We haven’t spoken much since arriving back at the hotel yesterday afternoon, a nice place only blocks from the bar and Willie and Layla’s house—the only way Willie was willing to go home the night he had to drag Crew—literally from what I heard—from my apartment and off the man he had brutally beaten, if the shredding of his knuckles tells me anything.
They must be sore, but every time I try to inspect them further, he kisses me, his way of attempting to clear my mind. It’s sweet, but it doesn’t quite work, and he knows it.
We came back here, showered, even though we took a bath before leaving, and after having lain there for hours, simply holding one another, his eyes finally closed, mine following.
I’ve been awake for a little over an hour now, the red-lit alarm clock reading two-fifteen in the afternoon. We slept nearly twelve hours, and still, I’m exhausted. I’m in that state where you can’t tell if you slept too long and now your entire day is ruined, or you didn’t sleep enough.
Snuggling into Crew, his arms tighten around me, his nose burying in my hair.
“How long you been awake, baby?” he rasps.
“Not long.”
His lips press to my neck, and he rolls me, so I’m facing him, his eyes half-closed and heavy, a weight within them I can’t even begin to comprehend.
If my soul is heavy, his must be suffocating.
Before I realize it’s happening, my eyes cloud over and Crew’s face softens, sorrow slipping over him, though he tries to hide it.
“We gonna talk now, Sweets?” he murmurs.
I nod, swallowing beyond the lump in my throat.
Crew’s hand pushes into my hair, moving it from my face, and I catch it in both of mine before it can drop to the mattress. I kiss his knuckles one by one, pressure falling on my chest as his lungs expand with a deep inhale.
“I love you, you know,” he tells me. “Some might say too much. I’d do anything for you. Always.”
“I know.” I scoot closer, our foreheads nearly touching. I don’t know where to start, so I go with the question that keeps popping into my mind. “Where did you go when you left school?”
He threads his fingers with mine. “I was broke when I was kicked out of school, had about five hundred bucks to my name that I’d saved from working at the car wash downtown, no car ’cause Memphis had already totaled it. I got a small storage unit for my shit, slept in it the first few nights, but the manager was tipped off by someone and made me leave. Turned out those thugs were watching me around the clock. I had no privacy, and if I did something they didn’t like, they let me know.”
The way he says it with a light sharpness and crease of his brows has me thinking they didn’t use their voices.
“I started staying at some charge-by-the-hour hotel; it was disgusting but cheap. Every time I’d find work, they’d fuck it up and get me fired. Force me to leave mid shift for a quick alley fight or drive us a few counties over to another crew’s stomping grounds, put me in the ring with dudes three times my size, and I couldn’t say no.” He considers something a moment, tracing my lips with his eyes before meeting mine. “I was hospitalized once. Just for a few days, but all it did was leave me with another bill, and then the school decided I had to pay them back for the damages. That was another bill I couldn’t pay. The main dude found out and paid off both as a show of ‘good faith,’ as he called it. Psycho motherfucker,” he mumbles the last part.
My heart aches, literally, the pain sharp and constant.
All this time, I was heartbroken, assuming he didn’t need me anymore, that he never cared the way I was so sure he had, that I was so easy to leave, being both my brother and his best friend, my foster brother, the boy next door could simply forget me when I didn’t wake a day without thoughts of them. None of it was true.
He not only needed me, he loved me, and with that love came the largest act of selflessness I’ve ever heard of.
Crew gave years of his life away for me. To keep me safe.
His silent pledge of love and loyalty.
“When did it get better?” I ask.
“When I met Willie.” A small smile forms on his lips and he tugs his hand free, wrapping it around me and tugging me closer, sitting up slightly, so his back is pressed against the headboard, my body slightly cradled in his. “A year of shitty hotels and no money, they finally trusted me not to run and let me get a real job. I went to the bar, met Will, and I don’t know. He understood me, without me having to share shit, and convinced the manager at the time to give me a job. Then he gave me a room. I still had the Mazda Memph crashed to pay off, so I took a few fights to help with that for fun, but with some guys I met at the bar, not the gang who made me. I was good at it and enjoyed it, so being able to choose to fight instead of being forced felt good.
“Eventually, the debts were all paid, and my life was mine again. I saved enough to get my apartment, worked up the nerve to call my brother and ask him to come here. I needed to rebuild all I broke, so I started with Drew, and then I worked my ass into the ground, both at the bar and a fight or two here and there, just trying to find a way to look myself in the mirror and not hate what I saw. Will and Layla helped with that too.”
Crew grips my chin, tipping my head to his. “You’d just gotten here, and I was dying to go to you. I did once. Watched you from across the street, but there was still so much for me to accomplish, and I didn’t know how to do that. Buying and keeping the bar going cost a lot more than I expected and I had to let go of my apartment to keep above water. I didn’t tell you because I was embarrassed. Felt like I was lacking all over again.”
My lips pull into a small smile, despite the sorrow threatening to drown me, and I stretch my neck, pressing my mouth to his. “I would have been honored to have you at your lowest, Crew Taylor. I didn’t need anything from you, just you.”
“I know, baby.” His lips glide across mine, his hands tightening around me. “But I needed to be more for me, to believe I was worthy of you.”
“You are.”
“Show me…”
I don’t hesitate. I seal our lips together, kissing him softly, slowly, but it quickly grows hungry, desperate, and I shift in his hold, straddling him on the bed.
He stays where he is, half sitting as I roll my hips over his naked body, his dick already hard and ready between us. Without a word needed, he lifts me, sliding me back down until he’s filling me.
Heavy moans leave us both, and I lean forward, right as he presses me closer, the need to be fused together heavy for us both.
The room is silent, nothing but our heavy, sensual breaths filling the space.
We fuck slow, steady, drowning in one another’s touch. In the searing, slow kisses.
Crew’s hands bury themselves in my hair as mine find his face, and we hold each other close. His tongue flicks over my lips, dipping at my neck until he’s nipping at my collarbone.
My head falls back, my hands moving to the nape of his neck as I roll my hips forward, and he meets me with a full thrust.
It’s like we’re living in slow motion, the ache building both mentally and physically.
We need the release as much as we need to stay just like this, pieced together forever and ever.
But the pressure is too much for us both, our bodies slick with sweat and shaking in need.
Crew captures my lips with his, kissing me hard.
Claiming me with his mouth, and it’s as if an invisible string tethers us in that moment, binding us together deeper than before.
Stronger than ever.
I feel it in my bones. Feel him in my soul.
“No matter the situation, I love you, Crew Taylor,” I whisper along his lips. “I want you always.”
He kisses me once more, his eyes closed, and it’s as if he’s only now allowed himself to believe when he whispers with a tone so sure, “I know.”
My forehead falls to his and we stay like that for several minutes before he finally lifts his head.
“I love you, baby.”
I smile, pushing his sweat-slick hair from where it curls over his forehead. “I know.” I take his words as mine, making him chuckle.
The moment passes too soon though, the silence stealing the peace of moments ago.
Crew’s gaze is tender as he pulls me forward, so I’m leaning against his chest. “Say it, Sweets,” he encourages.
“Do you think these people will really try to kill him?” I whisper.
Crew’s face falls, even though I suspect he knew what I was about to ask, though maybe not as the first question.
He looks to the side briefly. “They can’t allow someone to screw them over.”
That’s a yes.
A shiver runs through me and I chew at my lips, looking away.
Crew brings my gaze right back with a press of his knuckles to my chin. His eyes narrow, though I’m not sure he realizes it. “Promise me you’ll stay out of this. I can’t allow this to touch you. Promise me.”
I must hesitate too long, because he sits up farther, tugging my head back with a soft grip to my hair.
“Promise. Me.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
His eyes roam mine, his mouth opening, but he’s cut off by a soft double tap against the door.
I jump, and Crew’s grip tightens, his eyes flashing to the clock.
“It’s Will. He said he’d bring you some of Layla’s pancakes for breakfast. Looks like he got tired of waiting for me to call.”
My smile is small, and I only let go once he’s too far for me to hold and quickly slip the T-shirt he tosses me over my head, covering my lower half with the blanket.
Crew winks, pulling open the door, but the smell of warm butter doesn’t waft inside.
The suffocating scent of ash and alcohol does.
Willie stands in the hall, Drew at his side, and I shoot to my feet, Crew subconsciously shifting to block me, but not from their eyes, from whatever it is twisting their handsome faces with agony and anger.
Sadness and fury.
The very things that fill my veins when Drew speaks.
“The bar… it’s… bad.”
No…
When they said the bar was “bad,” I must have assumed they meant it was vandalized, that the windows were busted and the walls were spray-painted, maybe even the sign shattered and hanging from its place above the door.
I never expected the sight before me.
The windows are busted, yes, the bars barricading them bent a bit, but the giant steel door, swinging wide open in the daylight, the giant chain lock cut and hanging to the ground should have been my first clue it was much, much worse.
It is.
Glass crunches beneath my feet as I follow Crew inside the building, and my eyes shoot wide, my nostrils instantly brimming with the overpowering stench of alcohol.
Gone are the tables that created the lounge, each one having been chopped into nothing but piles of wood, the splintered pieces perfectly arranged as you would a campfire, pointed to a tip, rags and napkins stuffed between them. There are small char marks staining the ends as if they planned to burn it down but didn’t… or wanted the threat of the capability of doing so to be clear. Possibly a twisted gift to light it up and put it out, showing mercy by leaving it standing.
The back wall, where the bar once was… gone. Chopped and added to the piles, perhaps?
Busted bottles are splayed along each and every wall, deep puddles of their contents pooled at the edges. The mirror, nothing but shattered pieces, the new shelves and lights Crew put up nowhere to be found. Electrical cords hang from wide-open gaps in the ceiling, revealing the chipped and dented foundation behind it, a large pipe sticking down where the largest fan used to be.
The walls are no longer walls, but a mess of drywall hanging from the frame, a sledgehammer or worse having torn them to shreds. Water drips from the stairs along the back wall, slowly seeping into the mess surrounding us.
I can’t even bring myself to look at Crew, so when something crashes to the floor near us, and Julius grips my arm, I allow him to lead me out the door, on Crew’s silent demand, I’m sure.
Outside, I pull in a deep breath, walking a few feet away, my hands folding over my head, only to slide down my face.
My palms shake, or maybe it’s my body that’s shaking, but when Julius tries to offer support with a hand to my back, I step away from it, posing a tight smile.
There’s only one man who can comfort me right now, but he’s the one who will be in need of said comfort after this.
What happened here?
Was it the man—men—from last night?
Someone else?
Is this Memphis’s fault?
Don’t allow the blinders to go back up, Davis…
I run my hands through my hair, flipping it to the side.
How—
My eyes catch a hint of color, and I jerk left, bending to pick a small card off the curb. A business card. My head snaps up to find another, and then another.
I pick up twenty in total, all piled high, dirty, and wet in my palm, but it’s the car on the front that flashes in my memory—a black El Camino, candy-painted and shining off the thick paper.
The same one from the parking lot the night X dropped me off, but that’s not all.
This card, it’s the one the man at the market gave Crew, the “lover of pretty things” man. The same man who sat behind the wheel of said black car.
Crew bounds from the door right then, his head whipping right to left, until his eyes meet mine. While his body visibly releases some of the tension it holds once he’s found me safe and sound and near his friends, it’s nowhere near enough to erase the rage building within him.
His eyes are wild, his body seeming to vibrate as he yanks me to him, only seconds after I stuff the cards in my back pocket.
I don’t want him to get hurt by hunting the man they belong to, but something tells me he won’t have to.
Crew
Numb.
Enraged.
Accepting.
If someone claimed a person could experience all three of those things at once, I’d call them a liar. But I’d be wrong.
Pathetically wrong.
I’m fucking consumed by all three, my muscles weightless and airy, my heart and head steady, my skin hot and prickly.
Part of me wants to laugh at what I’ll do to the fucker who did this to me, and another wants to run and hide, knowing it won’t be easy to stomach. An ugly fucking sight I might savor.
My jaw aches from clenching it so tightly, my palms slick with sweat from my clenched fists. I’m trying to keep some semblance of calm, so I don’t scare the silent and still woman in the back seat, but it’s easier said than done.
The air in the car is charged, Willie, Drew, and me all trapped inside the small space with tempers tipped at the edge of sanity.
All I’ve worked for, all we worked for… gone.
I have nothing now.
As if angered by the weak thought, a sharp pain hits my chest, my eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror and landing on Davis.
I have all I need.
It’s true, but it’s fucking sad. I wanted to give her a life I could feel a sense of pride from.
Now all I have to give, is me.
The loan on the bar is high, the sacrifice to be able to afford it being the added insurance offered. I have none, and if I spend what’s in the business account, I won’t be able to stock the bar or pay the employees, let alone keep the lights on.
I’m fucked.
And I’m five seconds from fucking up worse.
That’s my last thought as I tear from the passenger seat of Willie’s car, taking two steps at a time toward mine and Davis’s apartment.
The door vibrates on its hinges as I throw it open, anger doubling when I find it completely unlocked.
Drew yanks Davis back as he realizes, and she shouts after me as Willie and I dart inside to sweep the place. It doesn’t take long to figure out it’s empty, which should make me happy.
It doesn’t.
We’re coming out of the back room when Drew and Davis finally move inside, but she doesn’t look at me, her steps are slow as she glances around the space.
There’s no more glass littering the floor, no liquid splayed on the wall, and the broken and busted couch is gone. Everything is back to how it should be, minus the missing piece of furniture.
It’s like nothing ever happened.
It’s like Memphis was never here, a fact she realizes right away.
She tries to hide the sorrow sweeping over her, and I hate that. She’s doing it for my benefit, so I temper the anger within me and go to her, cupping her face in my cheek.
Her hand comes up to wrap around my wrist, a single tear rolling down her face as she smiles sadly at me. “He’s gone.”
I say nothing, just hold her, and when she gasps slightly, nodding as if to say it’s okay, I drop my forehead to hers, kissing it briefly. The last thing I want to do is let her go, so I tug her even closer and tuck her head into my chest, so she can’t look at the expression I can’t seem to wipe away, my teeth grinding together to keep the growl from tearing from my throat.
Everything is fucked, and what’s worse, I have no fucking clue if I can fix it.
