As soon as the door shuts, I put my phone to my ear and tell Nova, “I made a mistake.”
It’s after dinnertime and Rush still isn’t home. He did call me earlier and tell me they were hashing out plans and that it’d be after bedtime before he made it home. I kept my tone light and airy during our chat, even though my mind and emotions were in turmoil. He has enough on his plate and I won’t force feed him my polluted blunders. They’re foul tasting on my tongue and I wouldn’t want anyone else to gag over the stank flavor.
I’m lounging in the tub, warm water, bubbles, and a glass of red wine usually relaxes me, but tonight, my day plays out like a movie reel in my mind, keeping me unsettled and tense. “Dammit, Van,” I scold myself, splashing the water over the side of the tub when I smack my hands down. Nova didn’t seem overly concerned when we spoke, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling like a downright asshole.
“Van!” I hear my name shouted followed by the sound of the front door shutting and the alarm being set.
“In the bathroom!” I holler back, sinking deeper into the tub as if I can bury my shame in the soapy water.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Riptide
I sprintup the staircase and onto the second floor landing, ready to shed my clothes, wash my body, and hold my old lady in my arms while calling it a night. Today has been a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Icer crashed into our meeting in the midst of confronting Indiana, and needless to say, he didn’t take what he overheard in stride. He lost his shit like an enraged teenager and it took every one of us working together in order to contain him so I could give him a dose of Dr. Feelgood, which is what we all call his calm down juice that was invented by one of Nova’s associates who invented it for his brother’s temperamental disorder.
My office will be under construction and getting a newly renovated makeover in the upcoming weeks courtesy of Icer. It’ll be coming out of his pocket and not the club’s, I made that point clear before I stomped out in a fit of annoyance. I’m not a fan of its current decor seeing as one of my chairs has been embedded into the sheetrock and my desk is snapped in half. And that’s not all that happened, but it’s what had my hackles raised the most.That was my favorite thinking chair, it was nice and broken in, and it’s now hung on my wall like a framed masterpiece. I know some pay thousands for shit like that to be in their offices and homes, but I’m not a fan of live artwork like those who have nothing better to spend their money on are.
My desk was a hand-me-down, but it too has seen some shit that would make most people cringe and was important to me. It was Paps’ home office desk and Rio is going to lose his mind when I tell him that it’s been dismantled. I know material things can be replaced, but memories attached to those items can’t, and I think that is what has me so pissed about the fact that I’ll no longer have it to remind me of the days when my cousin and I would play underneath it while Paps worked.
“Motherfucker,” I groan underneath my breath as I head toward the bathroom removing an article of clothing with each forward step I take. I get ready to unleash my day on Van by telling her about what took place during the meeting but am stopped short when I see tear tracks streaking down her puffy, pink cheeks. “Van? What the fuck?” I ask, dropping to my knees and running the pad of my fingers over the trek marks. “Who made you cry?”
“I did,” she hiccups.
“Can you explain that, baby?”
She gives me a step-by-step account of her day and the way it played out. Mostly, her trauma is encapsulated by her conversation with Chaney and I see why she’s conflicted when she finishes going through her account of how it ended.
“Baby, you didn’t do anything wrong,” I profess. “Sometimes, being someone’s friend and caring about them means you step over a line in an attempt to get them to face their skeletonsso they don’t jump out and drag them away. The reason Nova didn’t get upset with you is because it’s something he’s working through with her and Freyja. Something one of you says will eventually sink in and they’ll deal with it and come out on the other side with a newfound lease on life. At least they know they won’t be alone when that time comes. They have Nova, us, and you girls there to catch them when they fall.”
“I just worry about them, Rush. They’ve done so well with everything and this is the one thing they walk around so they don’t have to think about it.”
“And we all know from personal experience that the things you hide from are the most detrimental to your health. They’ve put themselves in this bubble so they don’t have to face reality. Nova and I talked about your speculation and the more we hash it out and break it down, the more we’re convinced you’re right,” I tell her.
“They heard and saw a lot of their father’s diabolical torture,” she adds. “That’d make anyone want to bury that trauma down deep in an attempt to keep it from resurfacing.”
“It’s their coping mechanism,” I speculate. “One I think most of the world has adopted when they don’t want to see what’s standing in front of them.”
“They’ve survived so much, and it breaks my heart that this one thing is holding them back,” she continues. “They have so much to look forward to that if they stay stagnant, it won’t come to fruition.”
“We can only do so much, Van. They have to be willing to do the work, and right now, they’re not. They’ve finally foundhappiness and they’re determined to hold onto it as tightly as they can.”
“I know the feeling,” she says, brushing her fingers across my arm that’s resting on the edge of the tub.
“Me too, baby. Is there room in there for me?”
“Always,” she claims, scooting forward making room for me to climb in behind her.
I had this clawfoot tub inserted into the bathroom a few months ago for her. Truthfully, for the both of us. The one I had in here initially was big, but there wasn’t enough length as much as there was depth in my opinion for us both to decompress while being enveloped by each other. She protested in the beginning, but soon came to see reason when I proved to her that my long legs couldn’t stretch out in it like they can in this one. She loves her bath time but enjoys it more when I join her so we compromised and got the one I wanted so we could both be comfortable and unwind together. If nothing else, we can stay in it longer because my knees aren’t bent and my legs don’t get sharp tingles and become restless before the muscles in them loosen.
“A wise woman once told me we can’t fix everything for everybody,” I state as I sink down behind her.
“Hmm, wonder who that could’ve been?” she asks as she leans back, resting her head on my shoulder and tucking her nose into my throat. “She sounds insightful.”
“She is,” I insist. “The cleverest female I’ve ever known. Too bad she doesn’t use her own advice for herself.”
“So she’s hardheaded on top of being smart, huh?” she asks in a teasing manner, her tears drying up with our banter.
