War Poppy (War #1), page 3
"You have girl germs. Gross." I start making fake heaving noises and pretending to be sick, but he ignores me.
I laugh when I think about how that bit of gum got stuck in his hair. He managed to hide it from his mum for two days until Poppy finally convinced him to let her cut it out. That bald patch she left him with made it look like he'd lost a fight with a lawn mower. His mum shaved all his hair off and grounded him. I was so pissed I'd lost my playmate, but of course he was love sick for her. And that was how he stayed, completely and utterly in love with Poppy Turner until the day he died.
I go upstairs and into the pub, taking a seat at the old mahogany bar. The entire place smells of smoke because, despite the smoking ban, no one in here gives a shit. The booze is cheap and the women even more so, but I don't care. All I need in life is to drown everything out and bury my dick down some girl's throat. Whiskey and pussy are old friends, ones I can rely on.
Lou, Larry's wife, slams her palm down on the bar in front of me. She's in her mid-forties with bleach blonde hair and tits so big she actually rests them on the bar. She's all of five foot two, but she scares the fuck out of me.
"You win, again?" she asks, already pouring whiskey into a glass for me.
I snort. "I always win."
Her lips kick up on one side. "Sweetheart, just you wait 'til my Zac gets home. He'll put you on your arse."
I down the cheap whiskey, sucking a breath through my teeth as it burns its way down my throat. "He's welcome to try."
Lou throws her head back on a cackle, swatting at me with her dirty bar-rag before she tops off my glass and struts away to serve another customer.
A hand clasps my shoulder. "Damn woman is like a fine wine," Larry says with a grunt. "Gets better with age. You just think these young women know what they’re doing. But boy, you just wait 'til you hit forty or so. Women get freaky as a pack of hyenas jacked up on some Mexican black tar heroin." He shakes his head. "And don't ever go trying that shit. Knock you out of your gourd and have you riding a donkey out in the middle of the desert..."
Larry's the craziest bastard I've ever come across. I rub my hand over my face, trying to bleach that mental image from my mind. What the fuck do I even say to that? "She uh...she's a keeper."
"Damn skippy she is. Was enough to move my ass from Mississippi to London. Bring me back to the motherland." He chuckles as I down my drink and flag Lou for another one. "Hell," Larry says, eyeing the empty glass in my hand. "What's got you drinking like a goddamn one-flippered goldfish?"
"You told me to fucking drink." I raise my glass. "Here I am."
"Nah." He rubs at his glass eye, poking it and rolling it around in his socket. "Got some shit in my damn eye hole." He shakes his head. "Something's itching your butt. What is it, boy? I reckon it's got something to do with that pretty girl that followed you out after your fight. You ain't done gone and got her knocked up, have you?"
"No." I frown, staring at my empty glass on the bar.
Lou places two drinks on the counter. One for me. One for Larry.
"Well, she's got some nice titties." He cups a pair of fake breasts.
"She's like my fucking sister," I say, disgust lacing my voice.
Larry shrugs. "Hell, where I came from, girls like that, didn't matter if they were your sister." A perverted grin slinks across his face as he slaps me on the back.
"She's Connor's widow," I whisper. Even breathing his name hurts, like a knife being wedged right in the centre of my chest. Larry knows all about Connor. Kyan, Finn, Larry, me...we're all ex-military. All running, still fighting a war we wish we'd never fucking signed up for. I don't like to talk about it, but they understand. They've all seen shit, lost friends, lost part of what essentially makes us human. Larry says a man must sacrifice part of himself to survive war. I think he must have sacrificed his sanity because he's batshit crazy.
"Aw, hell." He hitches his pants back under his gut. "How the shitfire did she find you?"
I shake my head. "I don't know, but now she's fucking here and I really wish she wasn't."
"God bless the little thing. Don't go being an ass to her. She's most likely just as lost as you are, boy." He glances around the ratty bar. "Where'd she go off to?"
"Don't know." I shrug and take a gulp of whiskey. "Don't care. Whatever she came looking for, it's long fucking gone."
A heavy sigh slips through Larry's lips before he downs his glass of bourbon. There's a girl at the end of the bar shamelessly staring at me. Small waist, big tits, a tonne of cleavage, and bleach-blonde hair. She's the kind of girl you only have to look at to get her on her back, and it's just what I need. Larry follows my gaze. He lets out a chuckle which turns into a hacking cough. He pats me on the shoulder as he stands and finds his way behind the bar, walking over to Lou and groping all over her.
Six glasses of whiskey later, and the guilt is gone. Everything is gone. I'm blissfully numb as my vision blurs in and out. Blondie is hanging off my arm, her lips leaving a trail of bright red lipstick down my neck as she tries to kiss me. I sit on the bar stool and let her grind all over me, her hips moving in time with the music coming from the jukebox. Damn, anyone would think the girl is being paid for it.
"Wanna get outta here?" she purrs against my ear before scraping her teeth over my earlobe.
My eyes drop to her chest that’s bursting out of her top. "Sure."
She giggles and clings to my arm as we walk to the exit. The world starts to spin and I brace my shoulder against the doorway before I step out onto the street. Blondie takes my hand, dragging me down the alley that runs alongside the bar.
She shoves my shoulder and I stagger back against the wall, the shadows swallowing us as she slams her lips against mine. She tastes of cheap wine and cigarette smoke. I push her away from me, but she just goes for my neck, so I decide to yank her top down and palm her fake tits. Moaning, she paws at my belt buckle like the holy-fucking-grail is hidden in my jeans. This chick is on her knees before I can blink, her fingers yanking at my boxers right before her lips wrap around my dick. There's something to be said for easy girls: they aren't scared to suck dick.
Chapter Five
Poppy
“Muddy Waters” - LP
The wind kicks up, the sudden chill sending a shiver down my spine. I pull my coat closer together and warm my hands with my breath. It's been nearly two hours since I left that pub. And if I had to bet, by now, Brandon is probably slobbering drunk. I'm just waiting for him to come stumbling out of the pub door. I should just go in there, but I know Brandon, and if I want to get my way with him, I need him piss-faced drunk.
The street is nearly deserted, with the exception of the old men hanging out by the front of the pub, smoking and making cat-calls to any girl that passes by.
Why am I doing this? What do I expect to get out of this? To talk some sense into him because I need something, someone. He needs someone. Connor would want us to lean on each other. He would. And I refuse to let Brandon piss his life away like this, fighting in filthy bars and probably drowning himself in whiskey every night. The thing is. I love Brandon, and whether he wants to admit it or not, we've been bound to one another since we were kids. Knowing he's alive, well, I can't just leave him. I'm not the kind of person who will abandon someone. That's the one thing Connor always taught me—us. And I swear, I can almost hear his voice reciting the saying he said a million times: "A friend is someone who understands your past, accepts you for all your wrongs, and who carries you when no one else will.”
I'm lost in my thoughts when I hear the noise from inside the pub spill out onto the street. I glance up just before the door to the bar swings shut. Brandon's stumbling around outside the pub, a giggling woman clutching his arm. I roll my eyes. Of course, she'd be a blonde. I stand and they disappear down an alleyway, her annoying laughter bouncing off the walls of the buildings.
Rolling my eyes, I cinch my coat as I check that the street is free of traffic, and I sprint across the road, straight to that alley.
I can barely make them out in the shadows, and I stop when I hear Brandon groan. "Shit, baby," he says, and I cringe. Inhaling a deep breath, I push my shoulders back and walk right down the alley, stopping behind the blonde on her knees in front of him.
"Really?" I cross my arms over my chest and cock my hip out. The girl’s head stops bobbing and she glares over her shoulder at me. Brandon fists her fried hair, pulling her back to the job at hand.
"I'm busy," he says, cocking a brow and smirking.
"So I can see."
"You're welcome to watch, but Connor would probably beat my arse for it." He laughs.
Heat flames my cheeks. My jaw tenses. That was low, even for shitfaced Brandon O’Kieffe. I want to punch him, but instead, I clear my throat and wait. "I guess since getting the shit beat out of your face isn't enough, getting AIDS or fucking herpes from this skag sounds like a good idea to you?”
The girl pulls away from him and pushes to her feet, turning to face me. She carefully wipes the corners of her mouth as she approaches me. She raises her hand to slap me, but Brandon catches her by the wrist and shoves her to the side.
"You can go," he dismisses her, and she flashes me a nasty glare before spinning on her heel and stomping away.
"Brandon," I sigh, "put it away."
He laughs. "I still have a dick that needs sucking. You chased off my willing volunteer."
Groaning, I grab him by the ear, twisting it between my fingers. "Put it away."
"Ow, fucking shit..." He hastily adjusts himself, zipping his jeans.
"You smell like whiskey and piss," I say when I release his ear.
"It's the smell of man," he slurs.
"Man?" I stifle a laugh because I'm angry with him and I don't want his drunken brain to think anything other than that. "It's a stench, alright.” He trips over his feet, slamming into the wall. I grab him and steady him. "Come on," I say, walking toward my car. "I'm taking you home, you drunk rat."
"Yeah, yeah." He swats his hand through the air. “Just ruin all my fucking fun.”
Brandon fumbles with the keys, dropping them several times before I snatch them away from him and shove them into the lock. The moment the door opens, he tumbles into the room, walking the few short steps it takes him to get to the sofa before he falls face first onto it. His arm hangs over the edge of the cushions, his fingers brushing the dirty carpet.
I flip the switch. My jaw drops when I glance around at his living room. There must be about ten empty bottles of whiskey lying around. Crushed beer cans. Pizza boxes with half eaten crust tossed inside. And there, on the shitty excuse for an end table, is a glass bowl full of charred weed. Tossing my head back, I sigh.
"What in the hell, Brandon?" I say beneath my breath.
He was always the neat one, borderline obsessive-compulsive with cleanliness. How he's able to live in this—I look around again, my eyes landing on the punching bag hanging in the corner of the room. I walk toward it and poke at it with a finger. It doesn't budge. The white material is tattered and torn, splits covered with silver duct tape. And the blood—dried blood covers the damn thing. Brandon...I find myself shaking my head when I turn back to his near unconscious body sprawled out on the ratty couch.
"Oh, fuck." He doesn't move, but I can hear his stomach churning from here. Abruptly, he sits up and falls to the floor. "Fuck," he moans again as he starts to slowly crawl across the floor.
"Where are you going?" I chase after him, leaning down to try and get him to his feet, but he swats me away. He makes his way to a tiny bathroom off the hall and uses the doorframe to hoist himself up. He wavers and staggers, his hand covering his mouth as he hurls himself inside and slams the door.
The next thing I hear is violent heaving and coughing followed by a string of profanities. And here I stand, in his hallway, as the smell of stomach bile and whiskey float out from beneath the door. The awful retching noise falls silent. The toilet flushes and the door swings open. Brandon stands in the doorway, eyes bloodshot, face flushed. He rolls his eyes, grunts, and then stumbles down the hall to another room.
"Brandon..."
Again, he swats his hand through the air and grunts. I follow him into the bedroom. He yanks his shirt over his head, tosses it to the floor, then flops down on his back on the rickety mattress.
"I'm fine," he manages.
"Yeah, I just..." I sit on the edge of the bed, running my fingers through his thick hair. I’ve missed him so much. "I just. I'm glad to see you. No matter how pissed I am at you, I couldn't be happier that you're alive."
"And I didn't—" he hiccups—"didn't mean it," he says cryptically.
"I know."
"You always know, possum."
And here go the tears. I turn away from him to wipe them from my face.
"You still hate me calling you that?" He swats at my hair.
I shrug.
"Always hated it, which is why I called you that...I…" And now he's snoring. Out cold.
I stare at him through the dark, watching his back rise and fall in deep swells. His face is bruised, his bottom lip split from the fight. And I know, as I glance around this room, he's broken. He's hurt. And the one thing about Brandon: he was always out at the first thought of getting hurt. I guess this is no different. Connor was his brother, not by blood, but by choice, and if you really think about it, that has to mean more. They chose to carry each other.
"Possum," he grumbles through a jagged breath, still asleep.
I can’t help but to close my eyes and remember the first time he called me that:
My eyes are trained on my bloody knee. Brandon stops walking for a second and takes a breath. "How much do you weigh anyway? Dear God," he says, adjusting me on his back. "I'm gonna have to carry you the rest of the way home, aren't I?"
I sniffle in response and he sighs.
"Fine, but I told you, you were going too fast. You can't keep up with those big kids."
"They made fun of me."
"I know, I know."
I wiggle my leg, trying to make that stinging feeling go away and Brandon shakes his head.
"I'm gonna have blood all over me," he huffs.
"Should have let Connor carry me then," I say.
"Oh, he'd just drop you halfway up the hill. He's too fat." Brandon's winded and it makes me giggle. "What are you laughing at?"
"You probably look so silly with me on your back."
"Yeah, just like a possum, aye?" He chuckles. "That's what I'm calling you from now on. Possum."
I wrinkle my nose. "Why? Those little beasts are so ugly."
"Ah, nah. They're well cute. Just like you—" He stops midsentence and I feel my cheeks blush. Brandon O’Kieffe just called me cute. It shouldn't bother me, but, for some reason, it does. It makes me proud or happy or...something. "You're just like one of 'em, hanging on my back for dear life." He laughs again.
"Guys. Wait up..." Connor shouts from the bottom of the hill, already out of breath. "Wait up..."
Brandon jerks in his sleep, startling me and bringing me back to the present. His breathing has grown rapid, uneven. His forehead is dotted with sweat. He throws his arm across the bed again and groans, and that's when I see the crumpled photograph, the edge stained with what looks like blood. My heart rate kicks up and I swallow around the lump that has now formed in my throat. Leaning over Brandon, I grab the picture, my hands already shaking. There's a dark green tank, Brandon is sitting on the hood and Connor’s against the side, an AK-47 saddled on his hip. My heart tears right in two, the sight of the two of them at war destroying me all over again. All I can think about is how badly Connor must have suffered. What it must have felt like to have your life come to such a brutal end doing the one thing you loved. And then, I wonder what that must have done to Brandon because, unlike me, he doesn't have to wonder what it was like. He doesn't have the luxury of protecting himself from the grim details because he lived that.
Chapter Six
Brandon
“Hold Me Down”- Halsey
I'm staring down the scope of my rifle, and despite needing to slow my heart rate to get the shot, it slams against my ribs like a freight train hammering along the tracks. My arm shakes slightly. I still when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
"Breathe, Bran. Just take a breath," Connor says.
"I can't do this." I say, meeting his deep brown eyes, so steady, so calm.
"This is war, Bran. Those guys—" he points towards the derelict factory building that our unit is surrounding, "they will kill hundreds, if not thousands. They would blow up kids in the name of their cause. This is war, and in war, there are always casualties. This doesn't make you a monster." And it really is that simple to him, right and wrong, good and bad.
So, I pick my rifle up, stare down the sights, and I pull the trigger, watching as the bullet tears a hole straight through the chest of the elderly woman that the enemy is using as a body shield. I was aiming for her shoulder. I didn't want to kill her, but I did and that does make me a monster. I just lost a little bit of my soul.
I jolt awake, pitching upright and dragging a gasping breath into my lungs. The sheets beneath me, as they are every night, are drenched with sweat. Something brushes my arm, and I instinctively lash out, slamming my palm against something warm and soft. When my mind finally blinks back into focus, I'm on my knees, hovering over Poppy's small body with my forearm pressed over her throat, pinning her, choking her. She stares up at me, her eyes wide as her bottom lip trembles. This is not war. She is not the enemy...reality sets in and I panic, scrambling away from her to the edge of the bed. I sit up and turn my back to her as I drag a hand through my hair and try to force my heart rate to slow. She shouldn't be here, let alone in my bed. When did that even happen? I can't help but think of Connor. He was always the good one. He married Poppy when they were only twenty-one and only ever slept with one girl until the day he died. He loved that girl the way you see in fucking movies.
