Redemption (Tattoos & Tears - Brody Book 1) Page 3

“The Glades Rehabilitation Centre, in Sandwood Bay on the North Coast of Scotland. They’re sending a car for you in an hour. Six months this time, Brody, no arguments. Show us all that you can get clean and stay clean, we all care about you, man.”

  He places his hand on my arm, in a gesture of reassurance and smiles softly. The tender moment is short-lived, as Jay looks him dead in the eye.

  “Bull shit,” she spits angrily, jabbing her finger at him. “This is fucking bullshit! What about his rights? He has a right to decide whether or not he goes to rehab!” she raises her voice and Jax puts his arm around her in an appeasing gesture.

  “Mum,” Jax warns softly, but the look of absolute conviction in her eyes never fails to amaze me.

  Jamie Leigh Chase, the mother I always wanted, the mother mine should have been, always championing me, always protecting me, always having my back. I gently brush her arm reassuringly.

  “Jay, it’s ok.”

  She shakes her head and puts her hand tenderly on top of mine.

  “It’s not ok, sweetheart. He can’t bully you into going to rehab, it’s your choice and your choice alone,” she argues, and M.J is silently seething at her outburst.

  “Honestly, I need to do this, Jay. He’s not forcing me, he’s just concerned. I need to sort my head out; I need some help to get off the drugs. I can’t do it here where there’s temptation. I’m just not strong enough to resist. I love you for having my corner, you always have. You’re a fucking angel. You’re the mum I always wanted, but on this, M.J’s right.”

  I placate softly as I look M.J in the eye. Her gaze softens and she pulls me in for a hug. She squeezes me tightly, and as she pulls away; she kisses me on the forehead with tear-filled eyes. I look from Jay to M.J and take a deep breath, as I realise the weight of the words I’m about to say.

  “I’ll get clean this time, you have my word, M.J, I swear.” I say with absolute fervour in my voice. I just fucking hope I can stick to my word this time.

  3

  Brody

  “Would you like to tell the group why you’re here and what prompted you to seek therapy, Brody?” The group therapist, with the barely there tits whose name I can’t fucking recall, asks. I shrug nonchalantly and roll my eyes. For fucks sake, here we go again.

  "Hi, my name is Brody Hart and I'm a drug addict." I admit with a bored tone, as the rest of the group applauds, offering silent nods of support. Saying those words out loud and admitting you have a problem, is ‘apparently’ the first step to recovery in the twelve step, non-faith-based program. Not that I haven’t heard that a thousand fucking times before. Personally, I think it's a bunch of bull shit. The sitting in a circle, telling your secrets to strangers, the look of quiet understanding. All I feel is fucking shame, total and utter shame, at being admitted to this God forsaken hell hole, again. I hate admitting that I take drugs purely for the escape it brings, for my demons to finally shut the fuck up and bring with it a quiet calm. For my brain to catch up and give me the peace I so desperately crave.

  ***

  The days go by and seem to all blend into one. This is a fucking joke, I shouldn’t be here, why the fuck should I be punished, for having a good time? You only live once, right? I head from my room to my daily therapy session, and I lean against the wall outside the door. I notice a young woman, who I don’t recognise. I would have recognised someone as beautiful as her, fuck me, she’s a knockout. I take her in, she’s around five feet seven inches tall, lightly tanned, and slender. Her vibrant lilac hair is cut into a short, pixie crop and shaved at the sides in a stylish undercut. She has intricate black and grey tattoos covering both tops of her arms, in half sleeves. Her oblong, black-rimmed glasses, framing her unique, amethyst-coloured eyes. She is wearing a black sleeveless shirt with white stars all over, tied at her midriff, giving me a peak at her flat stomach, denim cut off hot pants, which showcase her tattooed, rockin’ legs; I start to imagine them wrapped around my head, as I shamelessly pound her hard. With that thought, my cock jumps in my jeans. Fuck me, I need to get laid, it’s been a while. The sound of her gnawing on her nails, grates on my every fucking nerve and I hope she doesn’t notice my raging hard on.

  “Did you enjoy eye fucking me, like some sad, desperate, fucking pervert?” she asks aloofly, and her British accent is tinged with a hint of Australian. I smirk and cock my eyebrow. I fucking love a challenge.

  “Yeah, I was eye-fucking the shit out of you back then, kitten,” I say roughly. Kitten? Where the fuck did that come from? I throw her a cheeky wink, as she rolls her eyes, with an amused look on her face. I am nothing if not honest.

  “I feel thoroughly violated” she says sardonically, and I chuckle softly, as she places her hand on her chest. A girl with a sense of humour, I fucking love it.

  “So, do I get to know your name, or should I continue to call you kitten?” I say, my voice oozing with charm. Fuck me, Hart; are you that desperate for a shag?

  “Although, kitten is a cute pet name, I’m far from cute, babe,” she says provocatively, as I swipe my tongue across my bottom lip suggestively. She continues to watch me raptly and carefully.

  “My mum warned me not to talk to strangers!”

  I laugh, and her eyes begin to dance with mischievousness. Fuck, she is beautiful. She moves a few inches closer and leans into the door, idly making shapes on the wall with her long slender finger. As soon as her eyes lock with mine, I am a total goner. She is… fucking captivating. If she asked me to jump naked off a cliff right now, I would not hesitate. What the fuck are you thinking, Hart? A girl like her would never go for a fuck up like you. I clear my throat to quiet the voice in my head and turn on the old Hart charm.

  “There’s no such thing as a stranger, strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet, kitten.”

  She laughs harmoniously, as I saunter casually in front of her, with one hand tucked into my pocket. The fruity aroma of her perfume invades my nostrils. It takes everything I have not to inhale her distinctly female scent and commit it to memory. I am about to speak again when the sound of my therapists’ voice interrupts us. Talk about bad timing. Fucking cockblock.

  “Brody?”

  I briefly close my eyes in frustration, and she chuckles, as she pushes herself off the wall. She ducks underneath my arm.

  “Until next time, handsome?” She winks and I nod curtly.

  “It’s a date,” I say softly, and she blows me a kiss, leaving me a desperate mess, panting like a horny teenager, as she turns to walk away. Un-be-fucking-lievable.

  ***

  My therapist, Rick eyes me carefully and starts to scribble something down in his notebook. We do this every time we see each other; the silent fucking standoff, to see who backs down first. He inclines his head to the side and clicks his pen in quick succession. I grind my teeth and sink back into my chair. He knows that sound sets my nerves on edge, fucking prick.

  “So, we’ve established the fact that you’re the sort of person, who doesn’t form attachments easily. Yet you seemed quite fond of the young lady out there in the corridor, do you want to elaborate on that, Brody?”

  He patronises, in his fucking irritating Mancunian accent, which gets right on my nerves. I have aptly nicknamed him Rick the Prick, which suits him perfectly. His smug fucking face, his mid-brown, almost ginger hair, his beady, squinty brown eyes, and his fox-like features.

  “Not really,” I say with a flat, disinterested timbre to my voice and cross my leg over my knee.

  “I understand that you had a tough childhood, and you lost your mum at an incredibly young age, which we’ve touched upon briefly in our previous sessions. You seem extremely reluctant to talk about it, but do you think your addiction and the fact that you can’t seem to form attachments, stems from that?”

  What the fuck. He scribbles something down again and I can feel a tic begin in my jaw. Fucking judgemental twat.

  “You don’t know me, how dare you fucking sit there and judge me! You have no idea w
hat I’ve been through.” I raise my voice a few decibels louder than is acceptable, and he quirks his eyebrow as he holds his hands up in defence.

  “There’s no judgement here, Brody. I’m just trying to find out what makes you…tick if you like? You seem like an intensely guarded person, from what I’ve observed in previous meetings. You seem somewhat…uncooperative when it comes to sharing your past with me, I’m trying to work out why, that’s all.”

  He states, with a condescending tone to his voice and starts to scribble on his note pad again. The scratch of the pen scrawling across the page, causes me to clench my jaw hard and my leg starts to twitch involuntarily.

  Rick’s observation starts to imbed its way through my overactive brain. “You seem like the sort of person who doesn’t form attachments easily.”

  The truth is, he is only half-right. I never really belonged anywhere, or felt attached to anyone, until I met the boys. We were all so young, with different personalities, but our friendship just seemed to work. I was the joker who craved attention from anyone who would take an interest in me. Sam was the popular one, with the rock star parents and the flash clothes. Lucas was the misfit kid, with the funny accent and Jax was the sweet, brown eyed, blonde haired, boy next door, who everyone liked and seemed to gravitate towards. We were all misfits to an extent, but it all just seemed to fade away when we played music together.

  Rick observes me, as if I am some sort of wild animal ready to attack.

  “I did what I had to, to fucking survive, I trusted no one, not until I met the boys. To this day, I’m still extremely careful who I trust. You’re totally right, I am guarded, because I’ve had to be. Everyone in my life has fucked me over at some point, except the boys. They have always stuck by me, even through the times I didn’t fucking deserve it.”

  It comes out a little more harshly than I intended, but he nods attentively and relaxes back in his chair.

  “No matter who I got close to, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, ya know?”

  I babble, because I am desperately craving a fix, I don’t cope well with talking about feelings. I need something to make this empty fucking feeling inside go away. I get up from my seat and pace the length of Rick’s office. He listens raptly, as I continue, making the odd note in his notebook and I start to loosen up a little. Maybe he’s not so bad after all.

  “Sam’s had it easy, he’s managed to get by on his looks. Well, that’s not strictly true, it’s his talent as well. His voice defines our generation, but we’re not all that lucky, I’ve had to get by on my wits, I did what I had to, to survive. I had no one, I had to rely on myself, I had no real family, until I met the boys. It was hard for me to relate when I felt so alone and isolated. I always felt like a bit of an outsider. The boys had a different kind of bond, because Jamie-Leigh was the doctor on call when Sam and Luke were born. She gave birth to Jax a few years after. Sam’s parents, Jax’s parents and Lucas’ Aunt and Uncle all knew each other. They were friends and moved in the same circles. However, soon after Luke was born, he was taken to America and didn’t come back to the U.K until he was seven years old. Then there was me,

  the Artful Dodger of the group, the orphan. I always felt like I was on the outside looking in, but music was always the one thing I clung on to, it’s the last true magic in the world.”

  I don’t know why I’m telling him all of this. I fucking detest him; he’s patronising and so fucking full of himself. It was a love-hate relationship from day one. I don’t talk about my feelings. People can use your words against you, so I just keep it bottled up. It’s easier that way, but Rick fucking forces me to talk. The first day I met him, we just sat in silence for a solid hour, him trying to get me to talk, but I was having none of it. After an hour of me avoiding eye contact and constantly looking at the clock, I just walked back to my room and wrote music for the rest of the day. I’d never been that inspired, it was like I was writing down everything I couldn’t say out loud.

  He nods, for me to continue.

  “This one day, it was a few years before my mum died, I’ll never forget it. I think I was about eight or nine at the time, I was walking past the school music room and I heard someone playing piano. It sounded amazing, like nothing I’d ever heard before. I moved closer, so I could see who it was and when I looked through the crack in the door, I was surprised to see that it was Sam. I knew he played but didn’t realise he was any good, he was singing to himself; he was totally oblivious that I was watching him. To this day, I still remember the song; it was Stevie Wonder For Once in My Life.”

  I smile to myself at the memory and Rick starts furiously scribbling in his notebook.

  “I’d never heard him sing or play before, not properly anyway, we were just kids. It was like he was in a world of his own and I craved that so fucking badly. I needed an escape, because I was already starting to rebel, even at that age. I was acting out because my mum didn’t give a shit about me. I envied Sam when we were growing up, because he had the perfect life, two loving parents, a stable home life, food on the table, and brothers and sisters, who he adored. But who did I have? Fucking no one. A junkie mum who died with a needle in her arm and my dad? I never even knew his fucking name.”

  I clench my jaw and I can feel myself become more and more agitated with each moment that passes. I am clucking for a fucking fix and it’s taking everything I have in me, not to drop the nut on this fucking prick for forcing me to relive this shit.

  “So, tell me Brody, why did you turn out like your junkie mother?”

  Something in the way he phrases the question, has me stalking across the room, until I am looming over him, with my fists clenched at my sides, trembling with unquestionable fury. He looks up at me and I see a hint of a smirk on his face. He knows he’s getting to me, fucking smug prick. Don’t rise to it, Hart. I unclench my fists and take a deep, calming breath.

  “You know what? Fuck this! I don’t have to sit here and listen to this bull shit!” I roar and storm furiously out of the room, without looking back.

  ***

  I end up outside and in my apparent need to get out my pent-up aggression, I start kicking the living shit out of a tree, that I don’t notice that the woman from outside the therapy room. She is witnessing my rather public meltdown. Fuck. She clears her throat softly and I look up at her. Shit the motherfucking bed, she’s so beautiful. Her unusual eyes sparkling in the early spring sunlight, the way the wind tousles her short, lilac hair and the way her legs look like they go on for days, in those tiny, denim, cut-off shorts. My Daisy fucking Duke.

  “Want to talk about it?” she says, with a hint of sympathy to her voice and I don’t know what comes over me, but I stride over to her with purpose. She swallows harshly, and I see the muscles in her neck contract. I remember a conversation I had with Sam once and he told me that’s how he knew Peyton was attracted to him. He’s a regular Sigmund fucking Freud. She is about to speak, and I shake my head.

  “No fucking talking,” I growl and move forward until we are eye to eye. It is at that moment, I really take her in, she comes up a few inches shorter than me and her figure is to die for. Her lightly sun-kissed skin is flawless and absolute fucking perfection. Her lips are pink, plump, and begging to be kissed. Her breasts are perky and the loose grey top she is wearing, which hangs loosely off her shoulder, makes it blatantly obvious, that she isn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples are standing to attention and I have to have my mouth on them. I can’t seem to tear my fucking eyes away. She is the epitome of female fucking perfection.

  “Hello? My eyes are up here just in case you were wondering.” she retorts sassily, and I chuckle softly.

  “I can see your eyes just fine, babe, and very beautiful eyes they are too…extremely expressive.”

  My voice low and seductive. She tries desperately to hide her smirk, and she looks so…innocent. I cup her face in my hands and I can’t stop myself from crushing my lips urgently to hers. She tastes exactly as I ima
gined her to taste and the feel of her soft lips against mine, coax me to deepen the kiss. The velvet of her tongue teasing and caressing my mouth, greedily begging me for more, causing my heart to stutter in my chest. The unfamiliar feeling has me reluctantly pulling away from her. Fuck, you’re going to wreck her, Hart, walk away.

  “Don’t stop, please.”

  She pants breathlessly and her lips look bruised, as if they have been thoroughly kissed. I war inwardly with myself, as a look of pure vulnerability washes over her features. Just walk away.

  “My mother warned me about boys like you.”

  Her tone so soft I barely hear her, and I grin wolfishly at her comment. You have no fucking idea, sweetheart.

  “If you’re looking for a boy, you’ve come to the wrong place, kitten.”

  She traps her lip between her teeth and that simple gesture has my cock leaping to attention. For fucks sake, behave!

  “I’m not good for you, I’m the one your mother should have warned you about,” I say, with more than a hint of warning in my voice.