Chapter 2
two
DARCY
Glancing through the peephole, I hold my breath, watching the biker amble down the driveway.
I knew who he was before I even noticed the name on his patch. Odin, current vice-president of the Bayou Dogs. His grandfather, Cooker, was president when I left. Anyone around here recognizes the crystal blue eyes the Bordelon men seem to share. I saw them on his father Solomon, as well. It wasn’t just the color that got to me, it was the way they inspected me.
Odin’s name came up a time or two when I worked at White Dog, but I never ran into him. I heard he was good looking, but that was an understatement. He entered the living room like a Norse God, the type of man you saw on the street and couldn’t help but turn your head for a second long gaze. He stood in the doorway studying me, all killer good looks and unwavering virility, his long hair falling wild around his face, sculpted features partially hidden behind a neatly trimmed beard. I struggled to maintain any resemblance of rational thought under that piercing gaze of his. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention, something alarming and comforting in his gaze at the same time. When I regained my composure, the biker wasn’t angry or annoyed at my mouthiness but almost amused, too sure of himself to worry about pushback from me. The minute that door swung wide open, something undeniable happened.
It feels like Pandora’s Box— tempting, for sure, but is it really a good idea to open it up? I only have one choice, and that’s to shove it down and try to forget about it.
I knew he was aware of the energy we shared. He lingered as close as he could while he was here, tattooed hands folded around his chest and on the chair he pulled close, his intense gaze seeming to never leave me. He stared at me like he wanted to possess every inch of my body. A part of me wanted to let him.
It’s terrifying.
My mother really shouldn’t have tried to force me to be such a well behaved young woman. There’s nothing a good girl loves more than a bad boy.
With one swift kick, Odin’s bike comes to life. He pauses for a long moment, face hard as he stares at the house. A bolt of anxiety runs through my body, so I flip off the porch light to encourage him to leave. I draw in a large breath as the sound of the tailpipes fade into the distance.
Thank fuck.
I can’t begin to process the last few hours of my life. It’s become a comedy of errors, too absurd to have actually happened. Bikers showing up looking for my husband…oh wait, never mind, the cops got to him first. I knew it was the Bayou Dogs from a glance out the window, but I hid Owen anyway, afraid he might accidentally get hurt in the fray. I can’t believe he told me to call him if I need anything.
To call him!
I'm sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to purposefully bring him to my doorstep, even if Seth and I are long over. I’m sure it was just a polite gesture anyway, a nod to whatever friendship he and Seth once had.
I have to take some responsibility for this mess. I tried to make the best of a bad situation and married a man I barely knew for all the wrong reasons.
After moving to Parran with my family, I was being coerced to enter a courtship, and that pretty much meant you were two months away from setting a wedding date. I resisted for almost a year, and swore I didn’t like any of the boys at church. I wanted out of the prison my ultra-religious parents made for me. I wanted to not be forced to dress “modestly” and to have friends who thought the same. I wanted to explore the world around me and figure out what I thought, not what someone on a pulpit insisted I should think.
Everything I did was supervised. Except when I was with my coworker Lucy. She was considered a tolerable work friend , but not a preferable companion to my parents. With that friendship, for once they seemed to pick their battles, and I was allowed to spend a few hours here and there with her outside of work. That was how I met Seth, and started seeing him on the sly.
Shortly before my twentieth birthday, Mom started inviting Josiah Barker to our family dinner every Sunday, I could see the writing on the wall. We might not have been officially involved yet, but I knew it wouldn't be long before I was in white lace, and forced into a lifetime of servitude. My older sister drank the Kool-Aid years ago, and was engaged as soon as she turned eighteen. The way my parents saw it, I was dragging my feet. I reality, I’d already met Seth.
He was like a snake oil salesman. I told him I wanted to leave Parran, if only I could get ahold of the life savings my father kept away for “when I was married.” I stupidly confessed how much it was, tens of thousands of dollars. I heard the sum the night before as Josiah and my father outlined the blueprint for the rest of my life. `
While I wasn’t permitted to even be in the room, they decided those funds—which I earned but wasn’t allowed to spend—would be a good down payment for our first home.
I hadn’t even agreed to a relationship with him yet.
It made sense it was that large a sum. I started working at sixteen, only spending what pocket money my father allowed me.
But Seth had ideas of his own—for us to marry and use the cash I had saved to start over. After all, wasn’t my father holding the money for me until I had a husband to handle it? I was already infatuated with Seth, and under so much pressure from my parents. At least with Seth, I was allowed in the room when he planned my future. I thought I had a voice.
It felt like the solution to everything. I wouldn’t be forced to play the dutiful godly woman anymore. Seth wanted me . The real me that my parents forced into hiding.
Boy, was I wrong. Seth wanted my life savings, which Dad refused to hand over. He wanted someone to do his laundry and figure out how to pay the water bill after he gambled away the money.
It’s not just that he is a habitual liar or that he has the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old boy. It’s the chaos and bedlam that seems to follow him. He fucks up his life, so mine—and now Owen’s—is dragged down as well. I thought it was the start of a found family, but I wound up pretty much alone in a strange city, constantly bailing him out of trouble.
My life is already in free fall. I want both my feet on firm ground. I want to go to sleep in a clean house and not wake up to a mess.
Owen is the bright spot in my life. He deserves better than this. He deserves everything. Even my parents, for all their mistakes, gave us stability and normality.
Breathing in a long tranquil breath, I head into the kitchen, my bare feet sinking into the old shag carpet with each step.
After filling my thermos with water, I hurry to my tablet. With Owen so little, and my friend with three kids of her own, we have to schedule our calls now. How sad is that?
Just as I curl up on the worn couch, my tablet rings. I accept, and the tired face of my friend appears on the screen, surrounded by a mountainous pile of laundry. “Hey, you!” Yolanda says as she picks up a baby blanket to fold.
“Hello, stranger,” I answer.
“Well, no sound of the X-box in the background tonight, and you look like you’re in the den. Is Seth out again, or just passed out?”
“Wait for this one…He’s in jail,” I confess.
Yolanda puts down the pair of toddler underwear she was just about to fold and looks back up at the tablet. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope,” I answer, popping the P.
“What did he do this time?”
“No idea, and I don’t think I particularly care.”
“Honestly, Darce, I don’t know why you left Houston to move back to the middle of nowhere Louisiana with him.”
Because I got dragged into his bullshit and had no choice but to leave town.
I don’t—can’t—admit that to my old office manager, not wanting to involve her in the worst parts of my life with Seth. Repeating the same lie I’ve told repeatedly, I insist, “We both decided it was best to move back home.” Not that Parran is actually my home. I moved here with my family only a year before I eloped with Seth. I had nowhere else to go, no money for a deposit on a new place, and I wanted to be close to my youngest sister, just in case.
“Well, Dr. Jacobs hasn’t hired a permanent employee to replace you, since you’re technically still on maternity leave. If you want to come back…” she offers. "My spare bedroom is open to you until you can rent a place of your own.”
“I don’t want to come back to Houston,” I say. Not that it’s even an option.
“If you change your mind…” she offers, her eyes softening with worry. “And if you don’t…you know you have one hell of a job reference from me.”
“Well, thank you,” I say sweetly. “So, you know our rule. We’re not allowed to just bitch. What was the best part of your day today? I’ll go first….”
Taking a long thoughtful moment, I look away from the screen. I feel my face warm when I look back, and my cheeks are tight from a shy smile. “Someone came over to visit Seth tonight, and he said I was a good mom.” I feel cozy at the memory, one positive thing that happened on this shitty day.
“That’s so nice! Plus you finally got to meet one of Seth’s friends!”
Yeah I met him alright. Pretty safe to say they aren’t friends anymore though. “So what was yours?” I ask.
She takes a long pause thinking. “Junior slept for three hours. It was ahmaaazing.Then he woke up happy.”
“Aww I love it when they’re so content!”
We have thirty minutes together before one of her kids interrupts the call.
But a part of me is still trying to work out tonight’s events, to calculate what exactly happened.
The next morning, I still have absolutely no idea.