Marlin's Faith: The Virtues Book II (27 page)

Bobby, sure, but there were five other men standing around with him including Miguel. All of them appeared to be a worker of some sort in overalls with tank tops underneath, skin gleaming with a coat of sunscreen. Some wore heavy carpenter like pants and tees. I chewed my bottom lip in consideration and Bobby smiled.

“Boys, give the lady some room,” he said and all of them looked at him quizzically but stepped further out from the truck. I sighed inwardly, and felt terrible. I gripped the leather cuff around my wrist and forced my feet into motion.

“There you are,” Bobby said with mild strain as he caught me around the waist and lifted me, setting me on the blanket on the bed of the truck. I squeaked and tried to remember to keep my breathing under control. He eyed me and handed me an icy bottle of water out of a cooler in the back of his truck.

“Am I not supposed to be out here alone?” I asked.

“Nah, you’re good,” he said and his smile was warm with adorable dimples that would have made my sister Charity go on for hours. He pulled the red trucker hat off his head and scratched the top of his sweat-soaked, dark brown hair before replacing it. He reached into another cooler and handed me a half a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“You’re good, you’re good,” he repeated, though he was studying me rather intently. Some of the other men were, too. I shifted uncomfortably and with shaking hands unwrapped the sandwich.

“Lunch time is over boys, head on back to work,” Bobby said quietly and the men nodded and began cleaning up.

“Thought you was gonna sleep all day, Darlin’.”

“It was too hot, I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.”

Bobby swore, “A/C went out again. I’ll head back to the house to fix it in a little while. First, I figure I should go over the rules of this place with yah.” He chuckled, “You ain’t done nothin’ wrong Sweetheart, just some things to go over for your own safety.”

“Oh, okay.”

He told me if I went walking and found some men, to let them know I was there. He also told me to stick to the middle of the rows like I’d done, and to steer clear if I heard or saw any machinery operating and to watch and listen for yellow jackets. They liked the fallen fruit from the trees and could be aggressive; he didn’t want me to get stung. He told me that I was free to go wherever I’d like and he pointed out where the groves gave way to a pond and a swimming hole, but warned me to look out for alligators. I didn’t imagine I would see myself swimming after
that
bit of knowledge.

We were silent for a long time, and I finished my sandwich and half the bottle of water. Bobby wandered over to one of the trees and reached up into the greenery, “Ever had an orange fresh off the tree?” he asked. I shook my head and he pulled, the branch bowed for a second and snapped back up into place, the leaves rustling. He held a bright orange globe of fruit in his big hands and briskly, started to peel it. Citrus kissed the air and I breathed deep, the bright scent.

“Nothing like it really,” he said and broke the fruit in half, handing me some of the smiles.

I peeled one off and ate it, the juice bursting in my mouth, cleansing my palate from the residual sandwich flavors. It was good. Probably the best orange I had ever tasted and I smiled, laughing a little. Bobby smiled, but soon the smile slipped and I sobered.

“Tell me something, Faith.”

“Yes?”

“How do you feel about my friend, Jimmy?”

I eyed him carefully, and he eyed me back just as hard… considering.

“I, I care about him very much.”

He nodded carefully, “But?” he asked.

“But he deserves to be happy, and I don’t think I can possibly do that for him.”

“Why would you say a thing like that?”

“He’s told you, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, but I want to hear it from you.”

I put another bite of orange in my mouth instead, and chewed thoughtfully.

“What difference does that make?” I asked.

“You talk about it with anyone?”

“My doctor, and Marlin… sometimes.”

Bobby nodded, “Don’t trust me yet. I get you, that’s okay,” he was nodding but he wasn’t looking at me, when he did, he pinned me with his hazel eyes. I swallowed hard and felt like my throat was going to close up with fear.

“Never seen Jimmy look at any girl like he does you. Never had him ask me to take care of one like his life depended on it neither. He’s got it bad for you, Faith, and he’s been my best friend since ever. Do me a favor and don’t rip out his heart.”

“I don’t want that,” I said, genuinely distressed by his words.

“No, I don’t figure you do,” he replied softly. He handed me a paper towel and I wiped off my hands, the juice from the orange making them sticky. “Do me another favor?” he asked.

“What?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, neither. You seem like a nice girl and I get that bad shit happened to you, some really bad shit, but don’t let it define you. Only you get to do that. Love yourself, then love my boy back. You get me?”

“I don’t think I do,” I told him.

“Hey, Bobby!” We both turned our heads at the shout of one of his workers; he was tromping through the aisle of trees in our direction from the front of the truck.

“You think about it, Darlin’. If you still don’t get it in a day or so, we’ll talk again. In the meantime I gotta deal with this,” he helped me down to the ground. “Wander where you’d like, just remember to be safe.” He gave me a wink and walked down the aisle a ways to speak to the approaching man. I stared after them for a moment but I knew when I’d been dismissed. Hard not to know after living with Hope, the mistress of dismissals.

I wandered among the trees, up and down the aisles and thought hard about what Bobby had said to me. It was clear he cared a great deal about Marlin, which I could understand completely. Marlin made it so very easy to love him, but that still didn’t mean I was good for him. Not with everything wrong with me, that would be wrong with me for a long time to come.

I sighed out, I think I knew what Bobby meant by loving myself, I
was
hard on myself but it was hard not to be. I felt like a curse, like a blight upon the lives of the people closest to me, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. I also couldn’t decide if that were incredibly brave or an act of complete cowardice. Everything about me felt so upside down and inside out and I didn’t know what I could do to straighten my ass out.

Living inside my head was like being scared and tired at the same time. I felt like I should be
doing
something,
anything
to be useful, but terrified I would screw it up if I tried and equally terrified of the repercussions from that failure. Like now, I wanted to be alone, but I suddenly felt incredibly lonely and suddenly wished that Marlin were here, walking beside me like he so often did along the beach. Silent, but a presence, a comfort like a candle in the dark. It was like I cared so much about these things, but at the same time, I didn’t really have the energy to care and it all amounted to me being so numb I couldn’t be moved.

I gently wiped a stray tear as the yellow glimmer of Bobby’s house loomed through the trunks and canopies of the trees to my left. The white trim glaringly bright in the Florida sun. I stopped and looked for a long time, at the shiny chrome and black motorcycle with its colorful blue Marlin fish painted on the tank. Relief flooded me, followed by soul crushing disappointment that he hadn’t left a note, or
anything
that he’d gone. I swallowed hard and continued my walk, stopping again to watch him, sitting on the front step of the porch, cigarette between his lips as he texted or played a game on his phone; squinting at the screen.

It was overwhelming, how deeply I felt for this man. Overwhelming, and terrifying, but at the same time, something I so desperately wanted. He’d said he loved me, and I knew he meant it. I knew he meant it to the very bottom of my soul, but he’d left without saying a word,
knowing
…

I picked my way carefully through the trees and across the grass in his direction, his nose buried in the phone as he took a long drag on his cigarette. I would go inside. I wanted to be near him, but I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want him to know how much I felt like I needed him and that his going like that, without saying anything, had rattled me so badly, so I would slip past him and go inside.

That’s what I would do.

Chapter 35

Marlin

Her shadow fell across me as I shot yet another text to her phone, to see where she was at. I looked up and squinted, until she moved into the sun to block it out. Her face was reserved, with that tightness around her eyes that told me she was struggling with something. I looked down to where my hand unconsciously curled around her calf, rubbing soothingly up to her knee and back down.

My girl’s toenail polish was chipped, I noted, and I couldn’t remember the last time she and Hope had gone to get pedicures together. I didn’t know if it warranted the risk of being out and about with the folks that’d taken her hot on our trail. I’d spent longer than I’d wanted to in Ft. Royal. The word was out to keep watch for rude dudes with tattoos, particularly any bearing Russian or Eastern European accents. I was going to have to commute, and keep working the boat. The best I could do for
that
was to make the ride slick backed and make sure I wasn’t tailed but nothing was ever truly one hundred percent.

Taking Faith into town just for a pedicure seemed like a bad idea, but still… maybe it was something I could fix. I looked up at her again and smiled.

“You doin’ okay, Baby Girl?” I asked.

“No.”

I cocked my head to the side at her frank answer, and took my hand off her leg, waiting for her to finish.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You just left; you didn’t wake me up or say anything.”

“I texted your phone, I figured you could use the sleep.” She frowned and looked perplexed. I raised an eyebrow, “What’s that look for?”

She didn’t answer, she blew past me and went into the house, and I got up and followed her. All the way up the stairs, down the hall, into the bedroom where she snatched her phone off the bedside table and looked at it. Her face immediately crumbled and she started to cry.

“Hey, hey, hey! What’s this now?” I asked and dropped onto the edge of the bed beside her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and kissing her temple.

“I’ve been so hurt and mad all day, that Bobby had to be the one to tell me that you’d gone and it’s not fair to you that I didn’t even think to check this thing.”

I tried not to laugh, that would just upset her more and honestly, she was right too, in a way. She’d been without a phone, conditioned after a fashion, to never go near one on threat of pain and heartbreak I couldn’t even imagine. A couple of months doesn’t fix that kind of thing, or bring the whole having a phone to the forethought at all. Plus, one of us was usually with her, so it wasn’t like she got a lot of calls anyways. Nine times out of ten when we wanted to reach Faith, when we weren’t right with her, we called the person she
was
with, be it me, Hope, the Captain or whoever. This was as much our fault for trying to wrap her up in bubble wrap and keep her on a shelf as it was any fault of hers.

What’s that saying? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. We were looking at a prime example of that now. I held her, and she cried, and I felt guilty as fuck that she’d been stewing in anxiety all day because I couldn’t do better than a fucking text. I knew Faith had been resistant to the idea of taking medication after all the shit they’d pumped into her, but something had to give. She needed to talk to her doctor and we needed to put it in her hands on if she needed to take something or not, but she at least needed to do something about the anxiety and panic attacks. She couldn’t live like this much longer; it was a serious road block to her recovery. I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation but it was one that needed to be had.

We ended up laying down, and she cried herself to sleep. It broke my fucking heart, and tugged at every one of my heartstrings in all the worst ways. I couldn’t sleep, so at some point I disengaged myself enough to sit up with my back to the headboard while she slept, standing guard, keeping watch, or whatever.

I put my headphones into my phone and hit up YouTube, watching videos on how to do a pedicure until I was pretty sure I had everything I would need memorized and could do one in my sleep. Faith had a therapy appointment set for the next day. That was nonnegotiable, the one thing I
needed
to take her to until the guys got back with Hope. There was no tellin’ how long
that
was going to take, but me and Faith were good to be like this, here at Bobby’s, until we had Ft. Royal fully stocked with the rest of the Kraken to protect what was ours.

I’d fixed the A/C when I’d gotten back, which hadn’t taken very long, but Bobby seriously needed to invest in a new one, this one wasn’t going to hold out forever. It was keeping the heat and humidity down to a tolerable level, but it didn’t stop Faith from shifting restlessly in her sleep. I would touch her, a little touch, like smoothing her hair back from her face, or a light caress down her arm, and she would sigh out and settle again. I liked that I could do that for her. That she somehow slept better when I was around, even when I didn’t touch her, like she knew I was there.

Eventually I was tired enough to lay down with her, so I cuddled up to her back, an arm hooked over her waist and closed my eyes, breathing her in. I was going to have to wake her up eventually, so that we could grab some dinner downstairs. I was pretty sure she’d eaten something that day, even though she forgot to more often than not, Bobby would have seen to it. It was our way.

Imagine my surprise when it was the man himself shaking both me and my girl awake. He chuckled and gave us a wink, “Must be nice, sleepin’ the day away.”

“Yeah, fuck you man, I work for a livin’ just the same as you.”

“I don’t,” Faith murmured unhappily.

“Not yet, but then again, you’re my girl and I’m supposed to take care of you.”