King

  “Quirky?”

  “Pup, did you or did you not just put Cheetos on your sandwich?”

  “Duly noted. Okay, quirky. I can handle that. Keep going. What else do you think you know about me?”

  “Well, you’re bold. Brave. I would even go as far as to say that you’re irritatingly feisty. You speak about three hours before you think. You ask way too many goddamn questions. You have this dimple on your left cheek that comes out when you’re smiling, but it also shows up, along with the one on the right cheek, when you’re pissed off.” Embarrassment burned my neck as if I was standing too close to a fire. “Your neck and your face get red when you’re embarrassed. It starts at your neck. Right here.” King lightly wrapped the palm of his hand around my throat. “Then, it jumps up to your cheeks.” He brushed his thumb over my cheekbone. “Then, it travels all the way up to these ears.”

  He leaned in and sucked my earlobe into his mouth, trailing his tongue along the delicate flesh of my ears sending sparks of pleasure down my body. My nipples hardened and pressed up against my shirt.

  King chuckled and pulled back. “So don’t say that you’re empty, pup, because you are anything but.” There was a mischievous glimmer in his eyes. Something I hadn’t seen before. “I think you are, by far, the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But stop trying to imagine what it would be like without your memory. You’re lucky you know who you are and where you belong.”

  King pulled at the label on his beer and sighed. “Sometimes, I wish I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I could chose to wake up tomorrow and not remember who I am, the shit I’ve done, the people I would be leaving behind, I would do it. I could just start over. Be someone else.”

  “I don’t want you to be anyone else,” I blurted, interrupting his confession.

  “You should hate me,” King said, taking my plate from my lap and setting it on the table. “If I were you, I would hate me.”

  “I thought I did.”

  “And now? What do you think of me now?” King asked, leaning in closer.

  “I think you are the most stubborn, overbearing, anger inducing, obnoxious, complicated, and beautiful man that has ever lived.”

  “I think you are beautiful, too,” King breathed. In one graceful movement, he had me out of my chair and onto his lap.

  His hands had just slid into my hair when a loud crash sounded from the other side of the mangroves.

  “Stay the fuck here,” King ordered. He stood and tossed me off his lap. I crouched behind the cement retaining wall that separated the dock from the yard. King leapt over it effortlessly and ran in the direction of the garage, toward where the sound had come from.

  It seemed like I was there for hours, waiting for King to come back or for something to happen.

  Nothing.

  My stomach growled, and I was reminded that I had barely started my lunch. I scooted down to my ass and stretched out my leg in an effort to drag the chair that held my plate toward me. I hooked my foot around the leg of the chair and slowly pulled. It made a horrible scraping noise against the wood planks of the dock. I paused and waited.

  Nothing.

  So, I continued. Slowly, inch my inch, I dragged my lunch closer to me until my Cheetos smushed sandwich was within my reach. I pulled my plate off the seat and picked up my sandwich. I opened my mouth and was about to chomp down on victory when someone cleared their throat.

  With my sandwich still in launch-into-my-mouth position, I looked up from behind the bread to see both King and Bear standing on the top of the seawall, peering down at me.

  Bear looked just a good as he did the night I met him, but now, he looked even better. Because he was shirtless. His ab muscles glistened with sweat. I thought King had a lot of tattoos, but Bear didn’t have a single inch of available real estate left on his skin.

  King spoke first. “Oh no, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Just went to check out what that bomb like noise was, but you go ahead and finish your sandwich. We’ll wait.” He was smiling out of the corner of his mouth.

  Bear crouched down. “Oh shit. Check you out. Didn’t think you’d still be alive.”

  I put my plate down and stood up. “If you two are done mocking me, can one of you tell me what the fuck that noise was?”

  “Oh shit. Sorry, that was all me. This girl came over, and she’s got this old Volkswagen Bug. One thing led to another…”

  “I don’t want to know,” I interrupted.

  Bear continued, “All I was going to say is that while her lips were wrapped around my cock, I vaguely remembered promising to fix her bug for her. What you heard was that very car backfiring. For what I’m thinking was the very last time, because it’s dead. Like super dead. Like there is no coming back from that dead. Which totally blows cause the girl could suck the—”

  King held up a hand. “Okay, Bear, cut the bullshit, you can tell her what really happened.”

  Bear nodded and his phone rang. He pulled it out of his back pocket and clicked a button on the screen. “Yeah.” He scratched his beard. “Fuck. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell him.” He clicked the phone again and put in back in his pocket.

  “Isaac is on the move. Jimmy and BJ spotted him and his boys in Coral Pines this morning. Looks like they’ve got business there. BJ spoke to a guy in Isaac’s crew. They’ll be riding into our corner of the world in a week or so.”

  “Shit,” King cursed.

  “I told you to fucking get out of town, dude. You knew he was coming.”

  “Yeah, and when you told me that, I didn’t care if he came right up to my front door, guns-a-fucking-blazing.”

  “But now?” Bear asked.

  King nodded to me.

  “Ah. I see. What do you want to do, man? Your call. You know I’m behind you no matter what.” Bear lit a cigarette.

  “I think we go on the offense,” King said.

  “Wait, what does all this mean? Who is Isaac?”

  King ignored me. “I’ll get her to Grace’s before then,” he told Bear.

  “King, who the fuck is Isaac? Who the fuck is Grace?” I shouted, jumping up and down to make my presence in the conversation known.

  “Pup, when Preppy took you out with him, did he tell you that when he and I started the granny operation, we cut out our main supplier?”

  “Yeah. He did.”

  “Well, Isaac, was that supplier.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  Bear took a long drag of his cigarette and blew out the smoke through his nose, looking very much like the bird recently tattooed on King’s hand. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

  “What you heard was a warning,” King said.

  “What kind of warning?” I asked.

  Bear stubbed out his cigarette into the concrete of the retaining wall. “The kind that goes boom.”

  “What was blown up?”

  Preppy’s wail broke through the air like another explosion.

  “WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY MOTHERFUCKING CAR?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Doe

  Any sign of the playful version of King from lunch were gone. He gave me ten minutes to get ready and get my ass in the fucking truck.

  I didn’t know where we were going, and something about the way he’d barked it at me made it clear he didn’t exactly want me to ask.

  We traveled together in a silence so heavy it had its own presence in the truck. Like an uninvited guest, it awkwardly sat between us on the bench seat. We turned down a narrow, dirt road. My curiosity piqued when King pulled over to the side of the road next to the gate of a yellow ranch style home with a short, white picket fence lining the front yard.

  “Let’s go,” King said.

  Getting out of the truck, he unlatched the gate and started up the cement walkway. I followed behind him, jogging to catch up to him and match his long strides. Several pinwheel lawn ornaments spun as we
passed them, our motion creating the only breeze in the stagnant heat of the day. I thought that maybe King was making a pickup for Preppy, and that this was another one of their Granny Growhouses that I had not yet seen.

  When we reached the door, King didn’t knock, just shoved it open and walked inside. For a split second, my heart skipped a beat because I thought that maybe he was robbing the place, but I quickly squashed that idea when I heard him call out, “Grace?”

  Grace. I recognized the name from earlier.

  I followed him into the house and closed the door behind me. When I turned back around, I came face to face with a thousand tiny eyes staring back at me. The small living room was covered with them. From the plant shelves to the buffet style table in the entryway to the coffee table and on top of the old TV, ceramic rabbits of all shapes and sizes were everywhere.

  King didn’t pay them any attention as he strode through the living room to the sliding glass doors on the back of the eat-in kitchen where large stuffed rabbits occupied all six chairs of the table like they were about to enjoy a meal together.

  I guess Grace likes rabbits.

  “Out here!” shouted a high-pitched, yet scratchy voice.

  King held the sliding glass doors open so I could pass, but he didn’t step aside. I had to brush against his chest to get through. In my attempt to touch him as little as possible, I stumbled outside onto a wooden deck where a little woman with pixie–style, gray hair sat in a plush navy blue deck chair. Her feet were resting on top of the table, crossed at the ankles. She drank out of a tall glass with light green liquid. A leaf floated on the top of the ice.

  Instead of asking me who I was, she stood up and brought me in for a hug. She was easily in her seventies, and wore a denim-colored sweater, matching pants, and white orthopedic shoes.

  “I’m Grace,” she said, pushing me far enough away that she could study my face, but keeping her hands on my elbows.

  “Hi.” I wasn’t sure what the protocol was about introducing myself to her, but King solved that problem for me.

  “This is Doe.”

  “What an unusual name. What does it mean?”

  I looked to King, and he nodded. “Doe as in Jane Doe,” I told her.

  “Are your parents into true crime novels, or are they hippies who fried their brains on too much acid? Lots of them peculiar types around here. Although I’ve never met you before, so I don’t believe you’re from Logan’s Beach.”

  “I’m not sure what my parents are into, ma’am.”

  Grace looked at me quizzically and then over to King, who was still standing in the doorway. He shrugged.

  “You’re letting all the bought air out over there,” Grace scolded King. “Come out here. Sit. Have a drink.”

  Grace waved King over and tugged me to a chair. She poured us both a glass of the green liquid from the glass pitcher on the table.

  “I hope you like mojitos!” she exclaimed, finishing her drink and pouring herself another.

  I took a sip. The ice clinked against my front teeth. The drink was both sweet and bitter, but under the heat of the noon sun, it tasted heavenly.

  Thankfully, my sunburn was fully healed, and I no longer needed to hide in the shade. Nor did I resemble a ripe tomato.

  King took the seat next to me and across from Grace.

  “What you got for me?” Grace asked King.

  He laughed and shifted in his seat. He removed a small black plastic bag from his pocket and slid it across the table.

  “Thank you, sweet boy,” Grace said, hugging the bag to her chest. She set it down on the table and turned to me. “So, how did you two kids meet? Tell me everything.”

  “Um…” I had no idea how to answer her, so I started with the truth. As I spoke, it became like word vomit of epic proportions, and I couldn’t stop it from barreling out of my mouth. “Well Grace, we met on the night I decided to sell myself for a hot meal and a place to sleep. I was about to suck this guy’s dick when he realized I was being skittish about the whole thing and threw me out. Then, my friend, who was a hooker, stole some money from him. Then, she shot me, or grazed me, or whatever. Then, he found my only friend dead in a hotel room with a needle in her arm, but that was before I escaped. Then, he killed my would-be rapist and brought me back to his house for a bath and a conversation about how I was now his possession and didn’t have a choice about it.”

  I stopped and looked up at Grace whose glass was paused mid-air.

  King cleared his throat. “She came to my coming home party.” It was the truth, but he was leaving out all the cringe-worthy details I’d just laid out for her. Grace set her glass down and threw her head back in laughter.

  “I don’t think you two could be any cuter together,” she said, ignoring everything I’d just told her. “I’m so glad you found someone, dear boy. I’d missed you so much while you were gone, and I prayed every single day that you would find someone who made you as happy as my Edmund made me.” Grace turned a small silver band on her ring finger.

  “We’re not—” I started, but King put his arm over my chair and tugged me into him.

  “I wanted you to meet her,” he said, running his thumb against the side of my neck in an unexpected sign of affection.

  Show or not, my skin came alive under his seemingly innocent touch, and I’m pretty sure I gasped out loud because King’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. Grace stood and rounded the table. Pausing above King, she kissed him on the top of the head.

  “You’ve made this old woman very happy,” Grace said, wiping a tear from under her eye. She sniffled and clasped her hands together. “I’m going to start dinner. Doe, darling, would you like to help me?”

  “Sure,” I said, standing up from the table.

  I still wasn’t entirely sure why we were there, but I liked Grace, and having someone else besides the three tattooed amigos around was a nice change. She had a grandmotherly thing going on that set you at ease the moment she opened her mouth. I was going to enjoy it while I could until I had to go back to the house with Mr. Mood Swings.

  “I’ve got stuff in the truck,” King said, hopping down off the deck and disappearing around the side of the house. Grace led me into the kitchen and took out ingredients for pasta with meatballs. She moved one of the stuffed rabbits so I could sit at the table and chop vegetables while she used her hands to mix together all the ingredients for the meatballs.

  “How you do know King?” I asked, chopping green peppers onto a cutting board. I used the knife to wipe them into a bowl and started on the onions.

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “He doesn’t say much,” I admitted.

  “Man of few words, that one,” Grace said warmly. “I’ve known Brantley since he was a snot-nosed middle schooler. He tried to steal from my garden one day. He wasn’t a day over twelve.”

  “Brantley?”

  “He really doesn’t tell you anything, does he?” Grace cast me a sideways glance.

  “What did you do when you caught him?” I was curious about how King forged a relationship with a lady three times his own age.

  “I got a switch off the tree, just like my mama would have done, ripped his jeans down past his little, white butt, and whipped some sense into him,” Grace said, casually as she rinsed a tomato under the tap and dried it with a paper towel.

  “No, you didn’t!” I said, half in disbelief and half because I couldn’t imagine this little sprig of woman giving King a spanking.

  “Yes, I sure did. Then, Edmund called Brantley’s mom while I made dinner, but she didn’t answer. Edmund left a message, but his mom never came. So, he stayed for dinner. Then, he stayed the night. He’s come over every Sunday since. Well, every Sunday he hasn’t been mixed up in something or sitting in prison. In that case, we went to him.”

  “You knew he was in prison?”

  “Of course. Visited him every week. And when my Edmund died, that little boy came to his funeral wearing a green tuxed
o he bought from the thrift shop that was three sizes too big. I’ve offered to let him live here a thousand times, but that boy was never one who could be contained. He chose to stay out there, do what he does, and he comes to take care of me and the house in between.”

  “So, you know…everything?”

  Grace nodded. “Not the nitty gritty details but I’m no dimwitted woman. I know my boy isn’t exactly walking on the right side of the law. But I know that I love him like a son, and he loves me like his mama so that’s all that matters to me.” Grace didn’t pause when she continued. “Love is what you would do for the other person, not what you do in general. There is no doubt in my mind that he would throw his life down for me. I would do the same without hesitation.” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of green peppers. “I also know that everything you said out there, about how you two met, is true.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” I asked.

  Grace sighed and looked away, deep in thought. “There was this movie I watched as a little girl. This black and white picture about a cowboy who robbed trains. I’ll never forget the ending. You see, the cowboy turns to the woman he loves, after she just found out that he was the train robber, and he tells her that although he did horrible things, he stole from people, killed people, it didn’t mean he loved her any less or that he wasn’t capable of love.”

  Grace motioned for me to pick up the salad bowl and follow her out onto the deck. I set the bowl on the table, and Grace arranged the plates and forks. When she was done, she guided me to the railing and nodded over to where King stood on a ladder, replacing a light bulb on a small shed in the corner of the yard.

  “What I’m trying to say, dear, and what I think the cowboy was trying to say to his love in that movie, is that there is a difference between being bad and being evil. Just because he was a very bad boy, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a truly great man.” I was rolling her words around in my brain when she added, “And God help me, little one, you break his heart, and I will cut you where you stand. If I’m long gone when that happens, be assured that death will not stop me from bringing you down.” Grace smiled like she hadn’t just threatened my life and brought me in for another hug. “Now, let’s go get the meatballs.”

  Grace may have been a little thing, and she definitely had the wrong idea about what was going on between myself and King, but I had no doubt that if I crossed her, she would carry through on her threat without blinking an eye.

  King ducked inside the bathroom to wash his hands and then joined us out on the deck. The sun had just started to set when I noticed the strands of lights crisscrossing over our heads. As the sun sank lower, the lights got brighter until they looked like thousands of tiny stars shining over our meal.

  We ate, and Grace did most of the talking. She frequently refilled my mojito, and at one point rushed inside to make another pitcher. She was curious about me and asked a lot of questions. In between shoveling meatballs into my mouth, I filled her in on my story.

  “It’s a good thing you have each other.” She pointed out.

  “She’s not my girlfriend, Grace,” King said, his lips compressed in a thin, straight line.

  Grace shrugged and took another sip of her drink. “Edmund and I had an arranged marriage, you know. His mother and mine conspired together since we were still on the tit. The first few years we were together, I couldn’t stand the man, but after a while, I learned to love him. Then, I fell in love with him and felt that way up until the day he died. Things don’t always start out the way we want them to. It’s how they end that’s important. I may not have loved Ed in the beginning, but he grew to be the love of my life.”

  Grace had the most optimistic, if not bordering on warped, perception of relationships. But what did I expect? The woman was a walking, talking contradiction. A tiny little thing that drank like a fish and swore like a sailor. Not to mention that her house looked like an episode of HOARDERS: RABBIT EDITION.

  “It didn’t hurt that the sex was off the charts fantastic,” Grace said, staring up into the lights.

  I spit out a mouthful of mojito. Half of it splattered against King’s shirt. I braced myself for his anger, slowly lifting my eyes to his, but there was none. His shoulders shook as he chuckled. Grace was downright howling.

  I helped Grace clean up while King disappeared down the hall. I heard the