Abraham
“Boss, it looks like you missed a spot here,” Buzz burbled behind me, smelling strongly of onions as he leaned over my shoulder and pointed with a dirty finger at the quilt.
“Get your filthy fingers away!” I snarled. “Do something useful for once and help me figure out what women want so I can get Polly back.”
“Well, I know what they don’t want. They don’t want to overhear that they’re just a wet hole.”
My jaw was grinding so hard I swear I could feel my teeth cracking.
“Why do you even care?” Unc put in, wheeling up to the table. “You said you were planning on letting her go anyway.”
There were all looking hard at me and I tried to ignore it, accidentally driving the needle deep into my thumb.
So close. . . so close to finishing it.
“You fuckers know I lied,” I ground out. “I don’t want Polly to leave at all.”
It was the most miserable Christmas I could ever have imagined.
The half-decorated tree stood like a rebuke in the corner.
Half-decorated because Polly was supposed to finish decorating it the night she left, planned to make cranberry strings and popcorn balls because she wanted a real old-fashioned Christmas.
So now the entire house was like a frozen monument to the moment I fucked up.
Where in the fucking hell was she?
What if she had gotten in an accident in that broken-down ass car?
But I’d checked every day at the hospital. No one of her description had come in.
Every night I drove up and down the streets, because it appeared I could no longer sleep through the night without Polly beside me.
But I had never seen a single curly hair of Polly’s.
Had she left the state? Had she left the country?
I wanted to vomit.
“If you could’ve only gotten her aunt’s name!” I said like an idiot to Buzz, because I’d said it a thousand times before. “She must be there.”
“She said to call her Bon-Bon!”
“Well, there is no such person as Bon-Bon in this town. That’s not pulling up anyone. How did you not find out what her name was? You wanted to fuck her, didn’t you?”
Fizz looked irritably at me.
“I wanted to court her romantically,” he said. “I’m not surprised you lost Polly with that attitude. She’s probably happy to get away from your boorish behavior.”
I wanted to throttle him, but I controlled my temper with an effort.
“Think of how I feel with the fact that you’ve ruined my chances with her aunt unless you can un-fuck this up,” he continued.
Polly would not appreciate me throttling Fizz
Polly would not appreciate me throttling Fizz
Polly would not appreciate me throttling Fizz
Christmas dinner had been a very grim meal of beanie weenies, and to wash it down I had been popping beer after beer.
“Which one of you fellows needs to take a shit?” Fizz asked as we sat morosely around the table.
“I’m not used to so many damn beans,” Vladdy said.
“I was busy at the desk,” Mac retorted. “Any of you want to take up cooking?”
No one said anything.
“Want to open the presents?”
“Open without Polly?” Unc said. “No. In fact, if you can ever convince her to come back I’m upgrading her present.”
They all mumbled in agreement, and we sunk into silence again.
How many beers had I had?
Had I finished that second six-pack on my own?
I drank until the background was blurred and foggy.
And it still didn’t work.
I still missed Polly as much as if I was stone-cold sober. It was like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding, like an injury draining blood from my body. I felt like a fucking saggy testicle dragging along the ground.
One by one, everyone drifted off to their own rooms until I was the last one left, sitting by the window looking out at the barren trees.
I’d been the Legends MC Prez for a long damn time.
Had won it from my father and then maintained and expanded the boundaries of our territory. And for a long time, that zeal to surpass what my father had done had sustained me.
Now? I had stagnated. The boundaries were well-maintained. Challenges were dealt with without mercy. Women were all the same. To be fucked when I wanted and put away when I wanted. I didn’t have anything to fight for.
Until Polly.
Somehow this damn woman had wiggled herself into every crack and smidgen of my life with—and I wanted more.
There. I was done.
I unfurled the quilt, my fingers chasing each of the many squares I’d sewn back together.
Would Polly see this as proof I knew I fucked up? And was trying to fix it?
Oh, wait.
What the hell? I’d sewn in some of these last squares backwards.
I’d have to carefully rip the seams out and re-do it.
Grim despair gripped me. I needed another cigarette. Then I’d try it again.
I stood up, unsteadily, and the room swam around me. Clusters of light popped and fizzled in the corner of my vision and then everything went blurry.
I should eat something.
I should go to bed.
But I wanted to get this done. What if I found Polly tomorrow?
Then it was like I slumped to the ground in slow motion and everything seemed to go blank.
And from a great distance away, I heard sirens.