Chapter 25 Faye
The saloon became my second home. Where I could get my body moving and my mind off all the bullshit that I still couldn’t fully grasp.
It had been a week since that peculiar incident and there was no sign of anything else, thank the gods.
Things were moving along, but it felt like a lifetime.
I wished I could snap my fingers and it would be over, but life wasn’t always kind.
Vadon was fighting me on absolutely everything, from custody to child support, which he still hadn’t paid one dime of.
I didn’t want anything from him but to see our child and to help out.
The judge had asked me if I wanted spousal maintenance, but I refused.
Sure, I could have requested it as a fuck you to him.
But I never wanted to give that wicked man the benefit of saying I wouldn’t have anything if it weren't for him. I’d do this on my own if I had to, ten toes down and my knuckles bleeding.
As difficult as it was, Birdie was taking to Grimstone well. I just didn’t know how long our stay would be. As soon as I could make it out of this small town, that’s exactly what I would set out to do. Away from the memories that cut me deep, and this haunted damn town.
My shift was over and I was ready to get home and lay in bed.
My feet and my back were aching with a pain that would have me in the bath tonight.
A salt bath sounded damn good right now.
I closed down the bar and headed to my car, realizing my windows were bashed in, the shards of glass plastered all over the street and my back seats.
Someone had spray painted “brUJA” on my car in big red letters.
“Oh, these motherfuckers!” The hazing and the witch rumors always resurfaced this time of year.
It’s gotten better throughout the years, but once in a while there would be a bible-thumping asshole who did some weird shit like this, and then hid behind their god.
The fucks even slashed my tires. I noticed a small symbol engraved into my white paint.
What the fuck is this? I took a picture of it with my phone.
I felt like I spoke too soon. This was a rune, a sigil.
I knew one when I saw one, refusing to be ignorant to what my own eyes were witnessing.
This wasn’t done by a town local, or was it?
Fear was getting the best of me. I needed to make it back home, and fast.
The drive was about twenty minutes to Ma’s house, and the saloon was in the middle of nowhere on a dark, long dirt road. “Great!” I screamed, kicking my grille in with my boots.
I heard something tumble in the bushes beside me and turned my phone flashlight on.
“Who’s there, asshole?” I shouted, internally wanting to scream and possibly shit myself.
But I had no time for fear. I caught reflective, beady glowing eyes hiding in the bush, glaring right at me in the pitch black darkness.
I screamed, attempting to run back to the saloon.
I glanced back and there it was—a huge black bird coming out of the bush.
“Oh my fuck, you’re just a bird.” I laughed at myself.
A raven to be exact. The bird cawed at me as it flew away.
I’m so over this night it’s not even funny. ?Chingada madre! (Motherfucker!)
It was late and I knew Ma would be asleep with Birdie by now.
I refused to wake them, so I started walking.
Rocky was doing a shift at the hospital morgue this week so I had to choose; walk home, or stay here.
I knew I could call Jax and he’d be there at a drop of a hat, but the truth was, I wasn’t ready to explain everything to him when I didn’t understand it myself.
Five minutes into walking home, I spotted bright headlights.
They were headed right towards me and I immediately grew cautious.
What if it was a serial killer? Nobody would find me.
My body would be eaten by the coyotes. My child, motherless.
They zoomed right past me, and a sigh of relief bestowed me.
Then the truck abruptly stopped, my heart dropped to my ass.
I froze in a state of panic. The truck backed up and rolled down their window.
Not a serial killer… worse. Jax fucking Grimwood. Exactly the last person I wanted to see.
“What’s a gal doing out here alone, walking in the middle of nowhere?” Jax tipped his hat to me.
I sighed, nearly relieved. “Someone vandalized my damn car.” I looked back at it, disappointed and hopeless.
Jax’s face became dark and solemn. “Get in,” opening the door.
“I can walk, Jax, it’s only fifteen minutes from here,” I said, trying to sound convincing.
“Faye, get in the truck. Now.” he demanded, staring at me with stern eyes. This man was relentless.
I rolled my eyes and hopped in his lifted black Dodge diesel. “What are you doing up at three a.m.?” I asked him. “Suspiciously hiding bodies, hmm?” I eyed him sideways. At this point I didn’t trust anyone.
“Nope, not today.” He smirked. “I’m a farmer, Faye, or did you forget?” Jaxon gazed at me intently from behind his wheel, making my breath hitch.
Right… that. I nodded my head subtly. “No, I didn’t forget,” I replied, an awkward silence taking over.
“I have to make my way to Miguel’s to pick up my trailer.”
“I don’t want you going out of your way more than you have to, just drop me off after,” I said, relief settling inside of me, feeling safe.
“Alright,” he said, looking at the dirt road. We hadn’t seen each other, well, since the time I came on his bike and gave him a handjob. Awkward.
It was silent the whole way to Miguel’s, who’s been the Grimwood’s neighbor for decades.
Jax latched his trailer to his truck while I sat inside, trying not to look at his muscles in the rearview mirror.
The way they flexed and moved with his body had me feeling flush.
He caught me staring in the mirror and I glanced away as fast as I could, playing it off. Fuck, why was this so weird.
Jax made his way back into the truck. “You hungry?” he asked me.
“Yeah, I’m starving actually.” It was true. The last thing I had eaten was this evening before my shift. My stomach grumbled in protest.
We went to Yolanda’s drive-thru where they served twenty-four hour burritos, the best in Grimstone.
“Here’s some cash,” I said, scrounging through my purse.
Jax looked at my money, then at me in absolute disgust. “Don’t ever insult me like that again.” He looked at my money like it was beneath him to take it from me, and I couldn’t help but feel a flutter in my chest as he handed me my burrito.
“I haven’t had one of these in years, they’re my favorite,” I said, famished, unwrapping it like a present.
“I know,” he said, short and dry.
I looked at him in silence as we drove off. “Where are we going, Ma’s house is the other direction? I knew you were a serial killer!” I gasped, chuckling.
“It’s a surprise. Just hush and enjoy the ride, will you?” Jax turned to me, eating his burrito behind the wheel.
“Fine, but only because you got me a Yolanda’s carne asada burrito,” I said jokingly.
Jax smiled at me as I melted right there in his diesel.
Contain yourself, Faye, I told myself. There would be no rubbing of cocks today.
No, I really needed to break my silence on the weird shit that was happening to me.
My coochie was drying at the thought of all of it. Such a cock block.
We pulled up to Skull Canyon where the sun was rising. “Wow, this is a view.” I was in awe of the silhouettes kissing the mountains. Jax looked at me, intense and warm.
“It sure is.” He smirked, and gazed deeply into my soul as it quivered.
I swallowed hard, trying not to choke on my burrito.
Jax took out a wool blanket and put it on the bed of his truck, and we sat in silence eating, taking in the pastel sunrise.
“Can’t Stop Loving You” by Teddy Swims started playing through his truck speakers.
Jax put his burrito down and took out his hand, as if asking me to dance.
“No,” I said, shaking my head, trying to wipe the burrito from my mouth.
“Come on, Faye, dance with me,” he asked softly, looking at me with those puppy dog eyes.
I grabbed his calloused hands as we danced close, and swayed with the music, dancing as the earth awoke along with my somber spirit.
He dipped me and I laughed as the sun’s rays beamed on me, their warmth defrosting my spirit.
“You still got it.” He smiled, and twirled me around.
Flushed and smiling, my chest fluttered like a dragon wing in the wind.
Except, I was the wing and Jax was my wind, taking me higher and higher.
The music stopped and we stood there in the desert sun beams, sharing breaths, gazes, and heartbeats.
That tarot card flashed in my mind, the devil—temptation, seduction. The words rang and echoed in my mind.
I abruptly distanced myself from his tender grasp. “We should go. The sun is out and Birdie will be up soon,” I said, interrupting the intimate moment between us. I tried to seem unfazed by the moment we just shared.
“Don’t let him win, Faye,” he remarked, and stared at me, almost broken.
“What are you talking about?” I replied, immediately on the defense.
“Whatever he’s done, don’t let him take your light. You used to light this town up. Don’t let him take the good parts of you, Robles.” Jax replied with pain in his low, cracked voice.
My chest heaved as tears threatened to gather in my eyes. “I’m not,” I huffed at him, begrudged by his comment.
“You deserve happiness, Faye, eventually you’re going to have to let someone in,” he said, packing up the blankets in the truck.
“I don’t need to do a God damn thing, and you have no damn clue what I’m going through!” I sneered, pacing to the truck and slamming his heavy door.
We drove back to Ma’s in silence, and I felt my heart cave in a deep descent.
Maybe Jax was right. Maybe I was letting Vadon win, and that pissed me off even more.
Who did he think he was, preaching to me?
It wasn’t his business! On top of that I was already pre-warned, and who else better to seduce me than my rebel cowboy ex with a beard and really fucking hot tattoos.
That bastard! I needed to keep my eye on the ball and get Birdie and I away from this small little wicked town where I knew we would be safe.
“So you’re not going to tell me what is going on?” he asked sternly, gripping the steering wheel in frustration. “Your car was vandalized, and you have things following you! Will you just let me in? Let me help you, for fuck sakes, Faye!” he stammered, his words hitting me like bricks.
“What did you just say?” I was still stuck on the “things are following you” part. Jax realized his word vomit. “What do you know? Who are you? Answer me right now!” I demanded. Jax stopped the truck rapidly, turning to me.
“I’m the fucking guy who not ever, for one second in five years, stopped thinking of you, wanting you, missing you!
Not in Norway, not in prison, not in this fucking realm, have I ever stopped thinking of you.
Your entire existence overrules mine. You have hexed me.
I think of nobody else, I dream of nobody else.
I exist only for you, that’s who I am!” Jax exclaimed, returning back to the road like his words didn’t just slice me in half.
I was stunned, I had no rebuttal to his raw admission.
“You don’t have to do it alone anymore. Whatever it is, Faye,” he said, his eyes full of remorse and hurt.
I cut him off. “I don’t know what it is, I don’t know anything,” I shouted at him, telling him in complete honesty. I felt a significant loss of my own rationality. His guess was as good as mine. I didn’t know shit about fuck.