45. Drew

FORTY-FIVE

drew

The rest of the week went by.

Me waking up at Bellamy's.

Us driving to school.

It became a weird kind of normal, and I felt a kind of warmth I had never experienced before in my short life. Bellamy, Arlo, their mom. It was a family—a real family, unlike mine.

Over the past week, I'd watched Carol hug Arlo and kiss Bellamy's cheek, and each time it made my heart squeeze, pining for something I'd never had and it was now too late for.

Bellamy had to go do some ‘work,' so I'd offered to pick Arlo up from the bus stop. When he hopped into my car, he stuck out his tongue.

"Why is the stuff on your seat pink?" he asked.

"Don't judge me, kid. My mom picked it out. What music do you want?" I put the roof down, and a grin covered his face.

"The angry lady who screams."

I fist-bumped him before changing the station and putting the car into drive. "You tell your brother that rap sucks."

"No way. That'll hurt his heart, Miss Drew."

I laughed because it would. It really would.

I scruffed his hair. "We can't have that, kid."

It was a quick two-block drive back to Bellamy's house. I went to pull into the drive, then pumped the brakes when I saw a pick-up parked where I usually did.

"Daddy's here!"

Panic instantly washed over me. I pulled over at the curb, staring at the rundown truck. "What? That's your dad's car?"

He nodded, reaching for the door, but I grabbed him and pressed the button for the locks. "Let's wait here." Then I took out my phone and called Bellamy. It rang a few times, then connected.

"Hey."

"Your dad's here."

"Shit… Just stay in the car." The whine of his engine revving came through the speaker.

"When does your mom get off work?"

"Not until later."

"Should I call the police?"

"Hell, no! Pops is there, and they'll take him to jail. Just… I'll be there in ten minutes."

Why in the hell would they take him to jail? Bellamy's dad was the one with a restraining order on his ass. "Okay..." I said.

When I hung up, Arlo frowned at me. "Why can't we go inside?"

"We have to wait for Bellamy, okay?"

"Okay."

There was a beat of silence, filled only with the angry lyrics coming from the sound system.

I stared at the front of the house, wondering if his grandpa was okay. I hoped Bellamy was right, and his grandpa was crazy because, as far as I'd seen, he was just a bit kooky and redneck.

No sooner had I thought that before shouting came from the house.

A salt-and-pepper haired man, who looked an awful lot like an aged Bellamy, shot around the carport, blood trickling from his forehead. He clamored into the pickup, and Grandpa sprinted around the side of the house with a golf club raised above his head.

The truck's taillights flashed, and the engine revved. But before Bellamy's dad could back out, the old man hurled the club at his windshield. Then picked up a brick from the flower bed border and chucked that at the truck before it peeled out of the driveway.

"Pop-Pop!" Arlo cheered.

I unlocked the door, staring wide-eyed at Bellamy's bat-shit crazy grandpa as I got out of the car. The old man leaned over his knees on a wheeze.

"Need to smoke less, Pops."

"Aw, smoking ain't got nothing to do with this, sugar-pie." He placed a hand to his chest. "I'm just pissed that I couldn't run faster." He covered Arlo's ears with his old, weather hands. "Or I would've killed the son-of-a-bitch. Then you and me'd be going out to the woods to bury him." He spat on the ground before uncovering Arlo's ears.

Okay, he really was crazy.

Bellamy's car chugged into the driveway. When he got out, he looked pissed as hell.

"I busted the son-of-a-bitch upside the head with his own nine-iron." Grandpa grinned, placing a cigarette to his lips and lighting it. "Teach that motherfucker to come back ‘round here." He hitched up his pants and took a hefty drag from his smoke.

Bellamy cast a deadpanned look in my direction. "See. No cop's gonna take a nine-iron to someone's head…"

This was so Dayton that I didn't even know where to begin.

"You think your momma would make some of her famous meatloaf?" Grandpa whacked Bellamy on the back. "Attempted murder sure can stir up an appetite."

This was insanity, and this was what I'd chosen to immerse myself in.

I guided Arlo inside, and he went right past the hole in the drywall, the upturned coffee table, and smashed picture frames. He just sat down on the couch and turned on the TV like it was any other Tuesday. And that was the point where my heart sank because the kid thought this was normal.

I kneeled and started collecting broken shards of the ceramic lamp.

Bellamy came in, dragging a hand through his hair as he took a quick survey of the damage before he flipped the coffee table back over.

"Do you need to check he didn't take anything?" I asked, thinking of the envelope of cash in his dresser drawer. "Like...in your room."

"He doesn't know about that." He grabbed a shattered frame, removing the picture before he went to the kitchen to throw the broken wood and glass away.

Arlo was used to this, and so was Bellamy.

I wondered how many times Bellamy had seen this shit when he was a little boy, but without a big brother to look out for him. I wished someone would have been there for him, but he was still the pillar holding it all up even now.

When he came back into the living room, I took him by the jaw and kissed him. I didn't want him to feel like the lone pillar.

His hand came to my waist; his forehead pressed to mine. "Don't judge me by this shit."

Cartoons hummed in the background, and I was absolutely judging him by this shit. Because as much as it may embarrass him, how he dealt with it just showed how truly good he was.

"You're so not a bad boy," I breathed.

"Don't tell me shit like that…"

"Why?" I put my lips to his ear. "Does it make you want to prove me wrong?"

His hands went to my ass. "Absolutely."

"Ewww!" Arlo shouted before tossing a throw pillow at us. "I don't like it when you do that!"

"Fine…" Bellamy huffed, threading his fingers through mine before he led me to his room.

He flipped the lock, then cocked a brow at me. "You're gonna regret telling me I wasn't bad…"

I really didn't think I would...

Later that evening, after we'd helped Arlo with his homework, we left to grab groceries for dinner.

Bellamy zoomed past Wal-E-Mart, and I thumbed back at the brightly lit building.

"Uh, didn't you want to go there?"

"Can't go to that one. There's another one at the other end of town."

I waited for him to explain, but, of course, he didn't. "Well, are you going to tell me why, or leave me in suspense?"

"Hendrix kept stealing random shit, and now we're banned. It wasn't even good crap. It was plungers and porcelain Santa Claus decorations."

"Is he a kleptomaniac or something?"

"No, his brother used to hit him in the head with a whiffle ball bat when we were kids." He lowered my window, a light breeze rustling through the inside of the car. "He was also the glue eater in first grade."

I snorted. "Explains a lot." I imagined the three of them as kids, probably complete little assholes.

Bellamy parked at the back of the Wal-E-Mart lot, grabbing a random cart from an empty space before we headed toward the entrance. Something beeped behind me, and I turned to see an old man in a mobility scooter, a camo baseball cap on his head and denim overalls. No shirt beneath. And the best part of it was, he was wearing pink crocs.

I moved out of the way. He winked at me as he whizzed past.

Bellamy threw a loaf of bread into the cart, then a jar of peanut butter.

I followed him around the store, watching people trudge through the aisles, looking like life had completely drained them. Children screamed, sprinting around the massive store. It was just… like nothing I'd ever seen. Because I hadn't. I hated to admit that I'd never even been in a supermarket. My mom and dad both had housekeepers who cleaned and did the food shopping. And I'd been boarding.

Bellamy chucked canned vegetables in. Vegetables in a can. I didn't even know such a thing existed.

"Do me a favor," Bellamy said, fishing a sack of coupons out of his pocket. "Tell me how much these are worth."

I frowned at the coupons. The most they were worth was fifty cents off. These couldn't amount to much more than ten bucks max. Instead of saying anything, I counted them. "Eight seventy-five."

He entered the amount on his phone, then stared at the screen. I realized he was adding it up, working out exactly how much money he had, and with each passing moment, an uncomfortable knot formed in my chest. He was dealing weed and stealing cars, risking jail, and he still had to add up fifty-cent coupons to cover groceries.

We headed to the checkout and loaded the groceries onto the conveyor belt.

"Look, just let me buy it…" I said, hoping I didn't offend him. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I pitied him. Of course, I did, but only because I cared about him. A lot.

"It's fine." He tossed a box of rainbow Push-Pops onto the checkout.

"It's the least I could do. Just…" I waved him away, taking my Amex from my purse and handing it to the cashier. He glared when I passed the coupons to the lady.

I swiped my card, and seconds later, she offered me a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry, ma'am, your card has been declined."

Declined. Declined!

With a smile, I dug in my purse and handed her cash, my heart rate rising in an angry rhythm. That wasn't my dad's card. It was my mom's. That meant one thing...She was on his side.

The cashier passed my change across, then my receipt before wishing us a blessed day as we headed to the exit.

We silently loaded the groceries into the trunk. I couldn't believe my mom had sided with my dad. She hated him. After we tucked the groceries away, we placed the shopping cart into the corral, then went to get in the car.

Bellamy crawling across the passenger seat to the driver's side usually made me laugh, but not today.

"You okay?" he asked, backing out of the parking spot, then coming to an abrupt halt as the man in the scooter whizzed past.

"She sided with him."

"What do you mean, she sided with him?"

The car barreled over a speed bump before he turned onto the main highway.

"My mom's cut me off, and that means she took Dad's side. And she hates him."

For Irina to agree with William, hell must have frozen over. I'd never had my parent's love, but I'd had their money, and to a degree, Irina's affection. Now I had neither.

Bellamy's phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and stared down at the screen, swerving into another lane. "What the hell kinda number is that?"

I snatched it from him. "It's French." I didn't have my phone, but my dad had Bellamy's number…so, I answered it. "Bellamy's phone."

"Drucella." My mom's voice came over the line. "Where are you?"

"In the car."

"Are you with him ?"

"Yes." We stopped at a red light. A massive truck pulled up beside us, the rumble of the engine shaking Bellamy's car.

"You moved in with him, darling?"

"Yes!"

"Where exactly are you living? In the ghetto?"

"Oh my God. Mom!"

"Irina, darling. You'll make me feel old calling me Mom."

The light changed, and Bellamy sped off, weaving in and out of traffic. "Does she want to tell me to wear a condom, too?"

Shooting a death glare at him, I held up a hand. Now was not the time.

I argued back and forth with her for the next five minutes until we pulled up to his house.

"Mom, I have to go and get the groceries out of the car."

"Put me on video call. I want to see where you're living."

I stared at the front of the tiny house my mother in no way would approve of. She had no idea the struggles most people face. "No," I said.

"If it's acceptable, I'll reactivate your credit card."

"It's acceptable."

Silence.

Bellamy glanced at me before reaching across to open the door. "She sounds like a fucking delight."

"She's probably drunk." It was the most likely excuse I could come up with.

I climbed out of the car, rounding the back when the phone beeped with a video call request.

She would keep trying until I accepted, so I took a breath and answered.

Mom came into view, diamonds around her neck, and a half-empty glass of champagne in her hand. If I had to guess, the twinkling lights in the background was the view of Monaco from her yacht. "Well," she said. "Let's see it."

Just then, Bellamy leaned over my shoulder. "Hey, Momma. I see where my baby girl gets her good looks from." Then he kissed my cheek.

And my mom's blush matched my own like she was a freaking teenager. Oh my God.

I cleared my throat. "Just remember, not everyone lives in what looks like a five-star hotel. It doesn't mean it's not acceptable."

I went inside the house, hurrying past Carol with a wave and cutting into Bellamy's room. The last thing I wanted was for Carol to hear my mother judging the home Carol had been generous enough to invite me in to.

"This is Bellamy's room." I did a quick spin around.

It wasn't flashy, of course. It was just an old bed and a dinged-up chest of drawers. A few car and football posters.

"I am perfectly fine here. Dad got unbearable. He took my phone. Basically called me a whore. Threatened to have Bellamy arrested…"

"Your father's always been unbearable. And you are not a whore." She drained the rest of the champagne from her glass, then held it up in the air for someone to refill. "Speaking of your father, he sent me Bellamy's records—is that what you call them? Prison report card. Whatever it is..."

"Of course, he did." It didn't surprise me one bit that he'd managed to get hold of them.

"Darling, believe me, I understand the appeal of boys like that."

The bedroom door creaked open, and Bellamy stepped in, flopping down onto his bed.

"They're dangerous and exciting. I once dated a man who had been to prison, you know? It was a rush." She fiddled with the strand of diamonds around her neck like just the thought of said man made her flustered. "But you are eighteen and beautiful and intelligent, with the whole world at your feet. If you were dating him, fine. But you moved in with him ! That's…"

Insane? Like I didn't already know that.

She shook her head. "You have to see there's no future in this."

I wanted to walk out of the room so Bellamy couldn't hear her berating him, but I had a feeling he'd think I was hiding things from him.

"Those are dad's words, not yours."

"We'll talk about it when you get here."

Bellamy's gaze immediately locked with mine. I didn't miss the subtle clench of his jaw before he grabbed the football from the floor and started tossing it into the air. Like maybe he could ignore everything she'd said.

"I don't know what I'm doing this summer yet, Mom."

"What? You always come here." I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off. "Darling, you'll come to Saint Tropez for the summer. We'll drink wine and shop, and we can talk about your future."

Come to Saint Tropez and forget about him, more like. I was glad she didn't say it when he was right there, though.

"And if I don't?" I asked.

"You will, sweetie."

"Mom…"

Someone called for her in the background. "I have to go, darling."

"Are you still cutting me off?"

Her lips pressed together. "When you run out of money, come to France, and we will discuss. Bisous, darling. Bisous, Bellamy." Then she hung up.

I threw my head back against the headboard on a groan.

"What the fuck is a bisous?" he asked.

"It's French for kisses."

He tossed the ball into the corner of the room, then dragged me onto the bed with him. "I'll give you some fucking bisous, on your pussy…"