Scenic Route Read online

  It felt like the minute I shut my eyes again, I heard pounding and shouting for someone to open the fucking door.

  Was that Phil, my brother? It sure sounded like him.

  I got out of the bed and heard that it was definitely Phil. I found them at the kitchen doorway that led out to the roof terrace at the back of the building.

  Spencer was bare-chested, in just a pair of jeans, his belt undone, blocking the doorway. I got the impression he just got to the door, but Phil had started shouting before it even got opened.

  “Where is she and who the fuck’re you?” Phil demanded, right in Spencer’s face, ready to push his way in.

  “Whoa. Step the fuck back!” Spencer snapped.

  Phil saw my face and physically pushed his way in, knocking Spencer’s shoulder. Spencer took a step to the side and blocked me behind him.

  “Hey!” Spence snapped, putting his hand out, grabbing my brother’s jacket and hauling Phil back a few feet. This was surprising considering the fact that Phil had to have a good 75 pounds on him.

  “That’s my brother, Spencer,” I informed.

  Spence let go, moved aside, and I was immediately engulfed in Phillip’s arms.

  “Ow,” I winced.

  “What the fuck, Squeak?”

  “How’d you know I was here?” I asked, pulling away, holding my side.

  “That motherfucker hit you,” he growled.

  It wasn’t a question. He knew, looking at me, that I’d been hit, and he already knew by who.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could, my brother repeated, on a roar, “That motherfucker!”

  I started to cry.

  “How’d you know?” I repeated, through tears.

  My brother let go of me and was pacing the length of the kitchen. Spencer was leaning against the counter, arms folded across his chest, watching the exchange.

  “Phil?” I repeated.

  “Ma called. Asked me to track you down. Said that stupid fuck came to Mom and Dad’s, bangin’ on the door at four thirty in the mornin’. Wrecked, lookin’ for you. Cryin’ his fuckin’ eyes out. Ma opened the door ‘n he stormed in and tore through the house tryin’ to find you. Dad’s on the road tonight. She said that little fuck stumbled out and the cops were pullin’ in, picked him up outside the house, arrested him for domestic battery. That motherfucker hit you!” Phil’s rage was palpable.

  Spencer’s expression was hard.

  My brother looked to Spence. “You Jenna’s man?”

  Spencer shook his head and extended his hand to shake my brother’s hand. “Spencer. Jenna’s man’s brother.”

  My brother shook his hand and muttered, “Phil Griffin.”

  Phil looked at me, so I explained, “I came here to get away from Joe. Jenna and Rider went away for the weekend.”

  “I’m gonna kill ‘im,” Phil snapped. “What he do?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  “Pipsqueak…”

  “I have a mild concussion. Spent half the night in the hospital, and honestly, I just wanna sleep and…”

  “He hoofed her in her ribs with his fuckin’ construction boots on,” Spencer bit off.

  My brother’s gaze swung Spencer’s way.

  I winced. You could see my bruised cheek, my fat lip, but the rest was hidden under my clothes.

  “You can see what he did to her face. Also, her knees are all cut up, doctors pulled broken mirror out. Her hands’re all cut up, too. Got a cop, a good cop to come to the hospital. He took her statement. Doc says nothing’s broken. No stitches, but I stayed here to keep an eye. Wakin’ her every two hours to make sure, since she’s got an egg-sized lump on her head.”

  Phil’s eyes were back on me and they were filled with wrath.

  I glared at Spencer. He wasn’t helping to defuse the situation. My brother was a ticking time bomb. We didn’t need him angrier.

  “He’s lucky he’s been arrested. I’ll tell ya that fuckin’ much,” Spencer added.

  I looked at the floor.

  “I told ya he’d do it a-fucking-gain, didn’t I?” Phil spat.

  My heart sank, and an ugly sob noise escaped my mouth.

  The room went super-charged with testosterone or something. Spencer’s eyes were on me and they looked even angrier. Evidently, it hadn’t gotten around that I’d already given Joe a get-out-of-jail-for-domestic-violence free card.

  I had good friends. Of course, they didn’t spread rumors. Joe had proven it over a six-month period of being dry that he was intent on never hitting me again. My friends accepted him back into the fold. It wasn’t just me that believed Joe. It was all of us.

  He’d only hit me the once, in a drunken rage, and swore it’d never happen again. Six months of perfect behavior and sobriety before I’d agreed to try again.

  “That fucker is a dead man,” my brother vowed.

  “Phillip,” I choked, tears streaming down my face.

  “I fuckin’ told you.” He pointed at me and I winced.

  Spencer got between us. “Easy, man. She’s been through enough tonight. She doesn’t need this.”

  Phil’s nostrils were flaring. He addressed me instead of Spencer. “Come to Mom and Dad’s. Ma’ll take care of ya. Let’s go.”

  I shook my head. “I c-can’t.”

  I couldn’t face her right now. Didn’t wanna face anyone.

  Phil looked at me with his head tilted in confusion. And then Spencer started talking.

  “I got her. She’s just crashin’ in her old room. I’ll keep wakin’ her every two hours. Why don’t you cool off, let her get some sleep?”

  Phil glared at Spencer. “Who the fuck are you to my sister?”

  “He’s a friend, Phil. A friend who was there for me tonight, okay? I just wanna go back to bed.”

  “You aren’t goin’ back to him,” my brother warned.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “They let him out, you ain’t goin’ back there. I don’t give a fuck how sorry he is. Look at your fuckin’ beautiful face, Pip? That motherfucker!”

  I could barely see; the tears were coming out so fast.

  “Phil, man. Let your sister get some sleep. She’s on painkillers. She’s tired. I’m here. I’ll keep an eye.”

  “She should be with her family.”

  “She wants that, I’ll drive her to your parents’ house after she gets some sleep. All right? Let’s let her get some sleep.” Spencer waved to the door.

  My brother glared at me. “He’s a dead man.” He said it like a warning, as if I’d object.

  Okay, so I objected last time, but that was because I didn’t want Phil to go to jail for assault, or worse, murder.

  Joe was facing charges this time. I hoped my brother cooled down and just let the legal system do its work.

  “Outta my way,” Phil ordered. Spencer stayed in front of me.

  “Stop upsetting her.”

  “I’m huggin’ my sister goodbye, asshole. Move.”

  Spencer glared at him. “Watch it, bud.”

  “Phil’s a nice guy, Spence. He’s just protective,” I defended and moved around Spencer and put my arms around my big brother’s kind-of-big middle. He put his big hand on the back of my head and smushed me into his chest. I could feel his body trembling in anger. My brother was built like a big, burly lumberjack. He was a tough guy with a bad temper. He also had a heart of gold under a bit of fluff.

  “I’m just gonna sleep. I’ll call Mom when I wake up, okay? I just can’t face it.” I pulled back. “You’re squishing me, and it hurts, Phil.”

  He loosened his hold. “What happened?”

  “I can’t talk about it right now. Let’s just say, his addictions escalated and when I got in his face about it, he got in mine.”

  My brother’s eyes went harder.

  “Talk later, okay? I talked to the cops. He won’t be out, I hope, any time soon, and Phil, if he is---”

  My brother glared, and his
mouth twisted.

  “If he is…” I got louder, “Let the justice system do its job, okay?”

  “You ain’t goin’ back,” he informed me.

  “I’m not. Once bitten, twice shy, and I’ve been bitten twice. I gave him his second chance. There won’t be a third.”

  “Swear,” he ordered.

  “I swear.”

  “Love you, Pipsqueak.”

  “I love you, too. Tell Mom and Dad I’m okay. I’m just gonna sleep. I’ll call her when I get a few more hours.”

  “I’ll crash here. Wake you up in two hours.”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay. Spencer’s here. You got work in a few hours.” And then I looked to Spencer questioningly. “Unless…”

  “It’s all good, man,” Spencer answered, trying to reassure my brother.

  “You make sure you wake her up,” Phil ordered.

  “Got an alarm set on my phone. Ringer’s full blast.”

  My brother looked over Spencer for a minute, assessing, and then something changed in his eyes and he grunted, kissed the top of my head, and left out the kitchen door. I was kind of surprised. I fully expected Phil to insist on staying.

  Spencer locked up behind him and turned to me.

  “You okay?”

  I grabbed paper towel off the roll hanging under the cupboard and wiped my tears away.

  “Yeah. I’m a dummy.”

  Spencer’s head tilted at me.

  “He hit me once, a long time ago; he was in a drunken rage and blacked out. I broke up with him. Phil wanted to kill him. Busted his jaw. Joe went into AA and got clean. He was clean off booze for six months before I took him back. I thought… I thought it was a one-time mistake…I thought he was my happily ever after. And he was sorry. He was so sorry. But…”

  Spencer moved to me and engulfed me in a hug.

  I winced at how pain shot through my ribs. He loosened his hold. “Sorry.” He was about to move back but I wrapped my arms around his bare back and put my cheek to his chest and hugged him.

  “Thank you for tonight,” I said, not finishing what I’d started to say before. I didn’t want him to think I was one of those stupid girls who stayed with a guy that beat her. He’d hit me once. We’d been happy before that. He made a mistake. People are allowed to make mistakes.

  Drinking again? Letting it degenerate into drugs? Not only hitting me again but beating me up? Hitting my face, kicking me… that was something else. That was a deal breaker.

  “Sorry. I’m crying on you.” I went to pull away. He was shirtless, and it was beyond inappropriate for me to be crying onto his bare chest like that.

  He gave me another gentle squeeze and planted a kiss on my forehead and tucked my hair behind my ear. And then he kissed my bruised cheekbone softly.

  “Get some sleep, okay?” He looked at the bruise on my cheek as he said this, and I felt my chest start burning. I’d never seen such a gentle move on Spencer’s part.

  “I’m not one of those stupid girls who stays with a guy who hits her. He made a mistake. He was sorry. I didn’t think it’d ever happen again. I---.” I wiped at his chest with my sleeve, it was all wet with my tears.

  “Sunshine, get some sleep.” His eyes were gentle. He put his hand to the small of my back and guided me back to my room.

  I got into bed and he pulled the blankets over me.

  “You need anything?” he asked.

  “I need to wake up from this really bad, bad dream,” I said softly.

  “Wish I could give you that, babe.”

  I sighed.

  “Night,” he said.

  “Thanks, Spence. Thanks for being here tonight. I can’t even…”

  “It’s all good.” He gave me a tight smile and turned the light out and he was gone. The sun was beginning to rise. He still left the door open and the hall light on.

  ***

  My eyes opened when I felt the bed move. Jenna. She was climbing in with me. Her eyes were sad as she took in what I looked like. She got under the covers with me and put her arms around me gently. I started to bawl into her sweater.

  She was crying, too. And rocking me.

  Spencer must’ve called her. They came home early.

  Ten minutes later, Ella was there, too, and the three of us were in my old bed while I tearfully gave them the gist of it. I hated opening up about it, but I had to explain that for months I suspected he was addicted to something. Him growing more distant, being sketchy about stuff, hardly paying attention to anything he typically enjoyed, particularly me.

  That morning, I’d also spent a tearful half hour on the phone with my mom. That wasn’t fun.

  The guys cleared out and gave us space. Scott watched Deanna’s boys at her place and Rider and Deacon went with him to go watch some sports thing on Pay-Per-View. Before they went, Rider had hooked up the TV that had been in his and Jenna’s room in my room and me, Ella, Jenna, Deanna, and later Andie (who’d worked until the bakery closed at six o’clock) watched movies.

  My friends knew there was no cheering me up that day. We had a girlie sleepover with food, movies, and that was about it. I didn’t eat more than a few bites of the pad Thai from the massive amount of food Ella’s boyfriend Deacon had dropped off. My mouth hurt. My face hurt. My side. My knees. My heart was broken. And beyond initially telling Jenna and Ella what’d happened, I didn’t want to talk about it all day long.

  I’d had a voicemail from Officer Brice Hodges, telling me Joseph Reardon had been arrested the night before, outside of my parents’ house, as I probably knew, and that it’d be good if I came down to the station to fill out some paperwork by the Monday. I didn’t need to go to that court date, which would be Monday or Tuesday, but I’d soon be interviewed by the prosecutor.

  Joseph Reardon. Joe. Somebody I used to know. That Gotye song rang in my mind as I saved the voicemail message and closed my eyes for another nap while Jenna called and canceled my Saturday appointments downstairs.

  That night, as I slept, Ella crashed with Jenna and Deanna slept on the couch. Andie went back next door. They must’ve had a pow wow without me after I fell asleep, because Sunday morning, while my mom visited me, they all went to Joe’s apartment and packed up my stuff and brought it to me. Jenna spent time on Sunday clearing Monday and Tuesday appointments for me, too.

  My mother was a tearful wreck. I hated seeing her like that. She loved Joe. He called her Mom. I called his mother Mom.

  I told her through tears how stupid I was for trying to help him and how brainless I was for not leaving even realizing that he was getting deeper into addiction. She squeezed my hand and told me I wasn’t stupid to try to help the man I loved, but that I needed to realize that at this stage, I couldn’t fix him, that he needed professional help. I then tried hard to convince her that I wouldn’t take him back again.

  She looked like she was skeptical and trying to hide it. I couldn’t blame her --- I’d taken him back once already.

  Mom was doing her best to be awesome and didn’t push to talk about it all day. She helped Jenna and the girls put my stuff away and made us all dinner. She also went down to buy a box of treats at Andie’s bakery and then left with a kiss to my forehead.

  I didn’t want it all unpacked, insisted I wasn’t staying, but Jenna wouldn’t hear of it.

  Jenna told me my room was my room and I was to stay as long as I wanted. She did this as she made room in the closet.

  “I don’t want to cramp your style. You live with Rider.”

  She waved her hand at me dismissively as she hung more of my clothes up in the closet.

  “I’m gonna live with him forever. You probably won’t try to stay forever, but you need me right now.”

  “He’s gonna hate this,” I groaned.

  “He isn’t,” she assured me.

  Rider popped his head in. “You cook once in a while, you’ll never hear a complaint from me, Pippa.”

  Jenna threw a pillow at him and missed.

&nb
sp; Jenna was a terrible cook. Rider teased her about it all the time. She usually laughed it off. She knew it was true.

  I smiled. It hurt, but I kept the smile on my face. Rider winked at me and left the space.

  Jenna called behind him. “Yeah, well maybe she’ll clean the kitchen up after you once in a while.” Her gaze swung to me. “You do dinner dishes whenever you get a chance and you can stay forever. Rent free. My man can cook but he makes a huge mess.”

  I knew that. I’d been witness to it and she’d complained about it more than once. But, the way she complained about it you knew she’d happily clean up his messes for forever.

  Because he’d never, in a hundred million years, kick her in the ribs and call her a cunt.

  My heart ached.

  My parents were worried about me, but relieved that I’d gone to the police. My friends were determined to wrap me up with love and support and comfort foods.

  I just wanted to wake up from the bad dream.

  2

  Two Weeks Later

  Why is Spencer Valentine looking at me like… that?

  We were at Deke’s Roadhouse and I saw him from the dance floor with Ella, Jenna, and Lulu (the newest addition to the team at Jenna’s House of Allure).

  It was my first night out since everything happened, but I was regretting my decision to be in public. I looked mostly like me again, but inside? I’m still kind of a mess. I guessed it’d take time. But, the way he was looking at me? I wasn’t sure I had the desire, nor the capacity, to dissect it.

  This night out happened as a result of the day I’d had. At work, busy doing my thing, a rare moment not thinking of what a mess things were, and my phone made a text alert bing sound.

  With that bing, reality crashed in again. Because it was a text from Joe’s thirteen-year-old sister, Penny. And my being upset after reading it set the wheels in motion with my girlfriends, who decided that Saturday night at Deke’s Roadhouse was the prescription. It’d help me get my mind off Penny. Off Joe. Off the cautionary tale that had somehow become my life.

  Saturday nights at Deke’s Roadhouse were great for girlie nights. We regularly came here as a big group and the regulars (of which there were many), all knew who we were, so it was a worry-free zone for us. No worries about getting hit on if you were already spoken for, no worries about leaving your drink unattended or your purse unattended, either. And the few times someone who didn’t know us might’ve tried to approach, there was always a Dominion Brotherhood member ready to set them straight.