Chapter 6
Six
I think deep down inside, Scotty knew.
—Eddy’s secret thoughts
Eddy
“Are you sure you won’t stay with us, Antoinette?” our mother asked as we headed for the door.
“Not this time.” Nettie smiled. “I promised that I’d help Edith with a few things at work. We’ll be back tomorrow sometime.”
“Okay,” our mother sighed, really laying it on thick. “It’s just that you know we don’t see you all that often. We miss you.”
“I know, but it’s Edd—Edith’s turn.”
The slip of the tongue had us both wincing.
My mother and father HATED when we used a nickname instead of our full names.
They hated even more that we wouldn’t use our full names when addressing each other.
“All right,” she said. “Brunch in the morning?”
“Uhh.” Nettie hesitated. “I’m probably going to say no to that one. Maybe dinner. I’m jetlagged, Mother.”
“Okay.” My mother knew what we were doing. She always knew. She was more than aware that we couldn’t stand her. But you always had to play the part. “See you tomorrow, Antoinette.”
“You’ll see us both, Mother!” Nettie called out.
The door shut behind us, and Nettie latched onto my hand tightly.
She didn’t say a word until she was in my car with me. “You almost got caught!”
Nettie knew everything.
I’d told her about everything I’d learned the moment I left the sheriff’s department.
“You’re lucky that vacuum is ancient as fuck, or they wouldn’t have fallen for that,” Nettie continued.
“I know,” I mumbled as I drove us down the street of our parents’ pristine road.
“Let’s go to a bar,” Nettie said. “I need a drink.”
I didn’t argue with her, because she was right.
That had been close.
Too close.
“I think he must have known that I was there,” I breathed.
“You know about his abhorrence for technology,” she disagreed. “I really, truly do think it was a coincidence that he came home when he did. Good idea leaving me in the car, too. If I was in there with you, he’d have definitely been even more suspicious.”
I groaned. “I can’t believe you missed one of your games to be here.”
“I’d miss them all if it meant making sure you didn’t get caught.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t want them to be our parents.”
“Your words to God’s ears.” I sighed. “Hopps Bar, okay?”
“Hopps is great,” she replied. “Did you know that electrician guy? He was hot.”
“No,” I answered. “I just met him today.”
“You should ask him out,” she suggested.
“Yeah, because someone really wants to date the daughter of a pedophile,” I muttered.
She had nothing to say to that.
Neither did I.
We pulled into the parking lot of Hopps and we both bailed out of the car.
She pulled her sweatshirt’s hood closer around her face as we got to the door and said, “It’s fucking cold.”
I shot her a laughing smile.
“Miami weather spoiling you?” I teased.
“I don’t know that I ever want to come back,” she admitted.
I knew that she didn’t want to come back. But that didn’t make hearing the words any easier.
I missed my sister, and I had a feeling that even if she wasn’t playing professionally, she’d still make her home anywhere but here.
“But without our parents in the picture,” I pointed out. “You wouldn’t be as unhappy if you were here.”
She pulled open the door before saying, “I guess you’re right.”
Nettie and I hadn’t had an easy childhood. We both had to fight for our lives to stay out from under our father’s fists. The only thing that saved us was that we had to be able to show up to every Sunday sermon no matter what.
And luckily, we were both really good at soccer, otherwise we wouldn’t have been permitted to play. It would’ve looked weirder had our father kept us from playing seeing as we were the best damn players in the area, let alone the state.
We’d been known as Hell on Wheels to the Olympic committee.
However, where Antoinette had succeeded, I had not. I’d torn every ligament in my knee my freshman year of college and had to have extensive reconstructive surgery on it to the point where I knew I’d never play again.
My sister had threatened to quit with me because “it wasn’t the same without me” but I’d forced her to stay.
At least one of us was going to accomplish our goals. And she’d done it. She’d succeeded to the point where she was playing on a professional women’s team.
My baby sister of a whole three minutes got to play in front of thousands. She’d made the Olympics.
I was so happy for her I could cry.
I was even happier for her that she got the hell away from this place and our parents.
I just wish I’d had the courage to leave myself.
But I hadn’t.
I’d fallen back to what I’d always known, applying for a job at the local high school.
The school had sent me through school to become a certified teacher, and I’d accomplished my own new set of dreams.
“How long do you think you’re going to be able to stay?” I asked, feeling a pang against my chest from my aching heart.
I loved my sister, my twin. But I loved her enough to want her to be happy, and not to have to deal with this crazy bullshit.
“Til Wednesday, at the latest. We have a game on Friday in Seattle,” she explained. “I’m going to fly straight from here to Seattle.”
I looped my arm into hers, and together we walked into Hopps.
I didn’t miss the huge crowd that was taking up the majority of the small space.
The only good thing I could say about a crowd this big was that neither my sister nor I would be noticed.
Especially not with the big group of bikers taking up the back corner of the room drawing everyone’s attention.
Speaking of bikers…
“Isn’t that your electrician there?”
I followed Nettie’s gaze to find my hot electrician in the flesh, now wearing a Dixie Wardens MC cut over his sweatshirt.
He had a woman leaning over the pool table talking to him as he took aim for a shot.
“Sure is,” I said. “Looks like Audrey Owala has wormed her way in there. How surprising.”
“Audrey Owala.” Nettie cackled. “I’m going to call her that instead of Audrey Stanley from now on.”
Audrey Stanley was a deacon’s daughter. Her father and my father went way back, and so we were forced to spend time together even though Audrey was very much not our cup of tea.
But, being the forced nice girls that we were, we’d tried to be friendly with her even though Audrey was anything but.
Hell, I still remembered a time in high school when she’d fucked my boyfriend under the bleachers during prom.
Now, looking back, I saw it as a boon.
But back then, when I’d been crowned prom queen and him prom king, and we were supposed to be dancing, I hadn’t found it as gifting.
“Let’s just say that she did you a favor,” Nettie said. “And if your electrician friend finds her attractive and wants to do her, then you don’t want anything to do with him anyway.”
I tried to turn a blind eye to the two people, but even after we sat down at the corner of the bar closest to them, I couldn’t help but stare at them through the mirror above the bar.
But, to be completely honest, their group was pretty unwieldy. It was a surprise that Hopps himself didn’t kick them out.
Then again, he wouldn’t.
He was a part of their motorcycle club, too.
He was as old as dirt, and his wife was aging right alongside him.
They had great, cheap beer. A great atmosphere. However, they didn’t quite control the crowd like they used to.
Though, I had a distinct feeling that the group of bikers wouldn’t let any harm come to their club brother’s bar from any outsiders.
They might cause the harm, but no outside forces would be able to join in…
“Two beers,” a man said as he set our beers in front of us. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“What happened to Shade? I heard he was gone from the area,” Nettie wondered.
Shade was a bartender and had worked for the other bar in town.
“Long story short, there was some shit that went down a bit ago. I don’t know exactly when seeing as you know what I’m having to deal with on my own…”
Nettie nodded.
“Shade gave one of the patrons a lime when he knew that she was allergic, and he was fired.”
“Oh.” She scrunched up her nose. “Mable?”
I nodded. “That was my guess, too. That’s the only local I know that’s allergic to citrus.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I liked Shade. I wonder what happened there.”
“Hell if I know.” I took a healthy sip of beer and winced.
The taste left a lot to be desired.
But I drank with Nettie because she wouldn’t drink by herself.
A loud, obnoxious laugh had me glancing back up in the mirror to see Audrey leaning over the end of a pool table, showing her ass to the world, and her tits to Weaver as he once again lined up for a shot.
She had her hands placed on the green felt and was shaking her butt with her excitement.
“Desperation does not look good on her,” Nettie grumbled. “What the hell is she still doing here, anyway? I thought she was going to move away from this hellhole and ‘become a better person?’”
“She moved away for like a year. She came back lookin’ like she was rode hard and put up wet. Rumors were she was pregnant with some guy’s baby from New York. Bigwig that didn’t want the kid or her. She never got super pregnant or anything, though, so I’m assuming that was all a rumor.”
“Isn’t that just hilarious?” Nettie asked. “The girl that couldn’t stand living here having to come back?”
“Agreed,” I mused.
More laughter, and this time I glanced at Weaver to see him stand up with a scowl.
He said something I couldn’t hear, but all of a sudden Audrey was hauled backward by her shorts by an older man with a permanent scowl etched on his face.
Once she was far enough away from the table, he let her go and went back to talking to one of his club brothers who was sitting at a high top.
I snorted out a laugh and took another healthy sip of my beer.
“Swear to Christ,” I uttered under my breath. “That woman is one day going to bark up the wrong tree.”
“She already did, it looks like,” Nettie pointed out. “Look at that scowl on her face.”
Our giggles must’ve reached her ears, because she turned with a scowl.