Chapter NOVA
NOVA
Boone and Dan returned home together. I heard them speaking in hushed voices before they found me waiting for them in the foyer. Boone smiled first and reached for me.
“Tomorrow, the Crimson Guard is getting together at the Sorority House to hash out what happened. Do you think you can survive without me while I’m gone?”
As Boone wrapped his arms around me, I studied Dan’s face. My brother tilted back his hat and sighed.
“If you ever see those fuckers around, text Boone and me. Don’t wait until they talk to you.”
“Are they going to cause more trouble?”
“Probably not,” Boone said and shrugged. “But trusting stupid people to behave is usually a mistake. Hit us up if you ever see them around your location.”
Joining us, Goldie muttered, “That’s it?”
“Clint will explain everything at the meeting tomorrow.”
Goldie frowned at her brother and then at me. “I was hoping he’d return with a head in a duffel bag.”
“What would he do with the head?” I asked.
“We could play soccer with it.”
I smiled at her and thought about her riding in the dark back to the Sorority House. “Do you want to stay here tonight?”
“No. I need to be surrounded by pissed foxes. That’ll distract from my fucking hair.”
“You look sexy,” Yarrow said and hugged her daughter from behind. “If I were a man, I’d want to date you for sex reasons.”
“Thanks,” Goldie said and turned around to hug her mom. “I know you’re picky about who you have sex with, so that means a lot.”
Smiling at his daughter’s comment, Blackjack asked Boone, “Is there anyone around who can supervise Goldie on her ride home?”
“And so it begins,” Goldie muttered and glared at her dad. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” Blackjack replied immediately. “Your hands are busted up. Maybe you should have someone drive you.”
“Nine’s heading to the Sorority House,” Boone said as his sister looked ready to flip out. “He’s staying the night there. You could ride back with him.”
Goldie nodded and kissed her mom’s cheek. “That’s what I’m talking about. Me being an adult in control of my destiny.”
Blackjack shook his head. “You’re coming off vulnerable. I should drive you. In fact, Boone can drive while you sit on my lap in the passenger seat.”
Goldie grinned at him. “What a funny guy.”
The four Chesters huddled together with me. The girls worried they were missing out and hurried over to peek into our circle.
“Today sucked, but it was a blip in our life,” Blackjack said. “We are the Chester family. We stick together and handle our problems as a team.”
“Yeah,” Lyric said and smiled at me.
The same kind of family unity was on display a week later when I sat down for my first tattoo. Yarrow planned to get the same design.
“I want Goldie’s name on one forearm,” she explained to our tattoo artist and Crimson Guard member Haley. “Boone and Nova on the other. Under their names, I want two smaller hearts with the girls’ names and birthdates.”
“Whoa, now,” Goldie said, sitting nearby in the tattoo shop. “I don’t like the idea of my arm looking all bare compared to Boone’s.”
“Then have grandkids for me.”
“That’s not fair. Where am I going to find a guy with two kids?”
“Get on a dating app and only look for single dads,” Blackjack suggested. “Widowers would be best.”
“Or find a nice man with kids and then make him a widower,” Yarrow suggested, winning chuckles despite her clearly being serious.
Despite the support from the Chester family, I was extremely nervous until Haley showed me the stencil. The sight of my daughters’ names and birthdates in a pretty heart design silenced my fears.
Yarrow went first, claiming she didn’t have the patience to wait. I sat with her and shared my daughters’ birth stories.
Yarrow smiled. “I’m going to mentally rewrite those stories to make it so Boone was there with you.”
I smiled at how quickly she embraced the idea of us as a family. She told me the other night how Boone never wanted a woman. Now, he was in love. To Yarrow, our relationship would obviously work out.
‘I believe in magic,” she said and looked at Blackjack nearby.
After her tattoo was finished, Yarrow held my free hand. The pain wasn’t as bad as I imagined. Haley played relaxing music, and I focused on how Boone and Blackjack were trying to turn Goldie’s hair into a mohawk.
“Do you have any gel?” Boone asked Haley.
“No,” she replied and frowned. “Stop distracting me.”
“Sorry, but my big sister needs cheering up.”
Haley smirked at his teasing while I admired Yarrow next to me.
“I miss my mom,” I told her. “But it’s a romanticized version of her. The real Laverne wouldn’t want me to get a tattoo.”
“People claim you should remember people the way they were. Like that keeps them alive after they’re gone.
But I would rather remember the better version in my head.
I’ve rewritten a lot of my early life to give me a better childhood.
Who cares if it’s a lie? If the Laverne in your head is better, then make that the real Laverne.
So, when you look at your tattoo, just remember how much your mom would have loved it.
She was actually super into tattoos and had some herself. ”
Grinning, I liked the crazy way Yarrow saw the world. I decided to take her advice and remember Laverne however I wanted.
When we returned home, Dan admired my tattoo. Seeing him smiling more easily, I asked if I could put a picture of our mom in the hallway where the other family photos were.
“I thought you’d want one of Boone,” he said rather than agree.
“I will eventually. But I think Lula would like this picture of us,” I said and showed him a photo of our mom with Dan and me back before we moved in with our maternal grandparents.
Little Dan wore his cowboy hat. I was dressed like a tomboy.
The photo was taken before our dad was caught.
Our life was simpler then, even if it was based on a lie. “You were such a handsome boy.”
Dan smiled softly at the picture. I felt him considering our mom and how things went wrong for a long time.
“We’re stronger now,” I told Dan. “We have people who love us. Our family has grown. I think we can handle remembering a time that we were taught to forget.”
My brother wrapped his arms around me and held on tight. We’d both gotten lucky in love over the last year. Our lives were on the fast track to new adventures. Dan would soon be on his real honeymoon, while I planned to visit Rawlins for Thanksgiving.
Once Dan and I ended our hug, Boone swept in and wrapped his arms around me. He had been in a great mood since his parents arrived.
Yet, occasionally, I caught him wearing a dark frown. I knew his mind was on the grocery store incident. But usually, he was smiling over having his favorite people nearby.
“My parents will be here through Halloween,” Boone said as we sat on his silent motorcycle next to the plot of land where our future house would one day rest. “I’d like to take them out to an engagement dinner while they’re here.”
Less than a month ago, I had given Boone the piece of paper with Eddie Murphy’s face. Now, weeks later, he wanted to give me a ring.
The old me would think we were moving too quickly. The new me understood that if I wanted something, I needed to take hold of it and never let go.
With Boone Chester, that’s exactly what I planned to do.