I watch as everyone opens their gifts and patiently wait for Lilly to open the box in her hand. I nudge her shoulder, earning me a playful side-eye.
“Open yours,” I say, making an itsy-bitsy spider motion with my fingers, impatiently.
She picks the box up from her lap and opens it slowly. Her eyes widen when they land on the custom ring inside.
“Oh myGod!” she squeals, removing it from the box and placing it on her right ring finger. It fits perfectly and looks stunning against her tanned skin.
“Baby, it’s perfect!” she exclaims, jumping up and wrapping me in a hug.
“I figured since we don’t do “Property of” patches, the next best thing would be a ring with my colors,” I tell her, my arms squeezing the small of her back as her feet dangle a bit off the ground.
“Let mesee,” Mindy demands from across the room.
Lilly rushes across the room and shoves her hand in Mindy’s face. She and Mindy’s mom both gush over how beautiful the ring is. Aaron and David are sitting beside one another and talking under their breath, probably poking fun at the women. There’s wrapping paper all over the living room and Clayton’s got a pocketknife exactly like mine but with his name on it in front of him.
Aaron’s got a smaller pocketknife with only his name engraved. Margie must’ve asked some questions on who could and couldn’t have the club’s name on theirs. Smart lady. I’ll have to commend Lilly for clueing her mom in.
Once gifts are opened and the living room is cleaned up, people begin leaving to head to other gatherings or to just head home. Once it’s all said and done, all that’s left in the living room are myself, Lilly, Clayton, and Aaron. I’ve gone into the kitchen for second dinner already and Clayton’s dozing off on the couch by the tree. Lilly is nestled into my side, and the television is on the same news station it’s been on all day, playing various football games amongst commercials and snippets of the news. I look down at her sweet face, sleeping softly against me. Her olive complexion is so beautiful that I stare at her for a few minutes lost inside of my own head. Thinking of how lucky I am to have someone as perfect for me as she is.
Through everything that has happened, she still wants to be here, by my side. She still wants to be mywife. That’s something I never thought I’d have. Not because I didn’t think anyone would want to marry me, but because I didn’t think there was anyone out there worthy of being my wife.
The television news broadcast slices through my thoughts as a breaking story comes across the screen.
“Breaking News! This story just hit the press not even thirty minutes ago. There has been a discovery in a small town in Oklahoma of what appears to be a burial ground of sorts. Local politician Barry Harlow’s Mercedes Benz, who went missing in 1984, has just been dredged out of a pond on a secluded property. Sources tell us that a teenage boy stumbled upon the pond and was nearly attacked by an alligator that has been put down. They’re doing a necropsy on the animal to examine the contents of his stomach. This is a developing story and remains under investigation.”
My heart is in my throat. I look across the room to Clayton, who’s staring at the TV wide-eyed.
“Is that…” I start, but trail off.
Clayton simply nods.
Oh, fuck.
“What do we need to do?” I ask.
He doesn’t speak. He sits there, on my couch, with a distant look in his eyes, as if he’s contemplating his entire life. Hell, he probably is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad speechless. I’ve seen him in almost all of his forms, but speechless was never one of those. Until now.
The burial ground that he and Uncle Brock used when they were the cleanup crew for the Oklahoma City charter of Lucifer’s Hounds, has been unearthed. Who knows what measures theydidn’ttake because things were so much different back then. The forensic technology was nothing like it is now. It was a differenttime and it was so much easier to get away with this sort of thing. And now? Now what? What happens when they start connecting the dots and it ends up pointing back to Clayton? Or Brock?
My mind is racing, along with my heart. It’s one thing for me to be involved in a war down here with these piece of shit motherfuckers, but this hits harder. It’s a cut deeper than it should be. This is my dad. My home. This is a connection to mymom. Not that she can be prosecuted for anything from the grave, but that’s not the point.
The amount of shit that this can possibly stir up makes my stomach churn and I’m starting to regret having that second dinner.
“I need to make a few calls,” Clayton says, quietly rising from the couch and walking out of the back door into the garage.
Aaron is sitting on the same couch, staring back and forth between me and the TV.
“It’s a long story.”
“Should we be worried?”
“Yes. Yes we should. Our brothers showed up for us, and now it’s going to be time for us to return the favor. There’s a pretty good chance they’ll be cashing in on it.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. I’ve already got so much shit to deal with down here. I guess it’s time to get to work. Tomorrow. When Christmas is over. I’ll give Lilly the rest of today to enjoy this perfect holiday in peace before I burst her whole bubble.
If we thought the war with the Moccasins was the worst thing that would happen this year, we were sadly fucking mistaken. And that isn’t even over, yet. There are still people that had hands in this missing. Including Gater. I want to run my fist through the wall. How did one day get to be so fucked? I should’ve known that no matter what, I’m not allowed to havea good fucking Christmas. Christmas is the shittiest goddamn holiday I’ve ever experienced. I’m fucking skipping it next year.
I slip out from underneath Lilly, gently placing one of the pillows from the couch beneath her head before motioning for Aaron to follow me upstairs to what Lilly calls my mancave. It’s really more like my office, but she can call it whatever she wants.
