Page 52 of Soulless Saint

“What has gotten into—”

“Ma,” Kaleb cut her off. “Don’t.”

Ma reeled back from his words, her eyes widening with insult. “Excuse me? I invite someone to dinner and you think you can just—”

“I don’t want her here, Ma,” Kaleb cut her off again.

“Kaleb,” Dad warned. “Respect your mother.”

Kaleb inhaled through his nose, turning to face Ma with a forced expression of calm. “Ma,” he started. “I would appreciate it if you did not invite Gill to our family dinners or bring her to my house. She is not welcome there, and I don’t want anything to do with her. She’s a fucking—sorry.” He cleared his throat and tried again.

“She’s not a good person and I’m pretty sure if I ever fucked her, which is clearly what you’re going for—I’d end up with crabs or something worse. I’m not interested, and I do not like her. Besides, Ma, why the hell would you invite her to dinner? You know Hardin won’t say a damn word if she’s here. Did you think about that? Hmm?”

Ma frowned, she might’ve disagreed with everything Kale said, until that last part. She turned her eyes on me, the fury that’d been there a moment before snuffed out by guilt. “Sorry, Hardin, your brother’s right.”

Then she turned back to Kaleb. “But regardless, you know better than to treat a woman that way.”

“If you can call that a woman.”

“Kaleb!”

“All right, all right,” Dad said, lifting his hands in a gesture of finality as he cut Kaleb a glare. “That’s enough. Stop it before your Ma busts out the garden shears, yeah?”

Kaleb slumped in his seat, running his index finger down the condensation on his beer bottle before drawing it up for a long swallow. “Sorry, Ma,” he said when he pulled it away from his lips, rubbing the back of his hand across them.

Ma nodded triumphantly with a huff, reaching over to slap Kaleb’s forearm with her knuckles. “Pass the potatoes.”

“How’s Archer?” I asked Dad, popping a meatball in my mouth and immediately following it up with a second one.

Fuck, that’s good.

I pushed in a third for good measure, my mouth watering at the sweet browned meat.

“You know Arch,” Dad replied, swirling his beer bottle. “One of the toughest sons of bitches I know. He’s already on his feet even though I told him to stay laid up for a bit.”

“Mmm.”

There still wasn’t a single motherfucker I wasn’t considering a potential leak, shot in the stomach or not, Archer could still be it.

“Have you heard from Maggie yet?” Ma asked Dad, and Kaleb coughed uncomfortably, shifting in his seat. He always was an absolute shit liar.

Dad watched Kaleb as he answered Ma. “No. She still won’t take my calls.”

“I’ve brought her a few casseroles too but she never invites me in and I don’t want to push, you know? I just feel so bad for her. The Chief was a good man. A good husband. A good father. Taken too soon.”

“Kaleb?” Dad pried, setting his fork down against his plate with a clatter to fold his fingers together over his unfinished dinner. “You wouldn’t happen to know how Maggie’s doing, would you?”

Kaleb busied himself spearing a couple meatballs with his dinner knife to pop into his mouth. “Nope,” he said around the mouthful, but his gaze flicked up to me, giving his ass away.

Fuck, Kale.

Dad turned to me, waiting.

“Fine,” I sighed, tossing my fork down onto my empty plate that’d been overloaded only a few minutes before. “We went to see her.”

“And she let you in?” Ma asked, surprised.

Kaleb scratched the back of his neck. “Didn’t really give her a choice.”

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