Rewriting Destiny (Forsaken Sinners MC #1) (10 page)

Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks give me another hug, hand me an envelope, and congratulate me again. Instead of opening the card right away, I stick it in my purse and turn toward my grandmother. “Are you rea—?”

I don’t get a chance to finish my sentence before someone is picking me up and twirling me around. I honestly have no idea who it is, and Gram has a look of confusion on her face, so it’s someone she hasn't met or doesn’t remember.

After a couple of spins, whoever has ahold of me puts me back on my feet and turns me around. Jaxon. “Congrats, you are officially an adult!” Before I can answer he pulls me into his arms for a hug.

“Jaxon, what are you doing here?” I ask him once he releases me. I can’t believe he’s here.

“Well, I came to watch you take your first step into your future, why else would I be back?”

I chuckle at his remark and playfully punch him in the stomach. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe for the party that's happening tonight?” If he’s here for any reason, it would be the party, not for me. Jaxon loves going to parties, but I’m sure there is an even better one at his college, so why he came back here is lost on me.

“Well, that too.” He chuckles, then turns toward my grandmother. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve ever met. I’m Jaxon, I went to school with Danielle last year.” Leave it to Jaxon to introduce himself; he can’t wait for anyone to do it for him like a normal person.

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you, darling.” My grandmother smiles and then looks at me. “Are you ready to go home, sweetie?”

I nod and turn back to Jaxon. “It was great seeing you. Have fun at the party.” I help Gram up and start toward my car.

“Aren’t you going? I mean, it is in your honor after all.” Of course he would turn it around and try anything he could to make me feel guilty. But it’s not going to work this time.

“Technically it’s not for me, but the whole senior class. It’s nothing special anyway; they’d use any excuse to party.” When I turn back toward my grandmother, she has a slight frown on her face. “Gram, you okay? Do you need to sit down?”

She shakes her head and pulls her arm out of my grasp. “I’m fine, Danielle, but I don’t understand why you don’t go to this party. Like Mr. Jaxon here says, it’s in your honor. It doesn’t matter that it’s not
just
for you. You should go.”

Ugh, now I have my grandmother pushing me to go? Does it ever stop? “Gram, it’s okay. I don’t really want to go.” I try to take her arm again, but she evades me. For being so slow lately, she sure is quicker than I thought.

“No, you are going and that’s final.” I open my mouth to argue, but she cuts me off before I can get anything out. “Bite that tongue, young lady. If I have to lock you out of the house, I will.”

So much for using my grandmother as an excuse not to go.

“Great, it’s settled then. I’ll pick you up at nine,” says Jaxon.

I start to shake my head when my grandmother speaks. “That’s so sweet of you, darling. She’ll be ready.” Then she grabs my hand and we start toward the car.

“Gram, I really don’t want to go. Plus, I thought we could watch a movie since we didn’t get to for my birthday.” Maybe if I work this the right way, she’ll cave.

“Nice try, but you’re going. I will hear no more of it.”

I close my mouth and shake my head. Add on the fact that Jaxon is picking me up now too so I can’t even leave early. Tonight is going to suck!

Chapter 11

I’ve been in my room since I got back from the ceremony, trying to come up with a way to get out of going tonight. Why did Jaxon have to come over and mention the stupid fucking party in front of my grandmother? I mean, most people would shy away from talking about drinking and such around old people because it would be uncomfortable. But Jaxon? No, not him. He has to go balls to the wall and not only mention the damn party, but pretty much use my grandmother as a means to make me go. Did he know my grandmother would do that? No, probably not, but I’m going to blame him for it anyway.

I finally get up and change out of the summer dress I wore for the ceremony. I put on my pair of jeans with the most holes; they are everywhere—the knees, the thighs, and even the ass, but I’m wearing black leggings underneath. I throw on my signature black tank and combat boots, and put my hair up into a high pony tail. I fix my makeup, keeping with my dark look, then grab my phone and head downstairs.

I look at my phone and notice I still have about five minutes before Jaxon will be here to pick me up, so I go to the kitchen to grab an orange and a bottle of water. On my way back into the entryway, I hear my grandmother's voice. “Sweetheart, can you come in here a minute?”

I set my water and orange down on the counter, grab my leather jacket on the way, and go in search of her. She isn’t in the living room, so I head back to her bedroom.

She’s lying in bed with a bunch of photo albums and pictures spread out all around her. I don’t know what she’s doing, but I don’t want to upset her by taking my anger and irritation out on her, so I put a smile on my face and squat down beside the head of the bed.

“What is it, Gram?” I look around, trying to figure out what it is she could need, but find nothing. I turn back and lock eyes with her. She sets aside the photo she has of me, Zane, and Zeke playing outside the first Fourth of July after they moved in next door. It’s then that I notice all the pictures surrounding her are mostly of me; pictures of Zane and me, Zeke and me, and some of all three of us, a couple of her and me, and then pictures of my mother and father with me as a baby.

“What are you doing?” Maybe it’s because I graduated today or maybe she does this all the time and I never noticed.

“Just wanted to have a look at some old pictures before I went to bed.” She clears a spot for me to sit beside her and pats the blanket. I straighten from where I was squatting and sit down on her bed. She takes my hand in hers and lovingly caresses it. She doesn’t speak for a couple of minutes. She only looks from our joined hands to my face, and then at a couple of the pictures that surround her.

“Are you okay?” I don’t know if she’s sad that I’m growing up or happy for me. Right now, it’s looks to be a mixture of both.

“I’m so very proud of you, Danielle, and I know your mother and father would be too.”

I start to interrupt her. I want to say that my father wanted nothing to do with me so I highly doubt he would be proud of me, and even if he is, he can go fuck himself. But she shakes her head and levels me with a look that has me keeping quiet.

“Now let me finish. I know both your mother and your father would be proud of you. Things haven’t been great for you, I know. You lost your mother way too early and your father couldn’t deal with the loss of his wife. He really thought it was best for me to take you in, and I think he was right. Sometimes, a broken man needs time to heal and he couldn’t do that with a child. I’m not trying to make excuses for him or to even say that it was right, but maybe for him, it was.” She takes a couple of minutes to catch her breath and then continues. “I want you to know that I don’t regret a single day of having you here. I have loved every second and wouldn’t change it for the world. I love you so very much, Danielle, and I’m so proud of you. You are an amazing young girl and I know with every fiber of my being that you will grow up to be an amazing woman.”

I wipe the tears that have fallen down my cheeks, but can’t say anything yet. I’m literally speechless. She reaches over to her nightstand and pulls open the drawer, then reaches in to pull out a small rectangular box.

“Happy graduation, sweetheart.” She hands the box to me and I take it with shaky hands. I look up at her before I slowly open it. Nestled inside is a heart shaped locket. On the front, there’s an inscription that reads
‘
Ma Cheri Cheri
,’
which I know means “My Darling Sweetheart” in French. I open it up to find a picture of her and me on one side, and on the other an inscription that says
‘
Always in your heart
.’
After reading that part, my hands drop in my lap with the locket and I start to sob.

She pulls me down so my head is on her shoulder, and begins to rub little circles on my back while murmuring, “Shhh…it’s okay, sweetheart, I’ve got you.” It makes me remember all the times when I was little and hurt or sad, and she would pull me onto her lap and rock me back and forth until I calmed down.

It takes me forever to finally compose myself again before I sit up. “I love it, Gram. Thank you.” Words cannot express how much I love this woman and what she has done for me. I will forever be thankful to have her in my life. I start to say she didn’t have to get me anything when the doorbell rings.

“That must be Jax,” I say with a sigh. I don’t even try to ask her if she wants me to stay home because I know she already has her mind set that I need to go out and have fun. It’s a day of celebration in her eyes.

“Go have fun, Danielle. I love you so much, I hope you know that.”

I lean down to give her a kiss on the cheek and walk toward the door.

“I love you too, Gram. I’ll see you tomorrow.” As I walk out her door, I hear her say, “Goodbye, sweetheart.”

I put on my new necklace on my way to the door. Once I have it hooked, I make sure I have my purse and walk out.

“All rea—Whoa, you okay?” Jaxon asks me once he gets a good look at my face. I forgot I had been crying a few minutes ago.

I wipe under my eyes and find black on my fingers when I pull them away. Great. “Yeah, I’m good.” I add a little smile and we walk to his truck.

Once inside, I pull the visor down to look in the mirror. My face isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, only a few smudges and my eyes are a little puffy. Nothing I can’t fix. He takes one last look in my direction before putting the truck onto the road and starts driving toward the lake. He doesn’t try to start up conversation with me, which I am grateful for.

Before I know it, we are at the party and getting out of the truck. “All right, let the party begin!” He takes my hand and we walk to the keg.

***

We have been at this stupid party for over two hours, and every minute of it I have spent sipping my beer and trying to come up with a way to skip out. I just want to be home, in my bed, thinking about my life and where I go from here. Without Zane, I really don’t know where that is. Yes, it wasn’t like I had him as a huge part of my plan anyway, but he was still there as my friend. Now, all of that is gone. I need to get over it and come up with a way to get on with my life without him in it.

I bring my cup up to my lips. Empty. I get up and head over to the keg to get a refill. I haven’t touched any of the bottles because I don’t plan on staying long. I’m only trying to pass the time by sipping a couple of beers, make it look like I’m having fun, then tell Jaxon that I am ready to go. If he doesn’t want to leave, then I’ll find a ride home from someone else. There has to be someone here that will be leaving early, and if not, I’ll bribe someone.

As I get my cup under the nozzle of the keg but before I’m able to get anything out, I’m being lifted up from behind and twirled around toward a table off to one side that wasn’t there earlier.

“Put me down!” I yell at whoever is holding me. I don’t care who it is as long as they let me go. They don’t say anything, but they do as I say when we are beside the table. Before I can turn around and yell, I feel hands on my shoulders pushing me down onto one of the chairs. This person is really asking for it. I’m in no mood to be here, let alone being manhandled.

I open my mouth to give them a piece of my mind when Jaxon walks out from behind me to sit in the chair next to mine. I should have known it was him. Instead of voicing my outrage, I level him with a look that says it all; I’m pissed. You know that saying “if looks could kill”? Yeah, I was giving him one of
those
glares. Not only would he be dead, but scorched and in ashes right now.

“Oh, calm the fuck down. We have been here for a while and you have only had, what, maybe three drinks, and barely said ten words. I don’t care if I have to suffer your wrath for an eternity, you are going to sit here and play drinking games and you will have fun. Do you understand me?”

So this is how he’s going to play it? I want to hand him an ass kicking, but decide to go another route. “Fine. I’ll make you a deal.”

He gives me a look that says there is no deal in the world that he will make with me tonight, but he stays quiet to hear me out. Smart guy.

“I will drink, play stupid games, and be sociable. I will honest to God try to have a good time. But if in two hours I still want to go home, you have to either take me or not stop me from leaving. Deal?” There is no way that even after two hours of trying to let loose and have a good time I will want to stay longer. Sure, I can drink with the best of them, but I haven’t been sociable in so long that I doubt tonight will be any different. But because Jaxon is my friend and he is making an effort to try and lighten my mood, I will try.

“Fine, but you better try one hundred and ten percent, otherwise the deal is off and you go home when I do.” Like he would know if I’m really putting all my effort into it or not. According to him, we’ll be playing drinking games, so the more we play, the less observant he will be.

“Okay, I’ll give it my all, but at the end, you have to keep your word if I say I want to leave. No matter how wasted and upset you are.”

He nods, grabs the stack of cards on the table, and starts shuffling.

“Okay. We’ll start with beer, but we'll work our way up to Jack.” I have no idea what we are playing, but drinking games can’t be that hard, right? Even if I lose, it’s still a good thing for me because I can handle any kind of alcohol.

“We’ll start off with Fubar.” As he starts telling me how the game is played, four guys join us at the table: Marc, Heath, Robbie, and Jon. I don’t know if Jaxon told them that we were going to be playing or if they noticed that a game was about to start. Doesn’t matter either way. The more people that are playing, the less I’ll have to interact. Though I will have to jump into the conversations to show the effort I'm making to have a good time, the others should distract Jaxon so that he won't notice me too much.

Two hours later, we have played Fubar, Never Have I Ever, High/Low, and are getting ready to play Paranoia. They said that this is the best game, especially after everyone has a good number of drinks in their system. I’ve had more to drink than I thought I would, and surprisingly, this is fun. I still want to go home, but I’m no longer sorry I came.

“So…” Jaxon says smugly, knowing I’ve had a good time. He’s had more to drink than me but he is holding his own. I thought for sure that he would be slurring and forgetting about me by now, but he has kept me involved and succeeded in helping me relax.

“You were right. I did have fun.”

He starts to say something, probably “I told you so,” or some other bullshit, but I hold my hand out to stop him.

“But…I do still want to go. I’m glad I came, but it’s been a long day and I just want it to be over. I’m sorry.”

He looks a little disappointed, but I see understanding in his eyes. “Okay, I respect that, but would you at least play this last game with us and then we’ll go?”

What’s another half hour anyway? “Sure. How do you play it again?”

He tells me the rules again. When it’s your turn, you whisper a question into someone’s ear and they have to answer it for everyone to hear with the name of the person in the group. The questions are general, like who’s the hottest person here? The part the makes it fun is that the person named has to drink and then gets to flip a coin that decides whether the questioner has to reveal what the question was. This could get very personal and interesting, but it could also get ugly fast. And I thought Never Have I Ever was rough.

Since I’m the only girl at the table, I’m guessing that my name could be mentioned quite a bit, but I don’t usually care what people think of me, so I doubt I will get very paranoid.

As it turns out, my name has only been mentioned twice, and I haven’t cared when I flipped the coin to have them say the question out loud. Everyone else has seemed to really want to know what people think of them, especially when I say their name. It’s really funny. They now know who in the group I consider my top friend, which is Jaxon of course. Who I would kiss if dared, which again is Jaxon. Who I’d have sex with, again it would be Jaxon since I don’t know the others that well. And lastly, who I think could be gay, which was very awkward, but I answered with Robbie, who didn’t seem all that upset, so maybe I’m right?