Free The Leaves 03 (Nico) by JB Hartnett

razor sharp teeth sink into my right thigh. It fucking killed.
    I screamed out, pulled back with my right elbow to try to fight it off, which, luckily, must have stunned it. I was able to get to the shallow water and crawl to the damp sand.
    Safe, but trailing blood behind me, I didn’t look at the wound. I knew I would need to get to a hospital, and quick. If I looked at it, I might not be able to keep going. I climbed the longest fucking set of stairs in Laguna Beach to get back to Pacific Coast Highway. I can’t imagine what I looked like, a man with shaggy blond hair, his dick swinging in the wind, and blood pouring from his thigh and ankle. Within minutes, a cop pulled up, shined that motherfucking spotlight on me, but then realized I was injured.

    123/510
    A few hours later, my pop had me in his truck, and I had four small shark teeth as souvenirs, which I planned to have made in-to a necklace. Except for one. One, I was saving.
    On our way home from the hospital, Pop let me know exactly how he felt.
    “What the fuck were you thinking, taking a dip in Mother Nature’s buffet in the middle of the goddamn night? You got a screw loose?”
    I had the great pleasure of morphine on board, which was a bit like truth serum, I discovered, and answered him honestly. “I wanted to feel alive.”
    “Well, I hope it worked. Why don’t you find a woman to do that instead, you jack-ass.” He slapped his hand against the dash of the truck to really get his point across.
    “I’ve been trying that for a while, Pop.
    Doesn’t have the same appeal it used to.” 124/510
    He said nothing until we were parked in front of my garage in the alley behind my house. Ever since I was a kid, this was usually the prelude to getting a stern talking to.
    “Nicolas. When I met your mom, you know what that fucking woman did to me?” This was sure to be a story I would not forget; two in one day. “Please don’t say anything that is going to scar me emotinally. I’m all hopped up at the moment, and I’ve had a hell of a day.”
    “Shut up and listen. She took the breath right outta me. I looked at her, didn’t know a thing about her, but my lungs burned from trying to catch my breath again. Then she smiled and that was it. I was fuckin’ gone.
    Didn’t matter what movies she liked or music she listened to. Didn’t matter what she thought about politics or books. I couldn’t give a shit. All I knew was, when she smiled at me, nothing else mattered, and that was the point. She wasn’t a piece of ass to get my 125/510
    dick wet. She was the woman that would carry my heart, and my balls, mind you, with her until my last day on this earth. That was when I knew I was alive, when I met your mom. Now get the fuck outta my truck and stop scaring the hell out of us.” Moira’s blood was dried in two large circles, plus a smaller one, on my wooden porch, bringing me right back to reality. I carefully limped through the front door of my house and checked my phone. Zack had left a message to let me know that Moira was going to be okay. She had a couple broken ribs, one of which had punctured a lung, and some bruising on her spine. The only good thing to come out of the entire night? Teensy had offered Moira a job as her assistant with full benefits. She even threw in the apartment behind the studio downtown.
    I sat on the edge of my tub with the shower facing away from me so I could keep my wound dry.

    126/510
    “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked no one.
    I was bad. I was depressed, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do about it. The thing was, I actually had a great life. I was just…
    lost. I thought about getting another tattoo.
    Maybe I could do what the women I helped did, but it just didn’t seem right. My chest was a blank canvas, just waiting. I’d know it when I saw it, whatever “it” was. My back, though, was done by a guy named Steve up in Seattle. He was a photo-realism genius, and what I wanted, I wanted done by