ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (55 page)

Chapter 28

Angel

It was mid-afternoon when I
finally woke up.

I
don’t recognize this ceiling…

And then I did.

And I almost went full panic
mode.

But I settled down as I
remembered the events of the previous day – of arriving at the bus station, of
Mom picking me up and driving me back here…back where it all began.

A shudder slipped through my
shoulders.

Reluctantly, I tossed off
the threadbare scrap of a blanket, crawling off of the mattress on the floor.
It was stiflingly hot and humid, and I didn’t like it.

Rising up and looking at
myself in the cheap mirror that had been pulled out for me, I realized that I
looked like a total mess.

Huge bags under my eyes?
Check
.

Ratty t-shirt and a pair of
panties?
Check.

Ragged, unwashed hair?
Check.

Don’t
I just look like a fairy princess.

I could hear scrounging
about in the kitchen.

“You finally awake in
there?” My mom called out from a few rooms away.

“Yeah, going to take a
shower,” I replied back.

“Go on, then!” She shouted.

I stumbled over to the
bathroom with a change of clothes, flicking on the shower. As I waited for the
water to warm up a little more than
arctic
blast
, I stared myself in the mirror.

This
is what life is going to be like,
I told myself.
At least for a little while.
I can always find another way once I’ve got
my footing. Maybe I can hitchhike out to the city and find myself a job waiting
tables.

I shook my head.

The last time I pulled that
stunt, I got lucky. Things could have ended up so bad… Like with those bikers
back at the bar…

Can
I be lucky a second time? A third?

I doubted it. I’d used up
most of my luck living
this
long.

Once the water was finally
just warm enough to climb in, I settled into the shower. She only had a single
bar of soap, so I tried to lather off the top layer before rudimentarily
scrubbing down my body.

I needed it. The thin layer
of oil and grime came off.

I’d only been in the shower
less than ten minutes before the water starting turning bone-chillingly cold
again. Shrieking and fighting the faucet, I hopped back out and dried off, then
dressed myself in my underwear, a graphic tee, and my miniskirt. All I had were
some of my old bartending clothes. At least I felt human again…

I wandered into the kitchen,
where my mom was watching her soap operas on a small countertop set.

Mom glanced over at me and
scowled.

“You look like a hooker.”

“It’s just hot in here,” I
told her sadly.

“Yeah, well, the A/C still
ain’t fixed. Get used to being hot. Speakin’ of, you used up all my hot water,
didn’t’cha?”

“I wasn’t in the shower
long, Mom,” I reassured her, moving towards the refrigerator.

“Now how am I gonna shower?”

“I thought you said you
didn’t need it?”

“Are you back-talking me?”

Fearfully, I glanced over at
her. Mom’s eyes were wide and calculating, and I was afraid that she was going
to lash out at me.

“No, Mom. I’m really sorry.
It won’t happen again, I swear!”

She glared at me furiously.

Finally, she huffed with a
cruel smile.

“See that it doesn’t,
baby-child.”

I nodded, and she turned her
attention back towards her soap operas. Meanwhile, I scrambled as quietly but
quickly as possible. She hadn’t gone to the grocery store or anything, so it
was looking like breakfast was going to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Scratch
that… Peanut butter sandwich it is.

I toasted a pair of bread
slices and waited the two minutes in painful, awkward silence. When they popped
out, she jumped slightly, casting me a scowl, and I apologized and slathered
one side with peanut butter.

“You gonna just sleep all
day?” Mom asked as I was disappearing through the door behind her.

“No, Mom.”

“Good. See that you don’t. I
have a friend coming over later. I need your help.”

“Help?”

I turned towards her, and
she tilted her head as if to continue talking to me. Her eyes were still glued
to the countertop television.

“Yeah. This place is a mess.
Maybe you could show your appreciation for the roof over your head by cleaning
up a bit. Been hard to keep the house up with my disability...”

“Who’s coming over?”

Mom turned to me.

“Someone like
none of your concern.
”

I could feel myself
trembling. I didn’t know who was coming, but something told me that I wasn’t
going to like it.

Mom’s face sweetened with
pity.

“Oh Angel…I’m sorry. It’s
just…you’ve been gone so long. All those sleepless nights, afraid that you were
dead…maybe I’ve forgotten how to be good to you. Come here.”

I set my sandwich down and
padded over to her. She threw her arms open, and I bent down to hug her.

Her embrace was strong.
Warm. Relaxing.

“There, there…I’m sorry that
I’ve been a bit grumpy today. I can’t find my medication. I know it does things
to me when I don’t take it…”

“It’s okay, Mom,” I told
her.

“That’s right. It’s okay.
It’s all okay.”

I nodded, and we separated.

“Now, I’ve got something for
you to do. Something to help you pass the time, at least. I won’t be having any
more back talk.”

Mom pointed towards the
kitchen at the huge stack of filthy dishes overflowing in the sink.

“Clean that up like a good
girl, then you can start on the rest of the house. Now, let me catch up on my
soaps, and I’ll take you into town later to get you some groceries. That sound
good to you?”

I nodded reluctantly.

It was hard to keep from
feeling a little uneasy. Something about this place seemed wrong. Wisps of
memories flashed in and out of existence, but my time in this house was a dark
blur. Fear. Sadness. Hopelessness…

Amidst them all, the one
dark memory of this place I could still hang onto… The one I wished I could
forget…

The night I ran away.

Chapter 29

Trent

“You’re Angel’s
grandfather?” I asked, thoroughly surprised. “She never said anything like that
to me.”

Old Greg muttered under his
breath as he popped off the cap and handed me a beer. With a deft maneuver, he
effortlessly burst off the top to his own against the bar table.

“Ever since the accident,
that’s one of those scraps of information she can’t seem to hold onto,” he
grumbled. “Probably for the better.”

“She told me that she
trusted you,” I commented.

For a moment, it looked like
he might smile.

We sat in silence as Old
Greg took a long drink. Over his shoulder, I saw something pinned up on the
wall – a sheet of paper, heavily crumpled, and filled with the scratchings of a
marker. It looked like a hasty note that had been squashed into a ball, then
unfolded on second thoughts.

He followed my gaze.

“She left me a piss-poor
excuse of a letter. I didn’t believe it at first, but when she wasn’t back the
next morning, I knew it was true.”

“Why the next morning?”

His old chest sighed. “She’s
walked out of here half a dozen times, but she
always
comes back.”

Old Greg glared at me for a
moment.

“It’s hard to have your
granddaughter almost taken from you. To watch her lay there, lifelessly in some
hospital bed, barely clinging to life. You think there’s nothing worse in the
world. Nothing besides
death
, at any
rate… But then I got her back. She’s healthy as ever, getting better every day.
Problem is, somehow, I’ve still lost her. She’ll never remember the times we’ve
had together.”

He swigged from his beer,
still glowering at me.

“And I’m a coward. I
couldn’t tell her.”

“You didn’t tell Angel
you’re her grandfather? What the hell is wrong with you?” I said.

“Some things are better left
forgotten. That girl, she’s been through hell. Don’t want to go dredging up bad
memories. That accident was a blessing in disguise. She was safe here, and now
you’ve gone and lost her.”

“I’ll find her.”

“If I had keeled over these
last few days you’d be fucked, and you know it,” he growled, pointing towards
me with his beer hand. “Only reason you’re here is because you have
no idea
where else to turn.”

“That’s true,” I agreed,
“and I know I’ve fucked up. I don’t know
how
,
but I’ll figure it out, and I’ll keep it from happening again. But I’ll fight
through hell and never stop searching until I find her.”

“And why the fuck is that?”

“Because I
love
her.”

Old Greg laughed heartily.
It was a sarcastic, holier-than-thou laugh, and it gradually contorted into a
horrendous coughing fit.

I jumped up to help, but he
waved me away and drowned it out with the beer.

“You think you love her.
What a fucking joke. You’re even more hopeless than I thought, dick-bag.”

“You don’t know me,” I
reminded him tersely.

“Oh, I know you,” Old Greg
chuckled, his breath rattling in his chest. “I know your type. You think you’re
the hero in some bullshit romance, right? Just gonna swoop in and save the
distressed damsel?
Please
.”

The old geezer was starting
to seriously test my patience.

“If you’re not going to
help, then just say so,” I demanded, crossing my arms. “But if you
are
, then we need to cut the shit
now.
”

He stood up, walking over to
me.

“You saved her before, I
recall. Bunch of drunken, horny bikers wanted to rape her. Tell me, fuckface,
why haven’t you brought that up yet? Why not twist my arm with that? You
know
it would work, and you’re just
wasting time…”

I stared this angry, sly
bastard straight in his fiery, ancient eyes.

“Because if you
are
her grandfather, then you’ll never
forget that. And I’m not going to resort to some cheap trick to convince you.”

His eyes narrowed
suspiciously.

“Look me in the eyes,” I
told him, “and tell me to my face that I wouldn’t tear the world apart for her.
Go on.”

Old Greg searched deep into
my gaze.

The silence of the room was
deafening.

Finally, his shoulders
sagged.

“Who the fuck
are
you?”

“I’m Trent Masters. Of
Trent Masters and–
”

“I’ll tell you who you are,”
he cut me off indignantly. “You’re a cocky scrap of shit. You’re a fucking
arrogant piece of work who thinks you can walk into a broken girl’s life and
just save her. As if it’s that fucking simple.
This is my granddaughter.
I’m not talking about some street urchin
– this is my flesh and blood, and
you
…you’re
used to getting your way. You don’t accept ‘no’
.
You
can’t
accept ‘no.’
You’re just some misguided force of nature who sweeps people up and leaves them
broken in the dark, only this girl… She’s already broken.”

“That’s not who I am at
all,” I told him confidently.

“Oh yeah? How many?”

“How many
what.
”

Old Gregg smiled evilly.
“Don’t play stupid with me. I can smell the filth on you, boy. Before you met
my granddaughter, how many girls did you chew up and spit out? How many girls
did you leave when you were finished with them, cast aside in your wake?”

For the first time since
coming to terms with my world and my place in it, my unshakeable core was
suddenly rattled. It was only a second, but it happened.

And the motherfucker
saw
it.

“Yes…yes, I thought so,” he
answered. “You thought you could just come to this place, drag her back down
into the muck with you, and set her up for even more pain? You think I didn’t
pin you for a sorry sack of shit from the start?”

“It’s not like that, old
man,” I tried to argue.

“Sure it is.”

“It’s
not!
” I threw my beer with all my force, shattering it against the
wall.

Old Greg didn’t flinch.

“Name one,” he finally
spoke.

“Excuse me?”

“Didn’t stutter, boy. If you
ever gave a shit about any of the girls who came before her, why don’t you name
one. Name
one
of your conquests. And
don’t make up a name – I’ll know if you’re lying to me.”

I sat there, seething with
anger.

Holy
fuck.

He’s
right.

Old Greg’s face slowly,
surely contorted into a wide grin. “You can’t. You can’t name
one fucking girl
that you’ve coerced
into that viper pit of a bed, can you?”

No.
He can’t be right.

“You fuck and forget. My
granddaughter wasn’t the first. There have been
so many
. And you think
she’s
the one with a goddamn memory problem?”

A parade of faces flew
through my head.

Featureless husks.

I couldn’t remember their
details.

Dozens of them.

No…
It was more than that.

Old Greg stood up from his
chair, confident in his complete victory over me. He coughed for a second, and
then slid his beer – nothing but dregs now – over to me.

“This is what you are, punk.
You’re the filth at the bottom of the bottle. You take what you
believe
belongs to you, and you distort
it. You make it
lesser.
I can see it
plain as day across your face.
That
is your legacy. You think I want my granddaughter to remember a sack of shit
like you? You don’t even know
her
name.”

“Her name is Angel.”

“Oh yeah?” Old Greg toothily
snarled. “Angel
Who?
”

I stared deep into the next
table over. I knew her name… It was Angel… Angel……….
Fuck
.

He’s
right,
I repeated to myself.

This
is who I am.

I’m
going to hurt her no matter what I do.

Old Greg brushed up the shattered
beer, dropping it into the garbage. He poured himself a glass of water, gulping
it down thirstily before finally turning back to me.

“215 Wilde Grove Drive.
Beaten up old house, green, tucked away behind the trees. Dirt driveway. If you
pass the tree with the old tire swing, you’ve gone too far.”

I looked at him
incoherently.

“She ain’t here, which means
she’s there. It’s the only other place she knows.”

“Why are you…why are you
helping me?”

Old Greg leered close to me,
his rotting breath invading my nostrils.

“Because I’m a dying old
man, you sack of shit. Because sometimes – just
sometimes
– people change. You’ve already gone down swinging for
her sake, so I think you have the capacity for that. If you do…then you’re my
best chance at keeping that girl happy and safe.”

I stood up from the table,
coming to terms with the insights that this arrogant geezer had given me.

I hated them.

I hated
him.

But as much as I hated to
admit it, the old decrepit fucker in this ramshackle little bar was
right
.

“But that ain’t the whole
reason.”

I turned to him, catching
his cold and calculating eyes.

“
If
she’s there…Angel is in danger.”