Page 59 of Her Brother's Keeper

“Holly, you know me! You know it’s not always my fault, I need this job!” I cried and tried valiantly not to cry, my eyes misting up on their own.

Can I please just catch a break!?I thought savagely to whatever powers that be might be listening.Yeah right, if they were listening or cared they wouldn’t keep doing this to you.I thought with a heavy sigh.

Holly looked like this was killing her and I scrubbed my face with my hands, I let out another heavy sigh and sniffed and said, “It’s okay Holly, I know this isn’t your choice.”

“It’s really not,” she said miserably. “You’re one of my best employees except for the tardiness lately, which I completely understand, but this is a big box chain, they don’t care about anything but timetables and numbers. I’m real, and I mean,really, sorry.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day to me,” I muttered under my breath and swung into my coat.

Holly winced, “Your last check will be mailed to you,” she said.

“Thanks,” I muttered and left quietly, without a fuss. I pulled my phone from my pocket and then the tears really did start. How was I going to tell Nox? Was he going to be disappointed? Would my dad if he were here? What was I going to do for a job? This was the first one I’d ever had, and now I wasfiredfor beingunreliable. How would I ever get another one?

The phone rang in my ear and I closed my eyes; trying to breathe slow and keep the panic at bay.

Chapter 21

Nox

“Aw shit, Baby. Really? I’m so sorry.” I slipped further up the hall and turned my back on the curious looks from my club brothers and sisters. Maren sobbed piteously on the other end of the line, in full meltdown, I assumed in the parking lot where she worked – scratch that, where sheusedto work.

“I just can’t seem to get ahead no matter what I do!” she wailed and her breath stuttered and hitched. My heart damn near broke for her and I sighed. I didn’t think there was a fucking thing I could do to makethis onebetter.

“It’s just a job, Angel, and I know it seems like the end of the world right now, but we’ll figure it out. Okay? One day at a time. So tomorrow, when you get out of school, you and me will get online and start looking and putting in applications. Okay?”

A hand fell on my shoulder and I turned, Everett smiled at me and gently took the phone out of my hand.

“Maren, Honey? It’s Evy,” she said evenly. “Hi, yeah I was shamelessly eavesdropping and I want you to calm down, because if you want it, Mandy and I have a job for you at Soul Fuel any time you’re available.” She paused and it was a long one while Maren spoke.

“Yeah, we own it. You didn’t know?” Everett laughed a little and said, “It’s fine, we get your situation and ten or even twenty minutes late isn’t that big of a deal. As long as you’re pretty good about not missing days entirely and can make up coming in late by staying later or coming in early the next day, we can totally work with that.”

I looked past Everett to the rest of the club and the smiles and looks of patience on everyone’s faces. Dray and Rev had mixed looks of love and pride on their faces for their women and I have to admit, it was a sentiment I shared by like a lot right now.

Maren and Sage were sort of semi-fixtures around lately. Sage had even made a friend in Reaver’s son, Connor, as they were only a couple of years apart. They would sometimes come over here for movies on the big screen and the occasional club Sunday dinner and it hadn’t taken too long for most of the club to see what I saw in Maren. Not everyone had come around, though.

Everett’s voice drew me back to the conversation, “Can you come by tomorrow after school? We can have you fill out an application and the rest of the paperwork, maybe talk about it some more?”

I mouthed ‘thank you’ at Everett and she waved me off like it was nothing when actually, this was pretty fucking huge.

“Okay, four o’clock sounds good. Just remember, when one door closes another one opens, okay?” She listened some more and smiled, “Okay, I’m going to hand you back over to your man.”

She handed me the phone and I pressed it back to my ear, “Well I didn’t expect that,” I said, “but there you have it.”

Maren sniffed on the other end of the line, my heart went out to her; she was absolutely right, she just couldn’t seem to catch a break lately, at least until just now with Evy. I felt my shoulders drop. Even though we agreed that we couldn’t really viably pull off seeing each other between our work schedules tonight, she’d had it rough and all I really wanted to do was hold her.

“Want me to come over?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said miserably and it was all I needed.

“I’ll bring ice cream,” I said and I heard the smile in her voice when she said, “You know me so well.”

I laughed a little and told her I’d see her soon, and hung up. It was getting harder the closer we got to her birthday, to maintain control, and I swore up and down to keep it in my pants tonight. I stepped back into the common room of the club to a bunch of expectant looks.

“See you later, bro,” my twin said and waved. He didn’t even take his eyes off his poker hand.

I rolled my eyes and told him, “If it were your woman, you’d do the same thing.”

“You ain’t lyin’,” he said and half his mouth went up in a sardonic smile, but then he ruined it by adding, “’Cept she ain’t a woman; she’s a little girl. Don’t end up in prison, asshole.” I knew Rush was a little on the lonely side. He didn’t do club sluts as a general rule, and even though the two we had left were lookers, Cherry was a fucking cunt, and Moira was all but spoken for. She wasn’t really interested in anybody but Lucky and Lucky wasn’t really interested in anyone but her.

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