The Deal Dilemma

The harsh crash has my eyes flying open, the dark room around me spinning a moment, my limbs locked from being startled awake.

My senses begin to stir, and while time seems to stretch for an eternity, it’s only a split second, the rattle of hinges jarring me upright.

I knew I heard the door.

The blanket falls to my stomach, and I swiftly climb to my feet, snagging my phone off the bedside table to check the time.

It’s nearly three in the morning—I was asleep for no more than an hour, lying awake with worry, waiting for my brother to come back home.

Blasting from my bed, I step out into the hall, alarm freezing me in place as I round the corner. Memphis leans over the counter, his head in his hands, blood dripping down his forearms.

“Oh my god, Memphis!”

I rush forward as his head snaps up and my eyes widen at the gash along his brow. “Holy shit, what happened?!” I’m in front of him in an instant. “Are you okay?”

“We flipped. Rolled down into an empty canal.” He coughs.

Confusion whirls in my mind, and I follow his gaze when it lifts over my head, my spine shooting straight at the sight.

Red rimmed and shifty, dark eyes narrow on mine, and my breath lodges in my throat as I stare at the stranger in my house.

The man is tall, broad, and also bleeding. The dingy white shirt under his leather vest is streaked with dirt and deep crimson, but it’s shards of glass sticking out of his arm that makes him look far scarier. I’m not even sure if he knows they’re there.

“You said no one would be here,” the man barks at my brother, his lip curling when his words make me jump.

Seconds later, a third man appears, having stepped out of my bathroom and my eyes shoot wide, shock and confusion coiling my muscles.

“You…” I breathe, my gut twisting.

“Hello again, Davis.” The man comes closer, the familiar black hat, the one he wore each and every time he came into the diner, hanging from his hand, bloodied and bent. His blue eyes are locked with mine, hazed over, yet wide with adrenaline.

Everything in me screams to run, that something is off and to take myself as far away from it as possible.

Trying to appear calm while unease stabs at my every nerve isn’t easy, but I manage to keep my steps slow and steady as I round the counter, putting distance between myself and the men, my brother included.

My mouth opens, but I’m not sure what I planned to say, and then Memphis’s groan has my head snapping back.

“I didn’t think she’d be home.” He pants, his breathing labored as he grips his side, the color draining from his face. “Ignore her, she’s no one.”

A pang hits my chest, but I ignore it.

“Memphis, we have to get you to the hospital. I can drive, I—” My hand reaches into the bottom of the bowl, my attention snapping to it. “Where are my keys…” It’s not really a question, more my way of trying to retrace my steps, but my brother answers.

“I told you.” He kicks off the counter, and I reach out as he stumbles back, but it’s no use. He falls into the chair behind him, nearly tumbling to the floor. “We flipped.”

I stare at my brother, at the wounds on his hands and the gash on his head, at the dirt covering his jeans and his laces soaked a cherry red… to the wristband on his left arm.

Gone when I got home, stumbling in after the two-in-the-morning last call.

The single-shot bottles in the gutter near the curb that could have been anyone’s… but likely are not.

Tears prick my eyes, and I clench my jaw to keep them at bay. “You’re drunk.”

The lanky man, Black Hat Guy, laughs, and I jolt, shifting right as he moves left on the other side of the countertop.

“Relax, Davis.” Black Hat Guy demands, my name leaving him in three incoherent syllables.

“Yeah, Davis, relax.”

My head snaps toward the big guy, and I clutch my phone tighter, my limbs beginning to shake. Using my thumb to unlock the screen, I quickly lift it, hit number one, and draw it to my ear. “You need help.”

The line rings once and then the phone is torn from my hand, a large palm wrapping around my bicep. I gasp, whipping around to come face-to-face with wild, dark eyes.

“No cops!” the man shouts, his words so harsh and booming, so close, speckles of spit wet my face.

I nearly whimper as he crowds me even more.

“I… I—”

The man’s arm flies up, and I flinch when he chucks my phone across the room, a small squeal leaving me as it smashes against the wall. His gaze is hard on mine, slowly snapping up over my head.

“Handle your bitch, Memphis.”

Yes, please, Memphis! Do something!

My heart sinks, my pulse threatening to knock me out as I dare a look at my brother.

My brother’s eyes are half-closed, his body slumped against the chair. “Go to bed, all right? We gotta lie low.”

He keeps talking, his words a mess of things I can’t make out, but my body is shaking so badly, I can hardly stand. The man in front of me stares at me impatiently, and I realize Memphis told me to do something and I’m clearly expected to do as I’m told.

My steps are so slow and thought out, I’m sure I look off, stiff and robot-like, but it feels like a safer bet than running and slamming the door behind me like the terrified woman I am. With restraint I didn’t know I had, I gently close my door, having to try twice to turn the lock into place, I’m trembling so badly.

The second I’m locked inside, my hands fly to my mouth, my tears overflowing as silent sobs rack my body. I allow myself no more than seconds of panic, as it threatens to swallow me whole. I try to take a deep breath and lower myself onto the edge of my bed.

My leg begins to bounce, and I count quietly to myself in sequences of ten.

No more than a minute passes and then there’s a harsh knock on my door.

“Open up!” Black Hat Guy. “You better not be on the phone in there!”

Tears spring into my eyes, and I look to the patio. Even if I could climb up to the top, I can’t squeeze through the wooden slats.

Why is he here?

How does he know Memphis?

God, what do I do?

A few minutes go by before the shadow of feet beneath my door disappear, and I pull in a deep breath, but the reprieve only lasts a few moments as shouting begins, the rattle of my doorknob following.

Saying nothing, I quickly dig for the bat my dad always taught me to keep hidden at my bedside. I’ve only reached the tip of the barrel when my door is forced open and a body shoves through.

I scream, my eyes slicing upward, widening instantly.

“Jess!” My heart rate spikes.

“Davis! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” His eyes fly across me, and when he reaches out, I stumble into his open arms.

My head shakes, his eyes holding mine as he blindly yanks a blanket from my bed and drapes it over my shoulders.

“Come on.” He guides me into the living room, my brother now seemingly passed out in the same spot I left him, his head hanging to his chest.

“Where you think you’re goin’?” Black Hat Guy shouts, and footsteps stomp behind us.

“Hey!”

I go to look, but Jess traps my head, so I can’t, his steps picking up.

It’s no use though, the big guy is faster, even in his state, and then our exit is halted.

The man puffs his chest out, his hands in fists at his sides, blood dried in long strips down his cheek and neck. His lips curled. “The fuck you think you’re doing, huh?”

My heart ceases, my nails digging into Jess’s skin, making him flex.

“Just move out of the way, man.” Jess lifts his left hand into the air. “We don’t want any trouble.”

A dry chuckle leaves the guy, and he inches closer. “I can’t let you walk out of here and send the cops.”

“It’s not the cops you have to worry about.”

My head snaps up, relief flooding me instantly, but it only lasts a moment, because when I look up and over the shoulder of the man blocking Crew from me, the look in Crew’s eyes is animalistic.

Truly.

His pupils are hiding the hazel completely, his body radiating with rage and taking my breath away.

“C—”

“Get her out of here.” My plea is silenced before being freed.

Jess doesn’t have to be told twice, but he does have to pick me up and carry me as my feet refuse to leave the man I love with these men my brother brought home.

My home.

Mine and Crew’s home.

Jess carries me all the way back to a bedroom—his or a spare, I don’t know—and closes us inside, slowly lowering me onto an armchair in the corner.

He crouches down in front of me. “Davis—”

“Don’t let him kill him.” My head snaps to Jess.

His eyes bulge instantly, worry weighted in his words. “Will he?”

“He might.”

Somehow, his gaze seems to grow even wider, and I lift a shoulder.

“Fuck.” Jess runs his hands through his hair. “Do I call the cops?”

“No cops.”

Jess shoots to his feet, both our heads flying toward the door to find Julius.

I jump up, running to him, and he wraps me in his arms.

“Oh my god!” I cry. “Willie?”

“Yeah, mama, he’s in there.” He squeezes me. “He’ll stop him just before it’s too late.”

He doesn’t have to say the rest, we both know what he means.

He’ll stop him only seconds before it’s “too late” and not a one before then.

“That guy, the skinny one, it’s the guy from the diner. He’s been coming in for weeks and asking for me. He … he’s asked about Crew, I—” I start shaking harder.

Julius cuts me off with a shush, whispering words I can’t focus on in my ear as he rubs his hand up and down my back.

Time seems to slow, Julius keeping my body folded into his chest. With every shout and crash reaching us, he adjusts a bit, attempting to conceal the sound with the rustle of his shirt against my ear, or the clearing of his throat.

Each second passing has my body growing heavier, and just before my feet give way, heat warms me from behind, the gentle palm pressed there, the one that belongs to the man who belongs to me.

My body falls into him, and I’m scooped up in an instant, tucked into his embrace, my face burying into his chest. His chest rises and falls rapidly, his muscles rigid, but as my palm falls to his left pec, my lips meeting his neck as I breathe him in, dragging him into my senses, my eyes close at the same moment his entire being seems to settle.

“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”

That’s the last thing I remember before my adrenaline crashes, and exhaustion wins out.

I couldn’t wager on the time if my life depended on it, and the closely drawn curtains of the foreign room are no help. Slowly, I attempt to lift onto an elbow, but Crew’s soft voice envelops me from behind.

“Lie back down, baby,” he whispers.

His tone is so low and heavy, I’m flooded with a need to look into his eyes, but he senses it, and nuzzles closer, further hiding himself. “Baby, breathe, and let me love on you a little. Can you do that?”

The heaviness settling over me is nearly drowning, but Crew’s strong arms are the only place I want to be. “Yes.”

“Can you tell me you’re okay?”

I nod against him, flashes of last night and his decision to bring us to a hotel not too far from the bar, rather than the bar itself.

“Say it for me, baby. I need to hear it.”

“I’m okay. I wasn’t hurt.”

There’s a pause, and then. “There’s a bruise on your arm.” His tone is gruff, tense. “Tell me who put it there?”

Oh.

The man left a bruise?

“Davis.” The sharp edge of his tone is doused with fear, and I realize then what he is considering.

Crew tried to warn me before that time changes people, that distance changes things, and that pain blankets the truth. He thinks he knows the answer to his question, that the mark on my skin was put there by one of the two men Memphis brought home last night, but he can’t ignore the fact that there’s a chance he could be wrong. He doesn’t want to ask but he has to know if my brother has changed so much that he’s as capable of manhandling me as he was willing to bring someone who is into my home.

I like to think the answer is no, but maybe the blinders I thought I’d thrown away long ago didn’t make it all that far.

“The big guy took my phone from me. That’s all.”

Crew’s heavy inhale stays lodged in his throat for far too long before filling the dark room around us. Several minutes tick by, and his hold tightens, as he buries his lips in my hair.

The sheer relief radiating from him is painful.

Crew truly has no trust in my brother, and for the first time, I think I understand how deep the problem runs. If Memphis could put me in the position he did last night, conscious of it or not, I can’t imagine what Crew has been dragged through by staying at my brother’s side.

This time, when I press onto my elbow, Crew allows it, his grip loosening, but only enough to allow me to move without removing his arm from me completely. I turn, facing him, a dim shadow marring his face and hiding half of it from me, but the cut above his left brow stares back, so I lift my hand, gently gliding it just above it.

Crew’s eyes search mine in the dark, and slowly, I lower my lips to his for a gentle kiss, the slight split there rough against my mouth.

But Crew presses more firmly into mine, his exhale long and soothing. “Baby, that man’s been at your work. We will talk about what that means later, but right now, I need you to agree to quit your job and come work with me. I need you with me, always.”

I shouldn’t want to smile; I should want to claim my independence and demand I retain it, but he’s not trying to take from me. He’s trying to take care of me. He needs to take care of me.

My lips curve up, and I whisper, “I’ve been waiting a couple weeks to hear that.”

Crew’s chuckle is instant but too short, a weighted breath following.

“What?”

“We should stay here a few days. I can go get you some things from the house, have Drew come sit with you.”

Shaking my head, I cling to him. “I don’t want to be away from you.”

“I don’t want to take you back into that house just yet.”

“Please. I just need to be with you. I’ll stay in the car if I have to.”

Crew stares a long moment and with a resigned nod, agrees. “Okay, baby. Get dressed. We’ll get this over with.”

He tries to sit up, but I shake my head, pressing on his chest.

“Not yet. We’ll go soon, but first, it’s my turn to take care of you a little bit. Let me fill the bath.” In case he decides to object, I add, “This way, we feel better in the clean clothes Willie dropped off last night.”

He’s hesitant to release me but slowly nods, rolling onto his back.

The tub’s in the corner of the room, not quite separated from the space altogether, but semi-blocked by a short extension of the wall. It’s large though, and when I turn it on, I spot the jets at the head and feet.

“Warm or hot?”

“Whatever you want, baby.”

My lips quirk. I figured he’d say that. I’ve yet to inspect him for injuries outside of the few cuts and scrapes along his face, and while hot water will sting a second, it will be better for his stressed muscles in the next. Crew is tense, there’s no doubt about that, but there’s a type of resilience that comes from loving an addict. You resign yourself to the bad for the few moments of good you know will come, and they do. Sometimes fewer and further between, but they come, and you revel in the feeling, in the familiarity and comfort.

You soak in the presence of the person you love as you don’t get to experience them often, because no matter how much one tries to deny it, when their demons win over, the person you know and care for is buried beneath the surface. Not quite reachable, yet not quite gone.

A faint shadow in the fiery sun.

That’s always been the hardest part for me, staring into the familiar eyes of the brother I love endlessly, but hitting a metaphorical barrier, keeping me from truly “seeing” him.

Sober, Memphis is all the things I’ve claimed. He’s kind and selfless and willing to give you the shirt off his back, no question, no concern, but under the influence? You just never know.

At least this has been my experience. I imagine it’s different for everyone.

I know it is for Crew.

Footsteps sound behind me, my eyes closing when he dips down, kissing my temple as he pulls me to my feet, holding my hand, so I can step inside, both of us having slept naked, being we had no clothes but the dirty, bloody ones from last night, mine filthy from him cradling me to his chest. I stay at the back of the tub, leading him in front of me.

Together, we lower, my legs wrapping around him from behind, and he settles into my chest, his head pressed right between my breasts.

He doesn’t so much as wince from the sting the water must provide, his eyes closing as if he’s soothed simply by the touch of my skin to his. I wet his chest with a rag, taking careful care to dab at his face, gently washing along his scalp, in case I come across an injury, but from where I am, he has no others. No black eye and outside of the small bruise on his shoulder blade, the two cuts on his brow and lip, he has no other visible damage.

I lift his hands, inspecting his knuckles. The middle and ring finger are both split open and threatening to scab over.

“It doesn’t hurt, baby. I can’t even feel it,” he murmurs gently, his eyes closing, hands drawing small, soothing circles along my thighs.

Tears pool in my eyes, and I nod, though he can’t see me.

We sit submerged, the silence somehow a heavy form of comfort, or maybe it’s simply us, safe in each other’s arms.

It’s not until the water is no more than lukewarm that Crew stands, drying himself before pulling me up with him, and drying my body for me, his hands lingering in places longer than necessary, but his need to feel me in all ways essential.

He pulls me into his arms, pushing my damp hair from my cheeks, and drops his forehead to mine, exhaustion clear along his face.

“You didn’t sleep.”

He shakes his head, lifting his hand and sinking it into my hair. “I will.”

Just not yet…

His eyes, heavy with the need for sleep, shine with something deeper, the honey hue of the hazel appearing more golden than normal. They cling to mine, and his hold on me tightens with purpose.

“What?” I whisper.

“You called me.”

My brows pull, and he continues, a tenderness blanketing his hard features in an instant.

“Last night. You called me when you needed help. When you felt unsafe. You called me. Not the police. Not your dad.”

My palms come up, latching over his wrists. “You’re the first person I thought of. You’re always the first person I think of. Happy, sad, mad. Scared. Since forever.”

His eyes close, only to open a few seconds later. “I don’t deserve you, but I won’t let that stop me from keeping you.”

Silence falls over us, understanding settling into our bones, one we’ve felt long before today, but last night drove the need to speak the words out loud.

My emotions seem to settle in, and I blink rapidly, attempting to calm myself.

“Davis,” he murmurs, his hold tightening. “Baby, don’t cry. I can’t fucking take it.”

“I’m sorry, I just—” I swallow. “I can’t believe last night was real.”

I meet the hazel eyes I used to dream about, and the sheer sadness within them breaks the dam. “He stole my car, brought those men to my house. How could he?” I weep, collapsing into Crew’s chest.

His arms come around me, and he barricades me in his strong embrace, but he remains silent, allowing me to whisper to myself what I wish, without sharing what’s on his mind.

I imagine it’s not a lot of good, which is exactly why he keeps it in.

He loves me and the last thing he wants to do is be the reason for the weight settling over me with each passing second. I know he’s thinking about the man from the diner, how he pushed me to talk to him for my benefit, blaming himself for not seeing something deeper. And there is something deeper.

I have a feeling Crew knows what that might be, and I trust he’ll tell me, but I don’t want to think about that right now.

A stuttered breath bushes past my lips and I hold him tighter.

My parents warned me against seeking out my brother when he first disappeared without a word, only days after being released after the hit-and-run that almost killed him as well as the family he spun into.

Maybe I should have listened…