by Grey, Blair
It was the question that I’d been waiting for, though. I knew that her curiosity would win out eventually. And I didn’t know just what to say.
“I learned a little bit more about the MC and about Lex,” I finally said. “To be honest, I still don’t really know what any of them do, but I do feel pretty sure that they’re not terrible guys.”
Maddie shook her head but didn’t comment on that.
“As for things with Cameron. He was just really nice to me the whole evening,” I said. “We went to this nice little French place near his house, and—”
“You know where his house is?” Maddie interrupted sharply.
I must have blushed a thousand shades of red, and Maddie looked even more horrified. “You didn’t,” she said. “Tara, tell me that you didn’t.”
“Well, it’s not like I lost my virginity to him or anything,” I said brusquely.
Maddie shook her head, disbelief clear on her face. “I warn you that he’s dangerous and you decide to go to coffee with him. I make you promise that you’re never going to see him again and you go to dinner with him. And then you sleep with him? What the hell.”
“Don’t make this into a bigger thing that it was,” I pleaded.
“I don’t see how I could possibly do that when what you did is sleep with a criminal,” Maddie said.
“You don’t know that he’s a criminal,” I protested. “He’s just the club treasurer.”
Maddie’s look said it all.
“It was just sex,” I said. “And afterward, we agreed that we probably weren’t going to see each other again. He’s busy with some other club business at the moment, and you know me. I’m just not looking to get into a relationship. Especially not with someone like him.”
“Too late; you’re already sleeping with the man,” Maddie said, shaking her head. “Unbelievable.” She paused, and I could tell that she wanted to ask for more details, but she also didn’t want to seem like she was condoning my behavior.
“It was really good,” I admitted. “We went back to his place, and the moment the door was shut, we were all over each other. We barely made it up to his bed, but then we slowed down a bit and just made out for a while. And then, I don’t know. We had sex. And it was so good, you wouldn’t even believe it. I needed that.”
“I’m sure you did, but that doesn’t mean that you had to sleep with him,” Maddie said.
“Well, what’s done is done,” I said matter-of-factly, then shrugged.
Maddie bit her tongue on whatever else she wanted to say.
That evening, we picked up Sam from his after-school program. “Hey, buddy, guess what?” I asked, leaning around so that I could see into the back seat as Maddie strapped him into his car seat. “The fair is in town tonight! What do you say we go play some games and go on all the rides?”
“Yeah!” Sam cheered noisily from his seat. “Aunt Maddie, are you coming with us?”
“Course I am, kiddo,” Maddie said, ruffling his hair before coming to get back in the passenger’s seat. “I love the fair.”
We had a ton of fun, laughing and joking as we went on the spinning rides, pretending to get sick just to make Sam giggle. Then, we took a turn at the carnival games, with Maddie and I trying to pop balloons with darts while Sam tried to knock over a set of cartons with a wooden ball.
“All right, you have one more game, and then I think it’s time for dinner,” I finally told Sam when we had blown through most of my cash. “What’ll it be?”
“Ring toss!” Sam cried, and I obediently carried him over to the counter. Surprisingly enough, he managed to get a couple of the rings to stay on the bottles.
“You’re going to have a great little sportsman in a couple years,” Maddie commented, sounding impressed.
I grinned at her and knelt down next to Sam. “Which toy do you want?” I asked, helping to point out his options. Sam, of course, chose the toy motorcycle. I laughed, but Maddie looked like she was one step away from grimacing, no doubt still thinking about those Red Eyes guys. I saw her glance around, and I knew she was probably wondering if they were following us even here, making sure that we were safe.
“Hey,” she suddenly said, looking over at me. “Does Cameron know that you have a kid?”
I looked away from her. “Not yet,” I admitted. “I’m waiting for the right time to tell him.” I stepped forward and placed the food order, hoping that that would be the end of the conversation. But when I stepped back, Maddie was still gnawing at her lower lip. “Aren’t you afraid that these guys are going to tell him about Sam?” she asked in an undertone.
I laughed. “We don’t even know if they’re following us here,” I reminded her. “And anyway, Sam could be anyone’s kid. He could be yours, or we could just be babysitting for the evening. They don’t have any idea who he is. And besides, I’m going to tell Cameron about him soon. Just, the timing thing hasn’t been right yet.”
“Because you were too busy getting laid.” Maddie sighed.
I shrugged. “Yeah, kind of.” It wasn’t entirely true, but it was easier than explaining the actual truth.
Which was that I was afraid Cameron, like so many guys, would want nothing more to do with me as soon as he knew that I had a kid. I wouldn’t really be able to blame him. And who knew if I was ever going to see him again anyway. But even though we had both said that this was probably only a one-night thing, I couldn’t help hoping that I’d get to see him again. If only for another earth-shattering orgasm.
But there was more to it than that, and I knew it. I liked him. He was interesting, and in spite of the fact that he was part of a biker gang, he was one of the better guys that I had ever met. I knew that instinctively.
Sam was my whole world, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Why not continue this thing with Cameron for as long as I could? For as long as he was interested. No point in telling him all the deal-breakers up front. It wasn’t like I planned to marry the guy anyway.
19
Cameron
I knew that the only way we were going to make things right in the MC was to talk things out. What I didn’t know was why I was the one who was trying to get Braxton to agree to that. It should probably have been Grant who went after Braxton and Grant who tried to smooth things over, but I guess they needed a neutral party to carry messages back and forth between them.
Like this was high school all over again. Just with much higher stakes.
I headed over to Braxton’s house on Saturday hoping that I would be able to find him there. He still hadn’t responded to any of my calls, and I hadn’t been able to find him at any of his usual haunts. I had even thought about calling Landon to have him try to reason with his brother, but I didn’t know where Landon stood on all of this. For all I knew, he would be one hundred percent on board with the way Braxton was handling things, and if he made that fact known, there was no way I was ever going to persuade Braxton that he was going about this all wrong.
Fortunately, when I got to Braxton’s house, he was out front in the driveway, working on a bike. He wiped his hands off on a rag when he saw me, his eyes clouded with anger. “What the hell are you doing here, traitor?” he spat.
“Traitor?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.
“I can’t believe you sided with Grant over me!” Braxton said. And yes, it really did feel like high school. “You know he’s not cut out to be leader. He doesn’t even want to be.”
I sighed. “Come on, Braxton. We both know that you don’t really want to be leader either. You’ve always been happier following someone. And besides, this isn’t what your father would have wanted. There was a reason he didn’t choose you to be the next leader of the club in his wake.” I paused. “He definitely wouldn’t have wanted to see you split the club in half like this. Not after what he worked so hard to create.”
“The club won’t be split in half once people realize that Grant is a piss-poor choice for a leader,” Braxton growled.
“There’s
not going to be a club for much longer if you guys don’t stop fighting over it like this,” I reasoned. “The MC is breaking apart and becoming weak, don’t you get that? That weakness has nothing to do with Grant. It has everything to do with the infighting and the cracks that that has made.”
“It’s going to become stronger under me,” Braxton maintained. “Everyone will join together eventually, and we’ll be more prosperous than ever.” He paused. “You heard Grant. He doesn’t want to fight. He wants to just sit back and let people like Lex live on our territory.”
“He said that he doesn’t want to change things. He wants to keep running them the way that your father would have,” I pointed out. “You never seemed to have a problem with the way that Ray ran things.”
Okay, so that wasn’t entirely true. I had heard enough bickering between Braxton and Ray about how things should be done. Ray was always the thinker, and Braxton was always the doer. They clashed sometimes, but Braxton had always respected Ray, and in the end, he went along with what his father wanted.
Things were different now that it wasn’t his father who was leader, though. I guess it had been a lot to expect that Braxton would willingly follow the same plans put forth by someone years younger than him.
“The MC needs both of you,” I finally tried. “You and Grant. I’m with you, man. I know that sometimes the whole waiting game can get frustrating. I know that sometimes we need to be quicker to take action so that no one gets hurt. But at the same time, sometimes we need to take a step back and evaluate as well. That’s why you and Landon always worked well together, isn’t it?”
Braxton shook his head. “Cameron, I’ve always liked you. But things have to change. This club needs a different kind of leadership. And I’m going to make sure that it gets that.”
“Could you at least sit down with Grant? Maybe if we could all talk about this, we could reach some conclusion that doesn’t mean splitting the club in half,” I tried. But I could tell that Braxton was barely listening at this point.
“If Grant wants to bow out, you come tell me,” he said. “If he realizes what everyone else realized a long time ago and that he was never meant to be part of this club, let me know. But until then, I’m going to keep doing things my way.” He smirked at me. “They seem to be working out pretty well for me so far.”
I shook my head, but I could tell that there was no way of reasoning with him right now. Not when he was like this. I turned to leave, but I felt worse about the whole thing than I had before I had seen Braxton. It really did feel like the club was fracturing. That soon, there was going to be nothing left of it. I hated to even contemplate that.
I pulled out my phone and automatically dialed Tara’s number, not even realizing what I had done until she picked up.
“Hey, what’s up?” she asked. “Thought I might never hear from you again.” Her words were teasing, but I could hear concern in her tone.
“Can we meet up?” I asked her. “Maybe get coffee again?” I felt weirdly desperate in asking her, but she didn’t seem to notice or mind.
“Yeah, of course. Just let me know where.”
“I’ll text you,” I told her.
When I got to the coffee shop, she was already there waiting for me. I slumped into the seat across from her. “Next thing you know, I’m going to be planning a funeral for you,” Tara said, raising an eyebrow at me. “Had a rough day?”
“Week,” I corrected. “I’ve had a rough week. Or a rough month, maybe.”
“Things aren’t getting any better?” Tara asked sympathetically.
I shook my head, running a hand back through my hair. “This whole fight between the two different would-be leaders is really starting to get to me. Neither of them is willing to talk to the other, and they’re both sure that they’re in the right. I don’t know how to fix that.”
“That’s rough,” Tara said, and I was surprised when her hand found mine for a second, squeezing lightly. It was such a simple touch, but for some reason, it set something racing inside of me. “I thought you were just the treasurer, though. Shouldn’t it be up to them to sort out their problems?”
“I mean, it is. But if neither of them is even going to try, I feel like I have to,” I said. “Ray wouldn’t have wanted things to go this way. And as soon as someone like Lex decides to try to test us—which he’s going to do very soon—we’re going to have no way to defend ourselves. Not when we’ve only got half the manpower on either side. Not when we’re fighting among ourselves.”
“So what you’re asking me to do is to distract Lex to buy you guys some time?” Tara asked jokingly.
I snorted. “I wish I could ask that, but no. I don’t want you involved in this at all. Any more than you already are.”
“Good,” Tara said. “I don’t particularly want to be involved in it either. And Maddie is already looking forward to the day when we don’t have to have MC members posted outside the doors to our business.”
I gave her a lopsided smile and shook my head. “I just don’t know what to do. Instead of getting better, things honestly seem like they’re getting worse.”
Tara stared at me for a moment, and I could tell that there was something she wanted to say but that she was uncertain about it.
“Go ahead and say it,” I told her. “I won’t get mad, whatever it is.”
“I was just wondering if you really wanted to stay as a member of the MC. That’s all,” Tara said, looking embarrassed at having asked. “Just, from everything that you’ve told me, it seems like Ray was the heart and soul of the club. That he was the real reason you were part of it all. And now that he’s gone, if it’s just causing you all of this stress, maybe you would be happier if you just backed out of it.”
I blinked at her. It was something that had never even occurred to me, and now I wondered if it should have. “But what would I even do?” I asked, running a hand back through my hair. “I know that’s kind of a stupid question, but my identity for so long now has been that I was part of Red Eyes. I just don’t even know who I’d be if I wasn’t part of the club.”
“That’s fair,” Tara said. “But you’re an intelligent guy, and you’re pretty good with your hands.” She blushed like she was thinking of ways that I was good with my hands other than when it came to vehicles. She pushed onward before I could tease her about the blush, though. “It just seems like you could get a real job. There must be some way for you to change your life and redefine yourself. I mean, if that’s what you really wanted to do.”
I shook my head. “The truth is I can’t imagine walking away from it all. Even when it gets stressful. That’s part of why I’m fighting so hard to keep it all together. Because I just can’t imagine my life without the club. Not just because that’s how I define myself but also because those guys are like my family. And that’s the most important thing in the world to me: family.”
I paused. “When Ray took me in, I didn’t have anyone. I didn’t have anything like what I have now. I can’t explain to you how lonely that is.” I paused, thinking back to those bleak days. I liked to think that if I quit Red Eyes, things would still be different. Maybe Tara would keep talking to me, or maybe I would find other friends. Maybe I would get a real job, and the coworkers and I would all go out for drinks sometimes.
But it would never be the same as in the club. Those guys in Red Eyes, you had to be prepared to give them your whole life. To do whatever it took to make sure that they were okay. Because you had their backs, and they had yours. That was just the way it went.
Tara looked thoughtful at that. “I want to take you somewhere,” she finally said.
“Okay,” I said slowly, wondering just what she was planning. But I got up and followed her out of the coffee shop, even without having any idea what was going through her head.
20
Tara
To say I was nervous about bringing Cameron home with me was the understatement of the century. But all his talk about the MC being hi
s family and about how family was the most important thing in his life really got me thinking. God, if he weren’t in Red Eyes, he might just be the perfect guy. Smart, sweet, and wanted a family.
He just came with a lot of dangerous baggage that honestly had me pretty worried.
The truth was, though, that it sounded like he was settling for less. It sounded like, for some reason, he had gotten it in his head that the only way that he was going to have a family was if he stayed in Red Eyes. I didn’t know what the deeper issue was, if he thought that he didn’t deserve a relationship or if he just wasn’t interested in having one, but I wanted to remind him that there were alternatives. That families were the constructs that you built for yourself.
My family was me, my best friend, and my son. And I wanted Cameron to realize that they both meant the world to me.
Cameron was silent on the trip to my house, and I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t sure what. I wanted to comfort him again. That strange impulse from before. I wanted to reach over and take his hand or something. But I was too nervous to do that. Instead, I just kept glancing over at him every few minutes.
When we got to the house, Maddie and Sam were in the kitchen baking cookies. Or rather, Maddie was baking cookies, and Sam was making a mess.
“Hey!” Maddie said brightly when she saw me. Then, her expression clouded as Cameron entered the room behind me. She gave me a look, but she didn’t have time to launch into a lecture because Sam had gotten his hands on a bag of flour and threw a handful of it at her, coating her in white.
Cameron laughed behind me, but when I looked back, he looked sheepish. “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t be laughing. But that was a pretty good shot right there.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was grinning as well. “Welcome to my home,” I said.
“Who’s the kid?” Cameron asked in an undertone, looking over to where Sam and Maddie were cutting out cookies together.
