Chaos (Havoc Series Book Two) (3 page)

“I was 21, been in the Navy for two years at
that point. The boys and I were on leave, so we headed out
drinking. We ended up at a strip club downtown. Apparently, we
picked the right night because within the first few minutes of
being there, your mother appeared on the stage in this little white
number. Blew me out of the water.”

My mom was a stripper? Do I even wanna know
the rest of this story?

“There was something about her, ya know? I
mean yeah, it helped she was half dressed, but there was something
about the look in her eyes. She didn't look dead on the inside like
the others. There was a spark there. A flame waiting to set the
world on fire, it just needed the gasoline. And I wanted to be that
gas, Clint...”

“After her performance, she disappeared
behind the bar to make drinks. According to the other girls, she
only stripped on Saturday nights for one show which was why the
place was extra packed; the rest of the week she stayed out of
sight behind the bar. When we were getting ready to leave, I looked
around for her. I wanted her to have my number. I wanted her to
know I was more than just some horny bastard looking to bang a
stripper. No surprise I couldn't find her. I figured she went to
change but when we made it outside and were headed for the car, I
heard sounds coming from the alley next to the building. I took
off. Jamie was pinned against the wall by some moron's hips; the
bastard's hand was lunged up her top. I fucking lost it. Pulled him
off her and started swinging. Punch after punch. She was screaming
at me the entire time that 'she wanted it!' that 'he paid for it!'
that I needed to 'back the fuck off!’ I didn't give a shit. I
couldn't explain to her why I couldn't let that jackass use her
like that. I didn't even know her. All I knew was she deserved
better than that.

“When the frat boy prick tried to say the
same thing, I opened my wallet and threw a hundred dollar bill at
him. Told him to keep the change and to consider the ass whooping a
fair warning not to come around again. As he dragged his body away
from us, Jamie started yelling at me, her fists wailing against my
chest. And I let her. I let her swing away at me, the entire time
just watching her. And let me be first to say, your mom could pack
a hell of punch for a woman barely 21.”

With those words, I smile; the realization my
mom was selling her body for money still lingering on the front of
my mind. Waiting for me to pass judgment. Waiting for me to file it
where it rightfully belongs.

“The second she calmed down, she stormed back
in the club away from me. A few weeks passed and there were just a
couple days before we were to deploy, so I went out again with some
old high school pals to a bar not far from the club. The entire
walk to the place I couldn't help but think about her. She hadn't
stopped popping up on my brain from the minute I saw her, but as I
got closer to where we actually met, it just seemed to get worse.
Anyway we got to the bar, sat down, and before I knew it, there was
a shot of whiskey in front of me. I looked up and there was your
mom, leaned on the bar with that smirk she was famous for. The one
that let you knew she had you. She said to me, 'Shots on me. And
anything else you need.' And I told her, 'The only thing I need is
you'. Meant every word.”

His face disappears back towards the water
where he pulls out another successful catch. Son a bitch. I can't
catch shit, and he's caught two already. He re baits his hook and
tosses it back out.

Mom. A stripper? A prostitute? Wait. My mom?
Her sweet face comes back to me like photo. She was so perfect. Her
bobbed brown hair that shaped her face. Her high cheekbones and
perfectly structured face. The freckles on her slender shoulders.
The pieces of artwork that covered her body like it was a canvas
dying to be painted. Her jeans with slight tears, her white tank
tops, his tags lying on top of the ensemble. Nothing about her
screams that lifestyle. Sir's right. Her eyes always screamed life
and hope. Just like Haven's.

Still feeling brave, I ask, “Why'd we move
away from Dixon?”

“Too close to her past. Believe it or not,
Clint, your mom wasn't a runner. She wasn't afraid of much.
Fearless to her core, but there was one thing that she couldn't
live with.”

“What was that?”

“You know the truth. She hated the idea of
you finding out about how she survived before we were together. And
Dixon was full of men who had seen her dance when she was a
stripper, some of them who had met her in the back. Some of them on
the teams you played baseball on. The shame was too overwhelming. I
came home one night after you had gone to bed and found her on the
couch, bawling. Your mother crying was a rare sight, Slugger. She
said she couldn't take it. Begged me to agree to sell the house and
move far away. Start over somewhere.

“See that's the thing about the village,
Clint. We've all been to that place where Haven is, where we needed
to start over and reinvent. It wasn't an accident we moved next
door to Felix and Anna. I wanted to protect your mom, and I knew
they could help. So I called Felix. We met when I was 16. I did
some work with their company. We always kept in touched. Within
months, we were packed up and moved to Reckonberg.

“You thought we moved to Reckonberg, because
I
wanted to. You thought it had something to do with my job
and boy...did you hate me for yanking you out of your life like
that. Your mother wanted to take the blame, wanted to be what you
hated because she thought it was her fault, but I told her to let
it go. It was better for her to be protected and you to be angry
with me, than her. You loved your mom so much already; I couldn't
yank you out of your home and away from her too. So I let you pour
all that loathing at me...”

Ashamed, I look down at my rod. He's right. I
blamed him day and day out for the move. For everything. At times,
I still do. Look at the lengths he went to protect the woman he
loved. He gave up a relationship with the only child he had to make
sure nothing ever changed my mind about her. Sacrificed something
he clearly wanted for her. For me. Mom was right. He was there when
he needed to be even if I didn't know.

“Why was mom...” the words taste worse than a
shot of fucking vinegar, “stripping?”

“Your mom left home at 17. Her father died
when she was a little girl. He was quite older than her mother by a
good 30 years. In the beginning, he thought that your grandmother
loved him for him, however when he realized it wasn't about him,
but his money, he switched everything over to go to your mom when
she turned 22. Your grandmother finally got remarried when Jamie
was in high school to some man that hated your mom. And your
grandmother ignored her. Treated her like garbage, so she left.
They had never a great relationship. Her step-father never
acknowledged her, even after her mother died in a hit and run. He
was pissed off everything she had gone to Jamie. Looks like she
didn't trust him either. It wasn't easy for her. But that's the
thing about you mom Clint, if you don't know anything else about
her, you knew she was a fighter. A survivor.”

Like me. Like Sir. I'm from a family of
warriors. None of us have had it easy. None of us willing to just
give up. Always moving forward. At the core of it? Love for someone
greater than the love for ourselves.

Finally there's a tug at my line and I pull
in a fish. He's not big but he's feisty. He's wiggling for his dear
life. I have a choice make. Put him in the cooler, keep him, skin
him and possibly feed myself what couldn't be more than a snack or
let him go like Sir did his brothers. Let him live to fight another
day. Return home to his life once more. I let him off the line and
toss him back in the water.

Without much emotion in his voice, Sir says,
“Good choice.”

The afternoon continues to pass, not many
more words swapped between us. At this point what can I say? The
wall that we both relied so heavily on to keep us divided, to keep
sanity in our lives, has had a sledgehammer taken to it.
Demolished. I didn't think when my life shattered to pieces I was
going to be responsible for this wall too, but I am.

With the sun finally setting, the two of us
head back towards camp, fish-less. Sir starts us a fire and pulls
out a couple roasting forks and some sausage.

Sitting on a log across from him, my stick
twirling the meat above the roaring flame, in what feels like a
mutter, I ask, “Sir...what do you remember about me?”

Puzzled, he raises his eyebrow, shifts around
in his seat, and shrugs. “Everything.”

Vague. What else should I expect? Not in the
mood to push any more my attention returns to the fire, the
exhaustion from the day beginning to slowly take its toll. My
shoulders feel like they've been injected with liquid nitrogen,
every cell in my body starting to make me immobile. Even breathing
seems incredibly difficult. This is another reason why turning off
my emotions is critical when in the field.

“When you were a newborn, you barely made a
sound. You were so quiet at night I got anxiety that you were
alright. I had always heard how much babies cried. How noisy they
were. That they fussed all the time, but you...you ever made more
than a peep once your mother put you down for the evening. So one
night...when I couldn't sleep, I strolled into your nursery and
there you were. Bright eyed and wide awake. I lifted you, amazed
that you didn't fuss even then. I was always afraid I would drop
you. Anyway, I held you close to my chest, my hand cradling your
head, and walked around your room just holding you like that. I
couldn't believe you were born. All the bull shit we had been
through and overcome didn't matter. All the trivial nonsense that
gets the better of the world didn't exist. The only thing in that
moment was you and me. I was in awe that your mother and I created
a living breathing embodiment of perfection. Eventually I settled
in your rocking chair, you still clutched against my chest, and
rocked us both until we fell asleep. Your mom eventually found us
and instead of putting you in your crib, she merely cuddled up
beside us. It was then I knew, with the two of you in my arms,
there wasn't anything I couldn't do...and there wasn't anything I
wouldn't do to protect both of you.”

The words hang in the air along with the
smoke coming from his piece of meat. My eyes feel like they're
blurry. Most likely it's just the fumes. I sniffle. Once. Twice.
There's a giant rip at my gut on the inside and I feel like I'm
standing on a new battlefield. But this time I don't wanna fight
against Sir. This time I want to be on the same side.

With a single tear cast away from the prison
of my eyes, I whisper, “I'm sorry, Sir. For everything.”

At that moment, Sir sniffles away whatever
emotions were leaking from him as well and nods. “Me too.”

And nothing else is said between us. We eat
in muteness, the sound of the bugs being the only thing to keep us
from being in the utter absence of noise. Once we're done, we both
retire to our tents for rest.

I adjust my body so I'm lying flat on my back
staring up at the roof of my tent. Mom. A stripper. A whore. All
because her mother didn't care enough about her. I always thought
that's the way Sir was with me, but I guess I was wrong. He wanted
to care and didn't know how. Big fucking difference. There's an
uncomfortable shift in my stomach. All this time I thought we were
on different levels and it turns out we're going through the exact
same thing. Haven was right. Mom would probably be pretty pissed
off at the two of us. She would expect much more. Hell, I'm
starting to expect more. If not from the both of us at least
myself. Sir has steady proved his interest in my life and I've
barely given back. Running my hands down my face, I shut my eyes
tight. Now it may be too late. Now I'm facing time in prison. A
life sentence for murder in the first degree. A life time without
Sir. Without Mindy. Without Glove or Lordy. Without Haven. Fuck.
Life before Haven without the bars was shit. What am I gonna do?
God...what am I gonna do?

The shift beside me causes a steady groan out
of me. And then the shift is followed with something moving across
my lowers abs, right on top of my shirt. Doing my best to force my
eyes open, I see Haven's left hand crawling across the area,
slipping under my shirt, a glimpse of a familiar object on it.

“Clint...” she hums my name and my solider
below my waist begins to stir.

“Yeah?”

“You awake?”

Looking down at the hard on in my boxers, I
smile down at her sweet face that's eagerly peering up at me. “I am
now.”

Without hesitation I run my fingers up
through the back of her neck into her hair where I give a gentle
pull as I push my lips roughly against hers. She moans. Her kiss is
hot. The speed is fast. Fierce. Needy. In one swift motion I pull
her down on top of me her t-shirt slipping up, revealing her
gorgeous coffee colored legs. Her body feels on fire and the thin
barrier of our underwear won't be able to hold me back from the
things I'm about to do to her. Again. And again. And probably one
more time.

“Mommy...” a whine interrupts the two of
us.

My head falls back on the pillow, peering
around her as she tosses her face over her shoulder to look at our
son. I swear he looks just like I did when I was a kid. “Yeah,
sweetheart?”

“I had a bad dream...” he sniffles, a brown
teddy bear clutched tightly in his grip, his small bronze colored
hand rubbing his eye, tears clearly having been on his face.

“Oh, John.” she shifts her body off of mine,
doing her best to make herself decent for our three year old. “Want
me to tuck you back in?”

He nods and she goes to get up when my hand
catches her arm, “Let me do that.” Tossing a look at him, I offer a
smile. “How about dad tucks you back in, champ?”