Page 98 of Preacher Man

He just couldn’t justify it.

Failure to keep his family safe was a boil that needed lancing, he just didn’t know how. He kept on the fringes of the rest of his family now, knowing it hurt his mom more than anything, but what could he do, face their sympathy like a pussy, lap it up with a spoon? It fucking drowned him. He missed them like they missed him, he needed to change that status, break his own prison.

Fate the fickle motherfucker had played some cards that day to wrangle it so Preacher could live and if he held stock in that kind of hokum, he’d bet his crappy life that it wasn’t for any world doing-good purpose.

He was an outlaw by choice.

Wasn’t he outside in the too hot heat being boiled alive under his jacket ready to meet with some two-bit criminal about dirty money? Nothing good in that so what the fuck had fate been doing that day sparing his ass and taking Shane?

Made no sense.

Stop obsessing, you pussy.Shane would say.

He wanted his balance back. Was accepting his brother's death going to do that? His gut cramped as he foraged around in his leather jacket pockets, the two sides were empty, fuck, where was it? The middle left empty. Fuck. Ah there. Addictive relief washed through him. He grabbed the cardboard box and fished out the pack of Marlboro smokes.

He allowed himself three a year. He was doing good since it was June and this was gonna be his first. He lit up, flicking the silver lighter his father gave him on his eighteenth birthday, the wheel rough on his thumb. Come to think of it, it was a weird gift to give your kid. Here, make fire or smoke until cancer catches you.

Preacher wouldn’t ever give his own kid that type of gift. Only he didn’t plan to put his DNA in the gene pool, best not to, no telling what the kid would inherit from him. Poor little shit having the misfortune to have Preacher for a father. He always wrapped his cock up, so no worries on that score.

Talking of self-diagnosis, he puffed on the cigarette, the familiar sensation rushing down to his lungs, spirited the poison to his brain giving that flash of dizzy euphoria, within two drags he was back in that well-formed relationship between his breathing tract and the nicotine flooding his system. A well-versed stimulant. Could be worse, he reckoned, he could be toking meth, shooting up heroin, instead, he sucked in cancer air.

He could thank Shane for this addiction as well.

Only his brother had been wiser than Preacher and had given it up before he was twenty, never took it back up not once. Preacher though, liked to be dedicated to his flaws, only jacking in the smokes two years ago on a bet, he’d won but still missed the hit.

A nasty habit he loved.

He was going for relaxation as he smoked and leaned his big body up against the old print shop. It closed a while ago from the state of it. No one needed physical photos printing out, not with smartphones and iPads. Good little size building as well, pity to see it standing doing nothing, maybe H should capitalize and do something with it for the club. He looked around back for a quick minute while he waited for the others to arrive. Not bad at all. It had a lot of money making prospect, good location, quiet, not many nosey shits to see what was going on.

Maybe when he was back in Armado he would consider a business for himself, he’d been thinking about it for a while, he had money just sitting there, and there were always units in town going for a song in rent. It was an option, something to motivate him and get him out of his own head trip.

Lifting the smoke to his mouth, the stick trapped between his fingers he took in a deep drag, held it in his lungs, the tiny buzz in his frontal lobe was worth it.

One smoke now, he thought, and he’d allow another in the summer time.

His mom, sweet and batty mom would tell him to stop obsessing over shit (only she wouldn’t say shit) he had no control over, that it was a recipe for disaster and there was no way of knowing what would happen would have happened regardless.

He loved that woman who was no taller than his elbow, she was smart as a whip, ditzy with it, her mind always going in six different directions, she had around five hundred hobbies and obsessed about them all, until she didn't, the latest he heard, from his younger brother, was she was into painting ceramic plates, no doubt about it, he knew what was coming for his next birthday. Sweet and batty.

But and it was always a big but, the but to end all buts, the only but he had spoken for six years now. Why not him?

Drove him mad. Funny how he felt hollowed out most of the time until he’d started seeing the scowl of that bartender and then he knew her flavor and her sounds and that hollow in his chest had begun to feel not so big anymore.

Funny that.

It was inconceivable that sex was the fixer here ‘cause he’d chased that dragon for years. He loved sex, he’d had a lot of it so he would know, but it would be some hokum mumbo jumbo for that to be the easy cure.

Maybe it’s not the sex. Maybe it’s Ruby. Maybe.

Preacher was hollow. And then he wasn’t. And now he was hollow again because she'd upped and left him.

He’d done the math, he wasn’t Lawless smart but he could count his AB5s just fine and he reckoned all fingers pointed to it being Ruby.

He liked the woman. Really fucking liked her. And her sex. Especially her fucking sex. That little darling belonged to him if she’d stop running and hiding.

Taking all that into account, it was arguably a dumb as fuck move to pursue Ruby when he had bupkis to offer her. Sure, he had a house he hardly used, the neighborhood was good, had a nice Italian place nearby, and good eats were hard to come by, he loved the chicken spinach manicotti.

He couldn’t complain about his job in the shop, or his road captaincy, and he knew Ruby loved his cock, not boastful, it was just facts. A woman didn't scream and beg that loud for nothing.