The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover
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Not much had changed since I had left when I was just a kid, only now it looked worse. It was clear my dad was escalating on the worthless-piece-of-shit scale. I followed her into the kitchen and sat at the old dinner table. The wood groaned in protest as I stretched out my legs and took the beer she offered me from the fridge. I popped the top and took a long slug.
“I’ve been back awhile. Dad didn’t tell you?”
She shook her head, and I saw something that went beyond sadness shadow her searching gaze. “Why didn’t you call me yourself? I could have made dinner or something.”
I never told her when I was coming or going, because inevitably she would want to spend some kind of family time together, and that never went well. I barely tolerated my dad on a good day, and watching him demean her and order her around in the house she paid for was just too much.
“I’ve been busy working with some new bands, and I met a girl.” It was fudging the truth a little, considering I had known Ayden for more than a year, but after this morning I felt like I was finally getting let in, being introduced to the real her. I saw my mom’s eyes brighten at the mention of a girl and she reached out to pat my hand. I could see the blue veins running so close to the surface of her skin and again I wondered how she had allowed herself to become this delicate creature that a stiff wind could blow away forever.
“That’s wonderful! You need a nice girl to settle down with. You are too special and have too much to offer to be spreading it around all over town, like I know you and your friends like to do.”
I lifted an eyebrow and rolled the Pabst Blue Ribbon can between my palms. “How do you know what me and the guys like to do, Ma?”
“I was young once, Jet. I know the allure of a handsome young man in a band. All you boys were a handful when you were younger, and I can only imagine the kind of trouble you find yourselves in now that you are all grown and independent. Tell me about this girl. She must be something, if you couldn’t remember to mention to me that you’ve been back in town for a while.”
I could hear the accusation in her tone. She knew why I didn’t come around much, didn’t stay in touch .Yet she couldn’t stop herself from trying to hold me close. I took another swig of the beer and looked at her with a lopsided grin.
“She’s different—smart, ambitious, and driven. She’s different from what I’m used to. I like her, a lot actually.”
I saw my mom’s eyes get big, and for the first time in a long time, there was an emotion in them other than abject despair.
“Well, that’s good. You need someone who is as ambitious and as talented as you are.”
I wasn’t sure what it was going to end up being so I just stayed silent and finished the beer and got up to toss it in the trash. I crossed my arms over my chest and gave her a level, serious look as I decided to change the subject from my sex life.
“Ma, did you know the old man hit me up to send him back out on the road with some of my friends in a band?”
Instantly, the light that had filtered in her hazy gaze at my earlier good news died. It was replaced with the flat look of loneliness and the acknowledgment that she only existed to him as a doormat and place filler, while he went out and lived his life without her. She twisted her hands together and looked down at the table.
“You father is an old man now. Why would he want to go back out on the road with a bunch of young kids? What purpose would that serve?”
I raked my hands through my hair, and bit my tongue to keep from snapping at her that there was no purpose other than his indulgent, self-centered way of living. But that kind of attack never got me anywhere. I blew out a breath through my nose and clicked my tongue ring against the back of my front teeth.
“Mom, when has he ever done anything that served a purpose? He straight up told me that if I didn’t make it happen, he was going to come home and take it out on you. How can you just sit back and let him do that to you? How can you let him manipulate either of us like that?”
My rings rapped out a fast beat on the counter while I waited for her to answer me. For years, I had waited for her to see that I could take care of her and that she didn’t need to subject herself to his whims and his thoughtless behavior. I couldn’t stand that she just told me over and over that she loved him and that she wouldn’t let her family fall apart, even though I hadn’t willingly been in the same room with my father since I was a teenager.
She wouldn’t look at me and her voice was barely a whisper when she replied, “You just don’t understand how it is with us, Jet. You never did.”
I pushed off the counter and walked to where she was actually folding in on herself in front of me. I put a hand on her shoulder and squatted down so that she had no choice but to meet my searching gaze. “Ma, don’t you think the problem is that I understand it too well? You know you can do better than him, better than this. You always could.”
I saw her bottom lip tremble and that pulled at something under all the anger that lived in my chest. I hated that every time I tried to pull her out of this nightmare, I ended up hurting her. She should be thanking me, running as fast as she could away from this place, and yet she stayed rooted so firmly that no matter how hard I dug, I couldn’t get her out. The roots were planted too deep.
“If you can make him happy by sending him back out on the road, maybe you should. It’s not like he really asks that much from you.”
I abruptly stood from where I was kneeling beside her and felt a white hot blaze shoot down my neck. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to shove my fist through the closest wall. I wanted to storm out of that shabby kitchen in this awful house on the wrong side of the interstate and never look back. What I did instead was close my eyes, bend, and kiss her on the top of her head.
“We’ll see, Ma. I have to work with these guys. I don’t know that I want to ask them for that big of a favor. It was good to see you. Take care of yourself.”
I was going to go before I did something stupid, like scream at her, but she grabbed my forearm, her fingers digging into the melting clocks all over my skin. Her eyes were so sad when she looked up at me, that I literally felt a part of my heart die. “Bring your girl by. I would love to meet her.”
This was the last place on earth I wanted to bring Ayden, but I forced out something that had to resemble a grin. “Sure, Ma, maybe someday I can swing that.”
Ayden was the opposite of this woman I loved, in so many ways it almost hurt to think about it. She was so strong and so independent that she would never let another person dictate the direction her life or actions would take, or devalue her worth. I hated the idea that Ayden would see my broken-down mother and wonder why I hadn’t done more to help her or been able to stop this from happening to her in the first place. Those very questions picked me apart from the inside out every day. Looking at my mother now, I remembered every time she had chosen this life and that asshole over me, and it burned away some of the safeguards I had put into place to protect my heart from the inferno of the rage that lived inside me.
My phone picked that minute to ring, and Memphis May Fire came blasting out of my pocket. I told my mom I had to go and wasted no time in running down the front steps. I felt like I was not only running away from her, but also from every bad thing that had ever happened in that house. Nash’s tattooed head was staring back at me from the face of my phone, so when I poked at it to answer the call I didn’t bother to fake a cheery greeting.
“ ’Sup, dude?”
“Where are you?”
I slid into the car and rested my head on the back of the driver’s seat. “I went to visit my mom. The old man has been on my case about setting him up with Artifice and I thought maybe for once I could just shut it down, but no. As usual, I just don’t understand, and she’s just going to let him run around on her and run her over. It fucking sucks.”
Nash knew my history with my folks better than the other guys. When I left as a teenager, he had been having