Innocent Lies (21 page)

Ethan shoved Charlie’s shoulder
before returning his hand to mine. It was the last time he let go
of my hand. “He also has that old age confusion setting in.” Ethan
whispered in my ear.

“Do I get a proper
introduction?” A distinguish man leaned against the doorway between
what appeared to be a living room and the kitchen. He was close to
seventy, but still stood straight and exuded an air of cockiness.
He had to be Ethan’s dad. They had the same piercing brown eyes and
he had a cigar bobbing from his mouth as he talked.

I instantly disliked
him. Not only because he was a jackass, but he was the one that
sent Ethan on some mission were he got the shit beat out of him.
“
Don’t forget until yesterday
he wanted you dead, Dylan.”
My conscience eagerly reminded me.
“Shut up, it was Ethan’s uncle.”
I reminded it.

“My love, this is
my dad Neal Asher. Father, this is Dylan, my heart.” His voice had
a strong warning behind it. Ethan squashed my hand.

Neal nodded. “Nice to meet you,
Dylan. I hope to get to know you better.” He reached out his hand
to shake mine. I looked at it. “Ethan and I had a long talk.
Welcome.”

I shook Neal’s hand and tried not
to visibly flinch. It didn’t quite work out that way. Ethan wrapped
his arm around me as I clutched onto him. My chest heaved. I felt
like I was betraying the very core of who I was standing in the
home of the monster who attacked me; and shaking hands with the man
who a day earlier wanted me dead. A scream was laying just at the
surface, clawing to escape. I caught Neal’s expression out of the
corner of my eyes. He seemed to be sorrowful. Neal had lost a son
and was still willing to try for Ethan’s sake. I could do the
same.

A young boy that looked to be
about ten or eleven charged in the room, “Uncle E,” he screamed,
and ran right into Ethan. Ethan fell backwards and moaned out in
pain. If it weren’t for the death grip I had on him he would have
fallen flat on his backside.

“Hey, John-boy,”
Ethan said through gritted teeth. He tried to hide how bad he was
actually hurting, but it was written all over his face. And I was
not referring to the black-eye, swollen lip, or even busted up
cheek bone.

“Are you going to
play football with me later? Please.” John, his nephew, I presumed,
begged.

Ethan disheveled his hair. “Not
today, buddy.” He bent down to whisper in John’s ear. “I don’t want
you showing me up in front of Dylan.”

John smiled. Ethan was really good
with kids. Hell, Ethan was good at everything.

“
What the hell happened to you?” A neat,
classy-looking blonde about forty walked in. She didn’t fit in with
the rest of that crowd.
Miss Prudence in the flesh.
She had on a black turtleneck, accented with a hot
pink scarf, and a pair of black slacks. She was the epitome of
elegance. She went to stand by Neal, who placed his arm around her,
protectively.

“Hey to you too, sis. Lydia, this
is Dylan. Dylan, my sister Lydia, the princess. John, the champ
here.” Ethan gripped John’s shoulder. “Is the best thing she has
ever done.”

“E, play nice,” Helen said, sternly
and shook a finger at him.

“So are you going
to answer me? Who beat the hell out of you?” Lydia crossed her arms
and gave the same piercing stare Ethan did when he was
furious.

“A guy tried to
pick up Dylan.” Ethan shot her my favorite lopsided smile.

“She should’ve left with him.
Ethan, you look like you got the . . .”

“Shit beat out of you.” Charlie
said with a laugh, and gripped Ethan’s hand, slipping him a clear
baggy.

I was livid until I saw him hand
it back to Charlie. “I don’t want this shit.” Ethan
said.

“Bro, you’re hurting.” He walked
backwards and held up his hands pleading his innocent. “It’s for
pain.”

“Take it, baby, it
will make you feel better.” His mother butted in and said.

“Like hell, it will. You know what
that shit does to me. I will not go back there.” He screamed, and
laid his head over on mine, calming down. “I have too much to live
for now.”

I tightened the grip I had on his
hand. He turned and lugged me down the hall. He walked into a
bedroom. Immediately, I knew it was his childhood room.

I started to look around when
Ethan rammed his fist through my hair. His hands hooked around my
neck, and he pulled my hair at the nap. It just did not hurt. His
lips descended on mine with such force that it knocked the breath
from my lungs. He didn’t let up as he scraped his tongue along the
inside of my mouth. I started to taste blood causing me to jerk
back. The cut along his lip had busted open and blood dripped down
his chin. I wiped the trace of blood remaining on my mouth. “Are
you okay, baby?” I asked. He looked like he could devour
me.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. My
damn family.” He slapped the back of the bedroom door. “I promise
you I will never go back there again. The only good that ever came
out of my drug use was having plenty to give you when you were
hurting after that god-awful attack.”

I licked the back of my thumb and
rubbed over the blood on his chin. “I don’t think they were trying
to get you to go back there. You are hurting and nobody here wants
to see you hurt.” I lightly kissed his lip. “Especially
me.”

“I was a bastard on the stuff and
fought all the damn time. That is how I got the hobby of beating
the hell out of sweet and innocent women before I fucked them. You
would have hated me then.”

I ran my thumb over
the cut on his cheek.
I doubt
I could have ever hated you. But I am through with all the
bullshit.
I slapped him
across the chest. “You are stupid, but I love you. Please E, make
all of it stop. Make all the lies stop. I would walk through hell
to be with you, but no more lies. Not even little innocent
lies.”

He led me to the bed and sat down,
never letting my hand go. “I had to break Devon out of
jail.”

No, E, you
didn’t.
I flopped down beside
him and twisted my fingers around the hem of my sweater. “What are
you talking about?”

“Devon got caught with some, a lot
of drugs while he was still on probation for your attack. He is not
only my best friend, but my uncle’s step-son too. He was getting
transported from the jail to the courthouse. To get them to finally
agree to leave you alone, I had to stop the truck and break him
out.” He fell back on the bed. I laid down beside him. “The cops
fought harder than anybody dreamed. It doesn’t matter now. You’re
safe and Devon is on some island somewhere drinking a
mojito.”

“
E, you can go to prison. Who cares if I’m safe
if I can’t be with you?”
Why does it matter if you lose everything because of
me?

“I care, and beautiful, I’m okay.
The only person who has ever brought my family down is you. If I
hadn’t let you live that son of a bitch you lived with would have
never ran his damn mouth. He told the cops all he knew, that is how
they got my uncle too.” He crushed me to him. “The smartest thing
I’ve ever done was let you live. I thank God every day that he gave
me you and if that means my uncle had to pay for a few of his sins,
oh well, karma is a bitch.” He planted a kiss on the side of my
head. “Plus, I owe Devon. If he hadn’t called me that day Jamie
would have killed you.”

What more was there to say? It was
hard enough being in that home without digging into anymore lies. I
started to look around his room. It was still furnished with a
simple dresser, a full size bed, bedside table, and a desk. The
wall opposite a large window were shelf after shelf crammed with
books. My Ethan was a bookworm from an early age. Over the bed was
an oversized poster of Porsche 959. I pointed to it.

“It’s my dream
car. It was made the year I was born.” He shrugged his shoulder and
blushed.

I poked him in the stomach.
“Replace that sweet ride of yours, your baby?”

“My baby, maybe,
but never my lady.” He hoisted me up on his back. “Hold on
tight.”

I hooked my arms around his neck
when a plump, jolly, older lady barged in with both hands covering
her eyes. I recognized her immediately from the pictures Ethan had
of her. It was his favorite sister, Kristina.

“Ethan, sweetie, hope I’m not
interrupting anything.”

“I’m only in the
middle of fucking my girlfriend.”

She started to back out of the
room as I reached around and punched Ethan in the
stomach.

“Ow,” he screamed
and fell, throwing both of us on the bed. “Shit, Privy, that really
did hurt.” He looked up and yelled for Kristina to come
back.

She walked in and seemed a little
too shy to be an Asher. “E, even if you have no respect for me,
have some for Dylan.”

“Me, you’re the
one that busted in here like you would catch us in the middle of
something.” Ethan said and pulled me over onto his lap.

Kristina plopped down beside us.
“It wouldn’t be the first time I caught my baby brother doing
things no sister should ever see.”

I buried my face in the crook of
his shoulder. I might have been the first girl he invited home to
meet mommy, but I was by far not his first girl. He stroked my hair
and kissed the top of my head. “You’re my only future, Privy,” he
whispered, again knowing my thoughts.

“Knock, knock.”
Charlie said as he walked through the door.

“Damn, it’s worse than when I was a
kid.” Ethan clasped my hip. “What the hell do you want?”

“Dylan,” Charlie
said with a smirk.

“Sorry man, she’s
spoken for.” Ethan said, deliberately licking his lips. His tongue
mesmerized me as it moved across his upper lip. Ethan didn’t have
to speak, I was his.

“No more than five
minutes and then she is all yours again.” Charlie tilted his head
to the side and held up five fingers.

Ethan grudgingly shifted me off
his lap, but he was amused, too. “Come on, Kristina. Let’s let
Charlie have his say.” Ethan grinned, took Kristina’s hand in his,
and pulled her out of the room.

“What’s up?’ I
asked, bringing my hand to my face and scratching my chin. I didn’t
really care what he had to say. I was still not impressed with
Ethan’s family, but out of all of them Charlie was different. He
was honest and upfront with his thoughts.

Charlie sat down on a small desk
chair opposite me. He propped his elbows on the arms of the chair
and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. Glee sparkled in
his eyes. I swallowed.

“So my little brother found his
Helen.”

“His mother?”

Charlie let out a small chuckle.
“Nah, the kind of love that changes you forever. We call it Helen,
because of what Helen did to Dad.”

“I think your dad
has had plenty of women or at the very least baby mommas.” I even
heard the sarcasm in my voice. I was pretty sure I hated Neal
Asher, and didn’t want what Ethan and I had compared to anything he
had. That statement got a full fledge laugh from Charlie. I still
couldn’t figure out if I liked him or loved him.

“You got that right, but old Neal
has only had one love, Helen. She was Lydia’s roommate in college
and from the first time she came home with her, Neal Phillip Asher
has been head over heels. Hell, three months after meeting each
other we had a little Ethan on the way. My forty-eight year old dad
gave me an eighteen-year old, hot-as-hell step-mom.”

I tried to smile and
laugh through my confusion. It was easy to see that there was a
major difference in age between Helen and Neal, but what man
marries his daughter’s college roommate?
Well duh, an ass that sends their son to get the crap
beat out of him.
I rubbed my
temple, that family was as screwed up as mine.

“Don’t look so shocked. Asher men
always get what they want. You sweet, little ladies can’t resist
our charms.”

“What about Lydia? She had to be a
little grossed out. I mean her dad dating her friend.”