Preppy: The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part Two

  “What about Prep?” I asked, realizing that Pup was serious about whatever it was she had to talk to me about I needed some space so I could actually hear her so I took my tools over to the sink where I started taking apart my equipment for cleaning and sanitation.

  Pup sighed and plopped down onto the black leather couch beside me, pulling her legs up onto the cushions and resting her chin on her knees. “He feels off to me. It all feels off.”

  King shrugged. “Everyone deals with shit their own way and he hasn’t been around in a while. Let him ease back into things in his own way. He’s gonna freak out now and again. He’s been through some shit.”

  Pup sighed, her eyes looked tired. “I don’t know how to say this to you so I’m just going to say it,” she took a deep breath and looked at the floor when she said. “I don’t think Preppy is telling the truth.”

  “About what happened to him?” I asked. “No fucking way. He’s not saying much and that’s understandable, but Bear’s guys dragged him out of that hole themselves. There’s no way he was lying about that.”

  She shook her head. “No, about the girl. About Dre. About who she is to him.”

  I shook my head, “Why would he lie about her?”

  “Because don’t you see? He lies to us because he doesn’t want us to worry about him. He says he’s fine when clearly he’s not fine. If this girl meant something to him then he’s keeping that to himself so we don’t go trying to fix things for him.”

  I wiped off the last part of my tattoo gun, setting the tools in the sterilizer and hitting the button. Neon blue lights lit up the mini fridge looking contraption. A low hum vibrated from the machine. “Don’t you think he deserves the benefit of the doubt? After all he’s been through?” I turned around and leaned against the arm of the couch, towering over my girl.

  “Yeah, I do. But...”

  “What about after all WE’VE been through? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go digging into shit that don’t need digging into just because a part of his story seems off to you. It’s all fucking off. WAY fucking off. What matters is that he’s home and he’s got to deal with his shit when he’s ready. Cut him some fucking slack, babe.”

  “I know, but he won’t even talk about what happened to him,” she said, looking down at her hands.

  I tipped her chin up and I met her worried blue gaze. “He needs time. You feel me, Pup?”

  “I feel you,” she breathed, giving me that look that made my balls tighten every fucking time.

  “Good,” I said, leaning in to press my lips to hers and pushing down on her shoulders so that her back was against the cushions. I pushed her legs apart and quickly settled myself between them.

  My favorite fucking place in the world.

  “Now let’s quit all the serious talk while I seriously fuck you until you’re the one begging ME for another baby.” I reached behind her and grabbed her ass, lifting her off the couch enough for my cock to press against her shorts covered pussy.

  “I’ll quit. I promise,” she assured me, breathing heavy. “No more digging.”

  “Good girl,” I said, palming her tits through her tank top, feeling her nipples harden underneath my touch had me impossibly hard and I was well on my way to fixing the situation she’d started the second she came into my shop wearing that little scrap of material she calls shorts and that impossibly tight top that did all sorts of everything for her already amazing body.

  “I’ll quit,” she said again and I sensed we weren’t done talking about it when she pushed against my chest until I had no choice but to set a knee on the floor so I could lift up off of her. “As soon as you take a look at this,” she pulled a folded piece of paper from between her tits and I could give two shits if it was the declaration of independence or directions to the holy grail, all I could focus on was my need to tongue between her tits while I fingered her pussy from behind. “I dug this up a while ago. But I promise no more digging. Please,” she begged, snapping my focus back up to her eyes.

  It wasn’t the kind of begging I was hoping for.

  I rubbed my hand over my face and snatched the paper from her hands. She sat up next to me and watched as I unfolded it. It was a copy of some sort of official document. “What exactly the fuck is this?” I asked, looking down at some sort of photo copy of an official document. I mentally braced myself at what was to come because anything having to do with the law usually didn’t end well.

  At least, not for me it didn’t.

  Pup jabbed her finger at the paper. “Just keep going. Please,” she insisted, her hands curled up around my bicep, her head against my shoulder as her lips silently moved as she read along with me. The smell of whatever girly shampoo she used wafted into my nostrils and did nothing to help reduce the massive hard on still pressing painfully against my jeans.

  Focus.

  I sighed, started at the beginning and then paused after reading the very first sentence. No fucking way. Not believing what I was reading I glanced from Pup back to the page and started all over again. Pup was no longer looking at the document, but at me as I read it again, this time out loud. “State of Florida, Division of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Marriage. Issued to Samuel Clearwater and Andrea Anne Capulet, issued this day, June the...” I paused and read the rest quickly, mumbling my way through the rest of the numerical facts with my hand over my mouth until I reached the bottom where the both the official seal of Florida and the County’s stamp were right there on the bottom. “What did that girl say her name was?” I asked.

  “Dre. Short for...”

  “Andrea,” I finished for her.

  Pup nodded. “I showed this to Dre. She was surprised as hell. She said she was trying to help Preppy get Max by forging some documents to make Preppy seem more like an upstanding citizen but Preppy actually filed this with the clerk’s office after she’d already left to go back home.”

  “Holy fuck. He did lie to me,” I said, hating the way the words sounded coming from my own mouth and feeling bitter and hurt that my best friend, a man I saw as my brother could lie to me. “For YEARS he’s been lying to me.”

  “So you don’t care that he’s married?”

  “No, I don’t fucking care. I mean, I don’t know WHY but him getting married would never fucking bother me. What I fucking care about is that I was lied to by one of the only people on the planet I never thought I had to worry about lying to me!” I said, my voice rising along with my temper.

  “You should talk to him. Ask him what it’s all about. Maybe we can help him,” Pup said.

  “That’s what I’m going to do,” I said, stomping out the door with Pup close on my heels.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, struggling to keep pace beside me as I stormed over to the main house.

  “Going to get some answers,” I replied.

  “Wait!” Pup shouted, grabbing me by one of the belts on my arm. I stopped and turned around to face her. “We don’t’ even know where he is!”

  Instantly my temper cooled at the reminder that we’d gone without him for so long. We fucking BURIED him for fucks sake and now we knew he was alive but didn’t know where he was.

  “We will find him. And then you will talk to him. I promise if that fucks things up more then we can talk about speeding up you getting me pregnant again.” She pressed her soft lips to my neck and smell and nearness combination sent a shot of sensation directly to my already hardening cock.

  “But what about right now?” I asked.

  “Now?” She asked, growing bolder, slipping her hand into the back waistband of my jeans and cupping my ass. “Now we practice.”

  A growl tore from my throat as I lifted her up into my arms, her legs instantly wrapping around my waist. I felt the heat of her pussy against my cock as I walked with her into the shadows under the house and pushed her up against a pillar. “I’m particularly fond of this particular pillar,” she cooed, tightening her legs around me.

  “You
make me fucking crazy woman,” I said, grabbing her face in my hands and kissing her furiously. “You can bargain with me all you want, but you best remember who’s in charge here.” I squeezed her ass. “Of this,” she arched her back against the pillar. “Of this,” I said, pinching her nipple between my fingers. “Of this,” I growled, shoving my hand down the front of her shorts and cupping her pussy in my palm. Her head dropped back as she rotated her hips, her body begging for more.

  “More,” she said, breathlessly.

  I claimed her lips again, rocking rhythmically against the opening of her pussy, kissing her deeply and furiously, my tongue intertwining with hers in a way that made me ache to be balls deep inside of her.

  It never mattered how many times I’d kissed Pup or even how many times I’d fucked her since we’d first met. None of that even mattered because it was as if time only made me want her more and more. I was sick with lust for her. A sickness I never wanted to be cured of. I pulled back for air and pushed a stray hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. Her face flushed, her lips swollen and red. As soon as she spoke the last syllable of her question I entered her pussy in one long hard thrust that has me seeing stars as she squeezed around me like a fucking vice. She cried out and dug her fingernails into my shoulders.

  Of course my phone rang right when I was about to drive home into my girl. It stopped but only to start back up again. Finally, Pup reached into my back pocket and handed it to me. I glared at her when I barked “What? We’ll be right there,” I said, clicking END on the phone and dialing Bear’s number. I set Pup down on her feet and righted my jeans while waiting for him to answer.

  “Who was that?” Ray asked, jogging beside me to keep up as I made my way to the garage where Bear had been tinkering around earlier.

  I pounded on the door and it lifted seconds later, Bear stood there with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a greasy wrench in his hand. I looked from Ray to Bear. “Billy called. He said Preppy came in screaming and knocking shit over at his crab shack. When Billy tried to settle him down he darted out the back. He can’t find him anywhere and he just hopes...” I trailed off.

  “What? He hopes what?” Ray asked, pulling at my shirt.

  “That he didn’t jump off the seawall.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DRE

  When there was a knock at the front door I assumed it was the realtor who was coming by to show a perspective buyer the house, but when I opened the door and saw Ray standing on my porch I was pleasantly surprised.

  Well, I was pleasantly surprised until I realized what state she was in. Her eyes were red. She was twisting her hands together and bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet. King was standing outside of the truck in the driveway, an unreadable expression on his face? “Is he here?” Ray asked, glancing over my shoulder into the house.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Preppy!” Ray shouted, pushing passed me and ran through the empty house, darting from room to room. She ran out just as quick as she’d run in and shook her head at King who clenched his fists and pounded them against the roof of the truck. His head dropped.

  Ray ran to the truck and King got in the driver’s seat.

  “Wait! What’s wrong?” I asked, running after them, feeling a sense of dread building inside of me.

  They ignored me. King threw the truck in reverse. They’d gotten about three feet down the driveway when I jumped behind the truck and held up my hands. King slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting me. “What the fuck. Get out of the fucking way!” King said, sticking his head out the window.

  To say that King was frightening was the understatement of the century. The man was downright terrifying, but there was no way in hell I was letting them leave. “I’ll move when you tell me what the fuck is going on and why you’re searching my house and asking me if he’s here.”

  King threw the truck in park and got out. He slammed the door and stormed up to me in a few long strides. He glared down at me and I could feel the anger in his gaze. “You need to get out of the fucking way,” he seethed.

  I shook my head and although my hands were shaking there was no way I was moving. “No. You’ll have to run me over first. Tell me what the fuck is going on,” I said, standing my ground.

  King opened his mouth to speak but Ray appeared next to him, took his hand in hers and beat him to it. “Preppy freaked out and bolted. Can’t find him anywhere. Thought he might have come here.” Ray paused and looked to the floor. “He’s not in a great place right now, and we’re worried that he might have done something...stupid.”

  King let go of her hand and they both got back in the truck. I stepped out of the way with a sinking heart, watching them roll away when suddenly it hit me. I bolted to the passenger side and threw open the door of the truck. Again, King was forced to slam on the brakes. “What the hell are you doing?” Ray squealed as I jumped inside, forcing her to slide to the middle.

  I closed the door and turned to a very confused and worry looking King and Ray. “I know where he is.”

  King called Bear on the way and told him where to meet us. After only a few minutes Bear appeared behind us on his bike, the roar of the engine rattling the rearview mirror as he followed us down the road.

  It wasn’t until we’d cleared the fence and the tall pine trees that we realized the moon wasn’t the only thing lighting up the water tower.

  Parked in the field below was an array of flashing red and blue from a fire truck, several police cars...and an ambulance.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DRE

  The hospital was a damn madhouse. Doctors and nurses pushed by, flying down the hallway at inhuman speeds like white-coated superheroes, shouting out complicated series of orders to one another that sounded nothing like words I’d ever heard in the English language before.

  Everything in the place blinked and beeped and when the occasional alarm would sound more white coats would stampede toward the ER doors, their stethoscopes swinging from their necks like elephant trunks.

  The waiting room was jam packed, every seat was taken as the nurses at the desk called out numbers like the deli counter at the grocery store. The hallways were lined with people, all in varying states of worry, who all tried to become a part of the walls to make room for the medical teams when they rolled another patient through. The smell of the place was sickening, like open sores and antiseptic. My stomach rolled.

  “We need to see Samuel Clearwater, he’s back there. What room is he in? How is he doing?” King demanded. The front desk nurse, looked as if she was about to argue until she glanced up from her computer between King and Bear. She looked back down to the screen. “He doesn’t have a room yet. He’s in an evaluation curtain.”

  “Where is the evaluation area?” Bear asked.

  She shook her head. “Nuh, uh, you can’t go back there unless you’re immediate family.”

  “We’re the closest thing to family he’s got,” Ray argued.

  “Unfortunately, in this hospital that’s not close enough. I’ll send a doctor out with an update as soon as we have one. I suggest you take a seat until then. If and when he gets a room you can go back one at a time, but for now you have to wait like everyone else.”

  “Fuck this,” King roared, heading toward the double doors marked DO NOT ENTER in large determined strides.

  “Sir!” The nurse exclaimed throwing her tiny body in front of King before he reached his destination. She flipped her braids over her shoulders again and that’s when I got a clear view of her name tag. IVY. And Nurse Ivy apparently had a huge set of balls on her to stand up against the likes of King. “Don’t you make me call security up in here and have you thrown out. Because then you’ll have to call for an update from your jail cell instead of sitting patiently in the waiting room like I so nicely asked you to do.”

  “Listen, Darlin’,” Bear said, smiling down at Ivy who looked even less impressed with his attempt at a softer approach, although the l
ines in her forehead did decrease just a fraction. She was a female after all and Bear’s slow southern drawl sounded like a deep purr. The kind that vibrated all the way through you to the ground. “Our friend in there. He hates hospitals more than anything. All I’m asking that you let one of us to go in there and check on him, really quick, just to make sure he’s alright, and then we’ll get out of your fucking hair.” Nurse Ivy folded her arms over her chest, her determination to keep them out unwavering.

  Two uniformed guards approached King and Bear. “Ma’am, please,” Bear pled, as the guards stepped between them and Ivy. “He needs someone back there with him and he doesn’t have any immediate family here.”

  “Yes, he does!” I shouted a bit too loudly. Not only did King, Bear, and Ray turn to face me, but so did the nurse, the guards, and most of the waiting room. “I can go back there with him. I’m his immediate family.”

  “Sure you are, Miss,” the nurse said with a roll of her eyes. “And who exactly are you? His sister? No wait, his mama?”

  I had about all I could take of the bitch. I stepped between King and Bear. “No, I’m his WIFE,” I growled.

  She looked up to King and Bear. “No immediate family, huh?” she said with her lips pursed. “You unaware that your friend had a wife?” she asked skeptically.