One Day....

One Day... - Chapter One

"I know I was supposed to come in tonight but my brothers are sick. I need to-" I was trying to explain to my manager why I wasn't coming tonight. Hunter has a stomach bug and can't keep anything down, and Caiden is starting to get what looks like the flu.

"If you're not here at five, then don't bother coming in tomorrow." My boss, Robbie, the world's biggest douche, told me before hanging up.

Fuck. I looked at my phone before throwing into the passenger seat in my car and hit my head against the steering wheel. Repeatedly. I let out a scream as I thought about all the things that were due this month. Rent, groceries, the electricity, phone bills. I closed my eyes, trying not to cry. I opened them and looked at the time. 3:20 PM. The boys would be out soon and I needed to pick up groceries before getting them. I took a deep breath, re-closed my eyes and tried collecting my thoughts.

Opening them, I turned my car on and drove to Walmart. I tried be as fast and cheap as possible only grabbing what I needed for homemade chicken soup, the one thing the boys could keep down while sick. By the time I got out the store, I was five minutes late. Shit. I looked at my phone and saw I had a missed call from Caiden. I drove as fast as I could without getting pulled over to the Hunter's. When I got to the school, I saw Caiden had walked to our little brother's school and was waiting with him. I knew the freshman got out at 3:45 at the high school and because Hunter was a part of the after school program at the elementary school, I didn't pick him up until I got Caiden which wasn't until four.

I pulled to them and unlocked the doors while they walked over to the car. Hunter still looked wishy-washy while Caiden looked exhausted and pale. Felt my heart tug when I saw how sick they looked, and I knew them going to school had only made it worse. When they got to the car, I got out to put Hunter in his car seat. "I know I'm late but I had to stop and get the rest of the stuff for dinner tonight," I told Caiden as he put his stuff in the trunk. "Also I'm not going into work tonight because I feel a little sick today too." I lied and kept the fact that I got fired from them. That would only make Caiden worry and when Caiden worried that made Hunter uneasy also.

Caiden nodded his head and went to the passenger's seat. I finished putting Hunter in his seat, which took less time than usual, seeing as my Babyboy is one energetic person and can't stop talking, especially after school. I looked at the sky before I got in and took another deep breath. I could hear my dad's voice in my head saying, Never stop fighting. I let out the breath and got in.

All the way home, all I thought about was if our mother was home. If she was, that probably meant she had company. If she wasn't that meant she was out getting fucked up. I could only hope for the latter. The kind of company she kept, wasn't what I wanted around the boys. "Emmie?" I heard my brother call out from the backseat, snapping me out of my daze.

"Yeah baby?" I asked.

"When does daddy get back? I miss his house. Mommy's mean." I knew this was coming. Ever since our dad left almost a year ago, I have been dreading this. He's served two tours consecutively this last year. He has maybe another month before he comes home and when he does, he's going to retire he told me.

Our father, First Sergeant Lucas "Sinn" Welsh, joined the Marines the day he turned eighteen, which was almost twenty-one years ago. He has served four tours in Iraq and three in Afghanistan. He had me, Jade Emmalyn Welsh, when he was twenty-one, two years after he joined the Tainted Saints MC. My mother was a sweet butt, club momma, club whore, whatever you want to call her. He married her, thinking that was the right thing to do and lived fifteen long, miserable years with her; the only good thing coming out of it was us, according to him. He joined the Tainted Saints after he met my Uncle Deke while he was serving his first tour in Afghanistan. After my father left my mother, he met my stepmother, Caroline.

I looked at Caiden, and saw his body was tense. I sighed knowing how much my brothers missed our dad. "We'll check when we get home, Okay?", I told the kid in the back, hoping that he would forget about it before we got home. I pulled into the driveway of our rundown, barely together house and stopped the car. "Can you get him out, while I get the groceries?", I asked as I turned to him. He nodded and got out, slamming the car door. One day we'll be happy. One day.