Sunday Morning: A Damaged Novella Read online

  They backed off, calling me a bitch and laughing at how crazy I was. I didn’t care what they called me as long as they left me alone.

  Arriving at Kirk’s place, I found it empty as usual. His home wasn’t my home, but I was more comfortable there than at where I’d grown up.

  After I had showered in his blissfully clean bathroom, I searched his place for an extra blanket to use for my makeshift on the couch. I eventually cuddled under a thick comforter and worried Kirk might return home with a woman.

  Even if he was alone, he might be angry and decide to take back his key. Sometime after ten, I dozed off thinking about Kirk and me riding on his Harley. We were leaving Chesterfield, my mom, and every other shitty thing about this place. Fantasy or not, I wasn’t ready to let go of a future with Kirk.

  7 - Kirk

  I walked into my apartment after three in the morning and found the TV flickering in the otherwise dark living room. My hand immediately went to my gun. Even startled, I knew none of my enemies were dumb enough to leave the TV playing while lying in wait. I shut the door quietly and walked to the covered lump on the couch.

  My club brothers sometimes dropped by when hiding from their women or cops. The lump was too small and smelled too floral to be a man.

  Kneeling down, I pulled back the blanket to find Jodi’s sleeping face. I wished she didn’t look so much like a fucking angel. Why couldn’t she be a nasty whore teenager just looking to party? That way I wouldn’t care about her so much. I never caught any breaks.

  Jodi’s eyes suddenly popped open, and we stared at each other.

  “I had nowhere to sleep at my place,” she said.

  “Did anyone hurt you?” I asked, sounding like an angry beast.

  “No,” she said.

  We watched each other for another minute. I didn’t know what to say to her. Everything I’d been thinking about involving Jodi Sears wasn’t something a man should say in a dark room with a teenager.

  “Can I sleep here tonight?”

  “Yes,” I said, standing up. “Don’t leave tomorrow before I get up. We need to talk.”

  Jodi mumbled thank you while I walked away. I felt her gaze on me even after I was inside the kitchen. Despite the shock of finding her in my house, I was tired after a long day of chasing idiots around town. I kicked off my boots and jeans before crashing within minutes of climbing into bed.

  I dreamed of Jodi cooking me breakfast. When I awoke, I even thought she might be cooking until I remembered there was no food in the apartment for her to use.

  Showering, I scrubbed my skin extra rough. I wanted to smell good for Jodi. This thought was fucking stupid. I couldn’t help myself with Jodi, who made me dumber than when I was a horny teen looking to land my first lay.

  I found her sitting on the couch, watching Jaws on TV. She glanced at me and then stood up and walked to the kitchen where I opened a beer can.

  “We need to get food,” I said.

  “I don’t have money for food. Robin already used our food stamps for the month.”

  “It’s my place. I’ll pay.”

  “Are you mad about me staying here?”

  Crossing my arms, I studied her perfect face. Jodi’s blue eyes revealed true fear at my reaction. I liked seeing her scared. If she knew how much power she had over me, I’d be a dead man.

  “Think your mom would notice if you didn’t come home?”

  “No. She sleeps all day and is wasted all night.”

  “So you’ll stay here then.”

  “Are you done waiting then?” she asked, not fucking around.

  “Do you even know how to play things coy?”

  “I don’t even know what ‘coy’ means, Kirk. I like your apartment, and I don’t like my place. I want to stay here, but I want to know what you want. Is that playing coy?”

  “No,” I said, reaching out and caressing the soft skin on her bronzed skin. “I like your honesty better anyway.”

  “So what do you want?”

  “You in my bed,” I said, not fucking around either.

  Jodi’s eyes widened slightly, but she recovered quickly. Nodding, she glanced at my bedroom.

  “Now?”

  I laughed. “Is that what you’d be willing to do to stay?”

  “What the fuck do you meaning by willing? I think about you all the time. In my head, we’re already together.”

  Her words nailed me hard in the gut, but I refused to let her see me weak. “Your fantasies ain’t the real world, kid.”

  “Don’t call me that. It’s your way of saying I’m not good enough for you,” she said, frowning ugly at me. “If you need remembering, do it silently.”

  Fuck, I loved when she stood up to me. She was nervous, though. About going to my bedroom. About staying with me. Mostly, I thought she was afraid I’d change my mind and kick her out.

  “I have this feeling,” I told her after taking a big swig of beer, “that once I get you in my bed, I won’t want you leaving it.”

  “What’s wrong with that? Is fucking one woman for too long bad for your reputation?”

  “Screw my reputation. Also, what I’m thinking about with you isn’t simple fucking, and besides, you’re not a woman.”

  Jodi took my last comment as an insult. “And you think I’ll magically turn into a woman once I’m eighteen? Or are you just waiting for it to be legal? I think it’s probably legal in Tennessee already.”

  I laughed. “Do you really think I give a shit about the fucking law?”

  Walking with my beer to a tiny table near a window, I smiled at Jodi thinking the law kept me from sweeping her up and walking us to bed.

  “I’d prefer anarchy or street justice than any laws The Man designs. The fucking law,” I said, still chuckling.

  “Why wait?” she asked without joining me at the table. “Do you think you’re protecting me?”

  “You? No, baby, I’m protecting myself by waiting.”

  Looking confused, Jodi finally sat in the spare chair. “I don’t get it.”

  “When I was your age, I was a fickle bitch. Thought I knew everything too. What did I tell you when you were having issues with those bitches at school?”

  “In five years, it won’t matter.”

  “Yeah, and I can see me getting all wound up over you, and then you deciding you need to experience life more than an old fogey like me can give you.”

  “Old fogey,” she muttered, smiling. “So you don’t want to hook up because I could dump you.”

  “My old man heart can’t survive you stomping on it.”

  Still smiling, Jodi studied me. “How long will you wait before your old man heart can take the chance with my fickle one?”

  “I don’t know. A decade? A year? A day? Hell, maybe I won’t last an hour.”

  Jodi’s gaze softened, revealing her insecurities about this situation. I was the first real guy in her life. I ought to wish she came with more experience and baggage to make us equal. Instead, I liked knowing I was the only man to make her feel this way. She was certainly the only woman to make me feel this fucking weak.

  “So I can still stay here?”

  Giving her a nod, I downed the rest of the beer while wishing I’d bought a coffee pot. Most days, I went down to the local diner for coffee and breakfast.

  “What about your plan to wait?” she asked, watching me like a hawk. “Won’t waiting be harder if I’m here?”

  “No, because I rarely am. Besides, I need to keep you safe,” I said, standing up. “I know enough about your mama to know she has men coming in and out at all times of the day and night. That’s not safe for you. Not with those men thinking you and your mom are a package deal.”

  Jodi gave me a little snarl, and I knew she hated those men. She might even hate her mother.

  “Put on your shoes. I’ll take you to breakfast.”

  Jodi’s pissed expression faded, and she smiled slightly. “Thank you for letting me stay here.”

  “You
can have the bed,” I offered, opening the door for her.

  “No thanks.”

  “Don’t play the martyr.”

  Jodi followed me down the stairs to the front lobby of the apartment. “You’re too big to sleep on the couch. I can’t imagine how hard it would be for your old man back to hang off that thing.”

  I gave her a side glare, but she only smiled wider. “I’ll have to remember you’re an old man, so I don’t jump you.”

  Now I was smiling too. “Don’t want to break a hip from you manhandling me.”

  Jodi’s eyes lit up in a way that made me think I was done for. She was radiant in a town where nothing else was. I couldn’t imagine sharing this woman with anyone else. No, keeping her was a done deal. Keeping her looked to be more difficult.

  8 - Kirk

  I wanted to stay away from Jodi. Well, want was the wrong word. I needed to stay away from Jodi and allow her a chance to grow up. Having her stay at my place made avoiding her completely impossible. I still managed to minimize our time together.

  If I stayed at the club until after midnight, she was asleep when I arrived home. If I slept long enough, I awoke after she left for school. The weekends were trickier, but I knew I could avoid her if I really tried.

  The problem was I didn’t fucking try. Not really. Once I started imagining Jodi at my apartment, I could think of nothing else. What was she doing right then? Was she reading or watching TV? Was her long, wavy blonde hair up in a ponytail or loose against her freckled shoulders?

  When I saw her asleep at night, I had trouble going to bed. Sometimes, I ended up sitting in the living room and watching her for hours. The light from the silent TV flickered on her serene face. I even found myself wondering what she was dreaming.

  I’d lost my fucking mind over a chick too young to vote.

  Once I began stalking my damn apartment, I gave up and admitted I wanted to see her. That night, I returned home in time to discover a recently showered Jodi eating mac and cheese in front of the TV. She frowned at me, and I saw a flicker of worry in her eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked before I could.

  “The club is boring after a certain age.”

  “Poor old bastard,” she teased, taking a bite of her food. “There’s some leftovers on the stove if you’re interested.”

  This was how our new routine started. Me coming home and eating cold mac and cheese while watching an episode of Jake and the Fatman. We talked only a bit that first night. She said school was boring. I asked why she didn’t quit. She said she had nothing else to do during the day. That was it.

  We watched the show, and then she crawled under the blanket on the couch. I waited until she’d gone to sleep before I took a shower and went to bed. Unable to sleep after so many years of staying up until after three, I rested in bed for a long time while imagining Jodi at school.

  The next day, I woke up when I heard her in the kitchen. Even though we barely spoke, I ended up driving her to school. Jodi liked the looks on people’s faces when they saw her get off my hog. I preferred the look on her face when she saw me waiting for her after classes.

  “Are you claiming me in front of all these high school boys?” she taunted, climbing onto the back of the Harley.

  “Do I need to?”

  “No. None of them have any interest in me.”

  “Fools,” I muttered.

  Soon, we got into the habit of not going to the apartment right after I picked her up from school. We’d ride for nearly an hour sometimes, never going anywhere particular.

  Often we ended up in Memphis, and I’d wonder about leaving Chesterfield. There was a big fucking world outside of the shithole we called home. I’d never cared to leave before. With Jodi in my life now, I was thinking bigger.

  “What do you want?” I asked Jodi one day after we stopped for dinner at a greasy spoon outside of Memphis.

  Somehow, she understood I wasn’t asking about the food. I sensed we spent so much time together without talking that words weren’t really necessary anymore.

  Jodi shrugged at my question. “I want to be able to breathe the way I can’t at the trailer park. I’d like to have a decent library nearby so I can check out books,” she said and then focused her gaze on me. “Mainly I want you. Beyond that, I don’t really care.”

  Her gaze destroyed my confidence. I ought to be able to handle a woman like a pro at my age. With Jodi, I felt lost between what I wanted and what made sense.

  “I’m not getting sappy with you,” I said, trying to be a dick.

  “You don’t need to. Every time you show up at school, you’re sappy. Every time you come home early so we can hang out, you’re sappy. I don’t need the words, Kirk.”

  Being a dick went out the window, and I decided to be honest. “I want to do right by you.”

  “Why?”

  “I figure someone should.”

  Jodi nodded and lit a cigarette she wasn’t old enough to buy legally. I was constantly reminding myself of her age to avoid taking what I wanted.

  “Why do you stay in Chesterfield?” she asked. “Is it club loyalty?”

  “I should say yes, but most of the guys I run with aren’t worth my loyalty. They think being in the club is about pussy and fun. They don’t care about each other. None even asked why I wasn’t hanging around at night anymore. They should be curious or, at least, paranoid. When I notice a guy’s pattern change, I wonder what he’s up to. They don’t.”

  Jodi watched me with a devious expression, and I knew she thought I ought to be in charge. For years, I was relieved not to call the shots. Now I thought Jodi’s way of thinking might be right.

  If I called the shots, things would be different. I’d pick better men to run with and then expand our territory. Brotherhood would matter more than getting laid. The Chesterfield Vandals had money coming in, but we pissed it away on whores and drugs.

  If I was the president, some of the club’s money would be invested into the town. I’d buy businesses for more than laundering money. The club would get involved in the local infrastructure, making us too important for the locals to purge. If I were in charge, the club would be run more like the mob and less like common thugs.

  Tapping the table, I took a hit off her cigarette. “You’re putting seeds in my head that’ll only grow into trouble.”

  “That’s a pretty image you created there.”

  “I’m serious.”

  Jodi rolled her eyes. “You’re smart, but you run with a dumb outfit. I don’t know shit about clubs, but I do know chaos, and your club feels that way. I wouldn’t even be able to tell who’s in charge.”

  She paused while our food arrived. I watched her and wondered if she could handle knowing more about my life.

  “You don’t create fear in people by being scary,” she said, chewing on a fry. “You need to seem bigger. Endless. Unbreakable. Make it seem like if some asshole came crashing into the club, they’d hit a wall of men. Right now, it feels like a flimsy fence. That’s not your fault. If you were in charge, things would be different because you’re different.”

  I didn’t speak for a while. Eating, I considered what she said. I knew she was right, but I also knew taking over could be messy.

  “What if you’re right, and I could change things up, but I decide to sit on my ass and do nothing? Are you gonna give me grief like one of those nagging wives who want their husbands to work harder to get a promotion?”

  “No, I’d be one of those wives relieved you came home every day.”

  I’d taken the conversation in an uncomfortable direction. Jodi didn’t mind. She was already seeing us as long term, but I doubted she could really imagine her life when she was twenty, let alone thirty.

  When I was young, I had dreams too. I wanted to be a big shot and run the world. I didn’t want a single fucker ever to tell me what the fuck to do. I was going to kill anyone who looked at me wrong. I planned to burn down the world if it stood in my way.
<
br />   Older and wiser, I picked my battles these days. I didn’t run into stupid situations. I killed who needed killing. Fought for what needed fighting for, but I wasn’t looking for anything more than to live comfortably.

  That was before Jodi.

  She had me wanting more. I had fantasies in my head about keeping her and taking over the club and living my life in the way that only worked in dreams.

  Jodi would likely outgrow me, or I’d disappoint her. The club didn’t want new management, and I wasn’t really willing to spill my brothers’ blood to take what I wanted.

  Life wasn’t about unicorns and rainbows. It was cold and unflinching. I survived by being smart. I didn’t see any reason to embrace stupidity at the ripe old age of forty-two.

  9 - Jodi

  Kirk was my man long before we ever kissed. He drove me to and from school. We ate most of our meals together. I woke up to find him waiting for me and fell asleep with him watching me. The man loved me before his lips ever met mine.

  In the evening, we watched TV. Sometimes, we talked. Sometimes, we didn’t. At first, Kirk sat in a chair, keeping his distance. One night, he plopped down on the couch while I made popcorn. I wanted so badly to say something about the change. Was he finally admitting he wanted me? Could we stop pretending to be friends or that he was only a nice man letting me live at his place?

  Kirk wasn’t ready that night to admit anything. I saw how his jaw clenched whenever I looked at him. He still struggled, so I gave him space.

  Weeks stretched into months. I only saw my mother once when I dropped by for Thanksgiving. She asked if I was knocked up yet. I said I loved her, but she could go fuck herself. It was one of our better conversations.

  The Christmas lights from the small tree in the corner hypnotized me. This apartment felt like my home, and the man at my side was my love.

  I wanted to seduce Kirk. In my fantasies, I’d imagined seducing him a thousand times. Most days at school, I daydreamed about kissing Kirk. I considered what to say, how to move, and even what I might wear.

  Before Kirk, I’d only kissed one guy, and his lips were sloppy. I hadn’t hated it, but I never wanted a repeat. I even wondered if I wasn’t a sexual person. Not wanting sex would be an excellent way to avoid becoming my mother.