Chapter 11 Whip
WHIP
I’d been ignoring my personal phone for over a week. Every time a call from an unknown number flashed up on the screen, I sent it straight to voicemail then conveniently didn’t listen to the message.
But that was getting ridiculous. I wasn’t going to have a business if I never answered my phone. I couldn’t just continue not working. I had savings but I wasn’t made of money.
Besides that, what the fuck else was I supposed to do with my time? I couldn’t just chase Violet around and keep X and Levi out of trouble as my full-time job. That wasn’t exactly going to pay the bills.
Except the idea of having sex with anyone other than them was about as appealing as going to the dentist.
I needed to get my shit together. It was a job. Nothing more. I’d always been able to detach myself from it, so why the hell couldn’t I do that now?
I’d thought more than once about getting a regular job. A nine-to-five, like I’d had once upon a time, but the thought immediately sent fear through me.
I’d had a normal life once. A regular job. A woman to sleep next to. Beautiful kids who had run outside every night when I’d gotten home from my office job in the city.
And all of that had been taken away in a heartbeat. In one stupid moment, my entire life had been wiped out because the three of them no longer existed.
Now all I had left of them was this house I could barely stand to sleep in and a photo in a frame that reminded me I was no longer the man I’d once been, and I couldn’t go back, no matter how much I might want to.
Because losing it had nearly killed me once.
I couldn’t afford to do it again.
There was no going back to a normal job. Sex work paid the bills, and it reminded me to never get too close to anyone because everything was transactional.
I needed to go back to work.
I rolled onto my side on my couch and forced myself to pick up my phone and play the voice messages.
“Hi! Uh, is this Wyatt De Leon? A friend of mine gave me your number—”
I hit delete.
Her voice was too high-pitched. There was no way I was going to listen to that for an entire hour.
“Hey, man. I’m looking for someone to fuck my wife while I watch. A guy I know said you do that sorta shit. Hit me up if you’re interested.”
My finger hovered over the delete button, mentally searching for a reason to press it.
But the truth was, I didn’t have one.
Other than the fact the only person I wanted to have sex with while another man watched was Violet.
My fingers shook as my heart screamed to press down on the delete button.
But my brain reminded me I needed to actually pay for this roof over my head and the too-fancy car I had a loan on and couldn’t really afford but needed because it went with the whole schtick.
The guy I hired as my driver had been messaging me all week, asking if I had work for him.
I felt like an asshole ignoring his messages as well, when I knew he needed my gigs to make ends meet.
I sighed and hit a different button, returning the call of the guy who wanted to watch and setting up a meeting for the next night.
Even before I hung up, guilt swamped me.
I tossed my phone across the room. “Get yourself together, you idiot. It’s a job. And you aren’t in a relationship. They’ll understand.”
But a terrified part of me was sure they wouldn’t.
A knock at the door was a welcome relief. I pulled my head outta my ass and rolled off the couch.
The knocking kept coming, in varying patterns that sounded somewhat familiar.
By the time I opened the door, I wasn’t even surprised that it was X on my steps.
I squinted at him. “Was that ‘Greensleeves’ you were playing on my door?”
X grinned and pushed past me like he owned the joint. “I play it in my van sometimes. Got stuck in my head.”
“You’re so fucking weird.”
“I know. Where’s your hockey stick?”
I blinked, following him through my house while he opened cupboards and rummaged around in them.
“My hockey stick?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know, that thing you whack little black discs around with on the ice? I know you have one ’cause you locked me in the house with it that one time when Violet came over.”
I took a pile of freshly folded towels out of his arms. “It’s not in my linen cupboard, I can tell you that much. It’s out back, I think. Stop touching everything.” I put the towels back on the shelf.
X happily trotted after me as I led the way to the back door.
“What do you want a hockey stick for anyway?” I asked.
“I’m trying out for the team.”
I glanced back over my shoulder at him. “What team?”
“The CHL team.”
I stopped with my hand resting on the lock. “You’re trying out for the Coastal Hockey League team?” I snorted on a laugh. “X, you know they’re one step away from the pro league, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
I squinted at him. “Do you skate?”
He scoffed at my skepticism. “I’ll have you know I won several figure skating competitions. You’re breathing the same air as the Under Nine’s state champion.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that true?”
“No, of course not. I did one month of lessons when I was about twelve and then got bored and took up karate.”
“How long did that last?”
“Six weeks, I think.”
“You get bored easily.”
“I’m already bored with this conversation. The stick, old man. Or did you already forget that’s why I’m here?”
I led the way out to the little shed in my badly tended backyard and twisted the dial on the padlock until it sprang open.
My rarely used lawnmower sat inside, along with a variety of other gardening tools I didn’t use as often as I should.
Cobwebs clung to the corners of the tin structure, and the one window was grimy but let in enough light that I couldn’t ignore the two kid-size bicycles and the sealed plastic containers that held all the belongings from a life I couldn’t bear to throw away.
I knew exactly what was in each of them without even opening one.
Their clothes. Their stuffed toys. Photos. Memories.
A lump rose in my throat. “Get the stick and let’s go.”
X’s eyes lit up. “You’re coming with me?”
I grabbed the stick and thrust it at him. “Coming with you where?”
“To the tryouts.” He shook the stick at me like it was a pom-pom. “I need someone to be my cheer squad. You got one of those little skirts you can wear?”
I shoved him out the shed door and locked it behind me again, along with the memories it stirred up. “Your tryout is today? Seriously? You haven’t even trained!”
He shrugged. “Gotta seize the day, Whip. I nearly died. What if that ocean had taken my life? I would have never found out if I was destined for the pros. I can’t let that opportunity go!”
I squinted at him. “Aren’t you scared of the ice melting and drowning in it?”
He stopped abruptly and spun back to face me. His mouth dropped open. “Do you think that’s actually a possibility? I have a thing about drowning, Whip!”
“I heard it happened to a guy in Australia. It’s hot there, you know. So the ice just melted and down he went.”
“No!”
I eyed him. “You’re too gullible for your own good, you know that?”
He pointed a finger at me. “When you buy a jersey with my name on the back, I’m not going to sign it for you. I hope you know that.”
I snorted on a laugh. “Come on, Wayne Gretzky. Let’s go see what you’re made of.”
In the grandstand of the Saint View Ice Rink, I rubbed my arms briskly, warding off the chill that floated off the ice. The bleachers around me were mostly empty, save for a dozen or so small groups of family and friends, waiting to watch their loved ones take to the ice.
I raised my hand when Levi and Violet pushed through the glass doors, and they both waved back, making their way along the rubber-matted floors and then climbing the stairs to where I sat.
Violet settled next to me, immediately putting her hand on my leg and sliding in close, Levi on the other side of her, rubbing his hands together.
“Wasn’t sure I read your message right. You did say X is trying out for the team, right? Is that even possible? Don’t they just scout talent from people who are already, you know, playing?”
I shrugged. “Probably. But have you ever tried to tell X no? I’m fully convinced he could talk his way into becoming president if that’s what he really wanted. I have no doubt in my mind he smiled at them, bamboozled them with some sort of word vomit story, and they said yes just to shut him up.”
Down on the ice, players were starting to warm up. They glided out, their movements sleek despite their bulky protective padding. Little black pucks whizzed across the ice at speeds my eyes could barely keep up with.
Violet’s leg bounced nervously. “I don’t want him to get hurt. I’m really thinking that maybe we should have forced him to go to the hospital after the other night. He’s been acting even crazier than normal. What if all of this is because he has a brain bleed?”
I shook my head. “He’s just had a brush with death and is in the afterglow period where you’re just glad to be alive.”
Violet gazed up at me. “Did you have that…after the accident.”
I stared out at the ice, but all I saw was the mangled wreck of the car accident I’d walked away from. The one that had taken the lives of my entire family.
All I remembered of the days and weeks and months afterward was the darkness. A deep, aching loneliness and depression where every minute had been a battle not to take my own life so I could join them.
The only thing that had stopped me was the knowledge that their murderer still walked the streets, out on bail thanks to his fancy-ass lawyer who’d delayed the tests that would have confirmed the guy was drunk off his ass when he’d hit us.
I’d smelled the booze on his breath when we’d both stumbled out of the wreck. I’d seen the unfocused eyes. My entire family had been wiped out because he’d been too fucking selfish to get a cab home from whatever bar he’d been drowning his sorrows in.