15 years to life Read online

  I waited for her to walk ahead, so I could adjust my crotch. Of course my brain had other thoughts.

  Maybe I could walk a little closer, and poke her in the ass.

  I hoped like hell that she wouldn’t notice, because the little fella wouldn’t stay down. Not with all the dirty thoughts in my brain.

  Luckily, she kept talking. “I had you come in early today, because we have to do inventory behind the bar, and I thought it would be a good idea for you to learn a few things before we actually opened the doors for business. Grab that clipboard.”

  I did what she asked, and followed her around like a lost puppy for the next couple of hours. The work was clearly the distraction I needed from my lingering thoughts. It was going smoothly. I was catching on fast. She told me that she had plans for me to work security most nights, and after she explained what I’d be doing, I thought she was right. Security would be the perfect spot for me.

  The day seemed to fly by, and Madeline was all work. Never once did she talk about anything personal. An entire morning had passed, and I still knew nothing more about this women other than the fact that she was a workaholic. When the business doors opened at eleven, she sent me back to the kitchen to help the cook.

  The manual labor felt good. It suited me. My mind stayed busy, and I felt needed. I wasn’t just some useless slob lying on my sister’s couch.

  “Brian.” Madeline called out my name. I was elbow deep in dishwater. When I looked up, she waved me over.

  “What’s up Boss?” I asked, and it earned me a smile. I was a sucker for that smile.

  “Take a thirty minute break. You’ve been working hard. I’m not a slave driver, I swear. Plus you need to eat.”

  “Ernie snuck me a sandwich earlier,” I pointed at the cook, “so I’m not really hungry. I was actually hoping I could get a minute to talk to you.”

  She glanced at her watch. “I got a few minutes. You want to walk out back?”

  “Sure.” This was my chance, to finally talk to her about real life stuff. I just wanted to get to know her a bit. After all, she was my future wife. Hopefully, she’d go along with that plan. I hadn’t fully discussed it with her yet. There was no need to scare her into submission.

  “Is everything okay?” She asked letting the back door close behind us.

  “Yeah it’s fine.” I replied.

  She eyed me warily. The whole purpose of the talk was to just get her alone for a few minutes. I’d been dying to talk to her. My communication skills were pure crap, but I was hoping she wouldn’t notice.

  “What did you want to talk about?” She asked as she pushed a stray curl behind her ear.

  I propped myself up against the bricks of the building. “I’m a very honest person, and the truth is I was hoping to get to know you a little better.”

  When her eyes grew wide, and she shuffled her feet, I back peddled like a bitch.

  “It’s just that Blaine talks about you all the time, and I feel like I barely know her sometimes. We lost a lot of years, and I feel like you know her better than I do. I thought maybe if I picked your brain a little, you could help?” What a load of crap!

  “Is this about her boyfriend?”

  Bingo!

  “Yes.” I let out a sigh of relief, knowing damn good and well that the conversation had taken a wide left turn. I had no intentions of talking about the faceless boyfriend, but I figured I better take the information if she was offering it. I needed more info on the douchebag anyway. Bring it on Madeline.

  “Look, it’s not really my place to talk about him. He’s a nice guy though.”

  “So I’ve heard, but if he’s so nice then why hasn’t he helped take care of my sister. I’ve fixed everything around that house that was broken, and the list was long. He’s never called the house phone, and aren’t guys supposed to send flowers and stuff. I’m no expert, but its like this guy doesn’t even exist.” This talk was amounting to nothing, except pure aggravation. I wanted to talk about her, not Blaine.

  “He’s never been to her house.”

  “What?” I was confused. “How long have they been together?”

  “A long time, but she won’t let him come over to her house. She has her reasons, and you should really talk to her about it. I shouldn’t be saying any of this. So let’s pretend this conversation never happened.”

  “But it makes no sense.”

  She sighed and put her hand on the door to go in. “Then talk to her.”

  This conversation couldn’t be over. I didn’t want her to go in yet, so I put my hand up onto the door. “Wait,” I said. “Why don’t you ever ask about my past?” That was what I really wanted to know.

  “It’s none of my business.” She looked deep into my eyes. It made no sense whatsoever. I thought girls were supposed to be nosey. I wanted her to be nosey. I guess in the back of my mind I wanted someone to know the truth, but most of all I wanted it to be her. “What if I wanted to know more about your past?”

  “Then ask?” She smiled big. “But you’ll have to make it quick. I need to get back to work. One question.”

  One question? Oh man. My brain scattered in a thousand different directions. “Do you ever do anything outside of work?” Abort! Abort! I immediately regretted the question as soon as it left my mouth. It wasn’t about her past at all. I should have asked what her favorite movie was, or if she had a good childhood. I was such a loser.

  “Of course I do. As a matter of fact, I have a shopping date with your sister tomorrow.” She opened the door and I followed her inside.

  “Oh really. You know I’ll be there too right?”

  She glanced at me from over the top of her shoulder. The look was curious.

  “You don’t mind, do ya Boss?”

  “Uh, um, err,” She couldn’t find the right words and it made my insides flop around like a fish out of water. “Why would I mind?” We stopped outside the kitchen door. “Now get back to work.”

  She didn’t know what to say, and I am the reason why. I secretly wished that I could jump outside of my body, high five myself, and then jump back in. “Yes Boss Lady.” I laughed.

  Now all I had to do was talk Blaine into letting me go with them on this shopping trip, piece of cake.

  Chapter Ten- Present

  “Come on Blaine, please.” I stuck my lip out as far as I could get it. I felt like a kid asking his mom for candy.

  “Fine, but I don’t want to hear one single complaint because it’s going to be a long day.”

  “Deal.”

  Two hours later and I was ready to pull my hair out. The girls hadn’t shut up, they had no intentions of feeding me, and the only way I could get a word in is if I wanted to talk about the size of their thighs. It was clearly a death trap. Seriously, who knew that blue jeans came in fifteen different shades of blue? They all looked the same to me. I wanted to see some serious legs. Not from my sister, yuck. But it wouldn’t have hurt Madeline to try on at least one bikini. For God’s sake, I’ve been a patient man. Staring at Madeline was what I came on this damn shopping trip for, not that she was showing me any leg or anything. A simple flash of the nipple was not too much to ask. I found myself staring too hard sometimes, and Blaine would give me her evil eyes. She knew how much I liked her; I couldn’t understand why she was giving me such a hard time. Maybe it was because she had a boyfriend, but I’d never seen this guy.

  “I think I’ll go and see about getting myself a phone.” I said, but it fell on deaf ears. Both girls just waved me away as if I were a fly bothering their supper. Fat lot of good it was doing me to be on this stupid shopping trip.

  I made my way across the busy mall to the cell phone store. This mall thing wasn’t doing it for me. There were too many people and I felt lost. All I wanted to do was get what I needed and leave, especially since the girls were barely speaking to me.

  Blaine had given me fifty dollars that morning without hesitation. She knew I had my heart set on getting a phone, even though I
had no one to call. That couldn’t last forever right?

  For once the girls were waiting by the door for me. I’d purchased the least complicated phone in the whole store, but it still took them forty-five minutes to show me how to use it. I thought long and hard about breaking the salesman’s nose when I heard him call me an idiot under his breath. It was his lucky day. I snatched the prepaid phone from his hands, and stomped out. It was official. I hated the mall.

  “Did you get one Bubba?” Blaine asked me. That was the first time she’d talked to me since we’d left the house that morning, but I couldn’t stay aggravated with her.

  The phone was in my palm when I stretched my arm out in front of her.

  “Will you even be able to punch those tiny keys with your ginormous hands?” Madeline chimed in.

  I playfully jabbed her in the side. The little shit had made a joke about me. Who knew she was witty, and beautiful? Her laughter was contagious. We were all cracking up.

  “You guys have nothing to worry about. I have no friends so I’ll never have to use it.” Eat that!

  And so the pouty faces began. Maybe I was better than I thought.

  “Give me the damn thing,” Madeline grabbed the phone and punched in some numbers. “Here,” she slapped the phone against my chest. I let the warmth of her hand stay pressed against my chest for as long as I could. “You now have one friend, but don’t use that to call and tell me that you’re going to be late for work.”

  “Sure thing Boss Lady.” I winked at her. She either didn’t notice or ignored me completely. Either way, I still had her number. The shopping trip from hell turned out to be not so bad after all.

  ∞

  “Bubba, wake up.”

  I felt fists slamming against my shoulder.

  “What?” I yelled, and cracked open my eyes. For a moment I had a jail cell flashback of when the guards had to wake me up in the middle of the night. Blaine was standing above me with a look of terror on her face. “What’s going on? Are you alright?” I freaked.

  “You scared the shit out of me. You’ve been screaming for the past ten minutes, and I couldn’t get you to wake up.”

  When I looked around I realized that I was in my room. I had sat down on the bed after we got back home from the shopping trip, but I didn’t remember dozing off.

  “Shhh,” I wrapped her in a hug. “It must have been a bad dream. I’m okay I swear.”

  She wiped her tear filled eyes on the sleeve of my shirt. “I’m okay. I just didn’t know what to do when you wouldn’t wake up. Do you have dreams like that a lot?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t. Lucky for me I never remember what I dreamt about.”

  “Ever?” She asked curiously.

  “Not usually. I know I did it a lot while I was in jail. The guards would come rushing in to wake me up.” I didn’t tell her about the cold sweats or how my heart would feel like it was beating out my chest sometimes.

  “You never do it when you sleep in my room.”

  A smile stretched across my face, and I pulled her into my side. “That’s because you take all the bad away.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I gave her a little shove and she giggled. It must have settled her unease.

  She jumped up quickly off the bed. “I better let Carrie know that you’re okay.”

  “Carrie is here?” It was a damn shame that girl was into chicks, a damn shame.

  “Yeah. She came over for movie night, but we decided on an intervention instead.” Her eyes lit up.

  I was obviously missing something. She looked awfully sneaky. There was mischief brewing in that brain of hers.

  “You’ll see.” Her smile was all teeth. “Come on. Get up.”

  “There’d better be food.”

  “Shut up, and come on.”

  “Glad to see you’re still alive,” Carrie said as I walked into the living room.

  “Glad to see you’re still hot.” I sat down on the couch as close to her as I could get.

  “Easy there big fella, I’m also still very lesbian.” She scooted away, and I had to laugh.

  A guy could dream right?

  “I bet I could make you change your mind.”

  Maybe… I wasn’t quite sure how to maneuver all of my equipment, but I’d give it one hell of a try. I raised my eyebrows at her.

  Blaine shoved the large bowl of popcorn into my lap. “This is exactly why you need this intervention. Jesus.” She scoffed.

  The girls continued chatting it up, but I could only focus on the popcorn in my lap. It was the greatest smelling popcorn ever. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had some. Just the smell alone was making my toes curl. I shoveled in my mouth so fast that I couldn’t breathe, and it tasted as good as it smelled. You don’t realize how much the little things mean to you, until you can’t have them. I missed popcorn, and sweet tea, and fried chicken. “So good.” I kept shoveling. When the room went quiet I noticed both girls had their eyes fixated on me, but I didn’t care. I’d been a caged animal for far too long.

  “Continue,” I said with my mouth stuffed full. I had to listen this time. Blaine was glaring at me. That was code for –I mean business.

  “Bubba here has a thing for Maddie.” Blaine said.

  Maddie. I loved the sound of that. It fit her. It sounded cute and little just like she was.

  She continued. “He also has foot in mouth syndrome. He needs our help.”

  Wasn’t quite sure what foot in mouth syndrome was, but Blaine was usually right. Although, I think it sounded like something that required medication. All I could do was nod though. If they were willing to help then I’d take it.

  “Wait.” I said. “I thought you were against me having a thing for Madeline.”

  “I was never against it. It just bothers me that you’re constantly looking at her like you could eat her. I guess I just thought you were after one thing.”

  “Then why are you all the sudden helping me?”

  “Because I’ve decided that I’d threaten to cut your balls off in your sleep, if all you’re after is sex.”

  Fair enough.

  Then a thought hit me. “Why aren’t you giving her the same speech, or trying to cut off her needed body parts?”

  “Technically I don’t think you need your balls, and she has no freaking idea about your fantasies. Not to mention she has a boyfriend, but if the time comes and I have to talk to her too, then I will. For now lets just get you through one civil conversation without you looking like a complete idiot.”

  “Wow. Thanks.” I said sarcastically. Not gonna lie that hurt a little.

  “No problem.”

  I groaned inwardly wondering how bad this could be.

  Blaine made her way over and sat down on the coffee table in front of me. “All right Bro. Carrie here is going to be your date.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  Blaine made a large buzzer noise. “Wrong, wrong, wrong,” she shook her head. “Whatever that jumpy thing is that you’re doing with your eyebrows, just stop it.”

  Fine. I couldn’t waggle my eyebrows, but I could wink, and that’s what I did.

  “No, ugh. You can’t do that either.”

  “Well fuck Blaine. What can I do?”

  “Just,” she paused. “Just do something normal.”

  That narrowed it down. I had no clue what normal was. When I looked at Carrie she smiled, so I smiled back. The problem was I couldn’t hold her gaze. It felt unnatural. I noticed that I’d done the same thing with Madeline. Unless I was talking, I couldn’t just stare longingly into her eyes.

  “That was pretty good, but you got a little fidgety.” Carrie said.

  “You think.” I replied. “I do the same thing with Madeline.” It was kind of hard to put it into words. “I can look at her or anyone for that matter, as long as I’m in a heated conversation, or if I know she isn’t looking at me back. But if we aren’t saying anything than I look ridiculous.”

&nbs
p; “It’s okay Bubba.” She patted my knee.

  The childlike feelings came rushing in. Sometimes Blaine’s simple gestures drudged up crazy feelings from the past. Feelings that I wanted to keep in the past, where they belonged.

  “The whole reason that I wanted to do this was so that I could get you to be yourself. That’s all.” Blaine explained.

  “I get it, but maybe this is me. I’ve changed in twelve years you know. I understand that Madeline is way out of my league, but I can’t help how I feel. If she don’t like me like this, then fuck it. This intervention is over!” I yelled, storming out of the house. I don’t even know why I had gotten so upset. It just felt like she wanted to change me. It was like she wanted the old me back.

  Hell, maybe she was really trying to help. I didn’t know. All I knew was it pissed me off.

  I needed to work out, and fast, anything to clear my head.

  Chapter Eleven- Present

  A few days had passed since my sudden outburst in the living room. It only took an hour long run for me to race back into the house and apologize to Blaine. I felt like a complete dick for reacting the way that I did, especially when I found her sobbing over her cereal when I’d gotten back. She was the only girl in the whole world who could turn my heart into a roasted marshmallow. I knew I’d overreacted. My temper was short and sometimes got the better of me. She understood though, and apologized too even though it wasn’t necessary.

  Since the two of us had made up, everything seemed light and carefree. She hadn’t mentioned any hair-brained ideas of converting me into prince charming, and I didn’t mention the boyfriend with no face. Things were good, more than good.

  It felt like I’d been waiting forever for payday to come, but it was finally here. It was also my first official night working as security at the bar. After Madeline had told me that being security meant that I would be helping to protect her staff and anyone who felt threatened or in need of help, I felt like it was the perfect job for me. “You can’t have arms this size and not use them for the greater good.” Those were her words, and not mine. Madeline said yesterday, and I quote… “Those guns need their own zip code.”