Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Shelly
The waitress drops another bowl of chips on our table, causing me to burst out laughing.
“It’s like she heard us or something,” I manage to say through my giggles.
Still, it doesn’t stop me from grabbing one of the warm chips and dunking it into my bowl of salsa.
“I also like that they give everyone their own bowl of salsa.”
“Keeps folks from double dipping out of one bowl, I guess,” Abyss replies.
I roll my eyes at him but keep nibbling away. “I mean, maybe if it was a stranger, but if it’s someone you’re involved with, it shouldn’t be an issue. Unless they’re a salsa hog, because then, all bets are off as far as I’m concerned.”
Another sweet tea is placed on the table and the waitress says, “Y’all’s food should be up shortly.”
I rub my hands together, excited to try the birria tacos that Abyss talked up so much. “Can’t wait,” I say.
“So, Mack used to ride, huh?” Abyss asks, pulling me from my thoughts of which chip I’m gonna snag next.
“Yeah, until the day he laid his bike down when some asshole blew the light and almost hit him. Despite the fact that the car never made contact with him, it destroyed his bike and did a number on him as well. It’s one of the reasons I started tattooing as early as I did.
He had been teaching me since I was old enough to hold a gun steady, and a lot of his are ones I did when I first started, but when your dominant hand is in a cast for twelve weeks, you have to do what you can to keep the clients satisfied.
They never said a word about being tattooed by an underage teenage girl, thank goodness, and once he was healed up, I went back to doing the stuff I was doing, checking clients in, ordering supplies, that kind of thing.
He’s the one who chose to stop riding because he said he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his two girls alone if someone else decided to be stupid behind the wheel. ”
“He’s fucking lucky the state didn’t shut him down,” Abyss remarks. “But I can understand why he did it.”
“They actually came in one afternoon for an inspection,” I admit. “And the client rolled with it, said he was my cousin and was helping me get my apprenticeship hours. Since everything else was in order, the inspector gave Uncle Mack a small ding for me not actually being licensed yet.”
“Damn,” he mutters.
I’m about to expound a little bit more when the waitress comes back, her tray full of our meals. “Here y’all go. Let me know if you need anything else, I’ll be back by to check on your drinks in a few,” she says.
“Thanks,” Abyss replies.
Once she leaves, we both unwrap our silverware and begin eating. While tacos are a finger food, based on the flavors that are hitting my tongue, I’ll be using my fork to scoop up everything that’s currently falling out of the shell and onto my plate.
“You were right, these are really good,” I mumble after I’ve chewed what’s in my mouth and swallowed. “I usually just get ground beef.”
He chuckles then says, “They season their ground beef with stuff that doesn’t come from a packet, so they’re pretty good as well. I’ve tried every one they make, and while they’re all awesome, these are my absolute favorite which is why I recommended them.”
“Well, based on your recommendation, I’d say you were right,” I reply.
Mexican food may not be the best thing to eat for a first date, but I know things are going to be at my pace, so I feel relatively safe ingesting food that typically tends to tear up folks’ guts.
Thankfully, I’ve got a cast iron stomach, although the most I am willing to do is maybe a kiss at the end of the night.
Hell, who am I kidding? I kind of want the whole enchilada at this point. I may have been somewhat hesitant about moving forward with a relationship of any kind, but despite only knowing him for such a short time, he’s shown me the kind of man he is beneath the surface.
“I feel like a blood-filled tick,” I murmur as we finally leave the restaurant to head back home. “Hopefully, the added weight of all the chips and tacos won’t unbalance your bike,” I tease.
He looks down at me, a grin curving his lips up. “You’re prettier than a tick, Shelly, and you could gain a hundred pounds, and my Elvira would still ride steady.”
“Elvira? You named your bike Elvira? That’s so cool!” I exclaim, doing a skip hop that has him chuckling outright.
“I’ll deny it if asked, but grew up listening to the Oak Ridge Boys, and the bass singer doing the mm-bop during the chorus had me paying attention. When I heard ‘Elvira’ I decided that if I ever got a touring bike, that would be her name. I’ve named them all, actually,” he confesses.
“Nothing wrong with that,” I reply, “my Jeep’s name is Maleficent.”
He bursts out laughing then says, “Seems we both like the villains, because of course, while I loved the song, I fell in love with the character on those late-night movies.”
“I think villains get a bad rap, sometimes,” I confess. “Not all of them, of course, but a lot of them had tragic back stories that turned them into something they probably would’ve never become.”
He helps me with my helmet after unlocking them from his bike and after he climbs on, I get on behind him before he fires up Elvira.
Once we’re on the road, he asks, “But what about the heroes who also had awful shit happen to them who kept on the straight and narrow? Or mostly, anyhow, since a few became vigilantes for justice and shit.”
“Never really thought of it that way, but you’re right. Bruce Wayne could’ve gone to the dark side after his folks were murdered, instead, he became Batman. But Joker took his horrible past and became, well, Joker, a psychotic hot mess,” I reply.
While I’ll never compare James to Abyss since that would be like night and day, the fact that we’re having an actual conversation about heroes and villains like it’s normal is something that me and James would’ve done.
I know I don’t know all there is to know about him yet, but I suspect he’ll let me in as I indicate I’m ready.
“Will you tell me about your daughter?” he asks through the mic. My arms briefly tighten at his request, but I want to share her with him, especially if he’s going to be part of my future. And since I want that with every part of me, despite my stupid fears about how I look, I decide to share.
“God, I was only nineteen, just barely turned it no less, when I took a test because my period was late. When those lines showed up, I was kind of scared, but not about James’ reaction.
I was worried that we’d become a statistic, I’d become one, dropping out of college, ending up on state aid, all those things, you know? ”
“I can understand that,” he says.
“But James was great, he was so excited, Abyss. We both had jobs plus school, so it wasn’t easy navigating any of that, especially during the first few months.
I was so sick, but somehow, we paved our way.
He managed to stay on the Dean’s List while working sixty plus hours a week so that we’d have money saved up for when she was born.
Originally, we were going to wait to find out our little one's gender, because we both wanted the baby to be born healthy, so whether they were a boy or a girl didn’t matter, but then we figured we should find out so we could decorate accordingly. ”
A slight sob erupts and his hand clasps my calf. “You don’t have to keep going if it’s too hard, sweetheart.”
“No, it’s okay. Sometimes memories wanna leak out of my eyes is all,” I reply.
“A lot of our friends were young and broke, but some were a bit older and already had kids. So, they decided to throw us a baby shower and invited everyone we knew, plus their families. We had so much stuff for her that the truck was packed to the gills. It was a good day, Abyss,” I whisper, my eyes closed as the memories swarm my mind.
Taking a deep breath in, I continue, “It had been a great day, lots of laughter and smiles, and we were on our way home, trying to figure out where we were going to put everything. We had a small place, only two bedrooms, but they were tiny, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, babe, kind of like a closet with a bathroom and kitchen,” he replies. “Had myself one of those years ago.”
“Exactly. Still, it was going to work for us until Uncle Mack and Marcella finished converting their basement into an apartment. Unfortunately, the accident happened just a few minutes later. I… I don’t remember a lot about that, mostly just fragments of memories if that makes sense.”
“I think our brains tend to block stuff out when it’s extremely painful and traumatic,” he replies.
I love that he’s not trying to downplay anything right now. He’s simply listening and while it’s somewhat unconventional that we’re doing this while zipping down the road, it’s easier for me to tell him when I’m not looking him in his eyes.
“Probably so,” I admit. “Like I said, I don’t remember much until I woke up in the hospital with Uncle Mack sitting there with what I thought was an incubator holding my daughter.”
“It was that thing you said, a Cuddle Cot?” he asks. “What is that, exactly?”
“It’s a special cooling device mostly used in hospitals to preserve a baby who has passed away.
Because I was unconscious by the time I got to the hospital, the doctors decided to take her by c-section since she was showing signs of distress.
Unfortunately, my injuries from my seatbelt were severe enough that they caused her to suffer injuries that were ‘incompatible with life’ according to the doctor. ”
My voice is now almost a monotone and I’m mentally back in that hospital, seeing the doctor standing there as he explained what happened and what I could expect. “The Cuddle Cot allowed me to spend some time with her before… before Uncle Mack and Marcella helped me with the final arrangements.”
“Shelly, I wish you never had to endure something that tragic,” he whispers. “I hope you know that neither of them is ever something you have to shy away from talking to me about,” he continues. “Because they’re a part of your past, your history.”
“Thank you, Abyss,” I murmur, my voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t… I don’t bring it up with Uncle Mack, because it was a hard time for both him and Marcella.”
“Your uncle’s a good man,” Abyss states as he slows to make a turn off the exit toward my house.
“The very best,” I confess. “I mean, how many men do you know who would take on their sister’s toddler after she passed away?
He and Marcella never got married, but she stepped in and helped him raise me.
She was so good to me, Abyss. She never had kids of her own, but she was so loving, so mothering to me.
She was excited about becoming a nana, which is what she wanted to be called.
Between the two of them, they helped me while I was recovering and I honestly can never thank my uncle enough for all he’s done for me. ”