Page 7 of Beneath His Robes

“Where are you?” I said hesitantly, unable to get it through my mind that this fucking woman was a lost cause.

Regardless of her being a damn leper, she was my responsibility, and if I didn’t help her, no one would.

“I’m at the house! Pl-Please hurry ‘fore he comes back!”

I hung up the phone, pinching the bridge of my nose and trying to stave off the headache forming in my temples. With one last wistful look at the doors of the tall, beautiful building and the man inside it, I hopped into my truck.

In a defeated breath, I whispered a verse from the bible, turning the engine on and banging my hands against the wheel. This verse was one that I felt to my very bones.

“As a dog returns to its vomit, so too do fools repeat their folly.” [Proverbs 26:11 NIV]

I was the fool that constantly returned to the hell I tried so hard to escape.

It didn’t take long to get to my birthgiver’s house. She was holding what appeared to be her injured wrist in a bloody cloth. I couldn’t look at her. She was so fucking pathetic. Her graying, dark hair was greasy. What teeth she had were yellow from the drugs or shadows of what once was there.

“Get in the truck, Miranda,” I ordered, reaching over to open the passenger door for her.

She scurried in, and the smell of vomit, blood, and urine permeated the small space immediately.

With a sigh, I rolled down the windows and pulled out of the piece of shit trailer park that was somehow still standing despite the abuse and misuse.

She gawked at me and pointed to my blood-covered hand, marred with gashes and bruises.“What the fuck did ya do to your mitt, boy?

I shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

That damn confessional booth partition was thicker than it had looked, and my knuckles were screaming at me about it.

Tightening my wounded fist, I knew it was going to leave a scar.

Pausing for only a second to center myself, I glanced at Miranda’s place one more time. I was grateful Elias had never seen this place. It was a shameful piece of shit home.

Elias and Maria came from money, not millionaire-type of money, but his family did all right. Based on his soft robes and pristine white collar, I had a feeling he was just as wealthy now, if not more.

Thankfully, I wasn’t hurting for money anymore. I ran from this fucking ‘drug ring’ that I lived in the minute I was able. I may have sold my body to every fucking person in the state of Utah, but It was worth it to be free finally. I didn’t give a shit about my body anymore.

Our body wasn’t the sacred temple people wanted to believe in. We were breakable and weak. No matter how many hours I threw at the gym or working on my cars would change where life began for me.

God, Elias’s body, though…one look at Elias had my fucking knees buckling, like when I was that dorky playboy teenager way back when. Time had only changed our appearances. We were both hardened in too many ways, but no one could escape time and its effects.

“You look good, Ronan,” my mom said, her cracked-out eyes unable to focus on one particular thing. “Real buff and bad. Like your daddy.”

My teeth nearly cracked. “I look nothing like that fucking man.”

My mother recoiled at my tone, and I sighed. “How is the job I got you at Doxen?”

I applied to so many jobs for her over the years that I’d lost count. She hadn’t kept a single one. She never sobered up enough to show up or stay longer than a few weeks. Her ability to even survive all this time was a wonder.

“Why’d you get me a job with Roy, the cockhead,? He don’t act right! He always lookin’ at my boobs. “I don’t need no job treatin’ me like they did. They ain’t right. I left that asshole, and I ain’t lookin’ back. Not Ever.”

I made a face, not having any interest in my mother or her damn tits.

“Ma…he’s gay. I doubt he gives a fuck about your…uh—body.”

She didn’t seem convinced. “No. I’m tellin’ ya, just like you like ‘em both. He don’t have his head right, neither. He gave me looks. I know what I saw.”

Miranda looked like every other crack whore in this trailer park. If Roy had given her looks, it would probably have been no different from anyone else. She carried the unsteady gaze of wondering if she was going to bite you.

“Roy isn’t bisexual. He has a husband. Just ignore him. You can’t lose that job, Miranda.”

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