10. Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Joker
Saturday
Joker : Ginny. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?
Sunday
Joker : Can we talk?
Joker : Beautiful, can you please call me back?
Monday
Joker : Will you at least let me know you’re okay?
Joker : It’s me again. Can we talk?
Tuesday
Joker : I don’t know what to say,
Joker : I don’t know what came over me.
Wednesday
Joker : Okay. That was a lie. I know what came over me. Can we talk about it?
Thursday
Joker : I really don’t want to do this over text. Will you call me?
Friday
Joker : Here’s the deal. When I found out that shithead laid his hands on you. I saw red. I was ready to go kill the fucker. Which, in hindsight, is probably why you never told us, isn’t it? But how could he hurt you and we never knew? How did you never say anything? Why did you hold all of that pain in?
Joker : And you told your friends like it was no big deal. You weren’t upset or angry about it. Until you saw me. I upset you. And that upset me. I don’t want to upset you. Or hurt you. Ever.
Joker : But I thought you might be upset because you’d just unloaded everything to your friends. So I had to come check on you. God, I hope you’re reading this. When I opened that door and you looked so…sad. I wanted to kill him again.
Joker : But then you started going off on me. You were yelling at me, telling me all the things. All the right words. It was more than the words Ginny. It was the look in your eyes. You felt what you were saying. You showed so much fucking strength. In that moment, you proved you had reclaimed your agency.
Joker : And I know I’ve told you that you are strong, and I know you’ve doubted me, but that night? You fucking showed it. God, I had to taste that strength on your lips. I wanted to feel it with my soul. And I did. I’m so sorry it happened the way it did. I took advantage of you because kissing you is something I wanted. I’ll understand if you can’t forgive me, but please call me? Anytime. I’ll always answer your calls.
I throw my phone onto the kitchen counter and grab a beer out of the fridge. Everything about this fucking sucks. She’s mine. She just doesn’t know it yet. She’s mine, but she has to believe she can be mine. And she’d never in a million years understand that I’m hers and have been since the first time I ever saw her. It was like something hit me over the head and I haven’t been right since. She has no idea how beautiful she really is or how strong. And watching her find her voice and stand up for herself? Fuck me, but it was the hottest she’s ever been. I was turned the fuck on, and I acted. Now she’s not talking to me and she’s avoiding me. There’s no way in hell I accept that I’ve completely ruined this and have fucked up so badly I’ve lost my chance to tell her everything. That I worship the ground she walks on and live for stories of her kids and her days playing cello on tour. And how badly I want her to meet Annie, who knows everything about her.
I stopped to see Davis earlier this week and told him what happened. After he smacked me on the back of the head, called me an idiot, and laughed for a good ten minutes, he told me to keep trying. Ginny’s a stubborn one when she decides to be, and I have to wait until she’s ready. Waiting I can do. It’s what I’ve been doing for two fucking years. At least I don’t have to watch her with another man while I do it now.
I’m debating logging in to do some work when my phone dings on the counter. Rushing to grab it, I’m only disappointed for a minute when I see who it is. Then I read the message.
Davis : You’re on, buddy. Get to the bar. Ginny needs you.
Still blows my mind that he’s so on board with me as a match for his sister. I’ve never been the one picked before. But I’m not going to overthink it. I’m going to go get the girl.
Joker : On my way. What’s wrong?
Davis : I can’t get the whole story, she’s not speaking full sentences.
Joker : That asshole didn’t touch her, did he?
Davis : No! Something happened at the football game. With a student. But I don’t know what.
Joker : Be there in five.
I pull into the parking lot of Zach’s exactly seven minutes after texting Davis and rush inside. For a Friday night, the place is dead. Davis is sitting at the bar next to Ginny, holding her to his side. I can see her body shaking with sobs before I even get next to them. An empty shot glass sits in front of them with a bottle of bourbon sitting between them.
“Ginny, Beautiful, what’s wrong?” I ask, stepping up on her other side.
“Joker…” she sobs, turning from Davis and into my arms. I wrap her up.
“Shh, baby, shh. It’s alright. I’m here. What happened?”
“Jimmy…football game…heart attack…” she gets out between wails of pain and heartbreak.
“Who’s Jimmy?” I ask.
“Kid on the team. He dropped on the field during the game. The story is heart attack. But others are saying drugs.” Davis fills me in over the sound of Ginny’s cries.
“They think the kid had an overdose on the field?”
Ginny nods her head into my chest but doesn’t say anything.
“Fuck. Is he alive?”
Ginny shrugs her shoulders. She doesn’t know. Davis does the same thing, pulling out his phone and sending texts to try to get information. I remove one arm from Ginny and send my own text to Nate, asking him to look into it.
“I couldn’t…help him.” Sniffle. “They wouldn’t let me get to him.” Tears falling. “I don’t know if he’s okay or not. I need to know.” Body racking sob.
I pull her into me tight, knowing I’ll do anything to keep her in my arms, but also find out what the fuck’s going on.
“I need to get home to Trish and the kids,” Davis tells me. “Lucas was there, and he’s pretty shaken by it.”
“Oh, no!” Ginny reaches behind her, grabbing Davis’s arm. “Lucas.”
“He’s okay, Gin. He’s not hurt, just upset and confused. Much like all of us are right now.”
“I don’t know where to go. Can I come with you?” she asks Davis.
The look of panic on his face gives me all the motivation I need.
“I’ve got you, Gin. Come home with me. You can’t be alone right now, and Davis needs to do the dad-uncle thing, right?”
“Home? With you?” She lifts her head from my chest. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Let me take care of you, okay?”
“I can go home,” she offers weakly.
“No. You can’t. You already know your mom will smother you.”
“And you won’t?” She almost laughs at her joke, and I feel my lips tilt up.
“No more than you let me, Beautiful.”
“Did you…did you bring the bike?”
“Sure did. Want to go for a ride?”
“A ride sounds really nice.”
Davis pulls her from my arms and wraps her up in a big brother hug. “Everything will be alright, Gin.”
“Give Lucas a hug from me? Give all the kids a hug?”
“Will do. Go with Joker, okay?”
“Who’d have thunk my big brother would let some guy take me away, huh?” she says, trying to lighten the mood again.
“Not just some guy, sis. He’s way more than some guy.”
They have a silent sibling conversation. You know the ones, right? Where they squint and use their eyes to communicate everything going on in their heads without saying a word, leaving the rest of us out of their brains. I’ve seen it happen before, but have no idea what it’s like. I’ve never been close enough to someone to have that kind of bond.
When they finish, he turns her around and back into my arms. I give him my own thanks with a head tilt, but Ginny comes without a fuss, wrapping her arms around me again and holding tight. I’ll never let her go.
It takes Ginny an hour of riding around on the bike before she yells in my ear that she thinks she’s okay now. I swing through a burger joint and get us some food and head to my house. It’s not much, but it’s mine, and I have a lot of land surrounding it. It’s a small ranch-style house with what I call two and a half bedrooms. Anyone who can really call the third room a bedroom is fooling themselves. A twin size bed doesn’t even fit in the fucker if you want to actually walk around. But it’s fine for a wall of monitors and a desk and chair. I do have a bed and nightstand in the second bedroom. You never know when someone might need a place for the night and Annie’s been up here a couple of times and stayed with me. And now, I’m glad the sheets are clean because Ginny’s staying tonight. If I can’t have her in my bed, at least she’ll be close and I’ll know she’s safe. The rest of the house is what you’d expect. A small kitchen and living area, two bathrooms that aren’t anything to write home about, and a laundry room between the garage and kitchen. My original goal was to build my dream house on the land and knock this one down, but that hasn’t happened yet. Not sure it ever will, honestly.
“Wow,” Ginny says, pulling off her helmet. “This view is breathtaking.”
“It’s the reason I bought it.”
If there’s a canyon in Boulder Canyon, I’m in the deepest part of it. Surrounded on three sides by the hills and mountain range, there’s hiking for days to be had just a short walk from my front door.
“I can see why.”
“Why don’t you grab a seat on the couch and I’ll get us something to drink?”
I wait until she sees the couch before I move. “Are you fucking for real? You have a Tiny couch! I wish I had known this two months ago. I’d have moved onto it instead of where I am!”
I smile, leaving her to her love affair with a couch. I probably shouldn’t be jealous about a piece of furniture, should I?
“Beer, water, or Diet Coke?” I call out from the kitchen, watching her pet the couch.
Yeah, fuck it. I’m jealous of a damn couch.
“Water’s good, thanks.”
I bring us both a bottle of water and sit on the other side of the couch, giving her space. She downs half of it before turning to me.
“Thank you. For the ride, for letting me hang out here for a while. I couldn’t imagine going home to my mother right now. She’d probably give me a timed journal writing assignment to ‘get my feelings out’ or some bullshit like that.”
“You know it’s because she’s worried about you.”
“I do. And I appreciate it. But sometimes I don’t want to get my feelings out. I want to sit with them and feel whatever the hell it is I want to feel for a little while.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea. One of the doctors I saw after my last tour said basically the same thing. Sometimes to get over something, you have to go through it.”
“Was it bad? What you went through?”
“The Army was my life. And for ten years, I dedicated my soul to it. But at some point, my soul was empty, and I had nothing more to give. The last…job. It was too much. Too bad. And I knew if I had to live in that place any longer, I would lose whatever was left of me. I was already a shell of a man. I had stopped seeing reality. I had a complete mental break, and luckily, one of my men saw what was happening and made the call to pull me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I was so fucking mad at him. I didn’t know who I was anymore if I wasn’t the job. I didn’t remember what a real bed felt like, or a hot shower. Pizza. Everything was sand and darkness and blood.”
I look at Ginny, ready for the look of pity, but it’s not there. She’s watching me, listening to what I’m saying, but she’s not judging me. The only thing I see in her eyes is care.
“That’s how you knew what I meant when I said I can’t breathe.”
“Been there, Beautiful.”
She lowers her eyes at the name, just as she always does. I wonder if she’s even aware of it.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Call me that?”
“Because you are. Beautiful.”
“I wish you wouldn’t lie.”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Joker. I know you are. I know I’m not beautiful. And I figured that out a long time ago.”
Sighing, I stand from the couch. “I need you to come with me. Right now.”
She snaps her head up, a look of worry and maybe some fear on her face.
“Ginny, I’ll never hurt you. But I need you to see something.”
She tentatively takes my hand, and I help her up off the couch, pulling her along behind me into my bedroom and finally into the bathroom. I close the door and turn her to face the floor-length mirror.
“What are you doing?” she asks quietly, staring at me through the reflection.
“I’m showing you how beautiful you are.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Joker.” The tremor in her voice gives me pause, but this is something I have to do.
“Not fucking with you, Ginny. Just showing you my truth.”