Sunday Morning (Damaged #7.5)
By: Bijou Hunter
In his apartment, I found a dozen yellow roses and a dopey birthday card with a hundred dollars cash inside. I giggled so hard at the card. Not because the design was really so silly, but because I kept imagining such a powerful man picking it out for me.
“One year older,” was all he wrote inside. He didn’t need to say anything more.
After the giggles had ended, I cried because the flowers were the nicest thing anyone did for me ever. The cash was an easy gesture, but the flowers and card took time. Kirk put more effort into making me feel special than my flesh and blood. If that didn’t deserve a good cry, I wasn’t sure what did.
I left the flowers and money at the apartment, but I took the card with me. Kirk gave me hope that my life wasn’t stuck in this one crappy moment. I had a future with more possibilities.
Too many months passed with only hints of Kirk. More and more, he was a fantasy rather than a real man. When the weather grew colder and peeking at him late at night was too difficult, I didn’t see him at all. Kirk was essentially a memory by the time I returned home one night to find a guy passed out on my bed.
“What the fuck?” I asked, returning to where Mom was strung out on the couch.
“Don’t be a greedy bitch,” Mom mumbled. “He wasn’t feeling good.”
Mom normally slept on the couch since she was up all night. Sometimes she crawled into the full sized bed next to me, but not so much the last few years. I’d gotten accustomed to having the bed to myself. Even if I hadn’t, I wasn’t sharing it with a strange man.
“Where am I supposed to sleep?”
“The floor won’t kill you.”
I looked around at our busted up floor with its chunks of missing carpet. Mouse crap was scattered all over the room. I stared at my mother, waiting for her to show me some pity. Why couldn’t she give me the couch while she slept in the bed with her loser boyfriend? Any normal mother would make the effort.
When Robin only stared at the TV, I stomped into the bedroom. To reach the closet, I had to climb over the passed out fuckwit. Once I grabbed clean clothes from the closet and shoved them into my backpack, I gave the asshole a swift kick in the balls. He grunted but didn’t wake. In the morning, though, his balls would be swollen and screaming. This part, at least, made me smile.
The walk to Kirk’s apartment was dicey. Twice, men started following me and asked questions. I walked faster and ignored them. When the second group wouldn’t let up, I pulled out a butcher knife I’d taken from the kitchen.
“How bad do you want to push this?” I asked the four dirty looking teenagers.
They backed off, calling me a bitch and laughing at how crazy I was. I didn’t care what they called me as long as they left me alone.
Arriving at Kirk’s place, I found it empty as usual. His home wasn’t my home, but I was more comfortable there than at where I’d grown up.
After I had showered in his blissfully clean bathroom, I searched his place for an extra blanket to use for my makeshift on the couch. I eventually cuddled under a thick comforter and worried Kirk might return home with a woman.
Even if he was alone, he might be angry and decide to take back his key. Sometime after ten, I dozed off thinking about Kirk and me riding on his Harley. We were leaving Chesterfield, my mom, and every other shitty thing about this place. Fantasy or not, I wasn’t ready to let go of a future with Kirk.
7 - Kirk
I walked into my apartment after three in the morning and found the TV flickering in the otherwise dark living room. My hand immediately went to my gun. Even startled, I knew none of my enemies were dumb enough to leave the TV playing while lying in wait. I shut the door quietly and walked to the covered lump on the couch.
My club brothers sometimes dropped by when hiding from their women or cops. The lump was too small and smelled too floral to be a man.
Kneeling down, I pulled back the blanket to find Jodi’s sleeping face. I wished she didn’t look so much like a fucking angel. Why couldn’t she be a nasty whore teenager just looking to party? That way I wouldn’t care about her so much. I never caught any breaks.
Jodi’s eyes suddenly popped open, and we stared at each other.
“I had nowhere to sleep at my place,” she said.
“Did anyone hurt you?” I asked, sounding like an angry beast.
“No,” she said.
We watched each other for another minute. I didn’t know what to say to her. Everything I’d been thinking about involving Jodi Sears wasn’t something a man should say in a dark room with a teenager.
“Can I sleep here tonight?”
“Yes,” I said, standing up. “Don’t leave tomorrow before I get up. We need to talk.”
Jodi mumbled thank you while I walked away. I felt her gaze on me even after I was inside the kitchen. Despite the shock of finding her in my house, I was tired after a long day of chasing idiots around town. I kicked off my boots and jeans before crashing within minutes of climbing into bed.