Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8)

by Susan Fanetti

  And he did love her. He showed her all the time. He’d just handed her his love in a little white box.

  She didn’t need the words. Not yet.

  ~oOo~

  Sage rolled the empty library cart behind the circulation desk. Mrs. Wilmett stood at the far side, helping Mr. Calhoun, one of the retirees who were regular patrons, go through the old microfiche machine. Mr. Calhoun was a World War II veteran who spent hours every week poring over old newspapers, looking for references to his battalion or troop or whatever it was called. He was also obsessed with obituaries.

  She parked the empty cart near the return bin and sat behind her little desk. There wasn’t much to do. Usually, summer afternoons were busy, but today the place had up and died after the preschool story-time program. Even the regulars were sparse today.

  So she closed her eyes and conjured a daydream. About Becker, and the key to his house she now had on her ring. No more wandering around Tulsa like a homeless orphan when she needed to stay away from the house. He wanted her to have a safe place, he’d said. Nowhere was safer than where he was.

  Today was payday at the library, and her check was folded in her jeans pocket. After she cashed it at the bank, she meant to go to Save-A-Lot and pick up a whole lot of food. She was going to make Becker a dinner when he got home that would make him cream his Levi’s.

  “Sage, did you get the overdues out?” Mrs. Wilmett asked. Yanked back to the quiet library, Sage opened her eyes and saw the librarian crossing before the front of the desk, leading Mr. Calhoun toward the history stacks.

  Overdues was one of her least favorite jobs. It wasn’t hard, their system flagged the overdue books and organized them by time late, but they didn’t do email notices yet, so she had to print them all out, stuff them in envelopes, and lick those suckers closed. The licking was the only thing she had left to do, but that was why the job was so gross. There was a sponge dealio to wet the glue, but it didn’t work right and made the envelopes all soggy. So Sage licked. It was gross.

  Without anything better to say she was working on, and with twenty minutes left in her shift, she sighed. “You know, somebody died on Seinfeld from licking envelopes.”

  “I didn’t realize Seinfeld was a documentary. And those were defective envelopes.”

  “You watched Seinfeld? Wow, Mrs. Dub, you’re cooler than you look.”

  She laughed and came around the desk. “That’s the standard, huh? Liking Seinfeld?” She handed Sage the envelope-wetter-dealie. “Here. I’d hate for you to keel over behind the desk. People might talk. Don’t squeeze so hard, and you won’t soak the envelopes. Be gentle.”

  “I’m gentle.”

  Mrs. Wilmett cocked an eyebrow.

  “I am!”

  “Whatever you say, sweetie. Get those out before you go, please. Otherwise I’ll have to do it.”

  “Wow. Guilt trip.”

  With a pat to Sage’s shoulder, Mrs. Wilmett left the desk and carried on escorting Mr. Calhoun to the stacks. Sage glared at the stack of envelopes, picked up the wetter, and got busy.

  The wetter lasted about ten envelopes before enough water to slake a thirst oozed over a flap and ruined a notice. While she printed that one out again, she reverted to the artificially minty taste of envelope glue.

  Bleck.

  By the time she was done, as usual, a little nauseous gremlin prowled around her belly. As she stood and carried her stack to the postal meter, a flash of sunlight caught her right in the eyes—someone was opening the main doors, and the afternoon sun glinted off the weird metallic-y window coating that protected the books from sun damage. Awesome, now she had a headache, too.

  Her assaulted eyes made out the silhouettes of two women coming in, and she set the envelopes down and moved toward the front of the desk, in case they needed something.

  By the time they got to the desk, her vision had recovered enough to see that Cecily and Leah, two Bulls women, stood there.

  Not expecting to encounter Bulls people at this particular branch of the library, clear across town from the clubhouse, Sage kind of gaped at them for a second, trying to make sense of this surprising development. Why would they—wait! Was Becker hurt or something?

  But then Leah smiled brightly and said, “Hi!”

  Sage relaxed at once at her perky tone. Clearly, nothing was wrong. “Hi. What’s up?”

  “We’re on our way to my mom’s shop in Utica Square,” Cecily said. “It’s kind of fussy, but our discount is deep—and there’s a much cooler shop close by that gives us a courtesy discount. You’re off now, right? You want to come?”

  Sage felt like a couple of chapters of the book she was living were stuck together. “Shopping? Wait—you know my schedule? You know where I work? Shopping?”

  Leah laughed and leaned on the desk. “At the clubhouse this morning, I asked Becker if he thought you’d like some company, and he told us where and when to find you. We usually get together when the guys go out of town. Deb, Jenny, Willa, and Jacinda are all together with the kids today, but—"

  “But I’ve only got a few months left before baby shit and spit-up are my life, and I wanted girl time. So here we are.”

  “Shopping?”

  Cecily snapped her fingers in Sage’s face. “You okay in there?”

  “Yeah.” She blinked and landed back on earth. “Just surprised, I guess. You were at the clubhouse this morning?”

  Leah and Cecily exchanged a glance, and Sage knew at once that she’d been left out of something. She expected one of them to manufacture a fib, but Cecily brushed her red hair back over her shoulder and said, “When the whole club goes out on a run, the old ladies are there to see them off. Don’t get bent about it. It’s only old ladies and kids.”

  “I’m not bent.” She was, a little. Knowing that there was a ritual Becker hadn’t told her about or invited her to took a bit of luster off that key in her pocket. Just a bit, though. Because that key was in her pocket. “What’s the difference between an old lady and a girlfriend?”

  That sounded like the setup to a dumb riddle, but Cecily and Leah answered it straight.

  Both of them. In unison. “Ink,” they said.

  Cecily turned her arm to show a piece on her wrist—a flaming heart, with Caleb’s name, and some symbols Sage didn’t understand, inside. “They call it keeping their flame. It’s like a wedding ring, but a lot deeper than that. And more permanent—as you know.” She lifted Sage’s arm and studied the art that covered it. “Yours is gorgeous. Who does your work?”

  “Marla at Iron Spike.”

  “It’s really beautiful,” Leah said. “So intricate.”

  “Thanks.” Ink was Sage’s only extravagance, and she had a very carefully considered aesthetic about it. It was all black, all designed by her and Marla after long discussion. There was no room for a bright red heart with yellow and orange flames.

  Should she ever need to consider the question. For now, she turned from that twisty path and returned to the first set of surprises. “You want me to go shopping with you?”

  “Sure. We can do happy hour, too. I can’t drink, but I’ll eat appetizers until I explode. One of the benefits of being pregnant is I’m supposed to get fat. I’m designated driver, so you and Leah can get snockered if you want.”

  “I’m kind of a girl about booze. I only like it when it comes in a smoothie. Like frozen daiquiris and shit like that.” She didn’t point out that she was underage; if she got carded, she had a decent enough fake ID. A side benefit of working at the Bin: people had to leave their IDs at the desk to use the listening rooms. They had a whole box of forgotten licenses.

  “TGI Fridays it is!” Cecily cheered. “Hot wings for me!”

  Except for thrift stores, Sage wasn’t much of a shopper. She was poor, and her look wasn’t exactly off-the-rack, anyway. Also, she’d never been to TGI Fridays. But Leah and Cecily were both in such a good mood, Sage couldn’t help but catch it. Besides, it was pretty fucking cool that th
ey’d thought of her—and that Becker had been into this idea.

  Even from Texas, he was taking care of her.

  ~oOo~

  What Cecily had meant by ‘deep discount’ was ‘free.’ Her mom’s shop was way too glitzy and ritzy for Sage, but there had been a few pieces she liked okay—like a stretchy lace t-shirt that came in a bunch of colors, including black, white and red. Sage felt weird about taking stuff for free—those t-shirts were fifty bucks a pop, retail—but Cecily and her mom had both insisted, so she ended up with a black one and a red one. She had a couple satiny bras that would look cool underneath. It seemed wrong somehow to put Walmart bras under fifty-dollar tops, but oh well.

  Then they went over to a neighboring shop with a graffiti and concrete vibe, and there both Cecily and Leah went a little nuts. Sage did, too, in her way. It was still stupidly expensive, more poseur than punk, but Cecily got a sixty-percent courtesy discount, and Sage wasn’t above exploiting that to buy a totally adorable pair of floral Docs. Perfect for summer.

  She had to be careful; Leah had stopped off at the bank her library checks were drawn from so she could cash her paycheck, but the big extravagance she’d planned had been groceries to make Becker dinner—not brand-new Doc Martens and a leather choker. Once she paid the utilities on her mom’s place and threw in for rent, food, and incidentals, she wouldn’t have anything left to save.

  “How about earrings?” Leah asked, setting one of a pair of thick silver hoops against her ear. “Too big?”

  Sage leaned back and considered the look. “They’re cute. If you put your hair up high ...”

  “Too big,” Cecily asserted. “You’re never going to be able to carry off sexpot, Leah. You’re too wholesome.”

  “Only you could turn that word into an insult, Ciss.” Leah put the earring back on the card and returned it to its place on the rack.

  She was pretty wholesome, actually. All blonde and pink and bright-eyed, and she wore a pink striped cotton blouse over a denim mini-skirt and little flat kicks. ‘Biker bitch’ did not leap readily to mind.

  “Not an insult. And come on, you know the girl-next-door thing works for you. Gunner’s fucking gross, the way he slobbers all over you.”

  Cecily, on the other hand, looked the part. She wore tall black lace-up Docs over black leggings, with a snug deep-blue sleeveless blouse. The bottom buttons of the blouse were undone to make room for her bump.

  That was a super-cute outfit. Sage could imagine wearing it herself. And Cecily was, like, a Bulls princess—Becker had said her father was the first VP of the club. She’d been born into the Bulls.

  Feeling like she synced with Cecily’s vibe, standing between her and Leah as they discussed fashion jewelry, Sage suddenly felt more at home altogether. She might only be Becker’s girlfriend, but they were making an effort to bring her in, and in some ways she fit in already.

  Cecily zipped up her bag. “Okay. I need hot wings. Can we move on to the stuffing-our-faces portion of the evening?”

  ~oOo~

  Late the next morning, slogging through her first hangover in ... well, kind of ever, Sage flopped out of Becker’s bed and slumped into the kitchen to make coffee. On her way through the living room, she glanced out the front window and saw her car, parked in the driveway. More or less. Actually, the angle was weird.

  She went to the window for a closer look. Oh, shit—her front end was mostly on the lawn. Becker was fussy about his yard, like everything else about his house. Not counting the night they’d tried to watch Last House, which was a totally different, more internal kind of anger, or the night he’d pulled a gun on Denny, which wasn’t actually even anger, she’d seen Mad Becker only once, at the Bin, and hadn’t liked that version of him at all. Would he react like that if she’d dug tire tracks into his lawn?

  Grabbing her keys off the table by the door, she ran out, wearing only his t-shirt and a pair of boyshort undies, and re-parked her car straight on the driveway. Since he’d tuned up the engine and changed the oil, he’d tinkered with it a few times more, and it ran smoothly now, purring like a sleepy kitten. The AC had a brand new compressor. He’d fixed the squeaks in her doors, too. And the broken headlight. She’d probably get a few more years out of the old relic.

  On her way back to the house, she checked the lawn. Yep, fuck. Two thick divots of dark earth, one about two feet long, and the other about a foot. Shitsnacks.

  Okay, well. It wasn’t like she would have gone through all the rest of her life without doing and saying stupid shit. She was bound to really piss him off sooner or later. At least sooner, she’d know what she was getting into and have the chance to decide if she could deal before she was too far gone for the guy.

  Who was she trying to fool? She was already all the way gone. But if the way he’d acted at the Bin was the way he was whenever he got pissed like that, then she’d walk away. It would tear her heart into teensy bloody bits, but she’d walk.

  There was nobody she could ever love enough to turn into her mother to keep.

  Back in the kitchen, she started a pot of coffee, then went back to make the bed while it brewed. She had a rare whole day off from both jobs today. The timing sucked balls, because Becker wouldn’t be home until tomorrow afternoon, but at least she could stay here, in this cute, comfortable, safe house that smelled like him in every corner. She meant to run a couple of errands and then spend the day quietly, listening to his music and reading his books.

  First, though, she had to see what kind of damage she’d done last night. So when the coffee was ready, she fixed herself a cup and sat at Becker’s kitchen table with her wallet, to total up what was left of her pay after her unexpected girls’ night.

  Which had been unexpectedly fun. Leah and Cecily were cool—and only a few years older than she was. Older sister age rather than mom age. Leah was a drinker like she was—one who didn’t love the taste of booze—but TGI Fridays had some yummy smoothie things more like desserts than drinks, and they’d had enough of those to make Sage’s tummy and head sloshy.

  Apparently, she hadn’t done any of the paying. There was as much left of her pay as she’d had when they left the shops.

  Oh thank god. After giving her mom money and paying the few of her own bills, and setting aside money for gas and eats until her next Bin check, she wouldn’t have anything to squirrel away, but she could at least meet her expenses, and still buy the makings of a nice welcome-home meal for Becker.

  Her first errand: taking money over to her mom’s. It was Saturday, and Denny didn’t even pretend to go to work on Saturdays. He was around all day long unless he had something going with his creepy buddies. Sage checked the clock on the wall. It was after eleven a.m.; she’d slept through her best chance not to see him.

  Then again, since his latest confrontation with Becker, Denny had been ducking her as much as she avoided him. If she got there before he’d had a chance to get his Saturday drunk in gear, he’d probably just ignore her.

  First stop, then.

  ~oOo~

  The neighborhood churned with the sounds of a summer Saturday midday. Kids had a kickball game going in the street, running to the sides whenever cars passed through. Leafblowers and lawnmowers growled in undulating harmonies. Through open windows on this block of people barely making ends meet, box fans hummed and voices droned.

  There was some weird noise rising up over that riot of sound every now and then, but Sage couldn’t place it or understand it. Something about the sound caught her ear every time, though, and she paused and tried to pick it out. Nothing. It wasn’t rhythmic enough to bother waiting for it, either.

  Mr. Johnson, the old man who lived next door, was mowing his lawn, hunched over the rusty blue machine as he pushed it along. He waved as she walked up the driveway.

  The garage overhead was open, and her mom was in there, moving a load from the washer to the dryer. Sage walked in. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, Sagey.” She didn’t turn around, and Sage’s
antennae zinged. She went to her mom’s side and made her turn.

  Her mouth was puffy and bruised, and both lips were split.

  “That fucker.”

  “Leave it, Sage. Just leave it. It was just a fight. I was in it right there with him.”

  Yeah, right. Her hundred-pound mom was giving that asscrack as good as she got. Sure.

  All her life, since she was old enough to understand, Sage had tried to get her mom to go for something better than this. There was no corner of argument she hadn’t explored, no plea she hadn’t tried. This was the life her mother apparently wanted. So she didn’t bother to try now. Instead, she pulled a fold of bills from her jeans pocket.

  “I got paid yesterday. I’m going to cover the gas and water when I go to the market today, and I’ve got my share of the rent, too.”

  Her mom took the money and tried to smile around her mangled face. “Thanks, baby.”

  There was that weird noise again. Here in the garage, the sounds of the neighborhood were muffled, and the strange sound became louder. Because it was closer? She heard laughter, coming from beyond the back wall of the garage. Male laughter. Denny and his friends.

  Again the noise—and this time, she was ready for it and understood it at once. “Is that a dog?” It was. A canine yelp of pain. Jesus, did Denny have a dog now? What was he doing to it? “What the fuck, Mom?”

  “Sage, just leave it. It’s just a stray. It doesn’t matter.”

  She didn’t bother to spare her mother another word or thought. Spinning on her heel, she ran out of the garage and around to the back gate. The scent of grilling meat wove through the sound of amused male voices. And another yelp. They were hurting a dog and laughing about it.

  Shoving the gate open, Sage ran into the back yard and to the corner of the house. She stopped there for a second so she’d know what she was getting herself into before she charged forward.

  Denny was back there with three friends, arrayed near the smoking barbecue grill. They all had beers. On an old TV tray beside the grill was a Styrofoam package of ground beef patties.