Another One Bites the Dust (26 page)

Orlando was one of those people that just plain old gave you the creeps.  All he had to do was walk in the same room, and I’d walk out.  I remember one summer we were playing chicken wars, and he’d tried to get me on top of his shoulders.  It was the third inappropriate touch that had me seeing red.  Instead of accepting, I’d chosen my dad’s shoulders and accidentally on purpose kicked Orlando in the face.

The man was a toucher, and as of right now, if he touched me, I might puke my delicious Chicken Spaghetti up onto his perfectly pleated Chinos.  He was also married to the bane of my existence.  Lita. 

Lita married him, and for some reason thought that I wanted Orlando.  Not to mention the fact that that would be incest in all, but from the moment I’d met her, she’d been beyond bitchy.

“Hey there, Payton.  Who’s this?”  She asked sweetly while eyeing Max over my shoulder.

My body tensed.  “My husband.”

“I thought you were with that Rory guy.  What happened to him?”  She asked maliciously.

The bitch knew exactly what happened with him.  My whole family did.  For the past year, every time I saw her she’d bring Rory up.  She knew I didn’t like him.  She also knew that I suffered an attack, and just the mention of Rory’s name brought back haunting memories.  Not only that, she attended my freaking wedding! 

My head chose that moment to start pickaxing the back of my eyes, and my back started a low throb that temporarily stole my attention from Lita, as well as Max’s.  Which she didn’t like.  Of course, to bring the attention back to her, she had to say something disgusting.

“Are you gaining weight?”  She asked.

Max’s low growl proceeded her question.  “Does it look like she’s fat?  Fuck.  Payton’s all belly, and it’s incredibly obvious.  Stop being a bitch and move.  You’re holding the line up.”  He snarled.

I’d totally be on my knees right now, if I wasn’t in a public place that is.  I smiled bright up at him, and then stuck my tongue out at Lita.  Take that, bitch.  The bounce of Max’s chest from behind me let me know that my tongue action didn’t go unnoticed by him.  Not that I thought it would or anything.  You’d have to be a super spy to get anything past him.  Hell, he knew me better than I knew me. 

She practically hissed as she turned and moved up the line.  My lip curled when I saw her skip over the deliciousness that was chicken spaghetti.  There must be something wrong with the girl; she didn’t even fill the plate up.  I mean, it’s a buffet, what person in their right mind wouldn’t fill it to brimming?

I smiled as I saw Max mound the spaghetti up until the plate started folding in on itself.  Now that was how it was done.

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I was getting death looks from my great grandmother as I called out my eighth Bingo, so I decided now was the time to go see what the boys were up to.  Grabbing my coat and my Bingo prizes, I went in search of my other half.

Stepping outside the front door, my eyes scanned the kids playing on the playground are.  I surveyed the area until I spotted him standing in a group of big burly men.  Those men were the ones I was talking about earlier that I’d hoped wouldn’t kill him.  Obviously they’d hit it off, and I had no need to worry. 

I walked up just in time to hear Max telling the story about the roach I found in our bedroom the previous night.

“There she was, standing in her underwear on top of the dresser.  She was screaming bloody murder.  Then she went all Al Capone on me saying, ‘I want him dead.  I want his family dead.  I want his house burned to the ground.’  Except I had to explain to her, that if we burned his house to the ground that we’d be taking ours along with it.  I swear to God, she slept practically on top of me that night.”

That big bastard!  He’d promised me he wasn’t going to say anything.  I mean, who wouldn’t have jumped out of bed the way I did and screamed?  It crawled across my pillow!  There was a motherfuckin’ roach in my motherfuckin’ bed!

Spotting a Nerf football on the ground next to my feet, I picked it up and let it fly.  Then turned and ran.  I looked over my shoulder just as it struck him in the middle of his back.  He tensed, and then turned around, eyes fastening to my retreating body in an instant.  I squeaked and brought my mind back to my task.  I started huffing within the first twenty yards, but I sure didn’t stop.  I probably looked like a freakin’ penguin.

I was running and laughing so hard that I dropped the tub of caramel popcorn, but I didn’t dare stop and get it.  He’d catch me for sure.  Dodging a toddling kid that I’d never seen before in my life, I chanced a look over my shoulder to see him bearing down on me fast.  Max was big, but don’t let that fool you.  He was quick as a cat, too.  I had a cheering section coming from the opposite side of the swings, and I gave them a thumbs up as I passed. 

  Knowing I would keel over if I didn’t stop, I circled around the merry go round and stopped while putting it between us.  “I didn’t mean to!”

“Spankings.  Big fat spankings.”  Max growled.

“Oh, don’t lie to yourself.  You’d never touch a hair on my head.”  I said.

Just as I said that, he vaulted the damn merry go round, and I screeched.  He stopped in front of me, not touching and asked, “You going to run?”

Thinking it would be best to surrender, I opened my mouth to apologize when a dark sedan with tinted windows barreled down the street, blowing through the stop sign.

“Molly!”  Joe called from the entrance to the hall.

Max and I turned, scanning the area.  Steve was about forty yards away from us doing the same.  My dad and Bennett had stopped what they were doing as well.  Joe called for her daughter again when we all heard it.

“What mama?”  Molly called.

I turned towards the sound of her voice and saw her near the parking lot with her ball.  Then the little scenario played out in front of us in real time.  The ball slipped from her grasp and bounced off her foot, slowly rolling into the street.

“Molly!  No!”  Steve bellowed.

“Oh, my God.  Molly!  Stop!”  Joe screamed.

Steve and Max streaked across the open ground, both way too far away to stop what was about to happen.  Others were running also, but it didn’t matter.  No one was going to be able to get there in time.  The only thing that was a surprise was the car didn’t break, swerve, or even slow down.

“Molly!”  Steve begged. 

It was the sound of his voice that finally had her turning, but it was too late.  The car collided with her arm, spinning her little body around so hard and fast that she flipped two cartwheels until her limp body came to rest partially under a parked SUV.  Steve and Max got there at the same time, both dropping to their knees beside her.

Steve reached down as if to touch her when I screamed at him.  “Don’t touch her!”

I found myself pushing large bodies out of my way, taking little care in it as I dropped down to my knees beside her.  I assessed the situation.  I noted that her left arm was badly misshapen, and there were obvious scrapes and bruises covering a few patches of the exposed pieces of skin I could see, but luckily no blood.  Her right side was underneath the SUV, head near the tire.

Joe made it up to us, and I gave Max a look that clearly stated to get her back, and not to let her see.  “Daddy, there is a blue and yellow medical kit in Max’s blazer.  Go get it.  Steve, I want you to place both of your hands on either side of her head, and don’t move.  Hold her perfectly still.”

My fingers found the way to the pulse in her neck, and I was relieved to find a steady throbbing rhythm.  It was steady and strong, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Her breathing wasn’t labored, so I got back up to my knees and looked at Steve.

Just as my eyes locked with his, a wailing moan came from Molly.  “Daddy!”

Steve’s eyes latched on to his daughter’s golden brown, and he smiled at her.  “It’s okay, baby.  Daddy needs you to stay still.” 

Of course, being told to do something doesn’t work, and she started to squirm.  “Don’t hold her head still if she wants to move.  Just let her go, it might make it worse if you tried to keep her in place.”  I explained.

“It hurts daddy.  It hurts, hurts, hurts.  Kiss it daddy, make it stop.”  She cried.  Tears were rolling down her cheeks and into her hair.  She rolled too far to one side and jostled her arm, tearing another heartbreaking sob from her chest.  “Mommy, peas.  Hurts, hurts, hurts.”

Each and every whimper of pain tore something apart inside of me.  This was my first child patient, and it was truly excruciating to listen hear, let alone witness.  Her sweet little baby voice would haunt me for years to come.  Ambulance sirens wailed eerily in the distance, and we all tried to calm Molly as we waited for the ambulance to get here.

Steve had tears running steadily down his cheeks, as I’m sure everyone around us had the same emotions hammering through them.  Molly continued her chant of pain, and we all took deep breaths as the paramedics finally arrived.

The rest of the situation was a whirlwind of activity as they immobilized Molly, and then strapped her onto the baby backboard.  She was riding to the hospital with her mother and father within four minutes of the ambulance’s arrival on scene.

My body seemed to give out as soon as the boxy shape of the ambulance disappeared from sight.  I dropped to my knees and lost every single bit of the lunch I’d had not even an hour before.  Max’s hands pulled my hair back, and I started to sob.  Nasty, gut wrenching sobs that could be described as nothing more than good old-fashioned blubbering.  Snot and all.  I buried my face into Max’s chest and cried my heart out.

Logically, I knew she’d be okay.  She was talking, and responsive.  My head was a different story.  My brain kept that sickening scene on repeat, and couldn’t stop the images from searing to my brain.

“It’s okay, baby.  She’s going to be fine.  She’ll have a bright pink cast that you’ll have to write nice things on instead of profanity since she’s two.  She’ll think it’s the best thing ever.  Shhh.”  He said as he rocked us.

I smelled my dad before he touched me or announced his presence.  He smelled like oranges and leather, and the smell calmed my roiling stomach down significantly.  He wrapped his arms around Max and I both; Max stiffened slightly, but then relaxed and allowed the touch.

“I love you, sweetheart.”  My dad said voice trembling.

“What the heck happened?”  My mom asked slightly frantic.

“Molly got into the road.  The car hit her, and didn’t even stop!”  Bennett all but yelled.

That got everyone’s attention. 

“What do you mean it didn’t stop?”  I asked him as I scanned for the dark car.

“That’s what I mean.  Whoever it was didn’t even stop.”

“License plate number is 57H-G6H7.”  Brandon, another cousin and former Seal, said from the street side.

A Texas State Trooper was questioning my brother as he tried to make sense of what we’d witnessed.  Max surrendered me to my father, and we both watched as Max pulled his cell phone out and called someone.  Once the phone call was done, he spoke with the Trooper, and then we went to the hospital and waited.

Four hours passed before we heard that Molly was going to be just fine.  Aside from a mild concussion, surgery on her broken arm, and scrapes covering her face and arms, she was doing great.  Her spirit was high, and she loved the funny nurses that worked on the pediatric ward.  Her room was covered in fairies, which she absolutely loved. 

We left the family smiling and laughing, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong.  Max wasn’t acting right, as if something was wrong other than the obvious.

I finally got tired of his silence once we were lying in bed that night.  “Tell me.”

The silence stretched out awkwardly, and I was just about to open my mouth again when he blew me out of the water.  “O’Hare almost killed a freakin baby.”

“What?”  I asked confused, and then understanding finally dawned.  “That was her?”

I absolutely lost it.  What sick person would run over a little girl on purpose?  At first, I wasn’t aware that it was anything more than a horrible accident, but the more I thought about it, the more the details became clear.  Granted, Molly was close to the road, but she wasn’t in it.  Where she was hit was a flat road, and had a speed limit of thirty miles an hour due to the school that was located across the street.

I remembered the driver running the stop sign.  Also, I remembered hearing the revving of an engine.

The driver was definitely not going anywhere close to the speed limit.  “You have to do something.”  I demanded.

“I already did.  I don’t think it’ll be very pretty either.”  He said thoughtfully.  “We got some information right before the reunion.  I was going to tell you when we got back, but now I think I’ll keep that to myself.”

“What did you do?”  I asked.

“I won’t be telling you.  Go to sleep sweetheart.”  He said and snapped the bedside lamp off.

The room plunged into darkness, and I debated whether to ask him what he was going to do.  However, I replayed what he said, and how he said it, and knew that he wouldn’t tell me no matter how much I begged. 

I would just have to trust him.  I would have to trust that he wouldn’t get himself killed.

What I could do was make love to him, and that was what I did.  Soft and slow, I loved him, as he needed to be loved.  I worked him until he was begging for release, muscles and tendons straining, and still held off until the last possible moment.  We both peaked together, and I knew that that would be the last time we would have to spend some alone time together for a while.

It was only when I was nearly asleep that he finally spoke.

“Please don’t hate me.”  He whispered against my hair.

Chapter 14

Only trust people with big butts.  They cannot lie.

T-shirt

Max

“You’re going to end up in jail, or worse, dead.”  James said from his position beside me.

“I don’t really know what else to do.  If we leave it like it is, I’ll end up dead anyway.”  I reminded him.