As he began strumming his guitar, he smirked and said, “Come on, Hails, you gotta put out if you want the goods. None of this considering business. For every gig I schedule in your online thing, I want a massage from you.”
God, the shit you had to do to get a man to do the shit he was supposed to do. But at least we might finally know our dates in advance. “You’re on.”
Trent started playing his guitar and I grabbed the mic. It was time to lose ourselves in the beats and drown out everything else in our heads.
“Hailee, are you even listening to me?” Leona asked over lunch in the park the next day. She swept away the few strands of her long blonde hair that had stuck to her face as the wind whipped through the air. The weather was bipolar that day; the morning had kicked off with promised heat, but the wind had slowly crept in, and the forecast was for a storm later.
I’d just finished eating my sandwich and had leant back, resting on my elbows on the grass, but I sat up straight as I answered her. “Kind of, but I’m watching that man over there”—I pointed at the guy in my sights—“because he just kicked his dog.”
Leona and I had worked together for two years and we’d become good friends, so she knew how much I loathed people who hurt animals. “You want me to come with you while you tell him off?”
“You sure?” The last time she’d helped me out, or should I say, the last time I dragged her with me to a protest, she’d been knocked to the ground and broke her wrist.
She pffted and said, “Of course. I’m your ninja warrior sidekick”—she waved her hand in the air—“or some shit like that.” Scrambling to her feet, she added, “Besides, when do I ever get some fun in my life? Jerry has me under lock and key and wrapped in cotton wool when I’m with him. I need you to lead me astray.”
I groaned as I stood. “Jesus, that man of yours must hate you spending time with me.” Some of the situations I’d gotten us in over the years ran through my mind—the time we’d been locked up for half a day, the time we’d managed to cause a brawl in a bar when I’d accidentally pissed a guy off and another one had stood up for me, and not to mention the time we had a minor car accident in her car because I’d distracted her by drawing her attention to a group of hot guys walking down the street. Jer
ry had almost lost his shit with me over that car accident, but being the good friend she was, Leona had placated him with promises of hot sex. Mind you, Jerry’s idea of hot sex and my idea of hot sex were two very different things. I loved Jerry for the good man he was, but no way could I have ever married him. I would have been bored within a week.
“He doesn’t hate you. He just wishes we’d do stuff like… I don’t know, quiet stuff.”
I burst out laughing. “You mean like sitting home on a Saturday night knitting and discussing our menu plan for the next week? That kind of shit?”
She grinned. “Probably that kind of shit.”
My gaze zeroed in on a woman who’d just approached the guy with the dog. She spoke quite angrily and snatched the dog leash from him. I expected him to retaliate, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned and stalked out of the park.
I turned to Leona. “Looks like Jerry is saved from potential stress today.” Reaching for my bag on the ground, I added, “We should probably get back to work. Rachel’s looking for any opportunity to give me a warning these days.” My boss had turned into a raging bitch from hell when her hubby left her for another woman two months ago, and since then my life at work had become a little nightmarish in so far as I never knew what to expect each day. Her moods swung swiftly from happy to fucked off with the world, and I just had to keep on my toes and do my best to stay off her radar.
“Oh God, same! And we’ve got IVF coming up again soon, so we need my pay cheque. I swear, if that bitch fires me, she won’t know what hit her.” Leona may have been one of the nicest people I knew, but even I knew she had a darker side. A “do not fucking cross me” side. I guessed, though, that three unsuccessful years of IVF would be enough to cause any woman to threaten those who crossed her when it came to having a baby.
“Is there anything I can do to help you guys?” It felt like a dumb question, because short of offering up my body to carry a child for them, there wasn’t anything I could do. But the fixer in me needed to ask.
“Can you send a prayer up to the big fella and ask him to please just let me have one kid. Only one. I’m not greedy. Not anymore.” The sadness I felt in her words sliced through my heart. Kids were all Leona and Jerry talked about. They’d been married for five years and had been planning a large family from the beginning. But these days, she would do anything just to have one child.
I reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I can’t remember the last time I prayed, but I’m gonna send one out for you guys tonight.”
She squeezed my hand back and gave me a smile. “Thank you,” she said softly, all her fire over Rachel gone. In its place were all the emotions tied to her pain. God, I hope this round works for her.
Having children wasn’t something I spent a great deal of time thinking about. At this point in my life, getting through the day was sometimes all I could focus on. I’d been on a path two years ago, a path that I thought led somewhere I wanted to go. I’d quickly learnt that the very thing we wished for could turn on us at any moment and bring us crashing down into our own personal form of hell. Getting back on my feet after roaming through that hell had taken time, and most days I still felt like I was learning how to walk again. So thinking past where I was now, into a future that could possibly have children in it wasn’t something I did often.
5
Devil
“You take the back, I’m in the front,” King said to me mid-morning on Friday. We stood outside a run-down old house in Blacktown, with grass almost up to our knees. The paint peeling on the house, the lack of lawn maintenance and the hole in the front door led me to believe no one lived there, but King was convinced the person he was looking for would be inside—the guy that had beaten up Jen.
“Sure,” I said.
As I turned to slip around the side of the house, he grabbed hold of my shirt and halted me. When I glanced back at him, the angry glint I saw there caused me to stiffen. “You taking this seriously, Devil?” His words were too controlled. Hell, King was far too contained. Calm almost. But that was King when he was in the midst of his crazy.
Right before he was about to explode.
The eye of the storm.
“Yeah.” I hadn’t been, though. King had been on a mission all week to find this guy. He’d been in a kind of frenzy, and no one had been able to talk sense into him. Hyde had suggested he slow his shit down and think things through rather than being like a bull at a gate. King had only increased his maniacal efforts after that.
He stepped closer to me, so close I could hear his breathing. “You think I’m going overboard on this, too?”