How It Rolls (29 page)

             
“I’m on my way.” I said and began packing while I was still on the phone with her. 

             
“Should I tell him or not,” she asked.

             
“Um, no offense, but you’re not the best secret keeper, Nellie.”

             
“Oh, that?  No, that was clearly a case of sistas before mistas, hoes before bros, chicks before…”

             
“I get it.  I’ll see you soon.” 

Falcon

             
I hate protein bars.  They taste like someone in a factory far, far away in WannaTasteGoodland was trying too hard.  They wanted to taste good but just didn’t quite make the mark.  Too bad I can’t eat regular food.  Reminder to self: Don’t take girls to your favorite place to eat.  Especially those who say they’re gonna marry you and then never speak to you again.

              I got to my apartment, showered and then collapsed on my bed but not before downing some sleeping pills.  I started taking them about three months ago when I was so tired it almost brought me to tears. 

             
I heard a car outside, sometime in the middle of the night.  The pills helped me get to sleep, but eventually I woke up to some random noise or just thinking she was there next to me. 

             
I got up and scrubbed my face and saw her on the couch. 
Oh God, now I’m really losing it.  Mom’s gonna make me go to a shrink or something.
 

             
“Falcon?” 
Now she’s talking to me, son of a bitch I’m seriously a head case.  Oh well, might as well use the insanity to my advantage.

             
“Yeah, who else is it gonna be?” I asked the apparition.

             
“Well, at least you didn’t lose your sarcasm while I was gone.  But you sure don’t look like my Falcon.”  She got up and approached me. 
Holy shit, it’s really her—here.

             
“You’re here?”
Duh, asswipe.  We’ve figured that out.

             
“Yeah, I just got in a few minutes ago.  I still had your key.  I’m exhausted.”

             
“Sleep here, I’ll get on the couch or just get up.  I’m not sleepy anymore, anyway.”

             
“Can—I just want you to hold me.  Would that be okay?  We can talk in the morning.”

             
I scooted over and she got in, clothes, shoes and all.  “I remember the first time you asked me to hold you.”

             
“Me too, it was right after you found out I was homeless.”  I looked at her, shocked.  I didn’t know how she found out, or how much she knew and I couldn’t ask her.  She was already asleep. 

              I woke the next morning with her face on my chest, breathing in and out.  She was real.  It wasn’t a dream. 

             
She turned her head to face me, “It’s about time you woke up.  It’s a quarter after noon.” 

             
“Are you back or are you just visiting or what?” I pulled her up closer to my face, breathing her in, just in case it was the latter.

             
“It depends on you.  You’ve given me everything.  Your home when I had none, your heart when I’d lost mine, a home of my own when you saw one perfect for me, a ring to solidify our love, you’ve given me everything Falcon.  I thought you were pushing me away.  But it was just one more thing you were trying to give me, to make me happy.  But what I want to know is, what’s gonna make you happy?”

             
“How did you find out,” I asked.

             
“Our family has really big mouths.  And they love us so much; they made sure I knew the truth. And Maddox really loves you fierce.  He dogged me out good and I deserved it.”

             
“I’ll kill him,” I said through my teeth.

             
“Nope, I granted him asylum if he did me a favor.”

             
“I’m glad you finally know. So what happened with your aunt?”

             
“She’s great.  She’s just kinda wild and free.  So, I applied and got into New Orleans Community College.  It’s not Tulane…”

             
“That’s amazing, Reed, really.  I’m so proud of you.” I squeezed her tight. 

             
“Me too, so what’s it gonna be Beardy Smurf?” She tugged at my weird facial hair.

             
“Are you sure you’re back to stay?”

             
“I’m sure.  I was coming back anyway.  I’m starting school in the fall.  I just needed a push in the right direction.”

             
“I just want you near me; we can still wait to get married if that’s what you want.  If not, well, I’ll just take what I can get.”

             
“We can take it one day at a time.  I’d give you everything I own if you wanted it.  You’ve given me so much.  How am I ever going to repay you?”

             
I laughed and kissed her breathless.  “I just need you Poppy.  Just give me your heart and we’ll call it even.”

             
“Deal,” She said, her lips against mine, her heart where it belonged, beating against my own.

The end…for now.

Keep reading for Chapter one in the next Love & Skate series, Down ‘N’ Derby.

Maddox Fitzgerald Black

             
They say that between the hours of two a.m. and four a.m. are the hours that most people are in the REM cycle of their sleep.  It’s the time that soldiers attacked during the night, it’s the time that authors clicked their keyboards, the time thieves struck, and it’s the time that Nixon was asked to be at my house so I could get the Hell out of here before my mom could rip me a new asshole. 

             
She would figure it out eventually.  Especially since most of my research was photocopied and left purposefully on top of my bed sans exact locations.  I hated to break her heart but I had to know.  It was eating me alive not to know for sure that he was an asshole.  I wanted him to be a bastard like me.  I wanted him to be some stuck up rich guy with a teen girl fetish because at least that would make some sense as to why my mom had to go through everything she did alone.  Because hating him was the only way I could get through this and move on. 

             
And Chase—in my head I called him Chase now.  He was Chase when Owen and Falcon made faces and expressions that copied him exactly.  He was Chase when he slapped my back and called me son.  He was Chase when I looked into his green eyes and saw Owen’s or when I looked at his face and saw Falcon.  I called him Dad to his face but it wasn’t without choking.  Not because he wasn’t a fantastic dad, because he was.  But my own hang-ups wouldn’t let him be mine.

             
And Owen and Falcon—this whole thing would tear them up but that couldn’t be helped.  That’s what happens when you keep huge secrets from your family.  In my heart, Owen and Falcon would always be my brothers and my best friends.  I don’t remember a time or a memory from my childhood that doesn’t include them.  But they were just childhood memories.  Faded, cloudy, twisted thoughts that I now analyzed and tried to subdue because of the lies they were built upon. 

             
I had completed my last task for my family before I left.  I made sure the secret honeymoon Reed was planning for Falcon was booked.  They would get married while I was gone, I guess.  But no one knew that yet.

             
Nixon pulled up right on time and I threw my canvas duffel in the back of his beat up Land Rover.  He watched the house, because if we were caught this early in the game his ass was ground meat just like mine was. 

             
“Be sure about this, Dude.  There’s no going back after we start this thing.”  Nixon didn’t understand but he supported me anyway.  He didn’t get why I needed this more than I’ve ever needed anything in my life, but I did.  It plagued my thoughts and had become an obsession.  The scenarios played on a reel in my head, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the flat out fanatical. 

             
“Just drive man, we’ve talked about this.”  I said and pulled out a journal that contained names, addresses, and maps.  I had coordinated this trip with such detail because I couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong.  I needed this to end right, for my own sanity.

             
“What direction?” I showed him the state name on my list and he looked up at me in disbelief. “That far North?  Man, I bet they don’t even have good sweet tea.  Ok, “He put the SUV into drive, “Hold on to your ass.”

             
We passed the mailbox whose golden stuck-on letters read ‘Black’ and I had a moment of regret, only for my brothers.  But I couldn’t bear to face them when they found out, when they were told by the woman we’d trusted all of our lives—I wasn’t their brother at all.

Lila Felix is the author of Emerge, Perchance, Hoax, the Love and Skate series and the soon to be released Seeking Havok. 

Catch her antics here:

www.authorlilafelix.blogspot.com

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Felix (Author)

Twitter: @authorlilafelix

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Playlist

Hey Love
– Miner  (Love this song!)

Permanently Lonely – Phosphorescent

Shape of My Heart – Noah and the Whale

Just Me Before We Met – Noah and the Whale

Strange Girl – The Airborne Toxic Event

Your
Eyes – Bombay Bicycle Club

Girls
Like You – The Naked and the Famous

Why She’s Acting This Way – Phosphorescent

The Honest Truth – Typhoon

Homeless - Pennywise

Avery Island/April1st – Neutral Milk Hotel

Can I Sleep In Your Arms
– Phosphorescent

The Reflection of You – Bear In Heaven

Burning For You – Shiny Toy Guns

Rule My
World  - Kings of Convenience

I’m in Love –
Maquiladora

Couples’ Skate-Around -
Maquiladora

Gold – Wake Owl

All
For A Woman – The Airborne Toxic Event
             

‘Til
Kingdom Come – Coldplay

I Will
Wait – Mumford & Sons

Until I See You – Silent Film

Wait For Me – Shiny Toy Guns

You’ll Never Go – Wake Owl

White Blank Page – Mumford & Sons

I Gave You All – Mumford & Sons

Promise Me This – Pancho’s Lament

Chapter One

Stop knocking.

Stop it.

That’s the only thing that ran through my head as I flipped over onto my back. I squinted at the
clock, trying to make out the time: 3:28am. A string of curses flew out of my mouth in a raspy, tired grumble.

I had been asleep for all of an hour and a half. This just wasn’t fair.

“Jericho, man, open up!” Sebastian shouted out from the other side of the door.

More cursing from deep in my chest.
Why me?

“Give me a minute,” I yelled back, the duty side of my brain winning out over the self-preserving, sleepy side.

I sat up slowly and peered through the darkness for my pants. I had stumbled in here, utterly and completely bone-tired after another excruciating and exhausting day. I had started stripping before  the door even closed and lost clothes along the way, before collapsing face first onto my claimed guest bed. Since this was my routine for the last however many days, my floor was an intricate maze of trails of discarded clothing.

“O’s thrashing again, Jericho,” Sebastian explained impatiently through the heavy wooden door. His voice was all refined British gentleman that belied his mixture of human culture and Immortal. “It looks like another seizure. Olivia is screaming for you. She’s out of control.”

O. Ophelia. One of the human girls we rescued from Macchu Pichu. She hadn’t once been conscious since we brought her back to the Citadel, but at least she stayed alive.