Prosper (Hells Saints MC Book 7) Page 14
“Mamma, what? No!” Pinky cried out. “You’ll go to prison for the rest of your life over that no-good-sonofabitch.”
As Petey and Pinky looked on in amazement, Edna’s face had become completely transformed. “Don’t you worry none about that. Harold is helping me out.”
“Harold Sherwood, from the pharmacy?” Petey asked.
“Yup, he and I used to be sweethearts, a long time ago. Everyone in town knows your daddy beats me silly, but Harold’s the only one who’s offered to help. He brewed up something for me to give to Big Joe, and I put it in the soup I made him for lunch today. And that big old bastard is gonna drop dead from a heart attack on the spot. I’m gonna collect the insurance money, then after a spell, Harold and I are gonna retire in Boca.”
Pinky and Petey had kept their promise to their mother, drove straight to Aunt Helen’s house and never looked back. Six months later, they had gotten a letter from their mother with pictures of her wedding to Harold and their new house in Boca.
All’s well that ends well was Pinky’s last thought as her eyelids started to get heavy.
Pinky must have drifted off to sleep because when she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the red sky of the morning sun.
The second thing she saw was Prosper Worthington.
He was sitting in the seat across from her, leaning forward with his bloody, swollen hands resting on his thighs.
“How did you get in here?”
Prosper looked towards the flimsy door lock. “Seriously? If you’re gonna keep living in this crap apartment, then you’re gonna need a couple of deadbolts. I’ll take care of that.”
“Yeah, sure.” Pinky glared at him. “And I won’t hold my breath.”
“Okay, I deserved that.” Prosper shook his head. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I hope you killed him,” Pinky shot out. “Beat the life out of him and nailed his bleeding balls to a fence.”
Prosper flexed his bloody hand. “Something like that.”
“Why weren’t you there, Prosper? Why weren’t you waiting for me like you said you would be?” Pinky sobbed out. “This is all your fault! This is on you!”
Prosper was immediately on his feet. He picked Pinky up off the couch and then sat back down with her on his lap. He put his arms tight around her and pulled her close.
“Yes, it is. This is on me. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Pinky, I can be all kinds of an asshole, but I’m not that kind of an asshole.”
“Yes, you apparently are.” She sniffled against his chest.
Prosper just shook his head and tightened his already firm hold on her. He hoped his strength would make her feel secure. He hoped it was enough because Prosper didn’t want to tell Pinky.
He didn’t want to explain to Pinky what had made him so late, what had kept him from keeping his word to her, because then he would have to talk about Maggie.
And he didn’t want to talk about Maggie.
Not with anyone.
The party was over.
The pizza had been eaten, the cake had been served, and the presents had all been opened. Raine and Claire had been tucked in tight for the night, and Jack, who had been quietly drinking all day, was passed out in the bedroom.
“Could you possibly have gotten her anything noisier, Prosper?” Maggie asked as they sat close together on the couch. “She has no idea what she’s doing, but that little music maker has not left her lips all day. You’re gonna have to get me a present, too, a giant bottle of headache reliever.”
“Darlin’, I’ll get you anything you want.”
The quiet yearning in Prosper’s voice took her breath away. A delicious warmth filled Maggie’s cold, thin body.
“Even now?” she whispered softly.
“Especially now,” he whispered back.
Maggie put her head on Prosper’s shoulder and together they watched the fireflies as they danced in the dark of the night.
“Prosper, do you remember when you taught me how to catch them?” she asked wistfully.
“I remember a lot of things, Maggie.”
There was a long silence before either one of them spoke again.
“Prosper?”
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“All that love I feel inside. Do you think I get to take that with me?”
“So, basically it’s a booty call. He’s booty calling you.” Dolly McCabe brushed the last of the nail polish on Pinky’s little finger.
Pinky blew on her fingers and waved her hands in the air. “No, no! It’s not like that at all.”
“Do we need to go over booty call criteria?” Dolly asked as she picked out her nail color from the vast collection the two women had amassed over the years.
“Maybe.” Pinky sighed.
“He never takes you out.”
“Check.”
“He never calls.”
“Check.”
“The sex is incredibly hot.”
“Triple check.”
“There’s not a whole lot of talking, and he never stays for breakfast in the morning.”
“Check. Check.”
The silence fell heavy between the two women.
“So …”—Pinky frowned booty call?”
“Textbook.” Dolly put her right hand on the table and got ready for Pinky to apply sea-foam blue to her nails.
“I don’t know, Dolly. I mean, I do know. I know you’re right,” Pinky said as she began to brush on the polish. “There’s just something about him that’s so … so tragic. I wish I could make sense out of what’s happening. I mean, I know it’s a hook up, but it feels like something more. And trust me, I’ve had enough meaningless sex to know the difference.”
“I tried to get something out of Petey, but you know your brother, he can’t stop blabbing when it doesn’t matter, and when it does, I can’t get a damn word out of him. But I know he talks to Prosper at the bar or at least used to, and I’m gonna keep at him until I find out what’s what.”
“I appreciate that, Dolly.”
“So, what do you think’s eating at Prosper, honey?”
Pinky shrugged. “It’s like he has this big barrel full of sadness inside of him, and when it gets to be too much? When it spills over and he’s drowning in it? That’s when he shows up at my door.”
“Oh, boy.”
“And that’s not the worst of it.”
“What’s the worst of it, honey?”
“I think I might be falling in love with him.”
“Prosper?”
“Yeah, Maggie?”
“I’m worried about Raine.”
Raine? Prosper wanted to say. Really? She’s the one you’re worried about? In Prosper’s mind, Raine was the only one who was holding it together. Jack looked as sick as Maggie did. His skin was dead white, he had stopped eating altogether, and had started drinking a lot. When he was home, which was rare, he walked around in a damn daze. Poor little Claire worked overtime in trying to make him pay even the tiniest bit of attention to her. She had taken to following him around so closely that Jack had almost stepped on her more than once.
It just about broke Prosper’s damn heart to see it.
Afraid that one day Jack would just stop coming home, Prosper had begun to spend all his days by Maggie’s side and all his nights on her couch. No matter how much time he spent tucking Claire in, Prosper always woke up in the morning with her little arms wrapped around his neck and her sweet little head tucked under his chin.
“I catch her watching me sometimes,” Maggie told him.” I think she knows I’m—” But before she could finish, Maggie was overcome by a coughing fit. Her face twisted in pain.
Prosper was on his feet in a flash. “What do you need?”
“Pain pills on the upper shelf in the bathroom cabinet and some water,” she rasped out between spasms. Prosper put his arm around Maggie’s bone-thin shoulders and supported her while she swallowed the powerful pain reliever and sipped at the water.
“Don’t judge Jack too harshly, Prosper. This isn’t easy for him.” Maggie laid her head back on the high pillows of her bed and sighed. “He’s doing his best. He really is.”
“Cut the crap, Maggie.” Prosper’s words were harsh but his tone was gentle.
There was a small hesitation.
Then she said, “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“Hell, Maggie, every man knows that no good conversation ever started like that.” He grimaced and that made her smile, just a little.
“I know what you’re doing, Prosper.”
“What am I doing, darlin’?”
“You’re using that shop to wash money to pay for the treatments. The treatments that the doctors told us might help me.”
“Yeah, and what the hell is going on with that. You should have started those weeks ago, right? We got the money waiting, time to get the damn show on the road.”
“They schedule them in groups. The next group is coming up … I don’t know, in maybe a week or two.”
“How is that something you don’t fucking know, Maggie?”
“I know because I can’t get the treatments.”
“What are you talking about?”
Maggie looked at him with infinite sadness and shook her head. “I’ve been denied for the study part of the treatment. A patient has to be eligible for the clinical before you get the rest of it.”
“This is bullshit,” he ground out. “We have all the money you need to pay for those treatments. You’re gonna fucking get them.”
Maggie’s eyes brimmed with tears. “It’s a no go.”
The finality of her tone filled him with dread.
“So, what is it? Is it a list?” He snarled out around the huge lump of fear in his throat. “Because I will kill every other motherfucker on it if it means getting your name to number one.”
Maggie took his big, warm hand in her small, cold one.
“Honey, I’m just not a candidate.”
“What the hell does that mean?” His voice grew louder as his tone grew angrier. “Not a goddamn candidate? You’re not running for president, for Christ’s sake. What does that even fucking mean? Not a candidate?”
“It means, they’ve determined that the cancer is progressing too quickly, brother.” Jack stood in the doorway.
“Well, look at what the fucking cat dragged in!” Prosper bellowed in disgust. “You turn your lily-white ass around right now and get back on that bike. ’Cause you and me? We’re gonna go down to that damn cancer clinic and find the motherfuckers who have the balls to call themselves doctors. Then we’re gonna put a gun to their heads while they look over Maggie’s records again and again and again until they find a way to make her a damn candidate.”
“Don’t you fucking talk to me about my goddamn wife!” Jack had finally snapped. His face distorted in rage and his fists were clenched so hard that his knuckles turned white. Jack’s body was rigid with repressed violence. “You don’t think I’d slit their throats and rip out their hearts if I thought it would help? You think you know me? You think you fucking know me? You have no goddamn idea of what I am capable of…no clue of the lengths I would go to to save her! Maggie’s my wife, my fucking life! What part of that are you having a hard time understanding, you motherfucking imbecile!” Jack shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Jack, please. It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.” Maggie looked on in sorrow filled horror as her husband collapsed against the door. The fight torn out of him, the words a burden too heavy to bear.
Prosper on the other hand, glared at Jack with murderous intent.
Jack continued on, his voice ragged with the effort, “Look, Prosper, Maggie and I have gone over and over and over this with her doctors. The treatments would just cause her pain, and maybe even shorten Maggie’s life from the stress the chemicals would put on her body. We’re at the end game here. You gotta accept it, brother. We have.”
“Mamma?” Raine and Claire were standing in the doorway. Looks of abject terror radiated out from their little faces.
Maggie opened her arms to her children. They ran quickly right past Jack and Prosper and into their mother’s embrace.
“Stop it. Both of you! You’re scaring them!” Maggie cried out.
Prosper looked from Jack to Maggie and back again. His whole body shook with rage.
“Accept it! Is that what you’re doing now, you motherfucking moron? Is that the shit you’re pulling now? Jack, you telling me that you’re gonna just lie down and watch Maggie fucking waste away. You prepared to watch her d—”
“Stop!” Maggie screamed out an interruption as she clapped her hands over her children’s ears. Then she summoned what little was left of her strength and pointed a furious finger at Prosper. “Get out! You get out of my house, Prosper Worthington. You get out and never come back!”
Prosper looked once more from Maggie to Jack with total and absolute disgust.
“I’ll leave, Maggie, but you can bet your ass that I’ll be back. So you better be ready, and you better hear this—I am never going to accept what is happening. Never! And if I have to put Jack to ground and pull you all the way to the clinic by your goddamn hair, then that’s what I’ll do.” Prosper kicked the door wide open and let it slam shut hard behind him. In a red rage he picked up the heavy wooden picnic table then heaved it high up over his head and threw it clear across the lawn, where it splintered into a thousand pieces.
Then Prosper got on his bike, kicked the engine over hard, and twisted viciously on the throttle. His wheel spun out a ton’s worth of gravel before he rode hell bent towards the highway.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Pinky was woken up from a deep sleep to the sound of the door being practically torn from the hinges. Her heart raced as she tried to gather her wits about her in the dark room.
Pinky’s first thought was that her apartment had been mistaken for the one next door by an ATF SWAT team again. But she knew from experience that by now her door would have already been broken in and she would have had several weapons pointed at her while the agents began to rummage through her personal belongings. This would go on and on with Pinky protesting loudly until the special agent in charge realized his mistake.
But that was obviously not this.
Her next thought was that it must be Prosper, but then she glanced at the clock and thought again. Even with his seemingly random scheduled “booty calls” as Dolly was fond of calling them, Prosper never came to Pinky much past midnight. And then he’d announce his arrival with a few soft raps on the door. Pinky had actually always thought it strange … a big man like Prosper and his knocks on her door were always tentative and light as if he was hoping that she wouldn’t hear him.
It wasn’t more than a few seconds later that she heard her name being yelled loudly from outside the building. She thought it was her name anyway. The sound had an inhuman, tortured, and wailing quality to it. The howling reverberated through the still of the night in a haunting cadence. Like the last cries of a wounded animal … dying, desperate, and suffering from intolerable pain.
Pinky looked on in stunned horror from her window to see Prosper standing under the light in the courtyard. He wove unsteadily on his feet in the very center of the complex.
Lights came on all over the apartment building. Her neighbors, angry from having their sleep interrupted, called out threats from their opened windows.
It was like that scene right out of A Streetcar Named Desire, only instead of Stanley Kowalski calling out in anguish for Stella, Prosper was calling out for her.
Pinky watched on as Prosper muttered and tossed and turned in his sleep. She got up quietly from the bed and padded into the kitchen. She made herself a cup of coffee, brought it to the kitchen table, and sat down to think about what the hell she should do about Prosper Worthington. After Pinky and Dolly’s discussion, Do
lly had been like a dog with a bone and wouldn’t let up on Petey. She cajoled, begged, and bribed him for information before she finally resorted to tears. That was followed up with three days of freezing him out of the bedroom, which was nothing short of sexual blackmail as far as Petey was concerned. Petey held out as long as he could, but honestly, he had never been and never would be a match for Dolly. It wasn’t because he was weak, it was because he was a good man and a loving husband who truly hated denying his wife anything. When it came right down to it, he also didn’t want to see his sister hurt if he could prevent it, so he finally opened up. After Dolly heard the whole sad story, she sat at the table and wept. Then Dolly had called Pinky and revealed the situation clearly, concisely, and without judgement.
The withholding of judgement thing had lasted the five minutes it took for Dolly to be at Pinky’s house. Then Dolly had had it, because her main priority was Pinky, and not Maggie and Prosper, the two star-crossed lovers.
Petey and Dolly were of two different minds about the matter of Prosper Worthington. While Petey had warned Pinky off, he had also told her that once Prosper had gotten on the other side of the pain he was carrying, he was a man worth having.
But Dolly had seen things differently. She saw the situation as a lose-lose for Pinky.
Pinky sipped at the too hot, too strong coffee and felt it course through her veins, waking every part of her up and giving her clarity of thought. She remembered word for word what Dolly had said to her:
“You’re his meantime girl, honey. You want to settle for that?”
“But Petey says …”
“Petey’s wrong.”
“Prosper’s going through the worst thing a person can go through. How can I just ignore that? Abandon him? That would be cruel.”
“Honey, what you’re allowing to happen to you right now is cruel.”
“Prosper is not a cruel man,” Pinky protested.
“On that, we can agree.” Dolly sighed. “I don’t think he means to hurt you. He’s just in so much pain himself, he can’t see past it. You said it yourself. When it all gets too much for him to bear, he comes to you.”