Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
H angman…
Does this look like what I think it looks like to you? I texted out to Synister, and forwarded the screenshots of the texts from Lorelai’s father I’d sent from her phone to mine.
I got to work, waving at Madisyn and Lainey as they came through the gate on foot and headed up to my place. Her dad had clearly been pissed off all to hell making all kinds of noise through texting and missed calls that we hadn’t heard thanks to Lore turning the ringer off on her phone. What’d caught my eye was the drunker he got, and the more vitriolic he’d gotten, the more he’d started to sound like – to an outsider like me – that he knew a thing or two extra about what’d happened to his daughter.
Red flags had gone up in the back of my mind. Phrases like he wasn’t sorry any more that what’d happened had happened… which on its face didn’t seem like much, but I just had this niggling doubt that there was something there. You know?
After I’d seen the girls off, I’d checked my phone and there was a text waiting from Syn:
If you think that reading between the lines that Daddy Dearest here knows more than he’s letting on about what happened to his little girl… yeah, I can see it. It’s being handled. You handle your girl.
I thought a minute and typed back, Don’t hurt the wife. Her mom’s good people. I don’t think she knows shit about fuck.
My phone pinged a minute later. Two words. Copy that.
I had a feeling that he’d be dispatching Grim and Reaper. Reaper had a fucked-up sense of justice and making shit up to people. He’d probably insist it be him. I had mixed feelings about that. If her dad was just being a fucking dick – then I almost felt sorry for him. If he did have something to do with it? Shit. It was nice knowing whatever the dude had left by way of sanity.
Looking back through those awful texts that he’d sent to his daughter; I decided I didn’t much care what he went through. He’d put my Sweetpea through enough. The fact that she seemed unfazed; almost bored reading the vitriol on her screen told me I hadn’t gone to her soon enough. That I should have checked up on her way before she’d called.
I went about my day, digging a grave, fixing some of the drainage system around Bonaventure, that led back down to the river in the event of some hard rains, and when my phone went off telling me it was time to close and lock the gates, I tossed my shovel in the back of my truck and chased some straggling visitors and tourists out of the parking lot down by the river, rounding ‘em up like herding cats to the front gate.
I exchanged a nod with old Mrs. Kaplowitz sitting with her husband. She was slow, but she’d make her way to the gate here pretty soon. I always tried to give her a few extra minutes with old Arthur.
Shit, it wouldn’t be long now before her death date would go under her name on her side of the monument and I would be digging the trench to lower her ornate box into the sandy ground.
Morbid thinking, but true.
As I locked the cemetery gates behind Mrs. Kaplowitz, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was far too early for it to be Syn about what shook loose from Daddy Dearest. I checked it, and it was my Sweetpea, letting me know what the girls had done and that they were heading to the club.
I smiled to myself, glad that Mini-Syn and Lainey had roped her into going to the club. It was barbecue night and Tor knew his way around a smoker and had been at it over the last couple of days.
I went up and took a hot shower, rinsing the sunscreen, sweat, and grit of the day down the drain. I took my time getting dressed, combing back my hair into a tight but short tail at the nape of my neck. It felt good to shrug into my cut, and even better that I would see if my Sweetpea could integrate into club life. I was worried about it. Mostly worried the guys would go too hard too quick and send her – I didn’t want that. I was pretty sure the rest of the boys knew it, but there were a couple I’d be lucky if they could or would give a fuck about it.
That was what happened when you had a mix of difficult personalities crammed into a unit – even with a clear-cut hierarchy. Sometimes a motherfucker just liked to test limits. Specter and Tor both immediately coming to mind on that front.
I walked down the road and was encouraged to hear a high peel of laughter from somewhere behind the building. Likely up or under the back deck. Voices traveled on the stagnant evening air, heavy with humidity and the promise of a thunderstorm. The breeze kicked up and brought with it the smell of petrichor – and I loved that smell. Always had. Wished someone could figure out how to bottle that shit; I’d pay a mint to wear it as a cologne – but everything that’d been named shit like Before the Storm, or After the Rain, or some other such gimmicky bullshit had never even really come close to the real thing. There was always something cloying and just off about it.
I let myself through the gap in the gate and found the bike-sized roll up open. I had no problem marching my happy ass through it like I owned the place because I did. We all did. Every one of us owned an equal share in the building.
“Hangman, what’s up?” Haint called from under the hood of what had to be his latest build. A sweet black Chevelle from the sixties, with a red leather interior. Looked sharp.
“Not too much,” I said, sauntering up. Revenant straightened up from under the hood and gave me a nod.
“Latest build?” I asked Haint.
“Yup, just drove her over on a short test drive… and because this place is probably more secure than even my garage.
“You ain’t wrong about that – but only by virtue of we’re all here and your garage is sitting empty.”
Haint snorted, “Better fuckin’ not be,” he said. “Otherwise, what am I paying those motherfuckers overtime for?”
We shared a laugh over that one and I bid the guys a see you later, telling them the God’s honest truth: I needed a cold beer.
I didn’t go upstairs, not yet. I went through the downstairs lounge and out under the deck to the outdoor living room.
It was the right call, my Lorelai stretched out on the chaise end of the outdoor living room set’s wraparound couch, her shoes laying forlorn and forgotten half tucked under the coffee table.
The sight of her, the petrichor smell growing stronger in the air, and the light failing as the storm clouds rolled in… it was turning into my idea of a perfect evening made better when Fear held out a bottle of my favorite beer.
I twisted off the top and said thanks, as I kept right on moving toward my girl.
“Hi!” she called happily, and I could tell, she was probably on her second drink or so. Her nose a bit rosy and eyes a little glassy with her feel-good.
I leaned way down, putting my hand against the back of the couch, and my mouth against hers.
“Hey,” I murmured in a purr, pulling back from her. She was blushing furiously and it was nothing short of adorable.
“Come sit,” she whispered, scootching over for me.
I settled in beside her, putting my arm around her and bringing her forehead to my lips, happy when she snuggled into my side and rested her head on my shoulder.
“How’d your day go?” she asked and I smiled. It felt good to be asked. I liked it.
“It was good,” I told her. “Better now.” I kissed the top of her hair.
Wasn’t long before the sky started to spit, and the food was up. It all went upstairs and onto the bar with the weather being uncertain. It wasn’t full-on raining, not yet, just sprinkling here and there.
We had dinner with the rest of the guys, laughed and joked, and gathered my lady’s spoils from her shopping trip before, hand in hand, we headed home.
It was getting dark, partially from the building clouds, partially due to the time and the sun starting to sink behind the horizon. The skies opened up in a deluge just about the time we set foot onto the covered porch and I keyed us in downstairs while Lorelai breathlessly laughed at our good fortune.
“My thoughts exactly!” I called above the dull roar of the pounding rain and the grumble of thunder off in the distance that sounded like it was approaching fast.
Lorelai shuddered a bit as I put my palm to her back and guided her through the door ahead of me. I locked up behind us, and keyed open the downstairs door to head on up to the apartment from the inside. We went up the stairs, me first to key open the lock up there to let us into our apartment, our sanctuary, our place of peace among the graves.
She slipped through, past me, carrying her own bags, which she’d taken from me after our short walk so that I could operate the locks at the gate and beyond.
She sighed and it was a heavy thing of relief when I shut the door behind us as twisted the locks back into place.
“You okay, Sweetpea?” I asked softly as the sound of the rain intensified outside with a gust of wind.
“A little overstimulated, I guess,” she said with a shaky laugh.
“Yeah?” I asked, stepping nearer to her, carefully. I held out my hands for her bags and she startled a bit and handed them over with a slightly nervous laugh. Lightning flashed outside and she jumped; when the thunder she knew was coming boomed, she jumped harder and yipped.
Overstimulated was definitely part of it, her anxiousness clear, but she’d weathered it all like a champ. Still… she needed to be still and with a little trust, I thought I could help.
“Show me what you got today,” I said gently, and drifted with her purchases to the kitchen island.
“Oh!” she said and blushed a bit of a pink. “I’d love to, actually.”
I slid up onto one of the seats and set the shopping bags onto the kitchen island. She slipped up onto a seat beside mine and drew one of the fancy paper bags with handles over to her.
She showed me a lovely teapot, with a matching pair of cups and saucers. The pot something out of Victorian England in style, white with gilt edges and flourishes with pink peonies painted or glazed on it. The cups matching and the set lovely, matching her in her white sun dress with pink flowers today.
“You did good with these, baby,” I told her, carefully turning one of the cups between my battered hands.
“Yeah, you like?” she asked, beaming proudly.
I smiled and said, “All that matters is that you love them, but yeah – I like what you picked.”
She smiled and it was sweet and wholesome as she moved onto the smaller bag within the larger one with baggies and packets of two or three teas. She had me smell them all, and some of them were nice, while others I could only describe as, well, not my cup of tea.
She hesitated as she reached into another bag from the tea shop and extracted a box.
“I was hoping, since these teas are so visually appealing in addition to smell and taste that you might let me put them all in these apothecary jars against the back splash along that wall. She pointed and handed me the box, and I opened it up. Sure enough, it held a fancy glass jar with a glass lid with this sort of copper lace overlay that went with the kitchen and the copper kettle on the stove.
“Shit, yeah,” I said. “That would look real nice. These are great, baby.”
She looked equally relieved and pleased at the small praise and after reading her dad’s texts to her that morning, I realized, she probably was starved for positive male attention. I didn’t see a man like her dad praising her very often. Her mom probably did a majority of the actual parenting and smoothing things over between father and daughter.
It was some food for thought, and enlightening…
I helped her wash the jars at the sink and dry them carefully before loading them with her teas and she had an eye alright. She had more jars than teas, for sure, but she’d also bought just enough to line that back wall just perfect.
She also had a small service tray that was likewise, copper, and held a little copper box for sugar rocks, another pot for regular sugar, and another for raw sugar. It was kind of wild how seriously she took her tea, but adorable, too.
“What’s in that bag?” I asked when we’d folded up the ones from the tea shop and discarded the unwanted packaging in the trash under the sink.
“Books,” she said with a soft blush. “We’re going to do something of a book club and all three of us chose something. We rock, paper, scissored for it, then flipped a coin to see who would go first, second, and third. I won.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah – since Valory wasn’t there, she has to go last. I kind of felt bad about that but she seemed fine with it, but we all chose our books and we’re all going to read them in order. I picked Persuasion, it’s my favorite. Lainey picked Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, and Madisyn chose some modern romance thing written about faeries or something. Valory texted her choice which was another romantic something or other and we’re all going to start Persuasion tomorrow.”
“That sounds great,” I told her with a smile. “I’m glad the girls are lifting you up.”
She smiled faintly and said, “I’m not used to having real friends, but this feels like it might be that.”
“I get what you mean,” I said quietly. “Did you have any other friends other than that ho?” I asked.
She snort-laughed and nodded, “A few, but they all went off to college elsewhere while I stayed where I was comfortable in Charleston, took a year or two off after high school to read and sort of figure myself out and what I wanted to do… most of my friends are graduating or have graduated. I’m still a year or so off from any kind of degree and I’m honestly not sure what a generalized business degree will do for me. I still am just sort of aimless.”
She shrugged almost apologetically and I reached out and cupped her face, smoothing a thumb along her cheek, “It’s alright if you don’t have it all figured out. Most of us really don’t. We’re just hoping to pretend to look like adults to the other adults.”
She smiled and half laughed at me, nodding.
“I kind of figured, but still… I am my father’s useless daughter.” She rolled her eyes.
“And you’re my beautiful Sweetpea, and there’s no pressure here.”
She looked almost relieved at that and I cocked my head, “Is that what’s got you feeling so anxious?” I asked.
She stopped and thought about what I was asking and slowly and reluctantly nodded.
“I guess, maybe?” she said.
“What’s it feel like?” I asked.
She cocked her head and considered me, and it was adorable how she did it.
“Like I’m filled to the brim with just a nervous sort of energy and that I’m apt to just… I don’t know, explode or implode at any moment. Like I just want to start screaming and never stop or—” she choked up and took a deep, soggy, shuddering breath letting it out roughly, trying to breathe through the rough patch of emotion that’d upset her applecart.
I thought about it, for a minute, and asked tentatively, “You want to find out what that ring and tripod setup in the corner of the bedroom is for?”
She looked up at me, her silvery eyes luminous with unshed tears. “You think it will help?” she asked.
I smiled. “It certainly won’t hurt to give it a try,” I said.
She smiled back and nodded, asking, “So what is it?”