Part One
Chapter One
The Past
“I knew it. I knew you were cheating on me,” Ruthie screeches at me for the millionth time.
I toss my hands up. “I’m done fuckin’ arguin’ with you. I’ve never stepped out on you but right now you make me wish I’d fucked every whore from West Virginia to California I’ve ever come into contact with. God damn.”
“I want you out of my house. Just pack your shit and go.” Her hand flies toward my face, but I grab her wrist before she makes contact. Ruthie draws her arm back, glaring at me. “I hate you.”
I snort and stroke my beard. “You get the fuck gone if you don’t want to be around me. This is my house. I pay the bills.” I take another hard pull of my bottle of Budweiser and drop onto the couch. I’m sick and tired of her shit. All the damn time she’s flapping her jaws to bitch at me. I’m over it. I don’t need it.
Her hand moves to her hip. “Why, so you can bring your whores here and fuck them in my bed too? You’d like that.”
“You fucking caught me.”
“I’ll leave, James, and I’ll never come back.”
I shake my head. “Then what the fuck you still standing here for?”
“I hate you. I wish you’d die.” her chest heaves as she stomps down the hall toward the master bedroom.
“Join the damn club. No one fuckin’ likes me,” I call out as the bedroom door slams shut. Closing my eyes, I scrub a palm over my face. Fuck me. If I’d known now what I knew when I was just a damn kid, I’d never stuck my dick in Ruthie Gibson. Was fifteen years old when I knocked the cunt up. When I drop my hand, Rochelle is standing in front of me with a hand on her hip mimicking her mother. “What?” I bark, and she flinches staring back at me with her big brown eyes, bottom lip jutting out trembling on the verge of tears.
“Mom said for me to pack a bag. That we’re going to Nan’s for the weekend.”
“What of it?”
“I don’t want to go with her. I want to stay home. I hate going there. It smells like muscle rub and peppermints. Nan is mean and hateful. She isn’t like my Gigi.” Nan is Ruthie’s grandmother. Gigi is her mother, but Nan practically raised her.
“Mind your mother. You know how she gets when I come back from a run. She’ll cool her shit, and by next week she’ll be back to herself. You’ll see.”
“I guess, but—”
“No but. Just pack light and go on. Nan is old and set in her ways, but the crazy old bat means well enough.”
“Dad,” she whines, stomping a foot. “I have plans.”
“Yeah well now you have new ones. Don’t give me no attitude. Listen to your mother.”
“Whatever.” she huffs, flipping her dark brown hair over her shoulder. Kid is the only thing good that ever came out of my marrying Ruthie. But fuck she acts fifteen going on twenty. Hard to believe she’s the same age her mother and I were when Ruthie told me she was pregnant.
Ruthie comes out of the bedroom with a suitcase in one hand, keys to her car in the other. She pulls this shit every damn time I’ve gone on the road. “Fuck you, James,” she spits her venom at me on her way to the front door.
“Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you,” I mutter.
“Bye, Daddy.”
“Be good, kid. See you next week.”
Rochelle gives me a weak smile and follows her cunt mother out the door. I don’t relax until I hear the car back out the driveway and the tires squeal as Ruthie peels out in her red Corvette. She always has driven the damn thing too fuckin’ fast.
I glance at the clock. Not even seven. I should grab a shower and head to the clubhouse. Only came home to see Rochelle anyway, and she ain’t gonna be here. Not that she wants to hang with me much these days. Being a teenager means her life revolves around school, her friends, and boys. She’s too cool for her old man.
A car door slams, and I get up off the couch. Ruthie must’ve forgot something or came back to yell some more. My head is pounding after all her damn screeching. A fist raps against the front door. I swing the door open and find Alexa, one of my kid’s friends in tears as a car speeds away.
“Where’s, Ro?” she peers up at me, another tear sliding down her cheek as she hiccups.
“Gone.” I go to shut the door. I’m not in the mood to deal with her problems on top of mine, but she shoves past me with her black nylon sports bag slung over her shoulder.
“Well, I’ll just wait for her then.” She starts down the hall toward Rochelle’s room. Her cheerleading skirt swishing as her hips sway, showing hints of her ass cheeks. Fucking hell. The sight is one that’s etched into my brain. Alexa loves skirts that show her ass, and I’m a filthy bastard who loves getting his eyes full of the sinful sight.
“Not gonna happen. She’s gone to her Nan’s for the weekend or longer. Go call your mom to come pick you up.”
“I can’t. They aren’t home. Todd dropped me here. Ro said I could stay over. Ruthie said it was okay.”
“Like I said, Alexa, Rochelle isn’t home and won’t be. You can’t stay. Wouldn’t be right.”
“You won’t even know I’m here. I swear it. Please. I don’t have anywhere else.” She wipes at her cheek with the sleeve of her hoodie.
“Call whoever in the fuck Todd is then.”
“He dumped me.” Alexa sniffles.
“Hell, stop your crying.”
“You don’t even know what kind of day I’ve had. My mom threatened to throw me out because she found an ounce of weed in my room, but it wasn’t mine. It was Todd’s. Mom flushed it and he got mad at me. Said he still owed money for it.”
“I’ll take you to another friend.”
“I don’t have anyone but Ro.”
I scrub a palm along my jaw. “Fine. But not a peep. You don’t have anyone over. I’m going out for the night. I’ll order you a pizza before I go and leave money on the counter for you. No boys. No dumb shit.”
“Thank you, Mr.—”
“None of that Mr. shit. Told you before to call me James.”
“James.” She smiles, throwing her arms around my neck, squishing her tits against my arm. Her soft pink lips meet my cheek, and I pull back.
“Whatever.” I shove her away and go to grab that shower. I feel weird having Alexa here with Ruthie and Rochelle gone. Makes me feel dirty as fuck. Alexa doesn’t look like no damn high school girl. She’s a few years older than Rochelle and I told my wife letting them be friends was a bad idea. Older friends means older boys. But they cheer together and are always attached at the damn hip.
Alexa is one of them girls you know is pure trouble just by looking at her. Big tits, thick hips, and ass for days. Long blonde hair, pretty green eyes. The kind of girl who’d get a man thrown in jail if he wasn’t careful. I know I shouldn’t look at her the way I do. I know it and she knows it. She loves the attention and I’m sorry enough of a bastard to give it to her.
Alexa’s daddy never took her over his knee and busted her ass for misbehaving. Maybe if he had she wouldn’t constantly be in trouble. I keep tabs on her because her and Rochelle are close. Can’t have her dragging my kid into her shit. Alexa hangs with a bad crowd. Shit for brains like Todd who hand their weed off to a teenager to keep from getting caught with it.