by A. J. Downey
I closed my eyes and my cheeks flamed in empathy for my brother.
“Ew, poor Dante,” I said.
My mother laughed. “It’s okay. He mostly wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any little Dante’s before any of us were ready.” She blew out a strained breath, and I nodded.
“Dante’s not stupid,” I said, and she closed her eyes and nodded.
“I know, and no, I won’t tell him you told me that.” I grinned and shook my head, standing up.
“Harmony’s not stupid either,” I said and my mom smiled up at me and patted my hand.
“I’m so proud of all of you,” she said. “Especially you, my darling daughter.”
I smiled, and I felt like it was so big, it was apt to break my face.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, baby.”
She handed me another string of lights and I wondered how things were going with Sage. I think he was outside with my dad, and that had me a little worried. Mostly, I was afraid my dad would do something dumb like warn Sage off of me, which oh my God, I would have to kill him.
“So,” my mom said casually. “You and Sage?” She looked up at me, worry in her eyes, and I shrugged and let out a flabbergasted blast of air.
“I have no idea what’s going on, to be honest with you, Mom. Just all of a sudden, he like, turned on a dime and… I just don’t know. I’m almost afraid to get my hopes up.”
She sighed. “You know, your father stood me up and went months without even talking to me. Then all of a sudden, he asked me out like nothing happened.”
“Aye, boys are dumb,” Aunt Evy threw in.
“Throw rocks at them,” Mali added and all the women in the room laughed.
“Yeah, I know the story, Mom,” I said, grinning as the laughter died down.
“All I’m saying is that maybe Dice has finally come to his senses.” She shrugged and sighed, uncoiling more lights for me. “Like your father did.”
“Maybe,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t know what was going on exactly. The only answer to that question lay with Sage, and I wasn’t going to get it until I got some alone time with him to talk. If he would talk. That was the other thing. Talking about the important stuff wasn’t Sage’s strong suit. Especially since what happened to his sister and Nox.
I guess it was a good thing that patience was my strong suit – another attribute that I totally got from my mom.
Maybe I should stay tonight, or try to, and have that conversation…
Good Lord, when did everything become so complicated?
14
Sage…
“Rev, you got a minute?” I asked, wiping the wet off my frozen hands on the seat of my jeans. He stood up from the bundles of busted light strings that were just trash and looked me over.
“Come here,” he said, and he sounded like such a fucking dad.
He already knows.
“Word of advice when it comes to my little girl,” he said, putting an arm over my shoulders. “You have to break her heart for any reason, do me a favor and do it as gently as possible,” he said. “Other than that, wear a fuckin’ raincoat, and I catch you doin’ club sluts or cheating on her? I’ma cut off your johnson.”
I laughed, bowing my head, and shook it. I finally nodded and said, “Noted.”
He sighed and said, “Be honest, I hate that she’s growing up. Fuckin’ hate it, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders and I know you. You were a good kid, and you’re an even better man. I ain’t worried about you two.” He backed off of me and held out his hand, and I clasped it. He pulled me in and pounded me on the back.
“You two make it and get hitched, I’m gonna have to insist you call me ‘Daddy.’”
I lost my shit. So did Trigger, Disney, and Reaver who were standing nearby.
“Way to fuckin’ ruin the moment there, bro,” Trigger said, and we all fell out laughing all over again.
Red-Thirteen came around the corner and asked, “What’s so funny?” which made us all laugh even harder.
“Rev’s Dice’s new daddy,” Reaver crowed, and we all died all over again.
Red-Thirteen took off his hat and scratched his copper-washed strawberry-blond head and shook it. “I don’t get it.”
I think it was a laugh that we all fuckin’ needed.
We got it done, there were enough of us, but still by the time we were done, I was fuckin’ freezing and they weren’t even close to done with the trees inside. I slipped up behind Eden and placed a hand on her hip. She jumped slightly, and I murmured in her ear, “Gonna grab a hot shower and change my clothes,” I said. “Then, I’m gonna steal you to decorate that tree.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling up at me and that smile… fuck, it was the world.
“You okay?” she asked, her smile fading at my expression. I felt the corners of my mouth tip up when she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just freezing my balls off.”
“Well, go get warm!” she said brightly. I smacked a kiss to her temple and breathed her in. Her hair smelled like apples, her perfume some kind of cinnamon. Good enough to eat. Which I would, in good time. There was no rush. I was still trying to get used to the idea of having someone. The fact that everyone else seemed way ahead of me was actually kind of making me more nervous – not less.
I went to my club room, found some fresh clothes and ditched my wet and sweaty ones in my laundry. I wrapped a towel secure around my waist, brought my fresh clothes and my toiletry bag with me, and hit the shower – locking myself in the bathroom and getting the water almost as hot as it would go.
I stayed under for a long time, thinking about her copper curls, her timeless brown eyes, and that smile that she seemed to reserve just for me.
She’d written me letters while I’d been away. I would get fat stacks of them. I kept every damn one of them, had four shoeboxes full of them. They just kept coming even though I rarely, if ever. sent anything back… yet they still came, faithfully.
I stood under the hot shower spray, soaped up, rinsed off, all mechanically while my mind drifted from memory to memory of Eden.
I’d be lying if I said my dick didn’t get hard thinking about her round bottom thrust back against it the night before. Didn’t even lose my erection when I thought of that fucking nightmare. If anything, I got harder thinking back on how she dealt with it, with me… expecting me to cry, letting me grieve, and keeping my secret for me. That was the mark of a good woman right there.
One that didn’t expect you to be hard all the time.
So, what are you doing still in here when she’s just out there? The other side of that door?
It was a good question.
15
Eden…
I caught movement at the corner of my eye from the hub and turned. Sage stood just out of the shadows waving at me to come join him. He looked amazing – clean jeans, a faded olive green tee stretching across his chest, the sleeves straining around his shoulders and biceps. He had a white towel over his neck and his hair was still damp and tousled from his shower, sticking up at odd angles. I went to him and he took my hand.
“Ready to decorate this tree?” I asked smiling.
“You sure you’re not sick of decorating yet?” he asked and gave me a half-smile.
“Not on your life, I love decorating for the holidays.”
“K, come on.”
“You have lights?” I asked.
“Shit, no, good point!”
“I’ve got it,” I murmured, and it took some willpower to let his hand go and head over to the box of lights. I pulled out a shorter strand of coiled white lights and went over to the test power strip and plugged them in. They worked.
“Where you off to?” Aunt Evy asked.
“Decorate Smoke’s Charlie Brown tree.”
“Ahhh, have fun,” she said with a wink of her steely blue eyes. I blushed furiously and skirted around Hayden and Ashton who were hanging ornaments low on
the tree, my mom standing on a chair to get higher, smiling at me as I passed beneath her.
I retook Sage’s hand, and he led me back to his club room, leaving the door open and letting out a huffed breath, staring at the tall, spindly little tree leaning against his bed.
He lifted the lid on a wicker laundry basket between his dresser and the door, pulling his towel off from around his neck and dropping it in.
“Do you have a stand for this?” I asked, standing the tree up. He nodded and kicked a cardboard box up against the wall below his light switch.
“Okay, where do you want it?” I asked, his silence and somber mood slightly unnerving.
“Come here, first,” he said gently, and I leaned the tree against the foot of his bed – another Rush original – and I went to him. He put his arms around my shoulders and held me tight for a second, and I held him back.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked gently.
“No,” he answered softly. “I will be, though.” He pulled back to look at me and there was such a… I don’t know, a vulnerability, maybe, in his deep brown eyes.
“Okay,” I murmured. “Let’s get this set up, okay?”
He smiled and caressed my face with the backs of his knuckles and the pad of his thumb.
“Okay,” he said simply.
We broke apart, and he got into the cardboard box which had three Christmas tree stands in it. Some of them older than I was and starting to rust, but useable all the same.
“Where do you want to put it?” I asked.
“That’s a good question. Under the window?”
“Have an outlet there?”
“Yeah, same one the bedside lamp is plugged into.”
“Okay.”
We moved the tree into position under the window and stood back. He nodded and said, “I like it.”
“Okay.”
I kneeled and plugged in the lights behind the nightstand and handed them up to him. We coiled them around and around the trunk and out along the limbs, and honestly, while I thought we had too much for the little tree, it turned out we had just enough.
“Well that worked out,” he said, and I smiled, nodding.
“Ornaments?” I asked.
“Yeah, under here.”
I sat down with him on the floor and he flipped back the blankets on his neatly made bed. I was a little embarrassed now, that I’d left it such a mess when I’d gotten up that morning. He must have fixed it sometime during the day after we got back.
He slid a shoebox out of the way and curiously I peeked under the lid and froze for a second. My hand drifted down to the envelope on top, and I picked it up, a fission of some unidentified emotion coursing through me. Electric tingles swept through me as though I’d received a very real electrical jolt or shock.
That’s what it was… it was shock. Genuine shock.
“You kept them?” I asked curiously, lowering the letter into my lap and dragging my eyes to Sage’s back. He pulled out what looked like a wooden art box, the kind you kept supplies in with the handle and the two latches like a briefcase. He sat up sharply and looked over.
“Every single one,” he said evenly. “Got three or four more boxes under there just like it.”
“Why?” I asked and he wouldn’t look at me, just lifted a shoulder in a shrug and stared at the wooden case in his lap, smoothing his hands over the lid. “Sage?”
He shook his head and said, “I don’t know, Eedee. I just know your letters kept me from being so homesick. Whether I was in the Middle East, or in Chicago.” He fixed me with a look. “They kept me going when I didn’t want to.”
I lowered the letter back into the box and flipped the lid closed, sliding it back under his bed. He gave me a nod, almost a thank you, I guess. I don’t know what for, though.
For not freaking out? For not insisting he get rid of them? God, he was so confusing.
“What’s in there?” I asked, curious about the box in his lap.
He sighed and lifted the latches with his thumbs, raising the lid and turning the case around on his lap.
“Oh,” I murmured softly.
They were ornaments. A neat dozen or so, all hand turned and made out of wood; polished to a high shine.
“Rush?” I asked softly.
Sage nodded.
“They were my sister’s,” he said. “He gave her a new one every year. I have another case under there that’s only been partially filled.
“Oh, wow,” I said gently.
Sage nodded and looked like he might cry again. I smiled bravely in the face of his pain and said, “They’re beautiful. They absolutely need to be brought back out.”
“I’m missing some from the last couple of years. You know…”
I nodded and murmured, “I know.”
He passed the case to my lap and said, “Didn’t matter how hard I ever fucked up, Eedee. Didn’t matter how I hurt her or how much of a fucking little cockbite I was – she never gave up on me.”
He bent and reached under the bed and pulled another case out, only partially filled, like he’d said. Each ornament different. Each one unique. Some a combination of woods, some the same, all of them beautiful.
“You’re a lot like her in some ways,” he said and his gaze flicked to mine.
“Why do you say that?” I asked softly.
“You never gave up on me.”
I shook my head and said, “I can’t. I mean, why would I?”
He shook his head and sighed.
“I never wrote back. I should have,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter. You didn’t throw them away,” I said. “You read them all, didn’t you?” I asked, voice lilting, unsure what the answer would be in my head, but my heart already knew.
“I read them all,” he said. “Some of them until they almost fell apart.”
I smiled, a glowing flood of love flooding my heart.
“Then they did what they were intended too.”
He looked up at me from the ornaments in the second case and frowned slightly.
“You give too much of yourself,” he said gruffly, and I smiled.
“Only to you,” I said with a wink, trying to make light of things but all I succeeded in doing was making him frown harder.
“Yo, Smoke!” we heard out in the hall, and Rush stopped in the doorway, whatever he was about to say dying on his lips when his eyes fell on the open cases.
“Shit,” he said finally, after a pregnant pause. “You kept those?”
“Yeah, they were like Maren’s favorite thing. She looked forward to the new ones every year.”
Rush came in and dropped onto the floor with us, reaching out and sliding the case from Sage’s lap to his.
“I got these ones,” he said, fingertips drifting over some, but not all, of the empty velvet lined slots. “I don’t know why, but I made ‘em. They’re hanging in my shop.”
Silence filled up the room and Rush sniffed, hard, and raised his eyes to the ceiling as they glassed over.
Sage put a hand to his shoulder and squeezed.
“Bails!” Rush shouted.
“Yeah?” She poked her head into the room and he looked up at her.
“I need a drink,” he said, and he sounded miserable about it.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Okay, come on.” She held down a hand to Rush, and he took it, pulling himself to his feet.
“I’m sorry, bro, what did you need?” Sage asked.
“Was just telling you I was heading out.”
Sage got to his feet and hugged Rush tight, his own eyes glassing over.
“I love you, bro.”
“I love you, too, man.”
“Come on, baby,” Bailey said gently. “Let’s get you taken care of.”
Rush nodded, and Bailey smiled at me slightly and they left the room. I heard the back door close down the hall, out in the hub. I got the distinct impression that Rush was replacing his beloved alcohol with sex.
Sometim
es… any port in a storm.
“Fuck, I fucked that up,” Sage said with a reckless grin. “Sometimes I feel like I fuck everything up despite my best intentions,” he said.
“Come here,” I whispered, and he did, sitting back down on the floor and turning around, laying back, his head in my lap. I brushed my fingers through his damp hair and sighed.
“Like what?” I asked. “What have you fucked up?”
“You,” he said softly and I could see it cost him.
“You haven’t fucked me up,” I said with a charmed smile. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but how much and for how long have I ignored you?” he asked. “Treated you like something less than the incredible being you are?”
I felt my lips twist wryly.
“I wasn’t eighteen before,” I said. “Which, I get it, Sage. I do. You’ve known me all of my life. Your sister got with Nox and she was so young and, well, he wasn’t…” I faltered, sort of unsure where I was going with this, relishing the rise and fall of his well-muscled chest beneath my hand which rested warm on his soft tee. The feel of the silken strands of his hair between my fingers making my heart soar.
“I’m scared,” he said softly, sniffing. “Scared of loving someone, of loving you so much that…” he trailed off and closed his eyes and I felt my posture soften and ease in the face of his raw honesty. A little boy’s pain trapped in a man’s body. Ignored, unhealed.
Sage had been through so much, and while I hadn’t been around for all of it, I’d been in the background, heart breaking for him, for enough of it.
“It’s okay to be scared. You can’t have bravery without fear,” I reminded him, and he looked up at me.
“You don’t think I’m a punk-ass bitch?” he asked.
I shook my head and couldn’t fathom smiling at a moment like this.
How incredibly heartbreaking.
I wished sometimes that the MC life wasn’t so steeped in toxic masculinity, but it was sort of the nature of things. What got me was that most of the guys, older and younger alike, wouldn’t judge. A few, maybe, but a lot of them would understand.
I bent and placed my trembling lips against his and he sighed out, relaxing in my lap, his hand coming up to cup the side of my face gently as he returned the kiss.
