Page 60 of Absinthe Dreams
From what she’d told me, I gathered that she was somewhat of the glass child when it came to her home-life growing up. The one that no one ever worried about, or thought much of. It seemed as though her brothers took the limelight, and for sure, she’d adored her brother who had drowned. I had to guess he was one of the only ones to really pay her any mind.
She wasn’t used to being remembered, let alone thought of, and I think my confession may have healed a sore spot in her heart.
We lay in the dark, cuddling close into my broken-down, old bed, after I’d switched out the light, and we’d talked. She’d shared hopes and dreams of someday living together – and what that might look like.
She wasn’t married to the city, and I was glad for that. The older I got, the less I minded the drive, but I seriously wanted a place like this one. On the edge of the swamp, only maybe not ground level, and prone to flooding like this one. It was up a little higher, sure, but I was thinking more like something on stilts, with a view into the trees and plenty of room to keep the house itself up out of the wet.
It was a long and good talk. One that she fell asleep, though there were still some things to discuss… for sure. Still, she was exhausted from a long day that hadn’t been so great. She’d confessed she’d had a difficult and depressing pediatrics case come through – but wouldn’t elaborate. She was a lot like me in that regard. Probably saw plenty of horrors and dealt with it by bottling it up.
I got that she couldn’t really talk about it, HIPAA, and all, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t worrisome. She did a great deal to heal others, and I wanted to do more to ensure she could, even if it meant listening to and adding a whole host of new horrors to the ones I already harbored.
She wanted a lot of the same things the club did. Peace. Quiet.Family…
Long rides and nights around the bonfire, companionship, and a steady income, where we were all thriving instead of just surviving. She listened as I told her about the distillery, how the girls were doing their thing withSwamp Witch Designs,and everyone was just interested in living a lifeoutsideof the drugs, shakedowns, and other fuckin’ bullshit. No one had any interest in risking it all and going to prison, but likewise, we didn’t have a whole lot of interest in dealing with society and their bullshit, made-up constructs of rules. Especially not by a corrupt-as-fuck legal system and the absolute jokes for politicians the citizens kept electing into office, like they actually gave a shit about the public and not lining their own pockets.
Seriously, the state of American politics boiled down to this – People believing wholeheartedly that the stripperactually liked them.I’m not talking right or left, either. I’m sayin’ the whole fuckin’ bird is rotten and shittin’ maggots out of its butthole.
There wasn’t a lot that would change my mind on that, if anything.
I just wanted to go my own way, make an honest living, and I didn’t mean chopping trees and playing with power lines for the rest of my fuckin’ life, either.
I wasn’t a spring chicken. I knew I was slowing down. I knew that the shots I’d taken had considerably sped up the timeline on my slowing the fuck down.
I, like the rest of my brothers, wanted Ruth in the ground for fucking good and the rest of his merry band of idiots he had fooled to be nothin’ but the dust of memory.
…and now, with Genesis in my arms, I had even more to fight for. I could see it with her. Just me, her, a house on the edge of the swamp, her damn cat, and maybe a dog – a big one – for when I couldn’t be home with her.
The phantom giggle of children’s laughter entered my thoughts, and yeah… I could see that too, for the first time ever. I hadn’t thought twice about kids of my own until her.
Maybe it was true that when you were with the right one, you could suddenly see it. A new world or worlds of possibilities in front of you.
I held her close, her warm and even breath blushing rhythmically against my chest, and I finally closed my eyes and felt like I could sleep.
My entire life, I had been fighting up to this moment. To have a woman in my arms that I could see a real future with, and she was finally here, and I didn’t know what to do.
I guess God or Fate or whatever it was out there with power over us mere mortals and our lives reallydidhave a sense of humor after all.
I woke with a soft jolt when Genesis stirred in my arms.
She sucked in a sharp breath when I moved and looked at me, green eyes wide and still shaking off the remnants of her deep slumber.
“Hi,” I murmured, and her lips parted in a wide smile.
“Good morning,” she murmured, shifting against me. “How did you sleep?” she asked.
“Not gonna lie,” I said. “I slept like shit.”
She pouted. “I’m sorry,” she drawled, and I shook my head lightly, tucking some of that long blonde hair out of her face, behind her ear.
“Not your fault, baby. Just a lot on my mind. You gave me a ton of things to think about.”
“Yeah?” She looked like the shutters closed behind her eyes, and I got the impression that when someone talked vaguely like that, nine times out of ten, news followed that had hurt her.
I smiled, caressed her cheek, and said, “Just trying to figure out how to make all your dreams come true.”
She snorted, laughed, and lay back down on my chest with a sigh.
“One thing at a time,” she said. “How about we start with a date – making a day of it today, just you and me?”
