Gravity: A Country Romance Read online

  GRAVITY

  She may be poor…

  but she’ll still kick your idiot ass.

  Shayne McClendon

  Gravity by Shayne McClendon

  Copyright © 2013 Shayne McClendon

  Updated Edition: March 31, 2016

  Published by Always the Good Girl LLC

  www.alwaysthegoodgirl.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Shayne McClendon

  The Barter System – Book 1

  Hudson – Book 2

  Pushing the Envelope – Book 3

  Backstage – Book 4

  Liberation – Book 5

  Radiance – Book 6

  Yes to Everything

  Love of the Game – The Complete Collection

  Completely Wrecked

  The Hermit

  Break Down Here

  Roadside Assistance

  Author’s Note

  The life I describe in Gravity existed in many ways. The places I describe are real. The people are fictional to a degree (they didn’t live in Skiatook, Oklahoma) but not entirely. At the end of the day, I write what I know. I happen to be familiar with darkness, abuse, neglect, and struggle.

  You can survive anything. No matter the horror, no matter the pain, no matter how long it lasts. If you’re still breathing when it’s over – you win.

  You can start over, start fresh, and rob the negative people and terrible circumstances of their power by living the life of your dreams. I’m not blowing smoke up your ass.

  I’m living proof. Never quit. It gets better.

  Much love,

  Shayne

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Abandonment

  Yes to Everything

  About Shayne Mcclendon

  Chapter One

  JoEllen Astor had lived in Skiatook, Oklahoma all her life. Her plan was to make it out before she became bitter like her mama.

  Donna Astor ended up pregnant at barely fifteen and never really matured past the day she gave birth to her only child. She hadn’t been a good mother but JoEllen had done her best to understand.

  She’d missed a lot of her own childhood pulling her mom out of bars and honky-tonks, getting her home without hurting herself or someone else, long before it was legal for her to drive. She did all the cooking and cleaning, made sure to take the laundry to the coin wash every week, and tried to keep the bills paid.

  They lived on food stamps and child support payments that came from the state until Jo turned eighteen. When Donna lost her primary source of income, she had no clue what to do. Over the last couple of years, she’d gone through job after job, unwilling or unable to keep herself straight.

  Her latest position was working the night shift at QuikTrip. It was almost enough for her own bills if she didn’t drink it all away. Jo worked out a budget and showed Donna how to pay bills and manage her money.

  The lessons would have done a stray cat better.

  They lived in a crappy little trailer park off the main road with one bedroom and a walk-in closet Jo had slept in every day of her life.

  She promised herself that one day she was going to live somewhere she had a bed on a frame and a window to see outside. Half the time the shower would back up and Jo would climb under the trailer to fix the drain.

  Most of their neighbors were men who lived alone or with common law wives. They were older men who stared at Jo when she was out sweeping the steps, doing repairs, or raking fresh gravel over the driveway.

  She tried to be real careful about how she dressed, how she behaved, and didn’t talk to any of them unless absolutely necessary.

  Donna liked having men stare at her and would often sunbathe in the front yard wearing a string bikini with the American flag on it. Since many of their neighbors were also ex-military, it sent a specific message that they received loud and clear.

  Her mother was still a pretty woman in her mid-thirties and as long as a man bought her things and supplied her with alcohol, she was nice to them.

  She called it being friendly but the local law labeled it prostitution. The last time she’d been arrested for soliciting an off-duty police officer at a bar, Jo had told her if it happened again, she’d let her rot in jail.

  Both of them knew she meant it.

  Now Donna let her regular clients come to the trailer. More than once, Jo found herself sleeping outside when a date ran late. The locals looking to get laid seemed to know right where to find her. It was only a matter of time before her mother quit her job to turn tricks full time.

  “I make way more money makin’ myself up and bein’ nice, Jo. I hate wearin’ that scratchy polo and givin’ folks change.”

  “Mama, it’s honest work and you’re young enough to change the direction of your life.”

  “I don’t think so. I think the way things are is the way they’ll always be.”

  Trying to get a grown woman to want more for herself was impossible when all she cared about was drinking and having men tell her how pretty she was.

  She swore she’d never be like Donna, no matter what happened in her own life.

  JoEllen found out in Kindergarten that she was poor. She learned in first grade not to talk about her mama at school. In third grade, the understanding that school was her ticket out of poverty and away from a crazy mother hit home.

  Her teachers and principal saw how far ahead of the rest of her class she was and she skipped fourth grade. When that didn’t slow her down, they put her in the gifted program. They skipped her again past seventh grade.

  By the time she was in tenth grade, she took courses at the technical school as part of her school day. She was two years younger than the other students but they were nice because she worked hard and kept to herself.

  As she walked the stage for her high school diploma one month before her sixteenth birthday, she already had certifications in web design and welding.

  That summer, she was old enough to get a real job and her first day at the local market started two days after she enrolled in the technical school’s carpentry course.

  Several of the local mom-and-pop places used her to design their websites and make their promotional materials because she charged reasonable rates to gain the experience and build her portfolio.

  A piece of paneling on the wall of her little closet hid her earnings until she could open her own account at eighteen. After the first coffee can filled up, she started another one, then another. How much was in them was uncertain and she didn’t care.

  Not until she prepared to take them to the bank after her first two years of saving. That day, she discovered she’d managed to save almost four thousand dollars.

  Since that was also when the welfare checks stopped coming to her mother, she started contributing half her earnings for bills and groceries, which she paid in person so Donna didn’t drink it away.

  In th
e three years since, she’d saved another eleven. With a smile on her face, she took every cent over ten thousand and bought a reliable truck. New tires and a full tune-up ensured she wouldn’t be left stranded.

  The bottom line was that she needed a certain amount of money saved to start a new life. To meet her goals, she knew she’d have to stay with her mother longer than she wanted to.

  She tried to use every minute wisely.

  At twenty, she became a master carpenter after completing a two-year, part-time apprenticeship. Three days later, she enrolled in the electrician program.

  After almost five years at the grocery store, she discovered she could work half the time and make twice the money at the bar a few blocks away. She convinced the owner of The Dog Pound to hire her as a waitress the day she turned twenty-one.

  The position had recently been vacated by a woman who ran off to California with her boyfriend, leaving her husband and two little girls behind.

  Park told her after three months that she was the best decision he’d ever made. Jo worked hard, didn’t drink, and was friendly with the customers without being too friendly. His clientele loved her, copped a feel now and then, and tipped her well.

  JoEllen worked Friday through Sunday. She tended bar and waited tables, helped drunk women in the bathroom if necessary, and made sure people got home safe.

  She’d always been a thinker, a planner. She wasn’t impulsive and she didn’t take risks. There were skills she needed so she could always earn a living. Then there were the skills she wanted so she wouldn’t always have to do manual labor.

  Nearing her twenty-second birthday, her primary goal was to be out of the trailer and away from the only life she’d ever known by the time she finished her licensing exams for electrical. She knew she wouldn’t be able to live with Donna much longer.

  Enough was enough.

  Chapter Two

  It was a normal Friday night, busy and loud, when Jo really noticed him for the first time. She’d seen him before but that night was different. Sitting in a far corner facing the room, the man seemed to be looking at her every time she glanced up.

  Covering Mickey behind the bar while she took her break, she poured beer after beer, a couple of Jack shots, a round of tequila for a group of men celebrating the retirement of one of their friends, and generally hustled like she always did.

  Jo tried not to pay attention to the big man with shaggy dark hair with a curled baseball cap pulled low over his brow.

  Once Mickey returned from break, Jo went back to her tables, refreshed all her customers’ drinks, and put in some appetizer orders.

  The other server pulled her aside. Tina was one of the few females she’d ever gotten along with without getting annoyed. She was sweet and mellow, a trait Jo liked. It was funny to make her first real friend in her twenties but she figured she picked a good one so it all worked out.

  “Hey girl, looks like you have a fan. Holden over there in the corner wants you to take his order. Says he knows everyone in here but you. He’s in here most nights and I finally asked him why he stares at you all the time.”

  Nodding, she dropped off the drinks for the retirement party and laughed good-naturedly when the guest of honor pinched her cheek then her butt.

  “Y’all make sure you designate a driver or I’ll call cabs, alright?” They nodded and toasted to her as she headed over to the still man she’d been watching subtly for a couple of hours.

  “Hey there, I’m Jo. What can I get you?”

  She offered him a friendly smile and the man leaned forward to stare at her. He had the most intense green eyes she’d ever seen. He had a scar over his eye that looked like it must have hurt when he got it. His body was fit, muscular, and he was big all over.

  He raked his eyes down her body and it made her squirm. She wasn’t usually self-conscious about her figure, though she was thicker than was popular and taller than most of the girls she’d gone to school with.

  She didn’t lie to herself, being five-ten and a hundred and sixty pounds wasn’t something most men looked for but she didn’t care to get involved with anyone anyway. She wasn’t sticking around much longer.

  Her body was solid, healthy, and fit. Jo didn’t need some man to make her feel good about herself like her mother did.

  “How long have you been working here?”

  “Almost a year now. Your name is Holden?” He nodded. “Nice to meet you. What can I get for you?” She waited patiently, wondering if he planned to respond.

  “You replaced Carrie?” Jo nodded and his jaw tightened. “Hope you’re a better person than she was.” It was a strange remark that she didn’t know how to answer. He sat back and mumbled, “I’ll take a Bud longneck and eighteen hot wings with fries.”

  “Will do. Be back in just a minute.”

  JoEllen brought him his beer and a bit later, his food, but he didn’t really talk to her again. When he was ready for a refill, he lifted the bottle just above the table and she took him a fresh one. When he had two, he gestured for the check from across the bar, and she dropped it off with a smile.

  She took a bin of dirty glasses and dishes to the kitchen and when she returned to the main room, he was gone. He’d paid his tab and left her a twenty-dollar tip. Shrugging off his oddness, she got back to work and closing time came quick since they were always busy up to last call.

  Over the next few weeks, Holden became a regular in her station. Most nights he ordered the same thing and he never really talked.

  She was friendly, he barely spoke, and he always over-tipped.

  He was one of those men that presented something of a mystery and she realized she didn’t have the energy to work at figuring him out. She had more than enough chaos in her life. The sun rose early, her days were always full, and three nights a week she left the bar after two in the morning.

  * * * * *

  Most of the time, if the weather was good, Jo figured it was pointless to drive such a short distance to work. With the price of gas, she figured the cardio was good for her. Besides, she didn’t want to be on the road when some of the customers left the bar.

  Heading down the back alley to the street that would take her home, she walked three blocks to the trailer park and sighed when she saw a piece of rope on the door.

  It was her mother’s signal to let her daughter know she had company.

  Scowling, Jo pulled a book out of her messenger bag, hauled a lounge chair out from under their patio, and settled in to read by the street lamp.

  She was so sick of shit like this.

  The book was unable to hold her attention. She was jittery from the inside out and she couldn’t figure out why. More than an hour later, her mother’s guest left the trailer.

  It was Holden.

  Shock slammed into her, followed quickly by a sense of bitter irony. She wanted to crawl under a rock when he glanced over and saw her sitting under the streetlight.

  His eyes went wide and he asked carefully, “You following me, kid?”

  “Kid?” With a shake of her head, she got up and pulled her bag over her shoulder, walking past him to her door. “Please. As if I give a flyin’ fuck where you go. I happen to live here.”

  Before she turned the knob, she said over her shoulder, “I assume you just fucked my mama like every other man in town. Thanks for finishin’ up so I can get some goddamn sleep. Have a great night, trick.”

  “Jo…”

  Not one. That’s how many words she’d listen to from one of her mama’s johns. She slammed the door, turned out the front light, and said nothing to her mother.

  Donna stood in the doorway of her bedroom reeking of booze and sex, wrapped in a black satin robe. Shaking her head at the fucked up life she’d been born into, Jo went in her closet, and collapsed on her mattress.

  “Hey, honey…you okay?”

  “Just tired. Goodnight.”

  “Okay, baby. If you want to lay out with me tomorrow…maybe we could grill or somethin
g. Hang out. I know you won’t be here much longer.”

  “I’ve got repairs to do on the place. Love you. Get some sleep.”

  After a long minute, she heard Donna move away. Within minutes, the sound of her deep breathing could be heard on the other side of the thin wall.

  Jo forced one muscle to relax at a time until the physical tension left her body.

  Her thoughts turned to Holden. Seeing him come out of her house, having obviously just had sex with her mother, was…disappointing. Why she felt that way, she couldn’t begin to understand.

  Life was odd and frustrating for her at every turn. It took her hours to fall asleep.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, after very little rest, Jo got up and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The shirt was getting a little snug but she wasn’t going to wear one of the few nice ones she had to do repairs.

  She strapped on her tool belt with a sigh. Exhaustion pulled at her.

  Once the sun came up, without a window or an air vent, it quickly became a sauna in her little space. The temperature difference when she opened the door felt amazing.

  The one thing her mother did every morning like clockwork was make her coffee. Donna didn’t drink it but since she’d discovered that Jo liked it, she never hesitated to set it up for her.

  It was one of those things that tempered many of the negative feelings she had for the woman who’d given birth to her.

  Her mug was huge and she filled it to the brim with a dash of creamer and a ton of sugar. She slipped on sunglasses and pulled her dark blonde hair through a trucker cap. Steel toe work boots sat by the front door and she stepped into them before taking her coffee outside. For ten minutes, she soaked up the sunshine, sipped her coffee, and tied her boots.

  Then she got to work.

  For the first hour, it was pretty quiet. She pulled some of the lumber and supplies from the back of her truck and got to work on the projects she’d laid out for herself. With the extension ladder she’d found at a yard sale the year before, she climbed up and inspected the boards under the shingles.