Page 13 of The Heir

Karlotti slid out of the backseat, stood up beside me and shut the door behind her.

“Uh…” Montana stammered. “Wh-what are you doing, Honey?”

“My brother’s not going, and I’m not leaving him. I want to stay, too,” she decided and started back into the crowd.

I turned to follow her, leaving Monty to deal with Aunt Daisy. I was too old for this shit. I’d not been around my uncle in overa decade. My mother would force us in the car come morning, and who knew when I’d make it back. I wasn’t ready to climb back into her box, and I knew Karlotti wasn’t either. I could keep an eye on her. We weren’t children, and she wasn’t some irresponsible thing that couldn’t be trusted past the mailbox.

“Daisy, get in the fucking car. We’ll call Oak once we’re on the interstate, okay? They’re adults and not our children. This isn’t our battle. It isn’t even our business, babe…” Monty was saying, as I dipped back into the garage for another peek at my father’s bike.

Did they really think I’d just climb in and leave it? I’d sober up and drive us wherever Oak and Mom had stayed come dawn. What was the worst that could happen? It was already dark as shit; we couldn’t be more than eight hours from daylight.

Chapter Six

Marchella

Everyone was fed, cleaned, changed into gowns, and freshly bed checked. The only problem was the clock. It wasn’t even nine. I had a whole hour to go until my evening shift ended. I flipped through the pages of the appetite book for the second time, reassuring myself that all the dinner trays had been accounted for. It was perfectly recorded, the writing legible, my signature exactly where I’d left it on the last page.

“You going to tell me what happened to that hand?” My Aunt Carly asked, drawing my attention away from the pages of C.N.A. documentation. She was sitting cross-legged at the nurses’ station, her attention fixed on me.

I flubbed my lips and gave a slow shift of my head when my partner, Andrea, got back from her second smoke break of the hour.

“Let me see it.” Carly insisted, her foot shooting to the floor. She rolled her office chair toward me without lifting her ass from the seat.

“It’s fine, I had it cleaned.”

“At the urgent care?” she guessed.

“No, Blaze Aviston cleaned it for me,” I admitted, causing her and Andrea both to stare at me. Granted they had polar expressions on their faces.

“Aviston, huh?” My partner grinned. “That another one of Easy’s boys?”

“Whose son?” Carly snapped, turning her frozen grimace on the woman.

“E–Eric Aviston, I mean,” Andrea stammered.

Carly nodded, and slowly fixed her face. “For a minute there I thought you were referring to a local criminal by his street name. As if you, too, were some… questionable person. It’d be a shame for a resident or their family to come to such an unfortunate conclusion.”

“For sure.” Andrea agreed, with an exaggerated nod.

When Carly turned back to her chart with a judgmental shake of her head, Andrea’s eyes met mine and she mouthed ‘Oh my God’.

“Does it hurt?” Carly asked, not bothering to glance back at us again.

“Not like it did.” I tried to sound dismissive.

“Get out of here. Get some ibuprofen and keep the damn thing clean. Change the bandage and make sure there isn’t any grease around the wound.” She started out sounding compassionate, but by the time she was done, her tone had turned scornful again.

I didn’t give her a chance to take it back. I shot off of the wall I’d been leaning against and made my way to the time clock. It was still early. I might have time to grab a shower and make it in time to say farewell to Blaze.

I cursed myself for even thinking like that, and when I reached the home that I shared with my parents and sister, I actuallyconsidered staying in. It wasn’t often the Miller house was quiet and peaceful like this.

It wasn’t until I’d showered, changed the Band-Aid, and was standing there in my underwear with my hair in a wrapped-up towel that I decided I had too much energy to sit around all night. I slipped on some new shorts I’d bought on my last shopping trip with Izzy. They’d cost a fortune, for something that was so next to nothing and distressed. They fit perfectly, none of that snug stuff that left my belly bubbling at the waistline. I was what Izzy called, ‘Skinny thick’. My legs were pale, I’d spent all summer working on a check rather than my tan. I really wanted to enroll in nursing school in the coming Fall. Aunt Carly convinced me that with the constant lingo of drugs I grew up with, pharmacology would be a whiz. She had jokes for days where my dad was concerned.

I put my thoughts of her aside and wrapped myself in a lace bra that clasped in the front. I flipped through the shirts Izzy had bought me. They were all just a little too extra for the occasion. So, I flew through the house, taking advantage of the privacy. I found a Harley shirt that belonged to one of my brothers in the dryer.

“Perfect.” I grinned, grabbing the shears.

It served them right for leaving it. How old did brothers have to be before they started doing their own laundry anyhow? Did they think there was some kind of age requirement on buying a washer and dryer for their own homes? I wasn’t sure what the deal was.

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