False Start (Love and Skate)

A note from Lila:

We all remember that Rex and Maddox’s father was severely mentally unstabl
e. The sayings at the beginning of each chapter are things that were spouted from the mouth of a crazy man. That being said, they are also things that my father says all the time and he is totally sane and totally hilarious. He has said these silly things to me and my sister since we were young. We never pondered the inappropriateness of such things—we were too busy doubled over laughing.

Some are lewd
, some are crude and all of them, every single one, is socially unacceptable.

I don’t know if these sayings are quotes that belong to someone else other than my dad. If they do, I’m sorry. I certainly don’t claim any ownership to them.

This book is a work of fiction. Incidents, names, characters, and places are products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Resemblances to actual locales or events or persons living or dead is coincidental.

Published by

Rebel Writer Productions, LLC. P.O. Box 1711

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70726

Copyrigh
t©
2013 Lila Felix, Rebel Writer Productions, LLC.

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. 

Cover design by Jennifer Johnson @
ZenyaGFX Designs

Editing:
Dawn Bourgeois

Rex

Rat shit, bat shit, cat shit, snot.

Three dogs’ asses tied in a knot.

              They’re all whipped—every damned one of them.  They dote and fawn all over their women to no end.  I just can’t do it.  My mother was at my father’s beckon call all of her life—and what did it get her?  She died, broken, sick and tired—she spent her whole life as his caretaker, never receiving any of the love she gave so freely. 

             
That wouldn’t be me.  Screw the lovey dovey bullshit. 

             
Not that anyone was clamoring for my affections anyway.

             
I felt like shit for not being able to help Storey the day Simon attacked her.  But school was all I had—and I certainly didn’t know that an extra-long lab was going to endanger her life.  I followed the protocol. I called Mad and he was supposed to set up someone else to go after her. But she got out of class early and the rest is history.

             
Sure, I had acquaintances at school and I had Maddox, but I wouldn’t let anyone get close. But if I’d just finished my lab faster I could’ve been there to help her.  I loved that little squirt like she was my own sister and hadn’t been able to face her much since. 

             
I lived in Falcon’s apartment for free, which was really perfect.  It let me save most of my paychecks.  One day I’d have to get a place of my own and with Falcon’s help I’d acquired a pretty decent savings account.  I worked for him part time after school and on Saturdays just filing and copying—running errands. He paid me well.

             
But I still could hear my father calling my mother in the middle of the night.  His whimpers crawled up the walls and infiltrated my ears while I tried to sleep.  And I still checked the locks on the door and windows every five minutes, making sure he couldn’t get out, even though he’d been gone for years.  The need to care for him battered me into someone I didn’t want to be. 

             
And then there was her. I’d pretended not to have my eye on her since I’d gone to my first bout.  I’d heard her speak once.   It was more of a smooth whisper than a voice but I felt bereft after not hearing it again.

             
I only knew her derby name: I Kilda Girl.

             
But my harsh past would clash with her softness and ruin it.  But I could still watch from afar. 

             
And that’s what I intended to do.  Forget the courting, the daisies, the meaningless gestures and empty promises.  They didn’t mean anything in the long run—except something to remember while you drank away your heartache years and years later, alone and miserable.

             
Because that’s all love was—a bitchin’ effed up heartache waiting to happen.

             
That wouldn’t be me.

             
Forget it.

Hayes Elise Madison

I flat out refuse to use that Brazilian Blowout stuff that my sister insists is God’s gift to hair. Because to me, it sounds like some Brazilian person just crapped in their pants—or popped a tire. Either way—no.

This date was no exception. Seven, the number of times Rob had snorted some ungodly fluid into his sinus cavities. I would almost feel better if he’d hocked it up and spit it out—on his plate.
I could just picture the loogie making its way down his throat. Three, that’s how many times he’d asked me what my name was. I even referenced the Jimmy Hendrix song, since I was wearing a purple shirt and my name was Hayes, so Purple Haze. And call me a snob or just picky in general, but who brings a girl to a Thai restaurant and then orders chicken strips like he’s at a Wendy’s drive thru instead of an Asian joint—a good one at that. I mean really, he had to flip the menu to the back, search diligently for the kids’ menu, and order from there. It made me feel like a sex offender. I was on a date with someone twelve years old or under. His meal was probably free with the purchase of mine.

             
I heard a computerized voice tell me I had a text message, the text message from my best friend which would save me from Rob and his constant upheaval of snot. I feigned shock at the content of the text and made my excuses in a hurry.

             
“Goodnight, Haley. Maybe another time.”

             
Hayes, it’s not that hard.

             
I drove back to my apartment. I used to live with my sister Hazel in a two story townhouse in the quarter. It was left to us by our grandfather. He died when I was eighteen and Hazel was sixteen. Now twenty two, I didn’t expect to still be there—while my sister got married at nineteen. What happened to those old Victorian rules? Didn’t she watch the Village? You shouldn’t even be courted until the older sister is spoken for—it’s like
a thing
. She was supposed to wait around until I was properly wooed and wed before she even started looking around. Everyone knew that.

A four bedroom townhouse got lonely.

A shack would get lonely.

             
The phone rang and I knew who it was—my mother. My best friend was my mother’s best friend’s daughter. News traveled fast but bad news of Hayes’ latest bad date traveled like sound.

             
“Hello?”

             
“That bad, huh? Sorry honey.”

             
“It’s okay, Mom.”

             
“Tell me about it.”

             
“He was actually perfect if you discount the snorting of phlegm, the forgetting of my name every five minutes and ordering from the kids’ menu.”

             
She giggled but covered it up, “Good grief, how do you find these guys? They’re all country club on the outside and Oscar the Grouch on the inside.”

             
“I don’t know. It was awful. I wanted to crawl under the table and carve my name into his ankle with a dull spoon.” I whined to her as I plopped on the couch.

             
“That’s pretty graphic. I’m so sorry. Maybe you’re looking for the wrong thing. Why don’t you try to date a different kind of man? I know there’s someone out there for you. You’re such a sweetheart. And I don’t want you to settle.”

             
Settle—hell, I couldn’t even get past the first date.

             
Was it too much to ask for a guy to actually listen to me and remember my name? Was it?

             
I sighed, “I think I’ll just quit looking altogether. Isn’t it one of those things like your keys? The moment when you stop looking for them, is the moment right before you find them? Maybe that’s it. I’m just gonna stop dating for a while. I’m burned out anyway. From now on, I’m just working and skating. Screw the stupid boys.”

             
“Yes, screw the stupid boys! Oh, sorry dear, not you.” My mom chanted with me and then retracted as I heard my dad react.

             
My parents had the perfect marriage. My mom had been the sweet girl and he’d been the rebel boy. It took him four months just to convince her to go out with him. He was a diesel mechanic, dirty and tatted up. But he always, always treated my mother like a queen. And no matter who you talked to, he never had anything but praise for her. If she did anything wrong, the world would never know.

             
“I’m going to bed, Mom. I love you.”             

             
“I love you too.”

             
I tossed my phone on the couch beside me and flipped off those damned high heels. I hated high heels. They hurt and I always got blisters on the balls of my feet. Why did I do this to myself? I always dressed in dresses that otherwise sat under a film of dust in the closet, and shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in, just to impress some guy. And they were always long sleeved dresses to cover up my tats. I always wondered what would happen if a date went beyond the first one. Would I have to always wear those clothes? Would I always have to clomp around in stilettos? Why can’t I just find a guy who likes me for me? I’m not that bad am I? Yes, I play roller derby. Yes, I wear big chunky boots with my vintage dresses. Yes, my hair is purple by the nape of my neck. But I’m nice and I try to be kind to other people.

             
There’s no use in trying to figure it out—it’s what I do to myself after every single date.

             
Screw the stupid boys—I needed that printed on a sticker for my helmet.

             
I flopped into bed after a long, hot bath. The need for sleep swirled in the back of my head, but remained unresolved. The Godfather probably wasn’t the right choice for a background lullaby. But I loved the Godfather. It was always in the DVD player, ready to go. I tossed and turned that night, even though I needed to sleep for the next day.  I had work and then derby practice.

             
The next morning, I woke to the sound of my phone alarm—at two a.m. Rolling out of bed, I sprung into action thinking about my job. I loved my job. Kneading the dough, the smell of yeast bread rising, creating something no one had seen—it was constantly new and always changing. Working at a traditional French bakery was my life’s dream which started in my mother’s kitchen. She let me sit on stools and roll out cinnamon rolls, pinch the edge of pie crusts, twist bread sticks to my heart’s content. She never turned me away or complained when I moved too slowly.

             
I dressed quickly in a white t-shirt and white cotton pants. Throwing my chef’s coat over my shoulder and grabbing my derby bag, I ran out of the townhouse with my phone in my mouth and keys in my hand. I stuffed everything in the passenger seat of my Fiat 500 and got on my way. The croissants were calling me already.

             
“Hayes, you want coffee?”

             
Did I want coffee? Do butts have holes?

             
“Yeah, make it a strong one.”

             
“Didn’t sleep again,” Vera asked me. As my best friend, she knew when I didn’t sleep and when something was wrong with me. She and her mother were like the gossip train so I knew I’d been discussed at length in the not so distant past.

             
“No.”

             
“Lunch break, you and me. I want to know all about phlegm boy.”

             
“Gross. Please do not call him that. It will ruin my appetite.”

             
“Let’s rename him Flemming. That’s our code name.”

             
“Let’s not name him at all. Let’s pretend last night never happened.”

             
“Okay, okay, jeez,” she backed away and took her place on the other side of the large metal table. Vera owned the bakery, called Pain Perdue and she’d gone to school and majored in business to appease her parents. I’d gone to culinary school to appease myself. My parents were completely supportive. If I’d wanted to become a part-time toe painter, they would’ve asked me if I was happy and been the part-time toe painter support group from heaven. As it was, they stopped by every day to buy something from the bakery.

             
While I stirred and worked, I imagined the batter or dough was Rob’s head. A tear formed in the corner of my eye as I allowed my previous date to flitter through my mind and I turned to wipe it away with my face in the sleeve of my coat. I couldn’t let Vera see how much it hurt me.

             
Is it too much to ask for a nice guy?

Rex

There once was a lad from Vass, whose balls were made out of brass.

He knocked them together and made stormy weather

And lightning shot out of his ass.

              “Get out of here. Go out. Go do something.”

             
“I’m fine,” I huffed out at Falcon. He was always trying to get me to have a life. Always inviting me to family functions. But I couldn’t face them, not even my own brother, Maddox. He was the worst. I mean, I’d practically gotten Storey killed by my determination to finish my stupid lab. I just couldn’t do it. I could barely even look at myself in the mirror.

             
He made me leave, eventually, and offered to give me a ride home since I’d walked to work. It was only a few blocks from my apartment. And since I drove a lot back and forth to school, the walk was a nice change of pace.

             
“You made a wrong turn.”

             
“No, I didn’t. You’re coming to family dinner—the days are different because of the derby schedule. It’s been three weeks. It’s either that or Mom is going to hunt you down.”

             
“Damn it, Falcon!”

             
“It was way too easy, by the way. And while we’re on the subject, none of us blame you for what happened to Storey—none of us. It was over a year ago. Let it go, man.”

             
“Whatever.”

             
Why couldn’t they just let me wallow in my—me?

             
This family couldn’t just let somebody be—they were all little mini-Oprah Winfreys, all trying to give me their own version of a master life class or some bullshit. Here’s a master class lesson: Kiss My Ass, Leave Me Alone.

             
The restaurant was always busy now. Sylvia and Chase hired two extra chefs and had expanded the building the month before. It now held over three hundred people instead of just one hundred and the family had their own room for family dinners now. This is why I had made it a point not to attend. There was nowhere to escape.

             
We walked in and I tried desperately to hide behind Falcon until all the hugs were done but I was a little taller than him and it never worked, damned hobbit.

             
“We’ve missed you, Son.” Sylvia always referred to me as her son, but it was simply out of pity. Everyone knew that. I was the only male at the table not related and it was no secret. Mad pulled on one of my suspenders and dragged me to sit next to him. I managed a cool greeting to everyone and waited to be served. Conversations bubbled around the table of babies, and happenings and derby bouts. There was only one reason I ever went to those bouts and I didn’t even know her name. But I listened to the discussion anyway. As usual, one of these females was constantly pissed because being pregnant took them out of commission on the track. This time it was Reed. Not only was she pregnant, but she was having twins, so she could barely walk sometimes, much less skate. And Nellie, she was trying to get pregnant. Storey was waiting until she finished school before she even thought about it, which I thought was smart of her. Though Maddox gave her hints about it all the time. He wanted a baby—bad.

             
That’s all they thought about: pregnant, pregnant, pregnant. I sat at a table of rabbits.

             
I made myself smile at the appropriate parts and laugh shallowly at the right times but inside I hated every minute of it. I’d convinced myself to put on the façade, the one that looked like I was adamantly against the ‘love’ thing. I didn’t need it—didn’t want it—was allergic to it for all intents and purposes. But I knew the truth.

             
I was lonely. I was so lonely that I slept with the TV on just to have some noise in the place. It didn’t help a damned bit, but I had to try something to get his voice out of my head. It was there constantly. It got so bad that I brought my stupid ass into a psychiatrist’s office once—hoping they would tell me something was wrong with me just to have some confirmation. But no, she said I was normal and was just still in mourning.  The hell I was, I was relieved when he died. Yeah, I cried. Yeah, I missed having someone to call my dad, but I didn’t miss him. I didn’t even know the real him. I knew the one who spouted off nonsense. And most people had moments of lucidity, but mine didn’t. My mom said he did when he was younger, but by the time I came along those days were long gone. The only dad I knew tried to escape, threw fits about taking his medicine, and made my life and my mom’s life a living hell.