Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
My dad and Tripp approach. Immediately Crunch speaks up. “Don’t ask for shit, but know if I go in there on my own, I’m gonna do something stupid. I don’t wanna do anything to jeopardize the club. So, I’m askin’ as a prospect for the club to take my back.”
Red nods, agreeing. “We’re family. We do this shit together.” While my two older brothers haven’t always seen eye to eye, now that Crunch is sober, the dynamic between them is improving every day.
“Whoa, boys,” my dad interjects. “Rhett, I’m not trying to be a dick. But I gotta remind you two. We got rules. You wanted to earn your rockers again, I respect the fuck outta that, but you are not a brother. Your business, we can’t just jump in. We move out as a unit, I stand behind it, but that call has to come from Tripp or the club voting to pass.”
As the VP, our dad has a duty and responsibility to put the club first, even above his sons. Still, it burns deep to see him deny our brother immediate assistance.
Red moves to stand in front of Crunch. Anger radiates off him. “I’m his sponsor. On my word, we’re takin’ his back. My brother is solid. Been spending weeks doin’ shit jobs when we all know he’s earned his cut a long fuckin’ time ago. He fucked up, yes, but fuck, we all do. He doesn’t get a life sentence. Now, he’s got a care for a girl, and if he’s gotta claim her for us to roll in, then so fuckin’ be it, but as a fully patched brother, and the fuckin’ Treasurer, I’m saying we ride the fuck out and deal with the details later.”
Watching my dad and Tripp exchange looks but not giving in pisses me off. I step up beside Red. “Fuck this shit, Dad. Get what you’re sayin’, but just sayin’, that’s some bullshit. Since you wanna get all technical, fine. I got my rockers, Jami’s mine. There. Now you got your technicalities. I don’t give a fuck, but Rhett cares about Jenni and Jami, and they need us. So are we don’t with bitchin’ like a bunch of women? Because frankly, if I had been the lead, Rhett and I wouldn’t have pulled in here, but we would have stopped at the Rivera house puttin’ a cap in Ezra Rivera to end all the worries for good. I wouldn’t have even bothered the fuckin’ club. My brother made the right fuckin’ call, now we take his fuckin’ back. Jami is mine, what is the argument now?”
Crunch is trying to do the right thing, for once. And they’re blocking him with technicalities.
The words rip out of me before I can stop them.
And for the first time in months, I can breathe.
Jameson Rivera is mine.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
Two
Jami
Standing at the front door to the trailer I left behind so many years ago, anger fills me. My palms sweat, and my body shakes as adrenaline surges through me.
The craving is fierce. The monster inside me claws, reminding me how a needle, a line, a pill, one solid inhale could numb this storm in seconds. At this moment anything that could give me courage and an escape all at the same time would work. Drugs were always my shield, my blanket, my silence. But they’re out of my system now, burned out through sweat and tears and trembling nights.
And I don’t want to look back.
Drugs distort perception. The high never lasts and when reality crashes around me, I’m left more empty than I was before. Rock bottom is an illusion because the mind always says just one more will do.
I’m here so I can move on with my life.
I’m here to have closure from the past because everything that started here, ends here tonight.
I want to live. I want to breathe. I want to feel. I want to experience every damn thing—good and bad—that I’ve tried to escape from in every single high. I want it all, and I want it free and clear of this motherfucker.
The trailer looms in front of me, rust bleeding down the aluminum siding, weeds crawling up the steps. The windows are clouded with grime. It smells like stale beer and mold even from outside, and just standing here drags me back—nights of hiding in the closet, covering my ears, waiting for him to pass out.
I feel Jenni’s eyes on me as I raise my hand and knock on the old door. Why I give him this courtesy, I don’t know.
A roar from inside: “Go the fuck away!”
My blood turns to ice.
The fear crawls up my spine, battling my anger. I have to do this. No matter what comes next, I have to face him. I have to face my past in order to ever have a future.