Chapter Twenty-Two – CJ #4
Not trusting the little motherfucker, CJ ignored Axel’s offering. “You have the fucking problem with me. Why the fuck did you have them attack?”
“I had an arrested development with Diesel,” Axel said.
“Unexpected?”
“Yeah, that. I heard arrested though.”
“Then you fucking heard wrong,” CJ grouched.
“Anyway,” Axel huffed, withdrawing his hand and laying on his stomach again so he could look at CJ, “Jana is in Diesel’s room now. My men and me already planned our strategy for a double attack. I couldn’t disappoint them.”
“You fucked up my clothes with what?”
“Baby oil,” he said without apology. “So do you promise to stop acting like a stupid motherfucker?”
CJ pounded the floor. “How the fuck have I been stupid?”
Without warning, a light flashed in front of his eyes. A moment later, Axel slid Ransom’s phone to CJ.
“You’re hiding under a fucking bed,” Axel said. “Do you look fucking smart?”
CJ growled again. In response, Axel pinched CJ’s nose.
“Did you like Mom being gone?” Ryder asked.
“Of course not!”
“Then don’t do nothing to make her mad,” Axel said in exasperation. “How many fucking times I got to say those same words? Aren’t you fucking tired of hearing them?”
“Stop saying those motherfuckers and I won’t hear them anymore.”
Axel thumped his head. “Listen to me and I don’t got to say them again.
A man gets bored saying the same fucking thing.
I know you’re almost twenty, old, but this isn’t the Middle Ages, where you’d have at most two years to live.
This is the modern time. Look at Dad. He’s lived so long, he might hit a world record. ”
“He’s fifty! People live into their hundreds.”
“In what fucking world?” Axel demanded.
“Yeah, no, C.,” Ryder called. “Maybe a hundred twenty tops. Besides, Axel’s about to turn eleven. Fifty is old to him.”
“Uh huh,” Axel agreed.
“How the fuck did we even start talking about this?” CJ shouted, slamming his hand on the floor.
Turning on the phone’s flashlight, Axel shined it in CJ’s eyes. “Do you want to go blind? ‘Cause we’ll tie you up and hold your eyelids open and torture you with this fucking light.”
CJ squeezed his eyes shut, biding his time until the little fuckheads left him in peace.
“By the way, if you tell Dad what we did to you, you got to tell him why we did it,” Axel said. “The light’s off. You can open your eyes again.”
CJ popped one eye open, then the other one when he saw Axel told the truth. “For Mom?” he asked dubiously.
“Because of Mom,” Axel corrected. “A warning to remember not to fuck up and break our family.”
“I was fucking leaving. Diesel and I got into an argument.”
“Yeah, because you always think about Reb.”
“She’s my sister.”
“Ours too, fuckface,” Axel said. “But you need to remember Diesel’s broken too ‘cause of his Mom and Dad. He don’t need you talking for him and making him look bad by accident. ‘Cause Diesel does a lot, so it’s easy to make him look bad.”
“Are you defending that motherfucker or not?”
“I’d die defending any of you,” Axel said stoutly. “Diesel’s a special case, though.”
“Your favorite.”
“Oh brother. I don’t know why I try with you weird motherfuckers. Jealous of each other. Diesel spends time with me, greenie meanie. You’re either with Harley, Rebel, Dad, or Mom.”
Greenie meanie? What did he mean by that?
“You know?” Ryder said when CJ asked for an explanation. “Green with envy.”
“You don’t need a fucking answer for everything, Axel.”
“Says you. If a motherfucker come at me and I don’t fucking answer, then he’ll think he won.”
“Letting things go is the better part of valor.”
“I don’t know no Valerie. And it could be the worst part of her. How does that make a difference to me?”
Once Ryder and Ransom stopped laughing, CJ released an annoyed breath and said, “Valor. Like the knights of the Middle Ages?”
“You didn’t say Valerie?”
“No.”
“Diesel taught you about the Middle Ages, too?”
“A little.”
Axel grinned. “Would you like to have a jousting competition?”
“Do we have fucking horses?” CJ asked.
“Neither do we have armor but we can buy those stuffs,” Axel said.
“You can’t just order fucking horses online,” CJ snapped.
“You can get them somehow,” Axel said. “And the dark web has everything.”
CJ was too tired to get into that subject. “Can I come out from under this bed?”
“We didn’t make you run under it,” Axel said. “We were just going to beat you another ten minutes. You could’ve lasted.”
“You would’ve beaten me unconscious.”
Axel stiffened and glared at him. “We wouldn’t have. Tell me why before I stomp your fucking fingers.”
CJ quickly snatched his hands back.
“One…”
“Because of Mom,” CJ blurted. “If I was really hurt, it would upset Mom.”
“You finally got another fucking clue. Why do the motherfuckers take so long for you to understand? I got to fucking talk until I’m purple before you get it.”
“Maybe I’m just a stupid motherfucker.”
“You are, and I’ve been telling it to you all along.”
Sliding from under the bed, CJ got to his feet, then sat on the edge of the bed, never taking his eyes off his brothers.
“A truce?” Axel said, holding out his hand.
Begrudgingly, CJ shook it. “I will take better care not to do anything that’ll upset Mom.”
“And this is between us?”
“If you fuck with me again, I’m telling Dad,” CJ warned.
Axel saluted him, then looked at Ryder and Ransom. “Attention!” he yelled.
Ryder and Ransom straightened.
“Forward, MARCH!”
The Terrible Triplets marched the fuck out of CJ’s room, thankfully leaving him in one piece.