Beg (God of Rock Book 2) by Eden Butler

Author:Eden Butler [Butler, Eden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The reunion didn’t last. Not much good ever did where my mama was concerned, but this time it was my own insecurities and a persistent nurse’s aide that broke up the good that had been our conversation.

“Oh, Mr. Vega, I’m such a big fan,” the girl had started, tugging on her stethoscope like it was a distraction. She didn’t even have a chart on hand and still she interrupted. “Would you mind if I got a picture? Your mother has told us so much about you.”

“Did she?” I asked, pushing my shades further up my nose as I stood from my mother’s side.

“Si, mijo, but I’m so proud. You’ve done so well.” For once, when I stared at her, my mother’s smile was genuine, real, and it might have been the first time in my life that she was in a good mood not caused by a man or something that fucked with her brain or body.

I stood for the aide, leaned close to her as she held up her cell, but didn’t smile, not when she lowered her hand onto my ass or when she insisted on a second picture.

“Without your glasses? Would you mind?”

“Yeah,” I’d told her. “I would, actually.” I glanced at my mother, shooting her a wink. “I gotta jet. Check on Wills. I’ll be back…later.”

But one peek inside my father’s room, where he sat laughing with Iris, playing dominoes, looking completely fine without my presence, and I just wanted out of that hospital.

The snow had stopped, and the frigid wind had warmed to a balmy thirty-five. I took advantage of the temperature and the distraction Wills had caused and made for that small Macon Street cottage. I had no plan to go there, no real purpose, other than keeping myself busy and eradicating the hook in my head, making lyrics fit into the tune that had me stuck.

If Iris’s mother was home, she didn’t acknowledge me as I went to the back shed and dug out her tool set. The hand tools were all green and purple and old; there was silver paint among the purple, a looping scroll of Iris’s name she must have added to the hammer when she was a kid.

I found an old mason jar filled with nails of different shapes and lengths and took that glittered hammer to the front of the yard, pinching the nails between my teeth as I lined up the loosened pickets on the gate. There were at least a dozen or more that were broken or loose, and I went to work fixing each one with that tune running through my head on repeat.

“The lights are always on / This is the place I come to,” I said to myself, not sure if the lines meant anything at all or if they’d work together. There wasn’t too much thought to give to the mindless task of straightening, cutting and nailing, and when the pickets were mended and looked uniform again, I moved my attention to the front porch, seeing several loose boards toward the middle.

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