Page 3 of Levee

CHAPTER TWO

Levee

“I don’t know why you bother going,” Cato said as I packed up a baking tin with a bunch of the food Eddie had cooked for dinner.

The party was raging out in the back by the pool. The thumping bass of the music interrupted occasionally by a high-pitched laugh or squeal from one of the club girls who were already several drinks in and enjoying the fuck out of their time with Coast, York, Velle, and Kylo.

I was supposed to be out there with them, three drinks deep with some sweet honey laughing with her legs wrapped around my shoulders as I lifted her up so she could whack at another girl with an inflatable battle log, trying to knock her off one of the other guy’s shoulders.

It was just an hour, I reminded myself. Max. Usually, my uncle kicked me out before I even got a chance to try to clean up the moldy fruit I brought and he never ate, or get the dishes full of caked-on disgustingness cleaned and in the draining board.

“You know why,” I said, shrugging it off as I put the lid on the tin.

“I get it’s blood, man. But you put up with this abuse from your grandfather for like fifteen fucking years. And now you’re taking it from your uncle too?”

“He’s mostly in a chair these days,” I reminded him.

“And if he wanted your help, he could at least not bite your fucking head off when you are there for him.”

This was an old refrain.

Cato could never understand why I would go out of my way to help these men who had done nothing but make my life harder growing up. And spat bitter words and accusations at me as an adult while I scrubbed their toilets or gathered their stinking clothes to wash.

But no amount of discouragement from Cato changed anything. I still went every week. Sometimes two weeks if it was a particularly nasty visit the time before. But I never went longer than that.

For, as he said, fifteen years as my grandfather got smaller and more sickly, but no less ornery. Before he passed a few years back.

Just in time for my uncle to start needing care as well. Right in that same apartment. Where the walls were yellow with tobacco and the windows were caked in grime. Where the tub grout was hopelessly moldy, but neither men would let me hang around long enough to pull that toxic shit out and regrout it.

I’d naively thought when I started to care for my Uncle Will that he might be a nice break from my grandfather’s negativity. Growing up, he’d never really been around. He’d worked long shifts roofing, then spending his nights out drinking with friends. Most of my memories of him were just in passing where he would say something snide that, at the time, I’d taken as sarcastic.

Until, of course, I started to try to take care of him. And learned it wasn’t sarcasm; it was criticism, if not thinly veiled hatred.

Technically, the grouchy ass was more declined than he should have been for his age. But he was a solid twelve years older than my father. He’d lived a hard life. And he had chronic back and knee issues thanks to the years he spent on roofs.

That and, well, I was pretty sure anger aged your ass.

It was why I tried so fucking hard not to turn into them. Not to let my own feelings get in the way of doing what I knew was right.

Like showing up at least once a week with groceries. Then taking the time to do as many tasks around the apartment as I could before my uncle became borderline combative about my presence and I needed to get the hell out of there.

“He doesn’t deserve your care,” Cato said, shaking his head.

“No, probably not,” I agreed, grabbing some cleaning supplies, then the keys to Eddie’s car, since I couldn’t take my bike. “But I’m going to care regardless. I’ll be back in an hour or two. Tell the pretty girls to save a round for me,” I said, staring longingly out the back window before turning and making my way out of the clubhouse.

One perk to these visit days was being able to borrow one of the cars belonging to Eddie, Che, or Donovan. All of whom had been street racers back in their day. And who all had some nice-ass cars.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like my bike; I did. In my opinion, nothing was more freeing than taking a drive on a long, empty road by the water at night, and feeling the wind whip at you, smelling the salt air. That shit was practically narcotic.

But bikes were impractical for a lot of life shit. Hence why all the club brothers who eventually settled down with women all invested in some sort of other vehicle as well.

To combat the stress I felt working its way into my muscles, I rolled down the windows, and cranked up the music, drowning out any thoughts as I made the long drive back to my old stomping ground.

Back in the day, Seeley, Cato, and I all grew up in the same building in a neighborhood overrun with crime and violence. Not much had changed since then. Hell, if anything, shit seemed to have gotten worse. But it was still kind of surreal to go back, to walk into that same building I’d spent my whole life in before moving into the clubhouse.

It wasn’t exactly nostalgic as I pulled up to the street out front of the tall brick building. Too many floors. Too many people. Too much noise. Those were the first things that came to mind.

And, yeah, there was a lot of not good memories in the place. Namely… all of the memories involving my blood family.

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