. I had no one to blame but myself. This entire mess was on me, and that made me angrier than any part.
But this time, I had a proper plan to stop it. Rather than give the smaller amounts he’d been asking for, I would go directly to him with a larger payoff and record it. When he returned for more, I’d have proof of the blackmail. He would threaten to go public because that was his go-to claim, and I’d counter with arrest. Kyle had been to jail before, and I was certain he wouldn’t want to go again. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was better than the death by a million papercuts that was happening now.
Kyle would be back in a few days for the next payment. Daddy said he needed me to attend an event with him on my day off, but that was the only day I’d be able to meet Kyle on his home territory. The only thing that would work was to lie to Daddy and beg off the event. Once he was gone, I could take the ferry over on my bike, confront Kyle, and then hustle back home.
Nix was off on the weekends, so getting past him was a non-issue. No one would ever know if I made it back on time and was properly in bed when Daddy got home. I couldn’t hide from the security cameras or the alarm, but I planned to forget to set the alarm when he left for the night so he wouldn’t get a notice when I left or returned. As plans went, it wasn’t the greatest, but it’s what I had to work with.
There was no way I’d let Kyle jeopardize Daddy’s reputation. Ever. His threat last time was to go crying to the news that Daddy had practically kidnapped me off the streets. As a loving older brother, he only wanted me home, where he could help his college dropout brother put his life back together. All lies but potentially believable ones. We’d had such a hard life, and he was devastated he’d lost me to foster care.
What else could I do? No one would take the time to pull the court tapes where he told the judge that taking care of me wasn’t worth the kinship stipend because they kept forcing him to spend it on me. No one would care about my explanations once Kyle’s claim was out in the world.
This had to work because the only other choice was to leave Daddy, which left Kyle with no one to blackmail. I wasn’t strong enough to choose that because I loved him too much to willingly leave him.
“Little one, are you sure you’re okay with staying home alone?” Daddy checked my forehead one more time for a fever. “Maybe we should take you to the doctor? No fever, but you’re sweating. I thought cold sweats were a figure of speech.”
When I concocted this plan, it hadn’t occurred to me Daddy would turn into a mother hen. It was both incredibly sweet and beyond maddening. “Daddy, I’ll be fine after some tea, toast, and an early bedtime. I’m just a little under the weather. I’ll be fine. You should dock my pay or something.” I hid my nerves behind a wan smile.
“Dock your…are you fucking serious?” Daddy scoffed.
Oh, this was better. His indignance was exactly what I needed because he’d be less focused on my feigned symptoms. Even so, it took another ten minutes to push him out of the house after promising to contact him if my symptoms worsened.
Lucky for me, tonight’s event wasn’t one Daddy could easily cancel. He was giving a speech on the importance of corporate giving within the local community and whether the rate of return was worth the cost. As the keynote speaker, his presence was required.
Since the dinner at their place, he and Will had become friends. They’d spent hours looking at data for the innovative grant program Will worked with at the hospital to track the value and reach of the money within the community. The math geek in me loved helping them with the formulas to determine the rate of return on small-scale grants, their reach within the wider community, and how they translated to other areas. Beyond the lying, I was so disappointed I couldn’t see him present tonight.
I pulled up the ferry app on my phone and watched Daddy’s car drive on board via the cameras. Once the ferry left the dock for its trip across the Sound, I stopped holding my breath and climbed out of bed. I had an hour to get dressed in my warmest clothes and wait for my trip across the water.
Late fall was solid winter territory, and the typical drizzle left a foggy, soggy mess that seeped into your bones. As much as I loved the Pacific Northwest, tonight, I wished we lived somewhere tropical. Once on the road, I was forever grateful for the grip the new tires on my bike provided. Now that I was used to the proper tread, I looked back in amazement at how precarious riding on bald tires had been.
My timing was on point tonight. I pulled up on the dock as the ferrymen lashed the thick ropes to the post. As a precaution, I kept my jacket’s collar up and pulled my beanie cap down, and as always, my backpack was slung over one shoulder. If someone was paying attention to the lone bike rider boarding at night in the rain, I wanted to be as disguised as possible without drawing attention to myself.
“Oh, hey, how’s it goin’?” Noah asked when I walked my bike across the pedestrian path. “Long time, no talk.”
“Hi, yeah, it has been a while.” Breathe, Micah. It didn’t matter if the ferryman recognized me because he didn’t know my connection to Daddy.
“You okay? You’re looking kinda pale. It’s a rough night to be on your bike.” Universe, please save me from perceptive strangers. “Aren’t you usually in a car these days? It’s been months since I’ve seen you cross on a bike.”
“Yeah, but no ride tonight, so I gotta take the bike. I’ll see you around.”
I ducked around him and went to wait on the observation deck where I typically sat to have the best view of the approaching city lights. My only hope was this encounter hadn’t been a premonition of my evening.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, and when I disembarked from the ferry, I kept my eyes averted from Noah. Unfortunately, it was not before I saw Noah’s pensive look in my direction. I didn’t have the spoons to interpret the possible meaning of it, so I shoved it out of my mind, walked my bike off the platform, and headed up the small hill into the city.
The precipitation had turned from a drizzle to actual rain, making riding in the streets more hazardous. The docks and the part of town I was headed toward didn’t have dedicated bike lanes. I was grateful for the waterproof jacket Daddy had bought, but it didn’t protect my bottom half from splashes as cars drove by. Within minutes, my shoes and pants were soaked.
In the time it took to ride to my old house, I practiced the mike drop speech I intended to give Kyle. I tried to imagine the insults and insinuations he’d make and how I’d respond. If nothing else, it distracted me from the cold of the wind and rain that battered me. Plan A was my only plan, and I needed the perfect words to convince him to back off and leave me alone. The money burned a hole in my pocket, and my backpack had gained twenty pounds since I’d gotten on my bike.
My initial estimate of thirty minutes had been extended to over an hour. If the Uber app Daddy had downloaded on my phone wasn’t attached to his, I might’ve spent some money to hire a car to take me, but I couldn’t risk a notification to him.
My hands and face were numb, but thankfully, I was within five minutes of my old house. The memories flooded back. The old lady who lived on the corner when I was little used to pay me a dollar a can to move her trash on pickup days and yelled at Kyle when he scolded her for it. The couple that used to live across the street liked to fight in their front yard and provide entertainment for the entire block. The entire neighborhood was more rundown than when I’d last been here five years ago.
When I pulled up to the house, the car Kyle rode in when he came to steal my money was parked out front. My gut had been right. Kyle was never leaving this place. I found out later that when our parents had died, their house had been paid off, and Kyle now owned it without a mortgage. As awful as he was, Kyle was smart enough to know he’d never find a better deal than living in a house where he only had to pay utilities and taxes.
The yard was a trashed mess. On the far side, a car was up on blocks, and I couldn’t tell if it was being worked on or had been stripped by thieves. Whatever grass had been in the yard was now choked out by an occasional weed but mostly mud from all the rain. The gardenbeds where my mom had grown her daffodils were long gone. The clapboard house hadn’t been painted in decades, and the steps had signs of rot. The entire place—the house, the neighborhood, Kyle—was smaller. And I felt nothing for any of it. At all. This wasn’t my home.
I stashed my bike next to the porch and crossed my fingers that it would still be there when I was finished in the house. Before I walked up the steps, I turned on the recorder on my phone and double-checked that the cash hadn’t disappeared from my pocket in the two minutes since the last time I’d checked that it was still there.
Dread was the only thing I felt being here, but standing out in the rain wouldn’t get this over with any faster. With a steadying breath, I walked up the steps while trying to avoid the obvious rotten spots. Through the door, the TV blared on full volume. I knocked a few times. When that didn’t work, I pounded instead.
“Who the fuck is banging on my goddamn door?” Kyle snarled when he wrenched open the door.
“I tried knocking, but no one answered,” I answered with fake bravado. Every instinct I had told me to turn around and run as far away as possible. Being here was a mistake, but I was moving forward anyway.
“Personal delivery now? Nice.”
“I need to talk to you about the money you’ve been extorting from me.”
“You a lawyer now?” I stayed quiet. “If you got something to say, say it. But I ain’t gonna stand here all night so the neighbors hear my business.”
Kyle turned on his heel and stalked back into the house. He walked to the broken-down couch I recognized from my childhood and collapsed on one end. In a seamless motion, he picked up the game controller from the floor and restarted his game. The noise from Madden was deafening. The only other furniture was a scuffed coffee table and a low cabinet holding a giant TV and gaming console. There was nothing on the cigarette-stained walls. Other than the sofa, nothing here reminded me of my mom.
“Can you turn that off?” Kyle ignored me and kept playing. “Or at least down?”
He turned it down a few levels. It was still too loud but slightly better.
“What are you doing here?”
“I don’t have any more money to give you.” I tried to put more bravado in my voice than I felt.
“Sucks to suck because you still owe me.” Kyle’s eyes never left the screen while his fingers scrambled across the controller.
“What do I owe you for?”
“I gave up my good years to take care of a kid.”
“I’m your brother.”
“And that ain’t my kid. They made you my problem.”
“What did you give up? The house was paid for, and the state paid you a stipend.”
“Shit ain’t free.”
“Our parents died . You were an adult, and I was a kid. You got drunk the night you told me they died like it wasn’t a big deal. Don’t you miss them? Or at least Mom? Didn’t you want to take care of me?”
My plan to control my emotions failed as tears streaked down my face. I wiped them away, but more took their place. My chest was so tight I could hardly breathe, and Kyle kept on playing the game like I was nothing.
“Whatever. I was a kid too.”
“You were twenty-one.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged as if his age when our parents died wasn’t only slightly younger than I was now. Kyle’s eyes never left the screen.
A noise from the kitchen caught my attention. A skinny guy with dyed black hair and a cracked pleather jacket wandered in from the kitchen. His hollow eyes darted around the room like he was following a hummingbird. His hands twitched and jerked at his side. Tweaking. Oh crap.
“Your little brother is lying.”
“Yeah? ’Bout what?” Kyle asked absently. Whatever he was doing on the screen kept his full attention.
“He’s got money.”
That piqued Kyle’s attention, and he looked away from his game for the first time. “Where?”
“Probably on him.” The guy smiled menacingly at me before he continued, “Little bro came to tell you he’s tapped out and to give you one last payment. How close am I?”
“I…uh…I don’t know what you mean.” This was going sideways fast. I shifted on my feet and tried to step closer to the door.
“Nah, man, you’re staying here.” The skinny guy moved faster than I thought possible. In a blink, he was blocking the front door. “You haven’t made your big speech yet.”