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“Then he needs to come here and speak. Fuck, I can’t handle this.” Casper raked his hand through his hair.
“You think I can?” Apparently, it was Dash’s turn to yell. “I can’t get him off my fucking couch! I had a videoconference with his therapist. He’s getting depressed and I don’t want him to go down that road.”
Dash didn’t need to say the words for us to understand. Slater had gotten very depressed for a while. We were worried about him to the point none of us wanted to leave him alone. There was always one of us with him. We worried he was suicidal, but it fortunately didn’t get to that point. It was a fight for him to climb out of that pit though, to claw his way back.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “We can’t brush it under the rug, Dash. I can’t pretend he didn’t say what he did.”
“I’m not asking you to, but we have to figure out a way to fix this. To fixus. We have an album to make, songs to write. The label’s not on our asses yet, because we’re out there performing locally, but that will only buy us so much time. More than that, we have to fix us because if we don’t, the album won’t mean shit. And honestly, I care more about us as a family than I do about the damn money.”
He had a valid point; one I’d thought of as well. We were under contract to create more. It would be hard to do as we were, but not impossible. I usually wrote with Slater so that would be an adjustment.
Going to Slater and working this out, talking to him, I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. I was still upset over what he’d said, and how badly he’d hurt Casper and me. Casper took his words to heart, let them beat him up until he believed them. I refused to let anyone hurt him like that again. Casper didn’t need Slater telling him where he went wrong. He knew each word, each moment by heart. He lived and breathed them on repeat in his head. That was how Casper tortured himself. It took more than me to help him stop. It took Elic too. I wouldn’t threaten what we had.
I hung my head. “I have to think about the right way to deal with this. It’s not just Slater and me, like you said. I can handle him throwing shit my way, but I refuse to allow him to do this to Cas again.”
29
ELIC
It felt good to be outside and breathe in the fresh air. I’d thought once I got off the streets—if I ever did—I wouldn’t want to be outside any longer. It wasn’t true. The more time I spent here, the more I loved being outdoors. Maybe it was because I knew I could go inside when I wanted. There was a roof over my head and a dry, clean bed to sleep in. I had men who loved me. Who I loved in return. I was able to live the life I wanted for myself again. Not the one I ran to out of desperation and self-preservation.
With the tension in the house, I wanted to give them space to figure things out. What was going on in there didn’t concern me. Well, it did, but not directly. What hurt Casper and Reed hurt me too. I hoped they could work it out. For as easygoing as Dash usually was, he was stressed tonight. It couldn’t have been easy seeing someone he loved upset. He and Slater seemed close.
Starry ran up to me, dropping a tennis ball at my feet. The dog was the epitome of happiness here. She could run as far and for as long as she wanted. I didn’t worry about her not coming back. For all the times she could have left me when we didn’t have a roof over our heads, she’d stayed by my side. Here, she ran to the farm to play with the animals.
The vet was by last week to look at the animals. She gave Starry a checkup while she was at it. She’d informed me Starry should be spayed. I knew I needed to have it done. I just didn’t have the money to do it before and didn’t find free animal clinics near me. Starry had an appointment in a few weeks to get it taken care of. I could afford it now. I could also pay for the medication afterward to keep her comfortable. It wouldn’t be cheap, but the vet informed me she gave the farm a discount because of the amount of business she received from them. If it was true or not, I wasn’t sure, but I also wouldn’t argue with her. I was happy Starry would get the medical care she needed. Thankfully, she was healthy otherwise. Adria saw to that by bathing her and keeping her flea free.
I threw the ball and Starry took off, running as fast as her legs would carry her. I watched her run when a car came down the driveway. It was an older-looking, dark blue sedan. Not recognizing the car, I edged back toward the door to the house and called Starry to my side. She readily came, ball in her mouth, which she dropped at my feet to stare at the car approaching while her tongue hung out.
The sedan stopped near the patio and a guy got out who didn’t look much older than me. His face was clean-shaven with angular cheekbones. His light brown hair blew in the evening breeze as he smiled at me.
“Hi there. You’re Elic, right?” he asked, walking toward me. He wasn’t threatening in the least, but my instinct to not go near him kicked in, even though he wasn’t a big guy. The closer he got, I realized he was probably around the same height as me, five foot ten or so.
“Can I help you with something?” Starry stayed pressed to my leg and my back was at the door now. One twist of the doorknob and I’d be inside. Occasionally, a car came down the driveway but quickly turned around when they realized it wasn’t the restaurant entrance.
The guy stopped before he stepped onto the patio. “You look just like the pictures I’ve seen.”
I shook my head. My picture was probably all over the Internet.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going about this all wrong. I’m looking for your stepfather, Oscar. He said he was coming to bring you home, but he hasn’t returned, and I started to worry. I didn’t know if he’d be back the same day. Too much time has passed. He should have come home by now. I called his friends but didn’t find anything out.”
My body locked up tight. I gripped the back of Starry’s neck, not hard, just enough to ground me. “I… I’m not… You have to leave.”
“Please, I mean no harm.”
“You’re with him.” Anyone with that awful man could hurt me.
“He was worried about you. He said you’ve been missing.”
“I left on purpose,” I bit out, my voice shaking. “I ran as fast as I could away from him.” Reaching behind me, I put my hand on the doorknob and was ready to scream for Casper, Reed, and Dash.
He cocked his head, clearly confused. “Why would you run? He misses you.”
“He’s in jail where he belongs for what he did to me,” I nearly shouted.
“Jail? Oh god. What happened?” His calmness cracked and his lips dropped into a frown. He turned away, taking a couple of steps toward his car while chewing his nail, before turning back to me. “He hurt you, didn’t he? Fuck,” he muttered. “I should have known. I always fall for the wrong men.” He fisted his hands in his hair, his unease sending a nervous tremor through me.
“He raped me,” I spit out. “He fucking cut me open and made me bleed, while he assaulted me.” Tears burned my eyes. I didn’t know who the hell this guy was, but how dare he come here acting like he gave a damn about the piece of shit who caused me so much pain, so many nightmares reliving those moments of torture.
