Unattainable (33 page)

“
But he’s so much older
than her.”

I glanced up at Hayley and shrugged.
“But he’s a nice man with a good job.”

She smiled down at me. “And he doesn’t
ride a motorcycle.”

I smiled back. “There is
that.”

“
Daddy rides a
motorcycle,” Christopher said. “Someday I wanna ride one
too.”

“
How about a pickup
truck?” I suggested. “Or a muscle car? How about your very own fire
truck?”

“
Nope.” He shook his head
exaggeratedly. “I want to be just like Daddy.”

“
Well,” I said, sighing.
“I tried.”

“
There’s a Phish concert
next week,” Joe said. “I could always take him with me, introduce
him to the other side of the tracks. Where the real men
are.”

I snorted. “By real, you mean men who
like to wear Crocs, get high, and sing along to Tom Petty while
reminiscing about the high school crush that never was?”

“
Yep,” Joe said proudly
and thumped his fist on his chest. “Real men.”

Hayley started laughing and I smiled
along with her. They were so perfect for each other, so in tune to
the other. Joe might not be what I would consider aesthetically
pleasing, he might play video games more than he helped out around
the house, he would probably never stop getting high, but even so
he loved his wife. And despite his shortcomings, she loved
him.

But people didn’t need to change to
suit each other. They just needed to accept their differences. You
could love someone just the way they were and still live in harmony
together.

I’d realized this too late; because
when I had, ZZ had already taken the man I loved away from
me.

• • •

Grabbing the head of thick brown hair
between his thighs, Cage punched his hips up. “Faster,” he growled.
Although gagging, the stupid bitch complied, probably because he
was holding her head right where he wanted her and she had no
choice but to do whatever the fuck he told her to.

They were all whores. Every last one of
them. They deserved to be treated like the fucked-up bitches they
truly were.

And yet, still he felt nothing.
Absolutely fucking nothing.

Cursing, he yanked her head up and used
his grip on her hair to toss her beside him. Straddling her chest,
he gripped the sides of her face, forcing her mouth open. Holding
himself above her, he thrust his dick into her open mouth and began
fucking her face. Fast and hard. She was gagging prolifically now
and her eyes were wide and watering and finally, motherfucking
finally, he felt something. Some twisted sliver of
satisfaction.

He came hard in her throat and
immediately pulled out. She started gasping, coughing, and tried to
turn her head. Slapping his hand over the girl’s mouth, he leaned
down. “Swallow it,” he demanded, grinning down at her.

She tried but she couldn’t. She was
choking, coughing too hard, and spit and semen erupted from her
lips and between his fingers.

Disgusted, he climbed off her and wiped
his hand clean on her hair.

“
S-s-sorry,” she choked
out, rolling away from him, still coughing.

“
Yeah,” he muttered as he
swung his legs out of bed. “You are sorry.”

Bending down beside his nightstand
table, he grabbed his credit card, dumped out the last of his
eight-ball, and started cutting.

“
This shit is choppy as
fuck,” he hissed.

“
Do you know where we
live?” she asked. “It’s hard to come by grade-A shit in the middle
of nowhere. Don’t see why you didn’t just dip into your old man’s
stash.”

Cage positioned his rolled-up twenty
over the first line and inhaled every last granule before glancing
back at her.

“
Am I fuckin’ stupid?” he
said, sniffing. “That shit is for sale, locked, stocked, and
accounted for. Not for personal fuckin’ use. I tap into it and
they’ll know.”

“
I was just sayin’,” she
muttered.

Cage shot her a dirty look before
bending over to blow another line.

“
Don’t fuckin’ speak
then,” he shot back, pinching his nose with his thumb and
forefinger and inhaling hard. The tingling burn hit the back of his
throat and he swallowed that shit.

Wetting his middle finger, he swiped it
across the wooden platform, picking up the last of it. Then,
sucking his finger into his mouth, he rubbed it across his
gums.

Ah, chemically induced energy. The only
way he could find the will to get out of bed anymore. Grabbing his
smokes, he lit one up and coughed through the first few drags,
cursing as his lungs began to burn something fierce. Sitting down
on the floor, he leaned against his bed and left his head fall
back.

His left lung hurt all the damn time.
Motherfucking constantly. And he’d been told, by several
specialists in no uncertain terms, that it was going to hurt for
the rest of his life. Apparently when one of your lungs was nothing
but scar tissue or some such shit, living out the rest of your days
in pain 24/7 was just one of the many perks.

He wasn’t supposed to be smoking. He
wasn’t supposed to be doing anything that caused damage to his
lungs, not that he gave two fucks about what happened to his lungs.
In fact, he didn’t give two fucks about what happened to him or
anyone else.

“
You want me to see if
Bucket’s got any of that China White left?”

Cage glanced over at her. “Bucket’s
dippin’?”

She shrugged. “Fucked him a few months
back, and he paid me in smack.”

“
You fucked Bucket?” he
asked, disgusted. She couldn’t have been any more than nineteen or
twenty and Bucket was nearly as old as his old man.

She started laughing. “I’ve been
fucking Bucket since I was fifteen,” she said. “Since my parents
first moved me to this dump of a town.”

Nice. Really fucking nice. She looked
proud of it too.

Fucking whore. They were all
motherfucking whores. But the biggest of whore of them all, the one
who’d fucked him so hard he wasn’t sure he’d ever get back
up…

Tegen.

He’d been heavily drugged after he’d
come out of surgery. He didn’t remember much, but as the pain had
become more bearable and they’d begun weaning him off the heavy
dosage, he clearly remembered Tegen not being there. At first he’d
panicked, thinking something had happened to her, that ZZ had shot
her, that she was just as fucked-up as he was or worse,
dead.

Then he’d made the mistake of asking
about her and his old man had filled in the blanks. She was fine.
Unharmed. And not here.

Not once did she come to check on him.
He was laid up in her fucking city, for shit’s sake, and
yet…nothing.

He wasn’t going to lie; that shit
fucking hurt. Nearly as bad as the holes in his body. He’d faked
more pain than he was actually in and went back to being too dosed
up to care.

And he’d been dipping ever since.
Because when he wasn’t fucked-up, that shit hurt. The burning
inside his lungs…

Yeah, he take that over the ache inside
his heart, any day.

He’d told that bitch he loved her. And
she’d run out on him.

Stupidly he gone after her, gotten
himself shot, and he’d motherfucking died. Twice.

And she’d run out on him.

If she’d been seeking payback for what
he’d done to her, she’d fucking succeeded. And then some. And yet
he was still thinking about her. He still fucking wanted
her.

He was stupid. A first-class moron.
He’d gone his entire life jumping beds, not giving a fuck, only to
end up in love with the one bitch who’d, once upon a time, actually
cared about him and he’d burned her. Fitting.

Grabbing the bottle off his nightstand,
he took a long, deep swallow and washed away the burn of
humiliation with a different kind.

He was on his fourth chug when his
bedroom door swung wide open and hit the wall with a loud crack. He
didn’t bother turning.

“
You know what fuckin’
time it is?” a loud, angry, familiar voice demanded.

Cage didn’t turn his head. “Do I
fuckin’ care?”

“
Bitch,” Deuce said. “Get
your clothes on and get the fuck out.”

Behind him, Cage heard the girl
scrambling to get off the bed. A few moments later his door slammed
closed and heavy footsteps crossed the room. His father’s face came
into view, far too close and a little blurry. Cage wrinkled up his
nose. “Back the fuck up, old man.”

Deuce’s eyes narrowed. “You think I
don’t know what you been doin’? Half the time you ain’t even smart
enough to clean off your fuckin’ nose.”

Cage snorted and Deuce’s nostrils
flared. “Somethin’ funny?”

“
Yeah. It’s funny that you
think I give two fucks if you know or not.”

“
My boys don’t fuckin’
use,” he growled. “You know this.”

“
Yeah?” Cage shot back.
“Tell that to Bucket.”

Deuce stood up straight and glared down
at him. “Bucket’s got side business goin’ on, he ain’t usin’ shit.
You’d know this if you picked your fuckin’ head up outta the powder
for a fuckin’ minute.”

Cage took another long swallow of Jack
before looking up at his father. “No, asshole, I’d know it if you
actually told me somethin’ once in a while instead of treatin’ me
like shit on your fuckin’ shoe.”

“
You a little fuckin’
girl?” Deuce demanded. “You need me to wipe your goddamn ass for
you too?”

Cage’s temper flared to life and before
he knew what he was doing, he was whipping the bottle of Jack
across the room. He shot to his feet, eye to eye with his father,
just as it hit the wall and shattered.

“
You’re a shit father, you
know that?” he yelled. “You’re a shit person too! Yet you get
handed every fuckin’ thing, none of it deserved!”

Moments later Cage was pinned up
against the wall by his throat, his father up in his face. “You
think I don’t fuckin’ know it?” Deuce spat. “You think I ain’t
grateful, you’re motherfuckin’ wrong! I’ve been where the fuck you
are, you little shit. I’ve been pissed off at the whole
motherfuckin’ world, I’ve been fuckin’ shot a fuck of a lot more
than you, and unlike you, I had an old man who didn’t give a
motherfuck if I lived or died.”

Cage smirked. His old man thought he
gave a fuck that he’d gotten shot. He didn’t. In fact, his old man
could shoot him right the fuck now and he still wouldn’t give a
fuck.

“
So what you’re sayin’,”
Cage drawled, “is that I should be followin’ in your fuckin’
footsteps, get you shanked in the showers like you did to your old
man?”

Deuce’s nostrils flared.

“
Shit’s been goin’ on long
enough,” he growled, squeezing Cage’s throat. “Time for you to
flush your fuckin’ bullshit and get back to livin’.”

Living? Fucking living?

Rage boiled up inside of him and he
found himself gripping his father’s wrist and yanking the man’s
hands off his throat.

“
FUCK YOU!” he roared,
shoving Deuce backward and immediately advancing on him. “You call
my life living? I ain’t livin’! I’ve just been followin’ you
around, pickin’ up your fuckin’ messes! I ain’t never had anything
that was mine!”

He shoved Deuce again. “It’s all been
yours! All of it! The club, the boys, Eva and the kids! They’re all
fuckin’ yours! I got nothin’! Fuckin’ nothin’!”

Cage would have known it was coming but
as it was he was too pumped up on drug-fueled adrenaline and didn’t
see his father’s fist until after it had collided with his
face.

Lying on the floor, rubbing his jaw, he
blinked up at his father’s towering form.

“
You really are fuckin’
stupid,” Deuce said roughly. “You’re my fuckin’ kid, my son, and
everything I have, it’s always been yours. Who you think I’m
passin’ that gavel to?”

“
Fuck your gavel,” Cage
sneered. “Fuck your club and fuck you.”

Deuce stared down at him for a
heartbeat and then he turned away.

Cage continued to lie on the floor long
after his bedroom door had slammed shut.

Fuck his old man. Fuck this club. And
fuck himself.

But most of all…

Fuck Tegen.

• • •

His head a mess, Deuce stormed out of
Cage’s room, slammed the door closed behind him, and took off down
the hall.

His kid was going to die if he kept
this shit up. Barely a year after ZZ had blown two holes through
his lung and he was not only still smoking but blowing lines and
who knew what else. Fucking dirty whores too.

Sighing angrily, he scrubbed his hands
over his face. Where the fuck did he keep going wrong? No matter
what he fucking did, it was never enough, not for any of them.
Except Eva. She was the lone person on this earth he’d ever been
enough for.

“
Jesus fuck,” he muttered.
“I’d be fuckin’ screwed without her.”