3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Griffin's Beach Felicity
"M om, please don't make me do this," Gracie begs, her eyes pleading with her mother.
Felicity Short stares at her sixteen-year-old daughter. She just heard from Ky that Lex and Colt are moving back to Griffin's Beach, so her day has already been the definition of shit. She and Lex haven't been on good terms for over a year now, and she'd be happy never seeing the entitled bitch again. But her day got even worse when Gracie broke the news.
"Gracie Marie Short, you just told me you're pregnant. Your life will consist of doing hard things from here on out. Get used to it."
It hurts to see her daughter on the verge of tears, but she also beyond disappointed. Her daughter wasn't supposed to follow in her footsteps. She was a teenage mother, but at least everyone knew she was with Ky. It didn't exactly come out of left field. And Gracie refuses to share who the father is. That one is being kept close to the vest, and Felicity can't decide if it's a good move or not. It keeps the boy alive because her father will want to murder the man who did this to his little girl, but it also makes Gracie shoulder all of this alone.
"But, Mom!"
"If you're grown enough to climb into bed with someone and get pregnant, even after the numerous safe sex talks we've had, you are woman enough to tell your father about it," Felicity says.
"We didn't get into a bed when we had sex."
Groaning, she lets out a bitter laugh before opening the clubhouse door. Girl, I feel no pity for you now. I'm too young to be a grandma. Oh God, shoot me. I sound just like my mother did.
"There are my two favorite ladies!" Ky calls from behind the bar as they step inside.
His six-foot-three height always has Felicity tilting her head up when she looks at him, and she wonders if Gracie picked a man similar to her father. She takes after Felicity in the height department, so there's a decent chance she'd fall for a six-foot-something boy just like her mother.
"What's wrong?" Gavin asks, coming out of the hallway where the bathrooms are and walking up to them.
Poor kid is cleaning shitters. Being a prospect sucks, and he gets to do it for two years just like his father instead of the normal one.
He tilts his head as he looks at his sister. He's not quite as short as his mom, but he's just over six-foot. Not too tall but not short. "You look weird. You have that face... Have you been crying? Who made you cry?"
"What's going on?" Ky asks and walks around the bar to stand next to his son. "You need a shower, kid."
"Stop sending me to clean the bathrooms where apparently the men in this clubhouse projectile shit, and you won't have to smell me," Gavin shoots back.
Felicity crosses her arms under her chest. She may have felt for her daughter when she first brought her to tell her father, but her comment about her sexual position tells Felicity she either doesn't understand the severity of the situation or doesn't care. She's going to learn the hard way that her actions have consequences, and if she doesn't understand that with this conversation, labor will make it blatantly clear. Getting knocked up was the easiest part of what she now calls life. Hopefully it was fun because she's going to be celibate for a while now.
"Gracie has something she needs to tell you, Ky."
"What's that, baby?"
Her lip trembles, and she won't meet his eyes. The tears fall down her cheeks and onto the floor as she says, "I'm pregnant."
Gavin's eyebrows shoot up his forehead while his father gapes, completely frozen with a look of horror on his face.
"Is this a joke?" Gavin asks. "It has to be a joke, right?"
"She's keeping the baby," Felicity says as she waits for Gracie to say anything.
"Who did you... Who's the father?" Gavin asks. He's apparently the only other non-mute family member.
Shaking her head, she refuses to look at either of them.
"Who's the father, Gracie?" he asks again.
"I'm not telling any of you."
"You aren't telling us?" Ky asks, finally finding his voice and sounding much calmer than his body looks. "Why not?"
"Because I know what you'll say. What you'll do. And it's the 'do' part that I'm saving him from."
"You're damn right I'm going to do something to the man who did this to my teenage daughter!" he shouts. "Who did this to you, Gracie?"
Their daughter steps back and lets out a shaky breath. "I don't care what you say or do. I'm not telling you."
"Did she tell you?" he snaps at Felicity.
"Nope. I think our best bet will be to ask when she's in labor and not on pain meds. Her resolve will be solely focused on not dying from the pain than protecting the baby daddy."
"How... Who... How do we not know whose it is?" Gavin asks. "I mean... Do you even date?"
Glaring at her brother, Gracie damn near growls. "Yes, I date. But no one here pays any attention to me. I'm not a boy, so I'm not in line to join the club. I don't matter. Just like Lex and Lily at my age. We could go off and join the circus, and no one would pay us any mind."
The mention of Lex's name makes Felicity bristle, but she's impressed with Ky's reaction. "No, you don't get to pull that card, young lady. Not with me," he says.
"Yeah? When was the last time we had an actual conversation, Dad? Not just 'how was school?' Because the truth is, you don't even pay attention when I answer anyway."
"This is my fault? You went off and slept with some boy because your father didn't pay enough attention to you?"
Gavin crosses his left arm across his body and rests his right elbow in his hand while he presses his hand to his cheek, shaking his head. "I blame the school system. They wait too long to explain the proper use of birth control, and they still don't tell us what happens to a woman's body when she does get pregnant. That alone would make them keep their legs closed."
"Not now, Gavin," Felicity warns, more because she doesn't know how long she can hold back her laughter if he keeps it up. The last thing she needs to do is laugh and annoy her husband further.
"If not now, when?" he asks with a chuckle. "I can't decide if I'm impressed or upset that my little sister lost her virginity at the same age I did. It's easier for women, I suppose, but damn. Do you realize how hard I had to work to finally get some?"
"Go to hell," Gracie snaps and storms out of the clubhouse, but there's a flicker of something on her face as she looks at her brother.
He did it on purpose. He gave her an out. The friendship between the siblings has always made Felicity proud. A certain bond forms when siblings are kidnapped and almost killed together, she supposes.
Turning to Gavin, Ky glares. "You find out who the father is, and then you tell me. So I can kill him."
"She won't tell me, Dad. Her secrets are hers. Have been for a couple years now. Whoever it is, though, is fucking ballsy. Not just because he clearly didn't wrap his shit, but because she's a Drifter's daughter."
"Gavin!" Felicity exclaims. "I... History is repeating itself, I guess."
"At least your parents knew you were fucking me!" Ky shouts, finally losing control. "There was no question who the damn father was!"
She laughs. "She's a lot better at keeping things to herself than I was, that's for sure. I'm going to let her calm down, and you need to calm down, too. If you come into the house as hot as you are now, she'll never tell us."
"Felicity—"
"If you can't calm down, don't come home. It'll get everyone worked up with no resolution."
Sighing, he just glares, and Felicity takes it as silent compliance. She turns and leaves to head back home. The only thing she can think about is how she always wanted better for her kids than what she and Ky had. They struggled, both financially and as teenagers trying to figure out marriage and raising a child. Her parents wrote her off, so Gracie will have more of a support system than Felicity had.
And then there's Gavin. She's never told Ky how mixed her feelings are about their son joining the club. It was always assumed that's what he would do, but she'd hoped he decide to go to college and make something of himself rather than guarantee a life of outlawing. Gracie was the hope that one of them would have the life Felicity always wanted but never got. Being able to have her own identity separate from being the wife of a Drifter and doing something more with her life than raising babies.
A box sits on the front step of the house, and Felicity groans when she gets out to pick it up. "Thanks, Mom and Dad," she says, huffing as she picks it up and struggles with the weight. "Jesus, I should have waited for Ky to get home to carry this. What did you send me this time? Free weights?"
Setting the box on the counter, she opens it and shakes her head. Ever since her parents decided to move to Florida, for whatever reason, they've gone through everything and anything in the house to downsize. Which should rightfully happen when moving across the country, but anything they don't want to take with gets shipped to Felicity. Like the box filled with canning jars. She doesn't even can, and she has no plans to start.
“Goodwill will take most of your crap, guys. You just need to call and ask me if I want it before sending it anywhere. Saves us all time," she says.
Inside sits diaries upon diaries, and she knows only a handful of them are hers. When she idolized her older sister, she started keeping a diary like Victoria. But as their relationship deteriorated, so did the desire to document anything in her life. Most of these aren't Felicity's.
The two sisters got along when they were little, but once Vicky hit middle school, everything changed. They became embroiled in this battle of who could be the one to come out on top, but Felicity has to admit, she never quite understood the rules of war. How did they determine who won let alone know what they battled for?
Whenever Felicity did something, like date the son of an Original Ten, Victoria had to do something more outrageous. Like become a club bunny when she was too young to be one. When that didn't shock anyone anymore, she became a stripper with a pretty severe drug addiction. Anything Felicity did, Vicky had to something bigger and more shocking. Which is ultimately what got her sister killed.
"Maybe this is a way to finally get to know you, Vicky," Felicity mumbles and grabs a random book, flipping it open to a middle page.
Today I fucked up. I fucked up bad. I don't know why I do these things that I do, but it's not until after I do them that I realize just how fucking stupid they are. How stupid I am. No wonder no one loves me. Who can love a fuck up like me? And why do I always hurt the people I love the most? Everyone thinks I hate Felicity, and I can't even blame them for thinking that. Especially now. The way I act, and the things I do, tells no one the truth. That I love her more than life itself, but at the same time, she makes me hate myself. No matter what, she'll always be the better one. And there's no coming back from what I did tonight. I just pray no one ever tells her because she'll kill me. Maybe it would be for the best. I mean, I've almost gotten myself killed a number of times, and nothing ever quite sticks. No matter what I try, death just doesn't come. I want it to. I pray for it, but I know I can't do it myself. I'm weak. I want to die, but I can't bring myself to be the one to cause me to take my last breath. I'm a fucking coward.
Felicity stops and lets out a deep breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Her sister wanted to die? Also, her sister loved her? That was the last thing she'd have ever guessed.
As much as reading this feels like an invasion of privacy Felicity has never crossed before, she has a sinking feeling she needs to know what terrible thing Vicky did. What would make her hate her sister if she ever found out.
Maybe that's why I did it. I know there was some sympathy because Ky's mom was just murdered a week ago, and Felicity was being a raging bitch about it. She broke up with the guy before Nancy died, and she has yet to reach out to him. She says she loved him, but how can you love someone and not be there when they need someone the most? When I saw him, he'd been drinking, and no one even batted an eye. What captivated me, though, was the look he had. The desire to escape the pain, and I've been there. Hell, I live there. Every fucking day. And I knew of the one way that always works for me to take my mind off the horrors of my life. If anyone needed to get away from the horror story he called life, Ky had me beat in spades. He'd had enough to drink that he didn't even hesitate when I offered to take him to a room. In fact, he looked relieved to have someone talking to him. I know Felicity held out on him, and it was no secret he was a virgin. There was too much eagerness in his eyes when he realized what I planned to do to tell me otherwise. And I don't know if my little sister ever got on her knees to give him a good blowjob, but I decided that he needed to be shown a good time considering the hell he was in. Something to take his mind off his dead mom. For a man as inexperienced as he was, he lasted longer than expected. In fact, he made me come before he finally did. Maybe it's his size, or maybe it was the fact I did something Felicity never had, but I did feel pretty damn amazing in the moment. To have someone finally choose me over my sister. Even if it's only because he's drunk and in pain, he still said yes. He let me take him to bed, and he fucked me. His first time fucking was with me. God, I hate that I still feel a small semblance of superiority thinking about it now. But the minute we both came down from our orgasmic highs, we knew it was a mistake. Big mistake. Huge. No matter how good it felt, there was never a question that Felicity still has his heart. He loves her, and so do I. God, he looked sick. He looked as sick as I feel. He got up, dressed, and left without saying a word. Even though it should make me feel cheap, it was a relief. I know he won't tell her. He'll die before telling her, and I fucking won't. I just hope I don't lose my shit and tell it to someone else. I have to do everything in my power not to say a damn word because it will crush my sister. Even though it would be the perfect bomb to drop and destroy Felicity, I don't really want to do that. Not today. And I don't know that I want to destroy her that badly ever. I am the world's biggest fuck up.
The diary falls from Felicity's hand as she struggles to breathe, her hands gripping the counter. Ky lied. He told her they lost their virginities to each other, but he lost it to her older sister. And he never told her.
"Fucking Lex and Colt know. And so does Ashley. Everyone knows but me," she says and clenches her fists. "They all fucking lie."