HUCK
Tugging on the damn neck of the button-up shirt I had worn for Hayes’s sake, I felt like I was suffocating. “I hope you’re watching this shit show,” I whispered under my breath.
I wasn’t sure what I believed about the afterlife, but if we did have souls and my little brother was here, watching his funeral, then I was going to at least have on a damn suit coat and button-up. I drew the line there. My jeans and boots weren’t going anywhere. Hayes would understand that.
I stood at the back of the church, watching people come in and speak to my mother’s parents up front. They had seen me walk in, but neither of them would approach me. I’d made my choice years ago, and although the old man preached about forgiveness and acceptance, he’d never been able to give that to my father. Judgment was clear in his gaze when his eyes met mine. He saw my father when he looked at me. I fucking saw my father every time I looked in a mirror, and I was proud of it. Creed Kingston had been a hell of a man. Loyal, honest, and proud.
My jaw clenched as I thought of the things he’d said to Hayes and me about my father the day he came to take us away from the only life we’d known.
He had blamed my father for our mother’s death when he’d died, trying to save her life. He said that their deaths were God’s punishment for the evil my father had done. Carbon monoxide poisoning hadn’t been from God; it had been from a fucking faulty detector. I was fourteen years old and fucking furious. Hayes was six years old and wanted to go with his grandparents. Losing our mother was harder on him. He needed that comfort. He was softer, like she had been. Having a grandmother was something he clung to once our mother was gone.
I wanted to stay with the Hughes family, and I told them that. I knew Garrett would make it happen. I hadn’t factored in my little brother though. He hugged me tightly with tears in his eyes that day, begging me to go with him. Not to leave him too. My heart fucking twisted so damn tightly that I didn’t think I could breathe. So, I went with them to fucking Alabama. It lasted three years. The day I turned seventeen, I couldn’t take it anymore. Even though I escaped to Ocala, Florida every chance I got, I was done with this life. I called Garrett, told him I was coming home. I packed my things and left Hayes a note, explaining why I had to leave, because I couldn’t fucking face him. Then, I’d gotten on the motorcycle I’d bought with the money I’d made from working at a bike repair shop in town.
“She’s not even crying,” an older lady said in a hushed tone but loud enough for others around her to hear.
I turned my attention to the two women who were walking in.
“Poor Tabitha. She looks so exhausted with having to deal with her.”
The other woman nodded her head. “I know, but it could just be the shock. They were gonna be married in a few months. It couldn’t be easy for her after he suddenly dropped dead from a brain aneurysm.”
The first woman smiled tightly. “You’re right. Here I am, in the house of our Lord, being judgmental. Lord, forgive me.”
My eyes shifted then and locked on the woman being whispered about as she entered the room.
I hadn’t let myself look at her in that room after the lights came on, but just the once. When I’d gotten a look, I had forced myself not to go there. Because fuck if my little brother hadn’t been engaged to a stunner. Long, dark brown hair hung down her back as she walked down the middle aisle toward my grandparents. The black dress she wore had long sleeves, hit at her knees, and had a respectable fucking neckline. However, it clung to her body.
Her waist was small, but she had a flare to her hips. That round ass should be illegal. I wasn’t going to even let myself think about her breast size because big tits were my thing, and, Jesus Christ, she had a fucking rack on her.
“You did good, little brother,” I muttered. “Real damn good.”
Hayes had chosen religion over the family. He’d told me that he loved me, but that the life I lived—that our father had lived—wasn’t for him. That he wanted to serve the Lord. Save souls and do good. I hadn’t expected him to get engaged to a woman with the body of a porn star. Maybe there had been some Kingston blood in him after all.
She hugged my grandmother, then stood beside her like a statue. Stiff, uncomfortable with this shit, and fucking gorgeous. I watched her as people came up to pay their respects. She gave them a small smile that didn’t meet her almond-shaped brown eyes. Those lips of hers were so fucking full that I wondered if they were real. I studied her far longer than I should have and knew this wasn’t why I was here.
Shifting my gaze to the casket to the right of the three standing up there as people arrived, I swallowed the fucking lump that swelled in my throat.
Dammit, Hayes, it was supposed to be me that went first. Not you. You were the safe one. The good one. Why the hell did you have to go?
“Walked into a damn nightmare.”
The deep voice surprised me, but I didn’t flinch.
I hadn’t told anyone Hayes was dead, simply because I couldn’t say the words. When I had tried, the words wouldn’t come out of my damn mouth.
This fucker had found out anyway and driven up to the Alabama-Florida line to be here with me.
“How’d you find out?” I asked Blaise Hughes. The future boss of the family.
“Tracked your fucking ass,” he replied. “Then made a call. You’d been strange all week. I could feel it. Knew something bad had you fucked up. Shouldn’t be alone with this.”
This was what a real family was. This was what my father had been a part of. It was what I had wanted for Hayes. Not the fake shit all around me. People expecting stuff from others. Judging them for not fucking crying. It was sickening. The family was different. Hayes had been born into it, just like I had been and our father before us. The man who had raised Hayes considered me evil, didn’t understand what this life was about. What we were about. Well, I’d trust my Mafia family all fucking day instead of these people.
“Who is she?” Blaise asked.
I’d been looking at her again. Fuck, my eyes just seemed to keep going in that direction on their own. She looked so damn lost and hopeless, yet there was some fire there. I’d seen a spark of it in her eyes when that horrible woman came to get her.
“My brother’s fiancée,” I replied, still finding it hard to believe Hayes had been about to marry her.
She was not minister’s wife material. Unless he wanted the men in his congregation to go home and beat off every Sunday after looking at her all during the service.
“Hmm,” he said, but nothing more.
The redheaded bitch who had come to get her walked past me, then snapped her head to look in my direction. She glared at me as she walked over to sit on a pew with some other equally awful-looking women. With their floral dresses that went to their ankles and their helmet hair. Could they be any more unfuckable if they tried?
“Looks like you already made a friend,” Blaise said with amusement in his tone.
“That bitch is the fiancée’s mom, I think. Not sure,” I grumbled.
“Wouldn’t have guessed that one. No resemblance at all.” Blaise pointed out something I’d already noticed myself.
I shrugged and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling the stupid suit coat I was wearing stretch even tighter. “Not my business,” I said more for my benefit than anything.
Blaise said nothing, but we’d been friends our entire lives. I could read his thoughts in the silence, and I felt like planting my fist in his face for thinking it. He was right, of course. The girl made me fucking hard. She was sexy as hell. But she had been my brother’s fiancée, and she was one of these people. Not for me.
“It should be me in that fucking casket,” I muttered. “He was the safe one. Where was that God he wanted to serve?”
My heart constricted in my chest. I’d never see his face again. Never hear his laugh. Fuck, this hurt.
“Fucking wish he’d been with us,” Blaise said beside me. “Not here with these people. But he was happy. You got that to hold on to. Even if it hurts like a son of a bitch.”
