Marlin's Faith: The Virtues Book II (16 page)

“Damn, I hope this don’t set her back.”

“Hard to say, Man. Hard to say.”

“You might want to bail before Hope and the Captain get here.”

“Cops are going to be on this for sure, Dude. You beat the brakes off that happy bastard in front of a lot of people, and you could smell the money.”

“Fuck if I care.”

“Yeah, me either, I’m sure the Captain’ll sort it out.”

“What am I sorting out?” Cutter demanded.

Nothing sighed, and gestured that Cutter had probably best follow him and get the full meal deal, because right on the Captain’s heels was his woman. Hope burst into the room like a hurricane, the energy rolling off her, the air crackling with her rage.

“What happened?” she demanded and went for the side of the bed Faith was laying on. Nothing had put her on her side, in the recovery position in case whatever was in her system caused her stomach to heave. Hope stood by the raised bed and took her sister’s had between her own.

“I was watching her, she was talkin’ to one of the college boys and he brought her a drink. The second she showed anything was wrong I was on it.”

“Jesus, Faith!” Hope sounded incredulous, but luckily her sister was out, and didn’t have to hear it.

“Hope, don’t blame her for tryin’. She was on the beach with all of us right fuckin’ there. Nothing happened, she’s gonna be fine. I swear to Christ, though… if Faith didn’t have bad luck she wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

“We’ll take her back to the house –”

I scoffed, “She’s stayin’ right here, where I can take care of her, besides, where you gonna get a cage to take her in? Not like she’s fit to ride and I’m damn sure not gonna carry her all the way to the house.”

Hope looked at me, her expression fractured and haunted, tears starting to well up.

“I am like the worst fucking parent ever at this point, aren’t I?” she asked and sniffed.

“Naw, Sweetheart,” Cutter answered from the doorway.

“She was all grown up when she was eighteen,” I added, “Besides, come tomorrow, we can go back over the lessons about taking candy, or in this case drinks, from strangers. She’s good. I’ve got her, and I promise I’m takin’ care of her.”

Hope nodded, and Cutter held out his hand to her, “C’mon, Sweetheart. I’ve gotta go be the President for a minute, we need to talk to our people and get the full Monty from all sides.”

“We have an early set of customers tomorrow,” I said.

“It’s best just to let her sleep until whatever it is wears off,” Nothing counseled.

“Fine, that settles that then, she can come out with me and my brother. Ain’t no place safer for her.”

“I’ll try to be here for that,” Hope said.

I nodded, “Johnny can suck it.”

Plans made, Hope and the Captain left, Nothing gave me some instructions on what to check on throughout the night and he left soon after. I debated, for a time, what to do. I finally settled on leaving her as is, as much as I wanted to get her changed into something more comfortable than her cut offs and such, I figured preserving her modesty was more important this time around.

I smoothed some of her bright blonde beach waved locks out of her face; slack with her drug induced sleep and asked her, “Why didn’t you just come back to me, Baby Girl? Why do you keep runnin’, huh?”

I wouldn’t be getting an answer to the question tonight, there wasn’t no way, so instead, I got myself ready for bed. I grabbed a quick shower and some clean boxers. I usually didn’t bother with actual sleepwear, so it was the best I had. Usually, I crashed out one of two ways, nude or fully clothed.

I climbed up onto the bed and settled onto my side behind my girl and pulled her gently back into the protective curve of my body. We had a lot to talk about she and I, and needed to come to some kind of understanding quick, because
this?
What we been doing? It wasn’t working for me anymore and it damn sure wasn’t working for her. I’d given her space. Tomorrow, I was going to be up close and personal, and push some of her limits. I just hoped like hell it weren’t too soon.

Chapter 20

Faith

I woke slowly; my head full of cotton and dragged open my eyes half expecting that it had all been a dream. My sister, Marlin, and the daring rescue, no more than a drug induced hallucination… I pushed myself up in the comfortable bed and nearly wept when I realized I was in a room that looked awfully expensive. I’d been in high priced suites before and this looked to be one of them, only strangely compact. Not at all like a full sized hotel room, and there was no bathroom that I could see, just one door which was presumably the exit.

I groaned softly and covered my face with my hands at the sense of vertigo, as if the room were tipping. It took me several moments to realize that it actually
was.
I swallowed my stomach contents which were threatening to rebel and looked down. I felt myself frown in confusion. I was clothed. Not only was I clothed, I was clothed in the same thing as my dream.

I closed my eyes and breathed deep to steady myself, which is when I realized I could smell him. I could smell him in the sheets and along my skin. A light perfume of peaches, smoke and alcohol.

“Not a dream, Faith. He’s real, it’s real, you’re safe,” I whispered to myself.

When I felt steady enough, I got out of the bed using the three steps at the foot and buried my toes into the carpet surrounding it which was thick and soft. I hugged myself, self-conscious about my state of dress, still being in my rumpled clothing, but I didn’t have anything else and I needed to pee – badly.

I sucked in a deep breath and opened the door and blinked in surprise. I was in a little area with two doors to either side. An expanse of living space was spread out in front of me, but I needed the bathroom so I ignored it for now, since it was empty. The door on my left was firmly shut, but the one on my right was the bathroom, so I slipped into it quickly and shut the door firmly behind me, flipping the little switch on the doorknob into the locked position.

I took care of my needs and spent more time than was required washing my hands and splashing cold water from the faucet on my face, scrubbing my fingers over it to rid my skin of the tight feeling. I’d been crying. It was a familiar sensation, but when I tried to remember why it was like the memories were an amorphous black cloud and would shimmer just out of my reach every time I tried to grasp them. I remembered having lunch with Cutter and Hope, I remembered riding behind Cutter to the beach, and Hope riding beside us, happy to be out of her cast.

I remember walking along the water line, and I remembered Marlin. I remembered Marlin singing
Hope Never Dies
to me and then nothing… just nothing. I dried my face with a nearby hand towel and worried my bottom lip between my teeth as I stared at myself in the mirror over the sink.

“What happened?” I asked the girl in the glass, but all she did was stare back at me, eyes too wide and startled in her pale face.

I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders, ghosting back over to the bathroom door. Another deep breath, I unlocked it and opened it up to an unfamiliar man standing it its frame. I let out a little startled shriek and jumped backwards in the small space, but I think I startled him just as much. He jumped too, and leapt back, his back crashing into the wall behind him.

“Jimmy!” He called out, “You better get down here!”

I folded back in on myself and cowered, I couldn’t help it; it was almost an ingrained response to being trapped in a corner with a large man looming in front of me. He stood just outside the bathroom door, his hand pressed to the center of his chest, which heaved with him being out of breath.

“Sorry,” he said, “You scared the shit out of me.”

I tried to speak, but all that came out was a forced whimper. He looked familiar, yet he was a stranger to me. His light brown hair with golden highlights was cut business short, and was a little bit off from the rest of his appearance which consisted of soft, light blue, broken in jeans faded to near white along the tops of his thighs, and a vintage looking medium blue cotton tee with a distressed darker blue image of a swordfish leaping out of the water. A hook was in the corner of the creature’s mouth and a fishing line leading back to the viewer that faded off into nothing.

“I’m not helping here, am I?” he asked and backed off a little further. When he moved I flinched and he sighed and swore softly and yelled out, “JIMMY!”

I sank down onto the closed lid of the toilet and bit my lips together. I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know who he was and I didn’t know a Jimmy. Marlin appeared in the doorway a moment later and shoved the other man aside, “I got it, Johnny. Go take care of the customers,” he said.

I swallowed hard and the other man, Johnny, squeezed around Marlin and that’s when it clicked.

“He’s your brother,” I murmured.

“Yeah, that’s my dumbassed brother,” Marlin smiled.

“You wanna come out of there?” he asked and I unfolded myself and stood up. Marlin stepped back towards the living area and I exited the small bathroom.

“Where are we? Why can’t I remember?” I asked.

Marlin sighed, “What’s the last thing you
do
remember?”

I stared at him and licked suddenly dry lips, “I didn’t know you could play – or sing,” I said finally.

He smiled, “It’s a hobby, and that song? Only for you.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

I shook my head back and forth and covered my face with my hands, breathing in and out slowly. Marlin sighed and I felt his fingers close around my wrist. I jerked my face out of my hands just in time for him to jerk me in against his chest. His arms went around me and his breath was warm in my hair, but all I could do was stand there stiff as a board.

“I’m so confused…” I moaned.

“Why? Talk to me, Baby Girl. I’m right here, and it’s high time we
did
talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

“Let’s start with why you lied to me, hmm?” His voice held no accusation and no reproach. It did, however, hold hurt which was rich, considering…

I tried to shove away from him but he was firm, and didn’t let go.

“There’s no running away from this one, Faith. I’m not going to let you go without an answer on this. I’m sorry I have to push, Baby Girl, but I need an answer. I need to understand why you did what you did last night.”

“
I
don’t even know what I did last night!” I half wailed, my eyes filling with tears, my heart surging in my chest and crowding my throat.

“Why’d you lie to me, Faith?”

“About what?” I demanded, the anger coming in a hot flood.

“About me. Tellin’ me your shrink told you to stay away from me or some shit.”

I froze, like a rabbit in a trap, I looked up at him slowly and the expression on his face was stony, but clearly hurt.

“I…”

“Don’t lie to me now, Baby Girl. You do, and it’ll be the last you see of me.”

“I was giving you an easy out.”

His brow furrowed down and he looked downright tempestuous, “It’s time you showed me a little trust, you explain to me what you mean by that. I think I’ve more than earned it at this point.”

I shoved away from him violently and he let me go this time, the tears rose hot and fierce and it all just boiled over.

“An easy out! Away from me! So you didn’t have to pretend anymore,” I raged.

“Pretend what?” he demanded.

“That you
liked
me. I get it, Marlin. I do, okay? I’m a junkie fucking
whore.
Sold for a few bucks a fuck. I’m disgusting, okay?
Okay?
”

He stood there, stunned, mouth hanging open, and I drove the knife in the last few inches, “I’m just your project to ease your guilt over your brother! You can’t even stand to
touch
me!”

He put his hand over his mouth, like he was trying to stop himself from saying anything, but I could see the fractured ache in his bright blue eyes. He was stunned, speechless, and I felt hollow and empty. It had felt good to get it out, to get it off my chest but now I felt ugly and exposed. I was standing in front of him raw, and emotionally, as naked as the day I was born and waiting for him to finish what I’d started. I was waiting for him to tear me down the rest of the way.

He pulled his hand down, wiping his mouth, the stubble of the growth on his face rasping in the ringing silence left by my confession.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ, Baby Girl. Is that really what you think?” he asked and his voice was breathy and incredulous with stunned disbelief.

I nodded, mute and dismayed… I’d broken it between us; I could see it all over his face. There was no coming back from this, no way possible. It was all I was ever good at, breaking things. Breaking the people that I loved the most. Destroying them and how they viewed me until there just wasn’t anything left to care about with disappointment after disappointment.

“Stop,” he ordered sharply and I looked up. “Don’t do that, Faith. Stop it, you’re hurting yourself. Just, stop.”

He strode forward and pulled me against him, crushing me against his chest, his fingers tangled in my hair, holding it back from my face and he pressed his lips to my forehead. My eyes drifted shut and I let myself take it in, knowing it was likely the last time he would ever…

“I’ve been trying so hard
not
to touch you when all I’ve wanted… Fuck. You have it all wrong, Baby Girl. You’re all I think about. You’re all I want. I just don’t think you’re ready for that, do you? I mean… Christ, I really fucked it up this time didn’t I?”

I laughed and felt as if I were going mad, I felt my arms go around him and I held just as tightly to him as he did to me. We stood there in silence while the tears stained his tee and the water lapped at the hull, the boat we were on bobbing around, voices filtered down to us and I sniffed, changing the subject.

“Where are we?”

Marlin sighed, “Don’t think this conversation is over, Baby Girl, but I gotta get back up there. We’re on my boat, the Scarlett Ann; I’ve got customers up on deck. Hope is on board too, I’ll have her bring you down the clothes she brought and when you’re ready, you can join us up on deck. Okay?”