31. 🔧 Sticker Shock

**JUSTICE**

I’m lying in bed, shock rendering me temporarily immobile as my brain burns with mortification’s fire.
I suck at romantic relationships, but I’m quick enough to put two and two together.
I knew immediately how she’d gotten her scar. I’ve seen bullet wounds before.
Lilli was shot. Keke was shot. Both when they were fifteen. And now I know the full destruction I’ve caused.
I’d left the destructive influence of Duncan and the street corners of San Francisco two days before he and Luke held up the store. When Lilli confronted me all those years ago, I made it my business to read the trial transcript.
As minors, both Lilli and Keke’s had their names redacted. However, the transcript detailed their injuries. Lilli—minor number one—had a superficial shoulder wound that left her with a paper-thin scar, but minor number two had her femur all but destroyed. Only pins, rods, and plates, held her leg together.
Minor number two was Keke.
While I was eating her out, my fingertips touched the small raises on the front of her thigh where the doctors had stuck the metal spikes into her leg. I didn’t think about the bumps too much as I was savoring her flavor and enjoying her moans.
If I had just looked.
Hell, if I had reacted differently other than some monosyllabic moron.
What else could I do? My mind had turned to mush and my tongue had stuck to the roof of my mouth at the realization I was the one who started Keke’s life down a road full of pain. All those years ago, if I had kept my mouth shut, or only rated Lilli instead of making those dumb comments that day…
As Fay Wray once said: Only in your imagination can you revise.
I can’t change the past. I can only look to the future.
And in doing so, I can’t be honest.
I can never tell Keke I caused her to get shot. She would disappear like the sun behind a mountain.
Matter of fact, I bet right now she’s thinking how to leave me over a few ill-chosen words. What will she do when she learns I was the one who put Lilli, and subsequently her, on Duncan’s radar?
Nothing good, that’s what.
Only thing coming between us now is my asinine reaction. I can smooth that over.
I have to.
Fighting the gravity of Jupiter, I slowly rise from the bed. A sheen of cold sweat pours from my skin. A tightness, like I pulled a muscle, sits in my chest.
Maybe I have pulled a muscle. The one with four valves that continuously pumps blood through my veins.
The one I want Keke to heal.
It can happen. Just say you’re sorry.
I smother an anxious chuckle. I can count on one hand the times I’ve said sorry and I’ve said most of them to Keke.
Sorry means I care and I have cared little… until I met Keke.
I step into my tanks and then knock on the bathroom door. From the other side, water runs from the tap.
I hope it’s not to mask her tears.
That would be the end of me if I’d made her cry… again.
“Keke?” I call, jiggling the handle when I know she locked it. “Open up... I didn’t mean it the way you took it.”
She does as I ask, only to scoot past me, headed from the room. She’s almost in the hall before I grab her arm and spin her around.
Refusing to meet my eyes, Keke keeps her gaze pinned to my chest.
I have my work cut out for me.
So far, I’ve been able to mollify her when I’ve acted an ass. With my lack of relationship skills, one day I’ll push her too far.
I just hope today is not that day.
“I didn’t mean to be crass, Keke. I’m sorry for what I said. I was in shock and it jumbled my words. Will you tell me what happened?”
She blinks up at me through long lashes that curl ever so slightly at the ends and are whisper soft. Not her expression though. It’s as hard as granite.
Keke stares into my eyes, which I make as contrite as possible. I’m guessing it does the trick as her face softens as do her beautiful browns.
With the lie I have to keep, I don’t deserve her forgiveness, but I’ll take it just the same.
I’m not letting her go.
Not now. Not ever.
We sit on the bed, holding hands while she unfolds her story. She tells me how she had not one, not two, but three surgeries in order for her to walk. I learn she was in the hospital for close to a year because of two infections. She glosses over her physical therapy that I know must have hurt like a bitch.
And all her pain is down to me.
I could have butted in and told her my part in her tragedy, but I keep the information locked inside the dark part of my mind, never to see daylight.
Instead of coming clean, I become actor-of-the-year, my portrayal of an honest lover worthy of the highest prize.
I wrap my arms around her at the end of her tale, saying soothing words of comfort and commiseration, pulling her closer a millimeter at a time. Soon, our lips are touching in hesitant brushes. These progress to toe-curling, groan-inducing kisses that has my dick poking from the top of my tanks, pre-cum dripping from the tip.
In next to no time, we’re back under the covers performing the time-honored ritual of out-of-this-world fucking. I’m convinced that if I give it to her good enough, she’ll forget her own name let alone connect the dots all too plain to see.
The kids know Lilli took a bullet. Pippa does too. All one of them has to do is mention it, and just like a cow chewing cud, Keke will mull it over and come up with questions.
Questions that will land me in the hot seat, squirming under blistering interrogation lights.
I can just imagine how our conversation will go.

KEKE: Why did Lilli give you custody in the first place?
ME: I was getting my will together, intending to leave everything to her and the kids. Pippa and Jenna don’t need my money and I have no one. The guys are the closest thing to a family that I have. I wanted to put all my businesses in trust, making Lilli the guardian. That had made her think about her future—the kids’ future. She approached me soon after to ask if I would become the kids’ guardian.
KEKE: That doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t you reach out to me when Lilli died?
ME: I learned about you only after you showed up. Lilli never talked about you and neither did the kids. I asked them why they hadn’t a few weeks ago. They said Lilli told them not to discuss their past in case someone related to the shooter came looking for them.
KEKE: Why would his relations come looking for Lilli or the kids?
ME: Because they are assholes, knee deep in all sorts of shit.
KEKE: How do you know?
ME: I read the trial transcript.
KEKE: Why were you reading that?
ME: Lilli recognized me from that day Duncan accosted her. I was the one that practically put him up to it. He was always a hothead, getting into trouble for taking things that weren’t his. I should have known he would go after Lilli. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d leave me, and I don’t want you to go.
You lied to me, Justice, just like Krish. We’re over. I never want to see you again.

Such are my thoughts as the night disintegrates into morning.
Keke, oblivious to the turmoil in my mind, is asleep underneath me, her mouth slightly open in a delicate snore.
And I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight.
I bury my head in her neck, breathing in her spicy scent. Little by little, my mind clears of worry enough for me to close my eyes and drift. The last conscious thought I have before succumbing to sleep is: I’ll regret keeping my secrets.
In my experience, they always have a way of making themselves known.