Welcome to Sugartown

It’s a miracle the club haven’t found me on the inside, though most of our guys would have been sent to a Sydney lock up. The Bandidos chapter in Byron means there’s a few blokes from our rival MC stationed here at Grafton prison, and I’m thanking fuck right now that no one but the cops know I’m the son of a Hell’s Angels Sergeant-At-Arms. I have just one and a half months to make it through before parole. Just one and a half months and I’ll be able to see her face again.

Just when I think the phone’s about to cut out I hear someone snatch up the receiver and say hello. It’s the voice I wanted to hear, though she sounds annoyed and she’s breathing heavily, like she just ran for the phone. I get lost in the steady rhythm of her breath, remembering how she used to look when my hands and tongue were the cause of her breathlessness.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” I say and give myself a mental smack-down. Fucking wake up, man! “I didn’t think you’d pick up.”

“Expecting your boyfriend, huh?” she jokes.

I have no idea what to say. This is such a turnaround from the last time we spoke, I feel like I’ve just been bitch slapped. I laugh softly and smile bigger than I have in months.

“It’s good to hear that sound,” she whispers. And fuck me, if there isn’t a whole fucking world of longing in her voice. “It’s been a while.”

“Been a while since I had something to laugh at, baby girl.”

“Are you okay?”

Fucking hell! I feel like I’ve stepped into the twilight zone. Are we really having this conversation? Is she coming around? Has she already forgiven me for the things I did?

“Yeah, I’m alright. I got a parole hearing in a month’s time.”

“Dad told me.”

“Is he there?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want her to quit talking to me, but I hate to think she’s only talking to me because she feels has to.

“You’d really rather talk to my dad than me?”

“Hell no!” I say, too quickly. Fuck I sound desperate. I can’t help it though, it’s driving me crazy hearing her voice and not being able to see her, touch her. “How you been, baby?”

“I’m okay. Holly and Sammy are keeping me pretty busy. Jackson is driving me nuts, though. I’m kinda wishing he’d haul his arse back to Tenterfield. I don’t think the women of Sugartown have been acting this crazy since you rode into town.”

“Who’s Jackson?” I say, and try not to sound like a possessive dick. I have no right to do that, she doesn’t consider herself mine anymore, but no matter what she might think she’ll always belong to me. Fucked up logic, I know, but it is what it is.

“Would you relax? He’s my cousin. My aunt died last year, before you came, and he’s been living in that big old farmhouse by himself. He finally sold it and moved his big oafish butt in here and he’s been helping Dad at the shop ever since.”

“He a mechanic?”

“No. When you get out you’re going to have more cars to fix than you know what to do with. Assuming you want to come back to this backwards hellhole of a town, that is?”

Christ! Is she fishing?

“Well that depends.” I take a risk and flirt. You only live once, right? “Do I have a girl to come back to?”

“Elijah ….”

Fuck! Not fishing. Not fucking fishing!

Even though I’ve more than likely just fucked everything up, I can’t help sinking myself further in. “Yes or no, baby girl?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. It sucks, but that’s all I can give you right now. You’ll have a job when you come back, and I’ll always be here as a friend.”

“You wanna be my goddamn friend, Ana?”

“Elijah—”

“Do you still love me?” There’s a pause, and just when I think she isn’t going to answer the beep that signals the last thirty seconds of our call sounds in my ears. “Do you still love me?”

“I—”

“Yes or no, Ana?”

Frustration seeps from every pore in my body as I wait for the answer that never comes. The phone cuts out and I slam the receiver down and fight against the urge to go postal on the useless piece of shit. If I destroy prison property it’ll go on record. If the parole board see that shit in my file this close to my assessment they’ll knock me back, for sure. The only way I’m getting an answer to that question is if I see it coming from her lips when she’s standing right in front of me, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to wait another six months to see her and hear those words.

Chapter Thirty Two Holly

(Yep, Holly)

I heave up the last of the dry crackers I’d shoved down my throat this morning and curse men for all of eternity. When this kid finally claws his way out of me I’m going to celebrate my vagina by purchasing stocks in We-Vibe and drinking myself into a stupor. Then I’m going find every battery-operated boyfriend I can get my mitts on and screw myself into an orgasm coma. I’ll more than likely die alone, crushed by the mountain of falling dildos, but at least I’ll never have to look at a real penis again.

Falling back against the cold tiled wall, I contemplate jumping off a bridge for the thousandth time since I found out I’m growing a person inside me—which is just wrong, on so many levels, if you really think about it—and then decide my fat arse would probably never make it over the railing. I’d likely get stuck halfway and have to wait for emergency services to come and hoist me down from an embarrassing, half-arsed attempt at offing myself. Plus, once Ana found out she’d likely kill me, and then I would have wasted all the emergency service’s time.

“This is bullshit! I’m taking her arse to the doctor,” I hear Jackson yelling in the hall and panic. He doesn’t know I’m pregnant. I don’t know how he hasn’t figured it out yet. I don’t know why I so badly want to keep this dirty little secret from spilling out. All I know is that I feel alone and confused on an almost hourly basis, but when Jackson’s in the room all that goes away and I can breathe easier and think clearer and forget I’ve got a person inside me, sucking all the joy from my bones.

Sharing a house with him these past three weeks without the buffer of Bob, Sammy and the evil bitch stepmum has been torture of the very best—and worst—kind. It turns out the man is terrible at fixing up cars, so he’s been jobless since Bob locked him out of the garage, meaning he’s been spending an awful lot of time here in this big old farmhouse by himself. Most of the time, I’m torn between wanting to tear off his clothes and pulverise his face with our new magic bullet, but I have to admit that there’s some sort of inner peace I find in watching Friends reruns on the couch with him. Until he opens his great big mouth, that is.

“You don’t need to take her to the doctor,” Ana says, “she’s fine.”

“She needs help, Ana.”

I quickly climb to my feet and brush my teeth. I spray a bit of perfume, which of course makes me dry retch again, and I stand over the sink fighting back the urge to vomit.

Jackson bangs on the bathroom door and I wince. “Holly, get your arse out here. I’m taking you to see someone.”

I pull back the door and a gust of fresh air swirls around me, carrying the acrid scent of vomit and toothpaste toward my nose. For a heartbeat I just stand there, trying not to throw up again, and then I close the door behind me and glare up at him like I’m more annoyed with his overall Jackson-ness than usual.

To look at me, you would never know I was pregnant. There’s no baby bump to speak of, and though I