by Bourne, Lena
And one of them is a land deed signed about a couple of months after Ink left me. Something’s telling me this is what I came here to find. There’s no way I could know that, but I know it anyway. The deed is for the couple of hundred acres of property near where we want to build Euphoria. It’s for the piece of land we’ve never been able to get, which was the thing that stalled the project the most. No one told me we finally got the land, or maybe they did, but I wasn’t paying attention. The building permit my dad is so desperate to get is probably for this piece of land. I never cared all that much about the Euphoria project, and I always thought another mall is the last thing we need around here. But now I finally understand why my father wants to grease the commissioners so badly that he’s suggesting I whore myself out to Jerry to get the permit. The thought of that makes me even more nauseous than I already was.
The land was bought for $60,000 from Josephine Cooper—Ink’s mother.
My thoughts are whirlpooling again, but this time, they’re clear as day.
Ink left me in June. His father died in August. We buried him on August 15th. And in September, my father buys the land our family has coveted for generations from his widow.
That has to be connected. It can’t just be a coincidence. And I’m afraid, I’m sick with fear, that what Ink told me is the truth, yet not the whole truth. I don’t think my dad would kill anyone to keep me in the family. He doesn’t care about me enough, and I’ve always been more of a disappointment to him than anything else. But I think he might kill for land, and if I’m right, then I’m almost certain he’d kill for Euphoria.
Did Ink’s father die over a piece of worthless land?
No. It can’t be. And yet, it probably is.
The one person who could tell me more is Ink’s mom. I haven’t seen her much since the funeral, but I’ll go see her now.
I grab the deed, and the metal encased hard drive, close the safe and then practically run out of the office.
My father will know I was the one who took all this, but I probably have a couple of days, maybe even weeks or months before he realizes the deed is gone. I most likely have until the commissioners meeting next month.
Not that it matters very much. If he killed for that land, then I’ll make sure he answers for it long before then.
I’ll call Ink right after I speak with his mom.
I think I can try to start forgiving him now. It’s the only thing I want to do anyway.
* * *
Ink
A couple of guys are huddled together in front of the door to the clubhouse, standing much too close together and talking way too seriously to just be shooting the shit. They all stopped talking and looked my way once they heard me pull into the lot. Their gazes turned very dark, winter forest midnight dark, when they saw it was me.
“Is my uncle around?” I ask once I reach them, and they all grumble, but none of them are in any kind of hurry to answer my question.
I give them all a pointed look and am about to say something clever when Eagle, an older dude my dad was good friends with, clears his throat.
“What brings you back this way, Ink?” he asks, pointed like, his tone as sharp as a knife. He knew exactly why I had to leave and stay away for good, and he clearly thinks I shouldn’t have returned.
“I’m just stopping by, visiting family,” I answer just as pointedly, but not as sharply. I have no right to be too sharp with anyone, because I put us in the mess that killed my father, and, as unfair as that whole thing was, it was still me that landed us in it. And the Cooper boys, we don’t whine. It still sucks though.
“Butch ain't here, but your brother’s inside,” Eagle says in a different kind of tone. This one suggests I should get whatever business I have here over and done with quickly.
“Nice talking to you,” I say sarcastically and pass them.
The collective gasp that follows me once they see the back of my cut brings to mind a bunch of gossiping old ladies being shocked by something that’s none of their fucking business.
It’s pretty much the reaction I expect to get from everyone who sees me today, but I’m glad I wore it. Eagle was my dad’s friend and he almost told me to get lost. Others might not stop at just words. The Devil’s Nightmare MC colors will protect me.
Do I even deserve protection after the mess I caused?
I was supposed to stay gone for good. That was the final decision and I went along with it. Hell, it was my decision, since I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay in the same town as Julie and keep away from her. As it turned out, even being miles and miles away made me unable to stay away from her. I just can’t stay away, that’s why I’m back.
A couple of the club whores are hanging around, but save for Brittany who’s sitting over by the bar, I don’t recognize any of them. She gives me a lazy smile, and goes back to flipping through the fashion magazine open in front of her.
I was never particularly interested in the club women, because of how my mom, and by extension my dad, me and my brother, were treated. After I met and fell in love with Julie at seventeen, I barely even glanced at any of them. Brittney knows that, but the other two, a blond and a redhead, don’t. They’re smiling at me coyly, the friendliness in their faces in perfect contrast to the stark shock on my brother’s face as he notices me. He’s sitting with someone I don’t know, going over a ledger.
“Hey, Buzz,” I call out. “Do you have a minute?”
His face is still white with shock, but he nods and rises from his chair.
“Why not, little brother?” he says, and clears his throat to get the hoarseness out of his voice. “It’s been awhile.”
“It has.” I turn my back on him and head for one of the tables in a far, dark, empty corner of the room. I heard another gasp or two over my cut. One of them was from Buzz, I think, but I can’t be sure.
“You didn’t think to check-in before waltzing back into town, Ink?” Buzz asks as soon as we’re sitting at the table. The redhead woman comes over, carrying a couple of beers on a platter.
“I did think about it, but I figured it’d be a bad idea,” I say and drink some of my beer. “You’d just tell me to stay away.”
“I probably would’ve said that,” he says.
He’s two years older than me and I swear he’s aged ten years since I last saw him. Maybe it’s just the light in this place playing tricks on my eyes, but I think his hair’s turning grey.
“Which is why I didn’t call before coming,” I reply.
Buzz has always been hard to read. Growing up, I never could accurately predict when something would set him off. Most anything could set him off. In the end I stopped trying, I just prepared for it every time we spoke. He’s always looked out for me though, and we were close as brothers, but he was always hard on me too. This is him being hard, but not as hard as I remember. Or maybe I’ve grown harder too. Or maybe he’s just happy to see me. It’s hard to tell.
“You might’ve checked in with Ma from time to time. You know how she worries,” he says, catching me off-guard, and making me think things I’d rather not think ever again. I do know my mom worries, and I do know she’d have liked me to call her once in a while, but the black guilt over what happened to Dad made it impossible for me to talk to her. She doesn’t blame me for his death, she told me so more than once the last time we spoke, but the truth is, she should. It was my fault and there’s nothing I can do to atone for it.
“Why are you here now?” he asks when I don’t say anything for a couple of moments.
“I came to get Julie back,” I say and this time he does gasp, no doubt about it.
“You’re fucking kidding me!” he says, color rising in his cheeks. He’s just about ready to blow, and a part of me always reacts with fear to that. It’s muscle memory from a time when I was much smaller than him, but now that fear is less than a bleep in the back of my mind.
“No, Buzz,” I say. “I’ve made my choice. Nothing connects me to the club anym
ore, and if Bullard decides to mess with me again, he’s not messing with you this time. He’s messing with me and Devil’s Nightmare MC.”
He knows what I’m saying makes perfect sense, but that’s not softening that angry glower on his face, which is already turning dark purple. A moment later he starts having trouble drawing a full breath. He’s about to blow and it won’t be pretty. There’s a year of no contact, plus our father’s death bottled up between us, not to mention my unexpected and unwanted return to town.
“Are we a joke to you? Do you really think this is something you can just decide to do, after everything that’s happened?” he says, growing more and more breathless and incoherent by the word.
Clearly, I do think it’s my decision to make, else I wouldn’t be here. I let my eyes do the talking, because it’s my experience that answering these breathless questions of his never leads to him calming down.
“They fucking tore through us after Dad died,” he says and now I’m the one gasping like an old woman. He grins at me, because my shock must be showing on my face. “Yeah, you didn’t know. You didn’t know because you never bothered to check in. We lost fifteen brothers—”
“That’s not on me,” I say. “I fucking left. I did what they told me to do. I broke Julie’s heart and I never even told her why, I just fucking bolted and never looked back on my way out of town. I lost my father too, and I left everything I had behind so something like that wouldn’t happen. It’s not on me.”
“You did know?” my brother asks in a shocked voice. “You knew about the brothers that fell to the Sinners?”
I wish I could deny it, I really do. But I found out about those deaths right after it happened, and I did blame myself for them just like Buzz is doing now. That was the final straw that sent me looking for my death in the fight that saved Ace’s life and brought me to the Devils.
“I did what they wanted. I left. Those killings shouldn’t be on me,” I mutter, but it’s a sorry excuse. It’s the only one I have though.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” my brother says, and I’m fairly certain he does actually agree with me.
“But I’m one of the few around here that thinks so,” he continues more harshly. “Most of the brothers won’t be happy to see you strutting around, wearing your new colors loud and proud, thinking they make you bulletproof.”
I shrug as he pauses. “They kinda do though.”
He shakes his head and scoffs. “You’re probably right. But some of the guys aren’t gonna care, and the last thing we need is a fight with the Devils.” His eyes lose the anger and I’m not sure what to call the thing I see in them now. Love? “It’s good to see you doing so well, and I’m glad you made a life for yourself. But you can’t start stirring up old shit around here.”
He could always lay it on thick.
“I’m gonna get Julie back,” I say. “And the Devils will back me up.”
I leave the part about them going after anyone who touches me unspoken. They would, it’s the way of such things, and we both know that. Although, given that I disobeyed Cross’ order, they also might not. But that’s not something I’m ready to tell my brother.
He nods slowly then finishes his beer and stands up. “Go see Ma now. She’ll wanna spend time with you before Butch kicks you out of town again. I’m going on a run with him now, and I’ll give him the happy news of your return while we’re at it.”
My uncle Butch can’t actually kick me out of anywhere anymore, nor ever could, but he did and he’s gonna do it again, because that’s the kind of guy he is.
“I’ll come by Ma’s house later. We can talk more then,” he says, and it kinda sounds like he’s really looking forward to it.
The purple is gone from his face, and the breathlessness that I figured would be an angry explosion of nuclear proportions dissipated into nothing. I never saw that happen with my brother before. I guess regret and mourning could be the reason for his cooler temper. Just another thing I can add to the pile of guilt I gotta wade through.
It’s all unfair. But us Coopers, we don’t whine. That includes my mom. She’s bound to be pissed that I haven’t called her in almost a year, and she’s gonna let me know just how much. But she won’t cry or whine, and for the most part, she’ll just be happy to see me. That’s one bright spot amid the mess my homecoming is causing.
6
Ink
I never really completely moved out of my parents’ house before I left my hometown for good, but this still doesn’t feel quite like homecoming. The house looks the same as it always did, the off-white paint on the outside paneling peeling and cracked in places, but not overmuch. It could use a new coat of paint, and I suppose my brother does these kinds of things around the house now that dad’s gone. My mom was always very house proud, and it seems that hasn’t changed now that dad’s not around to do the harder work. The grass in the front yard is short and brown, but that’s from the heat and drought, not neglect. The bushes lining the driveway and the porch are neatly trimmed, some even blooming. She always planted stuff that was native to the area and accustomed to the lack of water in the soil. I remember that because she used to go on and on about it. Everything is picture-perfect and just so. Like always. It feels like I never left. But I did leave, and she doesn’t look much happier about it than she was on the day of my departure.
She’s standing in the open doorway on the porch, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. She must’ve heard my bike approaching and came out to see who it was, or maybe my brother told her I was coming. Either way, she’s watching me walk up to the house now. She’s wearing a pair of cut-off jean hot pants and a white tank top—an outfit that still looks better on her than it does on a lot of twenty-five year olds even though she’s almost fifty-five.
“You look good, Ma,” I tell her once I reach her. It’s the truth, but she did age in the last year, just like my brother did. She’s still a beautiful woman though.
“Thank you, Ryan,” she says and steps aside so I can enter the house. “Welcome home.”
No one’s called me by my real name in a long time—most of the Devils don’t even know it. It’s fitting that my mother’s the one using it for the first time in this long, I guess. But what it really means is that she’s pissed.
“I should’ve called from time to time,” I say to her back as she leads the way to the kitchen.
She doesn’t say anything, just kind of freezes at the kitchen counter with her back to me. The house looks different. The entire living room is brand new, and my dad’s leather armchair, which was old when I was younger is gone. Seeing that, it really hits me that he’s gone too, forever, it hits me right in the chest and deep too.
Mom rounds on me and her mascara is smudged, even though she never cries and there’s no trace of tears on her cheeks now. “Yeah, you might’ve called your Ma from time to time. That would’ve been nice.”
I shrug. “Would it have made a difference though?”
I couldn’t face thinking about “back home” for a long time after I left, and I was drunk for most of that time. Once I sobered up and got back on my feet, it all seemed like another life, one I didn’t want to poke around in too much, because it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.
She comes towards me real fast, and for a second I think she’s gonna slap me, but she hugs me instead, burying her face in my chest. I wrap my arms around her too, but it feels odd. My mom’s not affectionate like this, I only got a couple of hugs from her after I turned ten or so. She isn’t cold, but she’s not all lovey and touchy-feely either. The only times we hug and kiss is on birthdays and Christmas. Or after we’ve been apart for a long time, I guess. But that’s never happened before I left. I put my arms around her too and squeeze her tight.
“It’s OK, Ryan. You might’ve let me know you were alive from time to time, but I understand,” she says once she releases me. “You couldn’t call. It’s hard to know what to say when there’s nothing to say.”
&
nbsp; She’s saying what I’ve been thinking this whole time. Me and my mom always understood each other this way, but I fucking should’ve known what to say. And I feel real guilty over making her worry for my life, especially since she was so right to worry for a while.
I go over to the sink and pour myself a glass of water, because I still don’t know what to say.
“Are you hungry? Want me to make you a sandwich?” she asks, already holding the fridge door open.
I shrug. “Sure.”
I have absolutely no appetite, but she’s gonna make me a sandwich whatever I say, so I just go along with it, sit at the table and watch her do it.
I still don’t know what to say.
“Here you go,” she says as she places a plate in front of me, then sits down at the table too. She made me a ham and cheese sandwich without too much lettuce, and mustard instead of mayo, just the way I like it. She remembers. Then again, why the hell wouldn’t she? She’s only not been making me sandwiches for the last year or so.
“I’m sorry for everything,” I finally say. “I wish it worked out different. I’m sorry about Dad.”
She nods slowly and pulls her pack of cigarettes to her, lighting one.
“I know you are,” she says as she blows out the smoke away from me. “But none of that was actually your fault.”
I chuckle sarcastically. “Sure it wasn’t. Then whose fault was it?”
“You didn’t stab him, you didn’t leave him by the side of the road to bleed out, you didn’t cause him to get sepsis at the hospital,” she says. Every one of those details of my father’s death hits me like an oversized shard of broken glass straight to the chest.
My mother always, always tells it like it is. She was never afraid to look right into the heart of anything bad, see it clearly and not cry about it. I sometimes wish I inherited that ability from her—like right now, I seriously wish that—but I didn’t.
“I did what I could, but it wasn’t enough,” I say, thinking of all those guys that died after I left too.
