Craving Redemption

Chapter 17

Callie

For a few moments, I was just a normal sixteen-year-old girl again.

He kissed me over and over, careful of the braces, but completely unconcerned with the way my mouth still tasted vaguely of blood. He tasted like tobacco and the gum that was tucked into his cheek, and I practically inhaled him as he tried to keep the kiss light. It wasn’t until we’d reached the breaking point and I was beginning to rock against the thickness in his pants that he finally pulled away.

“Pretty sure this isn’t what your grandma expected us to be doing in her bed,” he told me gruffly, using his hands on my hips to push me back until I was standing by the side of the bed.

“Ha! I’m surprised you care what my Gram thinks we’re doing,” I answered ruefully, still a little dazed as I ran my fingers through my tangled and greasy hair. Yuck, I needed a shower.

His head snapped up at my joke and his jaw was clenched as he stood up from the bed, putting his own hair back into a ponytail.

“Baby, we’re in her house. She’s cooking for us, letting us crash here, and she’s your grandmother. Woman deserves respect,” he chastised, making me feel like a jackass.

I nodded once and then dropped my head to the side, pretending to look at something on Gram’s dresser so I didn’t have to make eye contact. He made me feel like a child. Getting away with something was a common game among my friends, with each of us detailing to each other how we’d snuck around. It had been exciting, doing the forbidden. Now, though, it just seemed immature and stupid.

I was trying to look anywhere but at him, but he wouldn’t let me hide for long. His smile was tender as he wrapped his hand gently around my throat to tilt my face toward his.

“Calliope, we’re under your grandmother’s roof. Not gonna disrespect her and I’m too old to be sneaking around and keeping quiet when I’m with my woman,” he told me, leaning down to give me a deep, wet kiss. “We weren’t here? You’d already be naked and making so much f*ckin’ noise you’d be waking up the neighbors.”

He winked at me before turning and opening the door, waving me through.

Whatever universe I’d been in, or part of my mind I’d shut off when I’d realized that he was feeling guilty and I’d needed to comfort him, rushed back with the speed of a freight train when I walked back out into the living room.

Gram and the men were talking quietly at the kitchen table, crowded around almost uncomfortably in the small space, and I didn’t have to wonder why.

My baby brother was sitting on the couch, bent over with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

He was crying. Quietly. Privately.

I glanced up at Asa, who nodded, and then went to Cody. Sitting down next to his hunched back, I draped myself over him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and laid my head on his shoulder.

“Hey, brother,” I whispered, giving him a squeeze.

“Hey,” he sniffed once, rubbing his hand underneath his nose. “This f*cking sucks, Callie. What are we gonna do? Gram just got off the phone with the funeral parlor and she’s making all of these arrangements and shit,” he swallowed loudly, using his thumb and fingers to dig into his eyes. “I don’t know what the f*ck I’m supposed to be doing right now.”

“You don’t have to do anything. Let’s go talk to Gram and see what the plan is, okay?” I pulled him from the couch and dragged him into the kitchen, stopping directly in front of Gram.

“What do you need help with? Anything we can do?” I asked her forcefully. It may have come out a little more abrasive than I hoped because Poet huffed at the end of the table in amusement. I glared at him, causing his eyebrows to raise in response, and then turned to Gram again. “We don’t want you to have to do all of this by yourself, so tell us what the plan is.”

Gram smiled up at Cody and me then stood and wrapped her arms around us. “How’d I get grandkids like you? Huh? Best of the bunch, I tell ya.”

“Gram,” Cody replied, his voice muffled by her shoulder, “I’m reasonably sure that we’re your only grandchildren.”

“Reasonably?”

“Well, Uncle Tommy and Uncle Charles got around…” he told her with a laugh, jumping away before she could swat him with a towel.

“That’s okay! Run away now… I’ll remember this far longer than you will, my dear,” she told him with a twinkle in her eye.

I was grinning at them both, my head whipping from side to side, when Poet spoke up from his place at the table, effectively ending our lighthearted moment. God, I was smiling and laughing. What the hell was wrong with me?

“Rose, I know that the funeral is important to you guys, but we’re gonna have to figure out what Callie’s doing. Time’s running short—I got shit to do in Oregon and my boys can’t stay here babysitting.”

“Callie, sit down, darlin’. Time to talk,” Gram told me grimly. “You too, Cody.”

The men sitting around the table backed off, a couple going into the living room and the others heading toward the front door, pulling cigarettes out of their chest pockets. Only Gram, Cody, Asa, Poet, and I were left in the kitchen when Gram sat down heavily.

“Baby girl, you’re gonna have to move,” she told me wearily, running her fingers over her bottom lip in a nervous gesture I’d seen a million times. “It’s not safe for you here.”

I watched in silence as she seemed to think over her next words carefully, and for a moment it looked like she wasn’t going to say anything else. When I was about to speak up, she started explaining what was going to happen.

“Grease is gonna take you up to Eugene. That’s where they live and they can keep an eye on what’s happening. As soon as I get all of your parents’ legal stuff and Cody’s school stuff taken care of, I’ll follow you up there.”

I felt my eyes start to water as I thought about moving all by myself, but swallowed hard and kept it together. Moving to Oregon was the least of my worries. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal, but the idea of being so far away from the only family I had left was a daunting prospect.

“Okay,” I answered her, my voice breaking a little.

“Gram…” Cody looked between us, his skin pale and his eyes worried. “What about me?”

“Well, you’ll go to school. It’ll be the same as it was before, except you’ll fly to Oregon to be with us on your breaks,” she reassured him.

She turned back to me and opened her mouth to give me more details when Cody’s voice broke through the quiet again.

“I can’t!” he told us, looking back and forth at our faces as if gauging our reactions. “My scholarship—the one that pays for school? It’s for exceptional students in San Diego County. They won’t pay for school if we live somewhere else.”

Gram and I both burst out with words of denial, but halted mid-sentence when Asa’s dark haired friend, Dragon, opened the front door and leaned inside.

“Poet! Grease! We’ve got a situation.”

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