Chapter 2
It’s crazy how no one in this life is perfect, yet everyone is so judgmental.
— Cutter to Chevy
CUTTER
“ But this is ridiculous, Cutter . That’s money that we could spend on a house! You’re too fucking old to be living in this shit hole!” my soon-to-be-ex, Dorie , cried out in frustration.
Her hands were in the air, and the one-hundred-and-thirty-five-dollar manicure that I’d paid for with my hard-earned money glinted against the harsh, overhead light.
I stared at her in annoyed anger.
Not to mention, she was wearing my fuckin’ shirt that she knew I didn’t like her wearing.
“ First off, take that fuckin’ shirt off. You know how I feel about you wearing it. Second , I’ve already explained it to you, Dorie ,” I replied rather calmly, even though everything inside of me was telling me that I should rant and rave. Tell her that she just didn’t fucking listen to me. “ This is nonnegotiable for me.”
Dorie yanked down her hands and fisted them at her side, spun around, and grabbed her keys. “ Well , I don’t want to live in this hellhole for the rest of my life!”
I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “ Before you leave, take all the things that you have here so you don’t have to come back. And if you take off with my shirt, I’m going to come get it, and you won’t like it if I do.”
She whipped around and narrowed her eyes. “ What ?”
“ You heard me,” I replied. “ Take all your things.”
“ But why?” she asked.
“ Because I’ve fought about this topic for the last time.” I shrugged. “ We aren’t compatible.”
“ You’re …you’re breaking up with me?” she cried out. “ What ?”
“ Dorie , I think I’ve told you a hundred different times, in a hundred different ways, that this was a topic that I wasn’t going to budge on. You may want a new house, you may want a life that you’ve dreamed about since you were young, but that just isn’t me. I’m not here half the time, so why the hell would I put money into a place that I don’t even want to be in?” I pushed. “ And it gets frustrating to listen to you talk about this because you know my reasoning behind it. I told you. So yes, I’m breaking up with you. I want you to grab your stuff and leave my key and my shirt on the counter. I’m going to go for a run.”
She looked flabbergasted. “ I just want to be in a nicer house, Cutter . It’s not a bad thing to dream of better things.”
“ No , it’s not,” I agreed. “ But right now, your dreams and my dreams don’t coincide well with each other.”
“ But I live here now,” she pointed out.
“ You might’ve moved all your stuff in, but I never said that you could. I didn’t say anything, because the pussy you gave me was good enough that I could ignore the constant nagging. But now you’re not even giving me that for a couple months now because you think you’re teaching me a lesson.” I continued, “ And , just sayin’, but no pussy is enough for me to give up my dreams for my family. If you were smart, you’d realize that family is everything. And you could’ve had mine had you played your cards right.”
“ Cutter …” Her voice softened.
But I’d had enough, and cut her off with a curt, “ Be gone by the time I get home, or you’ll be escorted out.”
She started to cry then.
Another time, another place, and I would’ve been affected by those tears.
But not anymore.
Dorie was a good gal.
Nice . Great lay. Or used to be.
But her priorities and mine were completely different.
She liked the bad boy in me and loved sticking it to her strait-laced family.
I , on the other hand, got over the novelty of her a long time ago, and I should’ve seen the writing on the wall.
I called my sister the moment I was out of the house.
“ What’s wrong?” my sister asked the moment she answered the phone. “ It’s not Sunday .”
I rolled my eyes. “ I can’t call you any other time but Sunday ?”
“ Well ,” Keely drawled, “considering you do your obligatory call on Sunday , and only call during the week because you have an issue, or you think I have an issue, it’s deductive reasoning.”
She was right.
I wasn’t a phone person.
I much preferred to talk face to face—which we did twice a week when I took her out to breakfast after she got off shift. We also met up at Chevy’s house to make our weekly trek to the penitentiary on Fridays , then went to eat after.
“ Broke up with Dorie ,” I admitted, not seeing the point in delaying the details. “ I just wanted you to know not to fall for her poor, pitiful me act when she came in to work later.”
“ Goddammit , Cutter .” She groaned. “ I fucking told you not to date her. I told you, and yet there you were, telling me that it would be okay, that it would never be awkward.”
“ She was pissed because I wouldn’t spend the money I’m saving on a house,” I explained.
She was silent for a long moment before she said, “ And you told her why you were saving it?”
“ Yes ,” I answered. “ About a hundred times. I told her everything, and repeatedly told her why I was doing what I was doing, and she still didn’t care.”
“ Fuck her, then,” Keely grumbled. “ What a bitch.”
It did make her a huge bitch.
Mostly because the reason we were saving money—all three Clayborne siblings that were currently not incarcerated—was for a very good cause.
Our older brother, Copper , was currently in prison.
He would be for another two and a half years.
He’d gone in at seventeen, and now, fifteen years later, he was on the tail end of a seventeen-year sentence.
“ I fucking hate him.”
She didn’t have to tell me who “him” was. Instinctively , I knew who she was talking about. I fucking hated him , too.
When the Clayborne siblings—me, Chevy and Copper —were all young, we’d thought we had a good life. Keely , on the other hand, had a shit life.
Sure , we thought on the outside that it was just our dad being a complete asshole to the one and only girl in the house. He’d always single her out. He’d make her do the dishes and the laundry. She’d have to clean everyone’s room and take out the trash.
Pretty much, from a young age, Keely was a slave to my dad.
Chevy , Copper , and I had done our best to mitigate the strain my dad put on her, but we were working our asses off from the time we were twelve and thirteen. We were running paper routes, mowing lawns, and doing anything and everything that twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys could do to make some extra money.
All of that money went into a pool, and the four of us had split it evenly, living on what we made.
Sure , our dad paid the mortgage and kept a roof over our heads, but he didn’t do much more than that. We were responsible for buying ourselves clothes, food, and whatever else we might need.
Meanwhile , our dad sat on his cash throne, and lorded over us, making our lives miserable as hell.
What we didn’t realize until later was that the moment our little sister turned thirteen, and started looking like a woman, our asshole father had started to turn his attentions on her.
At seventeen, Copper had come home from his after-school job early because he’d gotten hurt at work. He’d walked in through the back yard because he’d wanted to check on our dog, and when he’d come in the back door, it was to see our father trying to force himself on Keely .
Keely who’d just given up and showed no fight.
Copper had lost his fucking mind, and when the dust settled, our father was dead.
He’d taken one too many fists to the temple and hadn’t survived the trauma.
And because of who our father was outside of the home—a prominent, well-loved real estate mogul who was a cherished member of society—a judge had thrown the book at Copper .
Copper’s reasoning behind his lost control wasn’t a good enough reason, and he’d been given the max amount of time they could give to him without outraging the public—and trust me, the trial was huge, and the public had been closely watching.
So , at seventeen and three-quarters, Copper had been sent to the biggest and most secure penitentiary in Texas to serve his sentence.
After that had gone down, Chevy , Keely and I had been forced to live with our grandparents in Michigan , a whole day’s drive away from Copper .
The moment that I’d turned eighteen, I’d joined the Navy in hopes that I could help support Keely and Chevy .
Nine months after me, Chevy had graduated and joined the Navy as well.
That left Keely all by herself in Michigan .
She’d stayed the last year before she’d flown the coop the moment that she turned eighteen and had also followed us into the Navy .
In our travels, we’d all come down to visit Copper as much as we possibly could.
To help him when he did finally get out, Chevy , Keely and I were saving twenty-five percent of our income and putting it into a high-yield account that would hopefully set Copper up for life when he came out.
Because that was what we all owed him. Our lives.
It could’ve been any of us that had walked in that day and come up on that scene, and all of us would’ve reacted the same way.
It was the least we could do.
And it pissed off Dorie that I wouldn’t spend the hefty sum of money on a house for us.
Which was quite funny because I’d never seen Dorie as anything more than a steady fuck.
I’d never given her promises.
I’d never seen her as anything more than a pussy in my bed every night that I didn’t have to worry about STDs with.
Maybe it was better this way.
Maybe tomorrow I’d look into a new place. One that wasn’t known by a certain someone.
Though , just sayin’, but I doubted it’d be any better than the one I had now.
After my run, I got home to a luckily empty house and took a shower.
Once I was clean, I got dressed in my work clothes and headed over to the shop on my bike.
I was a carpenter and had been for a couple of years now.
I started my own business a few months after getting out of the Navy , and my grandfather, who was all alone up in Michigan , moved down to Texas to help me.
He was the first person I saw when I pulled into the lot.
He was bent over a piece of maple, running his hands over it lovingly.
That was one good thing about moving up to Michigan for a year.
Granddad had taught me everything I knew, and he was the reason that I had the skills to do what I loved.
He’d taught me a way to release the anger that I had built inside, and he’d done that by giving me an outlet.
Needless to say, in that year that he’d taught me his trade, I’d fallen in love with it.
Not enough to stop myself from joining the Navy and seeing the world, but enough that when I was done with the world, I could come home and still live a good life.
It also didn’t suck that I was doing really well.
“ Granddad ,” I said as I got off the bike. “ Tell me you didn’t lift that all by yourself.”
Granddad turned and grinned at me. “ I can neither confirm nor deny.”
Which means, he’d gotten it up there himself, and tomorrow he’d be paying for it.
“ You’re gonna throw your back out again,” I pointed out as I came to a stop on the other side of the maple slab. “ Whatcha makin’?”
Granddad didn’t necessarily help me with anything much anymore.
He pretty much did his own thing and stocked our store room with new pieces that would sell for a fuckin’ mint—he, too, was contributing to Copper’s exit plan.
“ I’m thinking a table,” he said. “ I saw a really sweet football table on the news last week. It sold in auction for half a million dollars. So I thought I’d make one for the Dallas Cowboys . These fanatics love their home team.”
That was right.
Living in Dallas , Texas , you were either a Dallas Cowboys fan, or you were wrong.
Personally , I’d never really loved football all that much. I’d watch it if it was on and there wasn’t anything else to do, but it wasn’t my first pick.
Now , sand volleyball, rugby, or soccer, I was all for it.
“ Is that what you’re entering into the charity gala auction for next month?” I asked.
“ Sure ,” he said. “ Gotta build something that’ll beat out your bullshit.”
I rolled my eyes.
I hadn’t even started on my ‘bullshit’ yet.
I had no clue what I wanted to do.
But I’d figure it out.
Hopefully .
“ I have a set of cabinets that I need to get started on, and I have a client meeting around noon. Do you want me to bring you lunch back, or are you good?” I asked.
“ I’m good. I’m heading to lunch with Chevy . He’s swinging by after his shift,” he answered.
Chevy was an anesthesiologist now. He’d gotten the government to use his GI bill to pay for him to go to medical school, and now he was making bank.
Keely was the only one that wasn’t really raking it in, and that was because she’d started going the nursing path only to graduate, work for a year, and realize that she fuckin’ hated it. She’d found a job at a sleep study place shortly after, and now she had a cushy night job that she could relax at, still use her nursing skills, and make a pretty decent living.
Though , technically, if she really wanted to, she could be making more than all of us.
Years ago, when my father died, he’d been grooming Copper to take everything over from his real estate business. When that didn’t work out for dad or Copper , Keely had reluctantly taken the CEO position over once she’d graduated. She had to do CEO things—things that she hated doing—to keep the business alive for when Copper got out.
Even though none of us had asked her to do that.
We knew the cost it would take on her to run a business of the man that’d abused her.
But Keely ? She was stronger than all of us.
She ran that CEO position like she was made for it, all the while refusing everything that position granted in return.
“ Gotcha ,” I said. “ I’ll leave you to your table.”
I walked into the shop and inhaled, loving the smell of wood, lacquer, and even the burned sap.
It was a calming smell, and never failed to make my blood pressure lower.
I loved this place, and everything about it.
Too bad I couldn’t have the same thing at home.