Page 70 of Forty

And as soon as I open the door, she’s gonna come running. Every time. I have to position myself so my bad arm doesn’t take the brunt of her weight—she’s put on a little since she used to do this in high school—but I’m never going to tell her to stop. I’m gonna catch her every time.

She’s goin’ a little stir crazy, but I think I’ve impressed upon her the seriousness of the situation without going into detail. She knows she can’t be running around. The Raiders have targeted her, and she can’t be traveling the countryside with Shirlene.

Nevaeh keeps trying to argue, tells me she has to talk to me about that, but then she ends up not having anything to say. And nine times out of ten, we end up naked with me balls deep in her sweet pussy.

I’d forgotten how it is with her. In a messed-up way, it’s like pain. I can remember that right after the accident, I hurt worse than any physical pain I’d experienced before. By a factor of a hundred, at least. But now, I can only remember the fact of the pain. Not the sensation.

It’s a fucked-up comparison, but that’s what it’s like with Nevaeh. I remember loving her. Being happy. The fact. Not the feeling. But the feeling—it’s a million times better than the memory. There’s nothing like it in the world.

All these years, I tried to convince myself I was young. Hormones. First love. But the reality is there is nothing that suits me better than Nevaeh Ellis.

I’ll put it this way. I’m a soldier. I march. Straight ahead, mission focused, locked on target. I’m efficient, and I’m good at my work, but it sucks ass as a way to live. Nevaeh’s a butterfly. Or one of those birds that flit from flower to flower—a hummingbird, giddy and bopping around for the sheer fun of it. Beautiful. She makes the marching mean something.

In the house, she doesn’t go far, but she never stays in place. She buzzes around, saying crazy shit, leaping at me out of nowhere, all smiles and shrieks.

The way she fucks…she climbs me like a tree, or she gets obsessed with my biceps or my balls, and she hyper-focuses, her eyes going dreamy and dazed, and it’s like she’s starving, and I’m exactly what will satisfy her.

I make her happy. She doesn’t have to tell me. It’s written on her face.

Making her happy unknots the tangled-up shit inside me. I’d pretty much accepted I was gonna have to schlep it around until I die. But contented Nevaeh eases me. Gives me peace.

And about a week ago, when I got home, she didn’t come running. I found her standing in the living room, staring at the TV, fists balled, white-knuckled, hyperventilating. The local news was on. They arrested some guy in Pyle for rigging up cameras in the changing room at a department store.

She was wild-eyed, rocking back and forth. She started telling me about this perv, and then she started in on Ed Ellis, and the floodgates opened, and I stood there, and I listened. I don’t know how I didn’t go dig that fucker up and burn his corpse, but I listened. And I didn’t know what to say. The guilt… It claws at my guts.

I made her mac and cheese, and I poured her a whiskey. She got drunk and puked and fell asleep on my chest. I called Heavy at four in the morning to tell him I was out until later in the day, and he gave me shit.

He’s not down with me getting back with Nevaeh. I haven’t told him what happened to her. It’s not my place. He’d better figure out this is my call and change his tune, though, ‘cause my girl is where she belongs.

I wasn’t there for her back then, but I’m not blinking this time. I know it’s not gonna be a smooth ride. Hell, she’s got the Renelli crime family after her, and the Raiders too, somehow. But she’s mine.

She’s where she belongs.

“Baby, where you at?” I come in the front door, and I’m greeted with beach towels hanging from the upstairs railing like United Nations flags.

“In here!” she calls from the living room. No running footsteps. My gut clenches, uneasy, instantly relaxing when I see her smile.

She’s laying on her stomach, heels kicked up, in the middle of the floor next to Fay-Lee, Dizzy’s old lady. They’re watching TV and lining up empty pop bottles like they’re on a sugar bender. Ah. She has company.

I didn’t see a car in the drive. Dizzy must have dropped Fay-Lee off. She’s still got the bruises from her run in with the Raiders at Twiggy’s bar. Even as ornery as Fay-Lee can be, I don’t see her flying the coop with things as tense as they are right now. She’s an instigator, but she’s not stupid.

I go and straddle Nevaeh’s ass and start rubbing her shoulders. She moans and drums her heels against my back. I’m instantly hard.

“Why’s there shit hanging from the bannisters?”

“Slip and slide.”

I check out back. Oh, yeah. There’s the tarp I use to cover my bikes in the winter, nailed down the incline into the empty lot, covered in suds.

“You do that yourself?”

“I commandeered the prospect you’ve got watching me.”

I put Boom on her. He’s not as dumb as the rest of his crop. And he’s a good shot. We’ve been to the range together a few times.

“You didn’t let him slide, did you.”

I like the guy, but I will kill him if he got slippery with my woman.

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