“I’m sure.”
“The women are makin’ lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.” Shit. Did that sound disrespectful? “Thanks, though.”
Heavy sighs, low and long, and he shifts forward. If I didn’t know this man, I’d be shitting myself. He’s not the type you say no to without a second thought. Or a third and fourth. But what would I be hanging around for?
“If Forty’s busy, I can ask one of the prospects,” I suggest. Heavy probably wants all his soldiers at the clubhouse.
“No, no.” He shakes his great, shaggy head. “Forty and Wall will take you in the Hummer with the prospects riding front and rear.”
“That’s—” That’s too much. “I can drive myself if you’ll give me a loaner.”
Heavy snorts. “I like my face as pretty as it is. Ain’t sending Nickel’s old lady anywhere without a full escort.”
Old lady? Once upon a time my heart would have leapt from my chest. Now the words cut. “I’m not his…it’s…we’re not a thing.”
Heavy ignores me. “You know how I met your old man?”
I want to say again that Nickel’s not mine, but I’m scared of gainsaying Heavy again. I’ve never known him as anything but patient and kind to women, but I’d be really stupid not to know there’s a reason that men show their necks when he speaks. Even the biggest, baddest guys tread carefully around him.
So instead of saying anything, I shake my head.
“You know Harper?”
Everyone knows Harper. She’s Heavy’s older sister. The lawyer. The one who ran out Claudette, Dizzy’s first old lady, and my Ma’s friend Heather Tillage. She’s a dragon, and I steer clear.
I nod, but again, I don’t say anything. I have nothing nice to say.
“She was a good three years ahead of us in school, and she developed early, so by sixth grade, she was getting attention. She loved it. She had to pick me up and walk me home after school, and she just swished her ass the whole way.”
I can totally picture this. Harper has more body confidence than any woman I know, and I work with strippers and dancers.
“There was this dirty scrapper named John Kobald who walked the same direction as us until the intersection at Ford Avenue, but he wasn’t in my class, and I didn’t know him.”
I lean forward. I can’t help it. I been collecting pieces of Nickel forever it feels like. It’s not a habit I’m gonna break in an hour or a day.
“This one day, three middle schoolers—older kids, maybe eighth grade—decide to start hassling Harper, asking her to show them her tits. I’m in second grade. I was big, I always been big, but I knew I was about to get my ass handed to me. I buck, but before I can deliver, John Kobald is all over those guys, wreaking destruction upon them, rending them piece by piece, a mighty sword of vengeance. All sixty-fucking-pounds of him.”
A smile peeks through Heavy’s dense beard, and his eyes sparkle with the memory. He tells this story like he’s telling me something I don’t know, but this is Nickel Kobald. I studied him in school. I float to and from him on an invisible chain screwed into my heart. A flash of temper ruffles my feathers, and even though Nickel isn’t mine, I can’t help but speak. Heavy’s not the only one with stories.
“Remember Anders? Skinny guy, face tattoo?” I settle in. I got stories, too.
Heavy thinks a spell, and then nods, his eyes puzzled. “Ran that chicken shit out years ago.”
“He hooked up with Bullet’s ex. We were at a party up at Lake Patonquin. One of Bullet’s kids mouthed off to him. Something like ‘You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my dad.’ Anders backhanded the kid, and then Nickel broke the dude’s jaw.”
Heavy’s brow furrows. “I remember,” he says.
“Remember the time Wall fucked Angel in the kitchen, and she reached back not thinking, and touched the stove? How she screamed like she was dyin’ and stumbled out into the main room cradling her hand, Wall on her heels, hollering at her about common sense?”
Heavy shifts in his seat. I think he sees where I’m going now. “Nickel headbutted him,” he recalls. “Broke his own nose and Wall’s. Almost broke mine before we could get him to understand it was an accident.”
“Remember when he threw the Fat Boy at Creech?”
“What had he said again?”
“Creech was mad at Jo-Beth and called her a worthless whore in front of the whole clubhouse because she wouldn’t give him head for free.”
Heavy’s eyes have changed. They’re less kindly now, more assessing.
I raise my chin. “You don’t have to tell me stories about Nickel Kobald.”
“No. I don’t guess I do.” He appraises me for another minute before he speaks again. “Any old lady would tell you to get gone. Charge. Forty. Wall. They’d tell you the same.”
I know. When Nickel’s eyes went full black and his fist flew, my instinct was to run. Anyone faced with such sudden violence would be crazy not to be afraid.
“He scared the shit out of me,” I admit.
“He’s scared the shit out of me, too, once or twice. That shit he carries—it ain’t a joke.”
“What happened to him?” I know the basics, and at the end of the day, it won’t change anything, but a part of me will always crave any crumb of Nickel Kobald I can get.
“Not my story to tell.”
No. I guess not. I sigh, my body registering the fullness of the loss again. My joints hurt, and it’s not from the falls yesterday or the sex. It’s a deeper ache.
“To tell the truth, I don’t even know all of it.” Heavy sighs. “I saw the bruises and the broken bones and then the scars, and I guess I thought it’d break him eventually. Turn him mean. But of all the brothers I’ve rode with all these years, he’s the only one who hasn’t changed. He’s still a violent motherfucker, and he’s still got the purest heart I’ve ever seen.”
I know Heavy doesn’t mean them to hurt, but the words stab at my heart. Nickel won’t change. All the good he has in him doesn’t matter. In the end, the world didn’t need to break him. It convinced him he was hopelessly broken from the start.
Heavy must see the uselessness of it all, too, ‘cause after a long silence he heaves another sigh and calls a prospect to pull a car around.
I excuse myself, get my stuff and drag my duffle out front, sitting on it as I wait for the brothers to muster. I shift so my weight is on my ass cheek, my pussy still throbbing and raw from last night. I cling to each twinge, try to memorize the ache, knowing it’s the last hurt Nickel Kobald will ever give me.
Except the flattened heart.
That I think I’ll get to keep a long, long time.
CHAPTER 16
NICKEL
shes gone to her mothers
get ur ass bk now.
pussy.
Heavy ain’t wrong. One thing about when you turn tail and run? You can’t pretend you’re anything else but a coward.
I get back past midnight. I spent a day tryin’ to outride my demons, and I’m back where I started. The irony ain’t lost on me.
At the clubhouse, there’s a rager goin’ down. There’s already puke on the floor and tits out. I’m guessin’ Heavy’s moved the old ladies with kids out to his cabin. With all hands on deck, it’s no place for young’uns. You can’t coop bikers up in one place for days on end and not expect anarchy, even with a law-abiding club like ours is…more or less.
For sure, the gossips have been at it. All eyes are on me while I try to slip up to my bunk. Fay-Lee takes a few steps after me, pissed as hell, but Dizzy holds her back by that collar she wears. The brothers know me well enough to leave me be.
My ass is saddle sore, my guts are knotted to hell, but when I open the door and see the table and the candle and empty crates…a fresh pain slams me so hard I sag at the knees. No, not pain. Or not only pain. Loneliness, too. Regret. Shame.
What the fuck did I think I was doing? A card table? A folding chair? I’m such a fucking loser I can ha
rdly stand to wear my own skin.
I shrug out of my cut, lay it on the bed. Story made it before she left, even folded the sheets down like a hotel. Just to torture myself, I sit down and lay back. I can smell her, faint but there. Her lotion. The sweet tang of her pussy. The dried-up wet spot.
Halfway to Ohio, the ugly receded enough to let some rational thought back in. This morning, it wasn’t no emergency. Story ain’t a liar. She said she just got off the rag; that’s the truth. Of course, shit can always happen, but that’s nothing to the shit I cause all on my own.
I finally roll to face the wall by the door. The hole gapes, crumbling at the edges.If I had been a second slower. If I had swung a fraction to the right. I could have killed her.
I didn’t even mean to hit her. She walked into it by accident.
My face burns. There’s nothing I can do to make this right. Eventually, I force myself up, walk into the bathroom, and scrounge in the linen closet for a tub of joint compound and a putty knife. I find it behind the Comet and an economy pack of soap. There’s dust on the top. It’s been awhile.
Too long, it seems. When I get the tub open, it’s all dried up.
And suddenly it’s too much. I always got nervous energy running in my veins, but in this moment, it all seeps from me, like even the ugly can’t stand being part of me no more. I sink to a folding chair and hang my head, the weight of the world bearing down my shoulders.
I had everything. Right in this empty shithole. I had it all.
I don’t know how long I been sittin’ there when the door creaks open. Charge eases his head in, sportin’ the same pretty-boy grin I tried to punch off his pretty-boy face for months straight as a kid until Heavy made us be friends, and then later, brothers.
When he sees I ain’t gonna come after him, he comes in, carrying his own tub of joint compound, a putty knife, sand paper, and fiber glass tape.
“She safe?” I got no right to ask, considering. I know this, but still…
“Yeah. She’s at Sunny’s. We left Roosevelt and Wash there. Roosevelt’s off his feet, but he can shoot a gun if it comes to it.”
My fists clench.
“No reason to think it will,” Charge quickly adds. “They didn’t take Story at the bar. They don’t know she’s got value.”
Value? She’s the only perfect creature this world has ever made. Stubborn and patient and sweet and wide-eyed in every sense of the word. Suddenly my breath is crowded out by the sheer terror of all the things that could close those eyes. The Rebel Raiders. The wrong asshole walking through the door at The White Van.
Me.
“Oh, you got the drive-home look bad.” Charge chuckles, slapping the joint compound into my hand. “You’re doomed, my brother.”
I force myself to my feet and make for the wall. I’m an old pro at patches.
“What does that even mean?” I peel off the tub lid.
Charge sets down on the edge of the bed. I want to yell at him to get off; I don’t want Story’s scent replaced by man-sweat and beer, but he’d just double down and make snow angels in the sheets. Asshole.
“This one night, I’m drivin’ Kayla and Jimmy home. She’s leanin’ her head on the window, the boy’s asleep in the back, and all of a sudden it hit me like a truck.”
“What did?”
“That I’m only a man, and some higher power thought it’d be a good idea to give me two angels. And there was no way in the world I wasn’t gonna fuck it up somehow.”
“Did you?”
“Not as bad as you have, brother, but yes.” I shoot him a dirty look. He’s got his phone out, returning a text. “Sorry. Kayla needs me to pick up cupcake liners and Canola oil.”
This was the dude I did my first stint in county with? Hard to believe.
“She deserves better,” I say when he finally looks up. He knows I’m talkin’ about Story.
“Definitely.”
“Man, I—” The shame is so bitter it makes my mouth water. “I could have really hurt her.”
“Yeah, you could have.”
He watches me sand the dry wall.
“You know you’re shit at pep talks?” I jerk my head to the door. “Appreciate it and all, but I don’t need a heart-to-heart where you tell me what I already know.”
“No, you don’t.” Charge stands and brushes invisible dust off his thighs. “You need help.”
The words burn.
“Fuck you.” I turn my back.
“I don’t mean it that way.” Charge stops in the doorway, and he claps a hand on my shoulder, his face dead serious. “I love you, brother. You need help. You ever ready for it, I’m here. Heavy’s here. Forty. We got you.”
He leaves, and I didn’t think it was possible, but the coil in my guts is tighter; even the air is chafing my skin.
You need help.
What the fuck does that even mean? Some of Deb’s little white pills? Anger management? A shrink?
What? Am I going to tell some pencil neck in glasses how my dad and my brothers beat my Ma until she crawled so far up a needle she never came out? And then we turned our full attention on each other?
What’s that gonna do? Turn back time? Undo what I am? There ain’t no help for the past. Like Heavy would say, it’s immutable.
I shove it out of my head and finish up the patch job as careful as I can with the ugly pulsing in my brain.
There’s a war on, and Story’s out there in a fuckin’ subdivision, and I’m doin’ home repairs ‘cause I can’t control my-damn-self long enough to see her safe. And she’s with who? A dentist and two prospects, one beat to hell?
Ike saw her at the bar. What if he noticed her at The White Van, too? What if he puts two-and-two together, figures out she’s someone to Steel Bones?
She’s the club’s best dancer. All he’d have to do is describe her big eyes and blonde hair to any man in Petty’s Mill, and he’d get a name. Wouldn’t be hard after that to get an address. It’s a small town.
And I’m doin’ what? Sanding a patch? I drop the taping knife and grab my cut.
On my way out the front door, Heavy sees me and rolls his eyes. “Ain’t got any guys to bail you out if you find trouble,” he calls out.
“Don’t need none.”
It’s calmed down in the main room. Heavy must’ve sent brothers out to hunt Rebel Raiders. Get them at last call, all drunk and disoriented. It’s a smart move. Heavy’s a smart motherfucker.
I feel a twinge that I’m not riding with my brothers, but it passes quickly. I need to make sure Story’s okay.
My anchor is too far away, and like always, my body leads my mind, dragging me across town to the mansions on the hill. Gracy’s Corner. From down on the flats where I grew up, you can see the lights at night, a cluster of harsh white blocking out a patch of stars.
I call Harper from the Humvee when I’m a mile out. She’s got herself a big ol’ house on the hill. Used to share it with Charge before she put him out. Don’t know why she wants to live next door to civilians. She comes from the same place we do, but I guess she’s always had champagne tastes.
“The fuck, Nick?” Harper croaks when she finally picks up on the tenth ring.
“I need you to call the gate and tell them to let me in.”
“Not up for a nightcap tonight, Nickel.”
“What the fuck’s a nightcap?”
“It’s a—fuck. Doesn’t matter. What do you want?”
“I got business with the Dentist.”
There’s a pause and some rustling. A man grumbles, and Harper hushes him. Probably Des Wade. She’s takin’ a walk on the white-collar criminal side these days. Don’t know how Heavy stands it; the dude’s a douche.
Harper sniffs, and I hear a door shut and then the splatter of her peeing. “Bullshit. You got business with Sunny’s kid. What’s her name? Savvy? Cinnamon?”
“Story.”
“Yeah.” There’s a flush. “The one with the weird googly eyes.”
“Ain’t as weird as your long-ass monkey toes.”
“My toes are below average length, Nick. Just like your dick.”
“You gonna call the gate?” I know she will. She’s Steel Bones, even if she’s a raging bitch.
“Of course, little brother. I got you.” I think the call’s over, but right before I click off, she says, “Not my business, but—” She makes me wait. I don’t have to say nothin’. Harper don’t know how to hold her peace. Never has. “That girl’s too soft for you. She’s a kitten, and I don’t think you have any idea how tight your grip gets.”
It’s mostly the truth. And it riles the ugly. Damn but my friends are shit at pick-me-ups.
“I hear you, Harper. Call the gate.”
She does ‘cause I get no problems from the rent-a-cop in his shed when I pull up. This is what’s standing between Story and the Rebel Raiders? Some retiree with a walkie-talkie? Fuck.
I been to the Dentist’s a few times, oddly enough for dental work. Heavy made me get bridges when I started moonlighting as security for Steel Bones construction. Appearances don’t mean shit when you bounty hunt or crack skulls, but Heavy wants the legit businesses to look a certain way. Badass, but not broke.
The Dentist lives in the middle of a quiet street with houses down only one side. His place overlooks a field of tall grass with a drainage pond. From a security standpoint, I’m liking the houses all close together, but I don’t care for the empty lots across the street. The Dentist’s place is your standard McMansion. Big front windows low to the ground. Lots of shrubs impeding lines of sight. I can see at least three ways to scale to the second floor.
Unbelievable. The business the Dentist does, you’d think he’d have a better eye for home security. I pull to the side of the road across from the house, turn off the engine, and push the seat back. I ain’t bein’ subtle, but that’s the point. Anyone comes, I want them coming at me first.
I crack a window so I can hear if a car approaches, and I stare at the house. It’s almost three in the morning, and it’s mostly dark except for a room downstairs. I lean back on the headrest, and because it’s been a long forty-eight hours and my body’s sore and I’m runnin’ on fumes at this point, I can’t stop my mind from wandering where it shouldn’t go.
Nickel's Story: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Romance Page 15
