Page 4 of Accidentally Mine

I opened up the file for the next installment in my series and got to work, putting the final touches on it so I could set it up online and start earning money off of it since my bank account was suffering.

With my father dying and my returning home to wrap up his loose ends, it’d been a while since I’d put anything up, and my “fans”—a loose term because there were probably twelve of them—would get restless if I didn’t keep churning the stories out.

I loaded it online, set the purchase price, and voila!

My seventeenth installment of Blood Run Road was available for purchase.

Feeling better since I’d accomplished something, I clicked on the tab to check my sales. Not bad. Not good, but not terrible, either. I was number one in Paid Fiction Horror Zombie Apocalypse. Then I checked my reviews. I had a new one:

Blood Run Road is seriously wicked! I have to read every installment as soon as it comes out. I love zombie fiction, and this author is one of my favorites!

Ha. Take that, Anthony.

He’d always said writing fiction was stupid. He’d actually bragged that he hadn’t read a book since high school.

Smiling for the first time in days, I finished my croissant, left as big a tip as I could for my waitress, packed up my laptop, and pulled my fuzzy red cardigan back over my shoulders.

Gathering my things, I went down to the Boston Common T station to take the Red Line back to my aunt’s house in South Boston.

My T car was empty, just as I liked it. No suspicious people anywhere.

On the way, it stopped at Broadway, and I thought about my dad.

This was our stop. I was glad I didn’t have to see his house because I wasn’t sure I could handle it yet.

My dad had lived on 8 th Street, in a modest little Cape Cod.

I could still picture the old Dodge Dart on cinderblocks outside.

He’d bought it because he thought he could fix it up and it would be a good first car for me to drive to high school.

That’d been nearly ten years ago. It’d become more of a really large, ugly, rusty planter.

My dad had always sucked at cars. He’d liked to think he was a mechanic, but he couldn’t even really change the oil.

No, the only thing he had been good at was construction.

When it came to building, he knew his stuff.

He never cut corners, and he always stressed safety at his sites.

Plus, he knew his sites better than anyone.

That was why I had a really hard time believing that he’d just fall down that elevator shaft.

He had to have known it was there. Besides, what was he doing there, after dark?

None of it made sense.

By the time I reached Andrews station, I realized my eyes were wet with tears.

I pulled the baseball cap down low and told myself that I’d just have to work a few things out with my dad’s business partner, Steve, and do something about the house, and then I could leave this hornet’s nest once and for all.

Actually, first there was one other obstacle I had to tackle. And it was a big, stubborn one with long silvery gray hair and a penchant for finding a punchline—usually a dirty one—every time I tried to have a serious conversation with her.

My Aunt Marie.

I stepped out of the T and cut across a few backyards, walking the three blocks to the postage-stamp yard of my aunt’s three-story brick Cape on Leeds Street.

I always felt safer walking where people couldn’t follow me easily.

I ducked under the clothesline and climbed up three steps to the back door and into the kitchen, then stopped.

There were sounds coming from the living room.

“Mmm, yes, do it to me, baby. Harder. That’s right. Harder.”

I rolled my eyes. Not again.

Throwing my bag down on the kitchen table and shedding the baseball cap, I peeked through the pass-through into the living room.

Sure enough, my aunt was sitting in front of the television, slippered feet propped up in a V on the ottoman, watching a woman straddling a man, her breasts bouncing with wild abandon as she approached climax.

“What stirring epic is this?” I muttered, trying not to blush.

I was twenty-three, for god’s sake, way beyond blushing age.

But Marie was my elderly aunt who’d practically raised me from the time I was a baby, and she should not have been subjecting me to this.

Though I supposed I’d always blush watching this kind of thing in front of her, no matter my age.

She sat up. “Oh, hi, Rebecca!” She opened the wrinkled television listings in the newspaper, which she kept folded near her chair, since she never could get the hang of using the on-screen guide.

Her thumb ran down the offerings, and she tapped on the listing.

“It’s called Baby You Want Me. It’s pretty good. Got three stars.”

Sure it was.

But I really needed to focus on what was important.

“Call me Roselynn, Auntie Marie. I’m no longer Rebecca, remember?” Sinking onto the ottoman across from her, I deliberately faced away from the couple getting it on.

Her eyes roved over me for a second, confused, before blinking back to the television. “Who?”

It wasn’t hard. I’d chosen the name because it was an amalgam of my parents’ names, Lyndon and her only sister, Rose. “I’m not Rebecca anymore,” I repeated patiently. “I’m Roselynn.”

“Oh. Of course,” she said. She patted the sofa next to her. “Come and watch. You see, this woman went to a bar to meet a blind date and ended up taking home a male prostitute, only she doesn’t know it yet!” She seemed so very gleeful about it.

I clenched my teeth. It was soft-porn. In what world was soft-porn good? And it was laughable that she actually thought I cared about the premise. I rarely watched even good television. “Ah.”

That was almost as worrying as the series of mini-strokes my mother’s sister had been having in the past few months.

Something in her brain had changed, and now, my sweet, kindly aunt who used to knit me sweaters for my birthday and sit front-row at all my school awards ceremonies could think of absolutely nothing but sex. It was bizarre.

But at least I still had her. She was the only family I had left.

“I was going to make myself lunch, Rebecca,” she said after the on-screen couple reached their rousing climax. “You hungry?”

“Roselynn,” I reminded her again gently. One thing about my aunt, she was definitely set in her ways. “I’ll make you lunch.”

In the kitchen, I pulled out a skillet, bread, butter and cheese to make Marie’s favorite, grilled cheese. As I did, I watched as the insatiable couple took their love to a hot tub. Ugh. Talk about cheese.

“You know, we should probably plan for the future now, Aunt Marie,” I ventured as I moved her television tray into position and set the sandwich down in front of her. “I’ve been here three days. I have someone set up to clean out and sell Dad’s house.”

Aunt Marie picked up her sandwich and picked at the gooey cheese, pulling a string of it as far as it would go. “A guy walks into a pub and sees a sign hanging over the bar. It says, ‘Grilled Cheese Sandwich: $1.50, Chicken Sandwich: $2.50, Hand Job: $10.00.’” She grinned at me mischievously.

I gritted my teeth as I went to get her tea.

As I left the room, my aunt raised her voice, because she was so sure I didn’t want to miss any of her latest “a guy walks into a bar” jokes.

“Checking his wallet to make sure he has the money, he walks up to the bar and beckons to one of the three hot blondes serving drinks to an eager-looking group of men. She says, ‘Can I help you?’”

I poured the tea, then added the milk and sugar before returning to her side. “I think I’ve heard this one,” I said, knowing nothing would dissuade her.

“‘I was wondering,’ the man asks,” my aunt continued, not dissuaded in the least. She was very good at telling jokes, using the right inflection and voices for each of the characters.

Only, her jokes, just like her choice of movies, had gotten dirtier and dirtier.

“‘Are you the one who gives the hand jobs?’ The lady purrs, ‘Why, yes, I am.’ So the man replies, ‘Well, go wash your hands! I want a grilled cheese sandwich!’” She hooted out a laugh and slapped her knee.

“That’s funny,” I said, even though I wasn’t in the mood to laugh. “But Aunt Marie, let’s talk about you. I think you need to consider selling this place and coming with me when I leave.”

My aunt suddenly turned all of her attention to me. “Move away? From Southie? But I’ve lived here all my life!”

I swallowed. I should’ve been hightailing my ass back to Chicago by now, where I could safely be lost again.

I had a pretty good life there, specifically in a tiny town called Long Grove, Illinois, about thirty-five miles north of the city.

Lonely, but quiet and peaceful, since I tried my best to keep to myself.

But when I’d returned after my father’s death, I learned that my aunt had had a series of mini-strokes, each one weakening her more and more.

I couldn’t just leave, but every moment that I stayed here was another chance for the Markin family to find out about me.

They had eyes everywhere, always watching.

I could almost feel them on me.

I sat back in a green velour chair, threadbare on the arms, that my aunt had picked out from a garage sale.

She’d divorced deadbeat Uncle Hugh a thousand years ago and had lived in this place alone ever since.

Dad and I’d suggested a roommate, but she’d scoffed, mostly because she liked things a certain way and no one else would ever put up with it.