For You (The 'Burg #1)(14)

Meems’s husband Al was anything but a dweeb. He’d been the center on the football team, on the line, right next to Morrie. Time had made him a little soft but it hadn’t made him a slouch. And he was a hunter, I knew he had guns. And he loved me, I knew he’d blow the brains out of anyone who tried to hurt me or got near his wife and kids.

No, that wasn’t true. Anyone got near his wife and kids, Al would not use his gun, he’d go in with his hands and rip them apart.

“They got no room for you, Feb. Theirs is a full house.”

This was true, they had four kids and Al wasn’t a chemist at Lilly. He worked on the highway crew. It was union, it paid well and the Coffee House was nothing to sneeze at because Meems could bake. Her muffins were orgasmic and her cookies and cakes were so good, you’d sell your soul to the devil if she made you do it just so you could have one. Still, they had four kids and Meems had a fondness for catalogue shopping. Bob, her postman, blamed her for the hernia he suffered last year and he wasn’t joking.

“Colt works a lot. You wouldn’t have to sleep on the pull out. He’d probably let you use his bed.”

If Morrie was being funny, I wasn’t laughing.

“If he’s gone all the time, what purpose would it serve me staying there?”

I watched Morrie’s face change, resistance drifting through it in a hard way, and I knew part of the bucketload of shit that sifted through my brain while I wasn’t sleeping last night was going to come spilling out just then.

I wasn’t wrong.

“We gotta talk about Colt.”

I shook my head.

His coffee cup came down with a crash and I jumped back a foot. I looked down, seeing the mug had split right down the middle and coffee was all over the place, spreading, spilling down the side of the counter, dripping in a coffee waterfall to the floor.

I looked at my brother. “Holy shit, Morrie.”

He turned and with an underarm throw he tossed the handle to the coffee mug, a jagged section of mug still attached to it, into the sink with such force it fractured again, bits flying out everywhere.

I didn’t jump that time but I took a step back.

“Morrie –”

Morrie leaned forward. “You’re gonna talk to me, February, talk to me right, f**king, now.”

I lifted my hand in a conciliatory gesture but Morrie shook his head.

“You spill now or you spill when Mom and Dad get here. Your choice but it’s been too f**king long. We all let it go too long. We shoulda made you spill ages ago, before Pete –”

“Stop!” I shouted.

No one talked to me about Pete. No one.

Not Meems. Not Jessie. Not Mom and Dad.

Not even my brother, who I loved best of them all which was saying a whole helluva lot.

I thought that’d work, it had worked before many times. Everyone knew I couldn’t talk about Pete.

But it didn’t work. Morrie moved fast. Before I knew it he had his hand curled around my upper arm and he gave me a shake. It wasn’t controlled, it was almost brutal and my head snapped back with the force of it.

My breath started coming fast but thin. Morrie got Dad’s temper which could flare out of control, though neither of them ever hurt anyone who didn’t need to get hurt. I got Mom’s which also could flare out of control but we were women and our hurt came from words rather than actions and those, unfortunately, lasted longer.

“What the f**k happened?” Morrie was in my face. “What made it go bad? What made you do what you did?”

“Let go of me Morrie.”

“Answer me, Feb.”

“Let me go!”

Another shake and my head snapped back. “Answer me!”

“You’re hurting me!” I yelled.

“I should knock some f**kin’ sense into you!” he yelled back.

I made a noise like I was going to vomit, it was involuntary and it sounded nasty. Then I wasn’t breathing anymore, not even thin, useless breaths – nothing, no oxygen.

Morrie’s face changed and he let me go, stepping back. He looked whipped, injured, the expression hideous on his face, the knowledge of what he’d done and what he’d said attacking him.

“Baby Sister,” he whispered but I shook my head.

He couldn’t go back to beloved big brother now. Not after that. Not after that. No way. No f**king way.

“I’m moving in with Jessie,” I announced, turning away.

“Feb, don’t. You need to be protected. You need someone lookin’ after you.”

I turned back. “A couple of hours in, Morrie, fine job you made of it.”

He flinched, his head jerking back with the weight of my blow. Just as I said, my anger came out in words and they hurt far worse than my arm was stinging just now.

I nodded my head to the bar that separated his kitchen from the dining area. On it, probably doused in coffee, was the list I spent most of the morning writing.

“Give that list to Alec, he wants it.”

I left it at that. I had to. And I walked away to pack.

* * * * *

“You’ve got a nerve,” Pete’s Mom, LeeAnne, said in my ear.

“LeeAnne –”

“I’m not giving you his number, you bitch.”

“This is important.”