Dream Maker

by Kristen Ashley

  I liked her, a lot.

  But I’d never let her in.

  I’d never really let anyone in.

  I was too busy trying to win my fucking family.

  What I’d done was drag her and her man into a mess where their friend got shot.

  Shot!

  And I owed it to her to give her what it was clear she wanted to do in that moment.

  I just didn’t have it in me.

  “Lottie—”

  I should have known that she’d be stronger than me and not easily put off.

  “I’ve seen this before,” she declared.

  “I really can’t—”

  “You’re at a place where your primary instinct is to let them win because that’s been your go-to all your life.”

  I shut my mouth.

  She kept talking.

  “You’re at a place where you’re gonna let them continue to control the thoughts in your head and the decisions you make for your life. And this next is gonna be harsh, but I’m not gonna apologize for that because I’m sensing this is a crucial moment where you’re gonna make a decision that’s gonna define the rest of your life and you need to make the right one. So here it is. From the time you became an independent adult, all that is on you.”

  I sat completely still, struck, even stung, but deep down I sensed it was a hurt I had to feel, and I let myself feel it as I stared at her.

  “I’ve been watching you and how you hold yourself apart,” she went on. “You’re interested in people. You’re the first to offer if someone needs something. But they drilled it in your head for so long that you’re unworthy, and it hurt so bad, you protected yourself from maybe finding out what they convinced you is true out in a world without them. And I get it. That kind of conditioning is hard to shake. But if you think for even a second on it, you scared the piss out of them.”

  I did?

  “What?” I whispered.

  “You’re pretty and you’re sweet and you’re funny and you explained what a transistor was to your dad when you were six. You were better than him when you were six. And he didn’t see that as something to be proud of. He didn’t see that as something to nurture. He didn’t stop at nothing to forge the path for you to find the you that you were born to be. Your mother failed at the same thing and did worse. Your brother fuckin’ hated all you were because he was already small, and you made him feel smaller. And they all made moves to hold you down. They made moves to make sure you didn’t understand your gifts and how beautiful they are. They made sure to minimize you so you wouldn’t reach your full potential, because if you did, you might see what wastes of space they all allow themselves to be. And as a kid, you got no defense. But Evan, as an adult, that’s a different story.”

  When she stopped talking, I realized how heavily I was breathing.

  She started talking again.

  “Now I see you sitting here, letting them twist shit in your head. Talking yourself into seeing all that’s going down as on you. When you did one thing. You made a tough decision. Look after your brother and get mired in shit or don’t look after your brother and mire someone you love in shit. There was no right decision to that, Evan. You didn’t make the wrong one. You just made a decision. And you’d be in a place right now, beating yourself up, no matter which way that swung, and he put you there. You should not have had to make any decision at all. Do not take that on. Do not let him take away any more of what you fought to have.”

  She reached out and took my hand in a firm grip.

  And she kept going.

  “I know you were sitting here, planning to bolt. Planning that, when I heard you today, gabbing with your girls in your bedroom about shoes. I saw a man who digs you sorting through your vinyl, smiling at himself because you like Metallica. I saw the Evan and the life she had that was meant to be. Not a single fucking soul in this room, or out of it, outside members of your family, are pissed at you about what’s going down. What we’d be pissed about is if you bolt.”

  “Danny got shot,” I whispered.

  “Yes, he did, and he survived, and I’ll tell you right now, you got a battle on your hands and it’s not what you think. The battle you got is that he allowed that man to get to you and he’s killing himself right now he let that happen. Now you got a real important decision to make. You can give in, let them win, or you can fight for what you deserve. You can take off and leave Mag where he’s at in his head right now, or you can be here and stand strong for your man. What’s it gonna be, Evan? What really makes you? Who really are you? What life do you really want to lead?”

  “I wanna get my degree,” I told her quietly. “I want to stop stripping. I want friends to go to movies with. I want a life not defined by my family.” I pulled in a breath and said, “I want Danny.”

  She shook my hand. “Then fight for that.”

  I felt something weird, like an electric hum, skating up my spine.

  “You want Mag, so you understand all there is to have if you have him,” she continued. “Nikki wanted him too. It’s Mag’s to tell you and I’d normally let him do that, but I can’t now. Both of your futures are at stake.”

  I thought I’d been listening closely.

  But now that she was talking about Mag, my ears hurt, I was listening so hard.

  “He’s shared,” she told me. “Mo’s shared. She loved him. She wanted a life with him. She also wanted to dictate what that life would be and made a faulty play for the purpose of protecting what they had. She wanted Mag to quit his job and do something less dangerous. In other words, she demanded that Mag not be Mag. Which means, in the end, she didn’t love Mag. Not more than she loved herself. And there’s one single thing I’ll give to your family. They taught you, if you love someone, you let them be who they are.”

  She squeezed my hand tight, didn’t let go and didn’t stop talking.

  “That is why I chose you for Mag. And I think the world of you, Evie, but it would disappoint the fuck out of me you gave him a hint he could lay his hands on something that beautiful and then took it away.”

  “I need your sister to ask her husband to find a way to get me in to see Mick,” I blurted.

  Her head twitched and she asked, “Say what?”

  “I need Jet to ask Eddie to find a way to get me in to see Mick.”

  Slowly, she smiled.

  “And I need my phone,” I went on.

  But since I could get my phone myself, I got up and found it.

  Mag

  Mag walked with Boone into the office suite with his arm in a sling, a bottle of painkillers in his pocket and a need to kill somebody.

  He looked right immediately, toward the wall of windows beyond which was the conference room, and saw Hawk was not fucking around.

  Tack was there, as was his son, Rush, who had taken over from Tack as president of the Chaos MC.

  Brock and Mitch were there too, as was Lee Nightingale and his right-hand man, Luke Stark.

  Axl and Auggie were in the room, Mo was standing outside.

  “Evie okay?” he asked Mo.

  “Hangin’ at your place. Tex and Dutch are on her inside and Rush’s got Joker and Jagger keeping watch outside.”

  As Mo was saying this, Hawk joined them.

  “A word, Mag,” Hawk said low, then walked up the steps and out of view of the conference room.

  Mag followed.

  When he stopped, Mag stopped with him and immediately said, “I’m good.”

  “No, you’re not,” Hawk replied.

  “You gotta know, you can’t take me off this, Hawk,” Mag told him.

  “I’m not gonna take you off this, Mag. I’m gonna tell you, your mind doesn’t work like theirs.”

  Mag didn’t know what to say because he didn’t know what Hawk was trying to say.

  Hawk explained.

  “You can think you got everything covered, but you don’t got in you the dark they got in them so you can’t ever know what they’re gonna pull.” />
  Now, he understood.

  He just didn’t agree.

  “I was vacuuming, Hawk.”

  “You were armed. You had Evie and her girls working in the back, so you were her line of defense. And you couldn’t begin to think some jackass would open fire on a Saturday afternoon in an apartment complex in Platt Park.”

  “I should have been prepared.”

  “You were.”

  “He got the drop on me.”

  “He got a lucky shot in, and if he didn’t have that luck, he’d be handcuffed to a hospital bed. That’s not the way it went down and you gotta shake that off so you can have your head in the game.”

  It sometimes seriously fucking sucked when Hawk went guru.

  Hawk got close. “You know, Mag. You’re pissed and kicking yourself in the ass, and I’ll tell you, I’d be the same. Feel that and set it aside. Get outta that headspace, because you know. You know it’s not the measure of a soldier the battle he finds himself in or the chaos that becomes of that battle. It’s how he comports himself in it. I’d say don’t let me down. I’d say don’t let Evie down. But what’s important here is you not letting your emotion get the better of you and letting yourself down.”

  They locked eyes and they did it a long time.

  Mag broke it by nodding.

  Hawk nodded back and carried on.

  “Goes without sayin’, Brock and Mitch are all kinds of interested in finding the gun that killed their brother and linking it to Cisco. That guy’s off the street, his operation in disarray will be a big win for the DPD, not to mention the citizens of Denver. So it’s done clean, they want this punted solely to them and I’m of a mind to agree.”

  Mag opened his mouth.

  Hawk lifted a hand.

  Mag shut his mouth and ground his teeth.

  “It’s theirs. This is their brother, think on that,” Hawk said quietly.

  Fuck.

  Again, he was right.

  “That said, the cops are not gonna turn down some friendlies having their ears to the ground. And word has to get out that Evie has nothin’ to do with this. But Brock and Mitch don’t have to know how close to the ground we’re gonna get to have our ears to it.”

  And finally, Mag’s bad mood started lifting.

  Slowly, he grinned.

  Hawk’s lips twitched and then he said, “Let’s get in there.”

  Mag agreed by turning and walking down and into the conference room with his boss.

  Evie

  “Evie! Sunshine of my life! What’s shakin’?” Dad asked in my ear.

  “Well, my apartment was tossed on Wednesday,” I replied conversationally while pacing Mag’s condo with my phone to my ear and six pairs of eyes following my movements. “I lost nearly everything. And that bag of drugs was stolen from my car, after someone jacked my trunk to get to it. Oh! And today, I was kidnapped and the man I’m seeing was shot.”

  Dad was completely silent.

  I let that last for several beats before I continued.

  “You didn’t ask, but just so you know, Mag’s okay and so am I. I had to be rescued by a team of commandos who threw smoke bombs and also got shot at. But they saved me. After, you know, Snag tied me to a chair and hit me while he interrogated me.”

  “Evie, my darlin’,” Dad murmured, and I had to give it to him, he sounded mortified.

  But he said no more.

  “And Snag had some fun things to share while we were enjoying our time together, Dad. Including you and Mick being in a competition to be the worst drug dealer in Denver. Which leads me to ask, does the dispensary know you’re still dealing, Dad?”

  “Evan, now—”

  “No!” I snapped. “I was kidnapped at gunpoint today!”

  My father again fell silent.

  I did not return the favor.

  “Now, you get on your goddamned phone and you sit down with your loser friends and you share that I do not have that bag. I didn’t want that bag in the first place, but now it’s gone, and it’s got not one thing to do with me. You do that and you spread that wide and you ask them to keep that message rolling through the underbelly of Denver and I keep silent about your extracurricular activities so you can continue to hang with your brethren at the dispensary. You don’t do that, I’ve had occasion to meet a number of policemen during the Adventures of Evie this week. And I think they’ll be very intrigued to hear how my loving father makes his cash.”

  He assumed his not-oft-used stern fatherly tone.

  “Evan, listen to me—”

  I didn’t listen to him.

  I carried on lecturing.

  “And one last important note, your line of credit at the Bank of Evan Gardiner is closed. I need a new mattress and a new couch and new plates, but I also need to ascertain if Mag actually is into women wearing high heels, because if that leads to sexy times, I’ll consider it.”

  Before he could say a word, I disconnected.

  I then blocked his number, after which I scrolled up to my mother and hit go.

  She answered with, “I am not talking to you.”

  “Good,” I retorted. “Because I’m no longer listening to your abuse, but I have a few things to say.”

  “My what?” Her voice was rising.

  “I was kidnapped at gunpoint today, Mother.”

  Another moment of absolute silence.

  “I was tied to a chair, interrogated and hit,” I shared. “The man I’m seeing, a man I’ve come to care about a lot in a short period of time, was shot. He’s fine. He then went on with his friends to rescue me. But that was my day, the culmination of a week of having to deal with the shit that Mick landed me in.”

  “Jesus Christ,” she whispered.

  “Your son is a drug dealer, and if you choose to champion him regardless of the ridiculous and felonious decisions he makes about how he’s going to lead his life, then fine. That’s your choice. But I’m no longer going to bail him out and I’m no longer going to bail you out when you overspend and use me to continue lying to your husband. It is truth that betraying the trust of intimacy between spouses is the worst betrayal you can make. But sustained and deliberate lying is also the betrayal of intimacy spouses share, so I do not condone Rob fucking you over, but wake up, Mom. Not only did you start it, you keep doing the same.”

  With that, I hung up, and since she was already blocked, I didn’t have to complete that chore.

  So, I stopped pacing, stood there and stared unseeing in front of me, remembering my conversation with Mag while I was making us hamburgers.

  It had been on the tip of my tongue to ask him how you scraped off family that was bleeding you dry.

  At that time, I hadn’t been ready for his answer because that would lead to expected action and I wasn’t ready for that either.

  Now, apparently, I’d figured it out.

  And I didn’t know what to expect, but my hope was, it would make me feel free.

  It didn’t.

  It made me realize in a profound way what I did not have, all they’d taken from me, my complicity in that, and the fact those conversations were utterly no fun, and having them might just be the last thing they’d forced my hand to do.

  I felt something land on my head and I jumped.

  When I looked up and around, I saw it was Tex’s hand.

  “That wasn’t easy,” he low-boomed. “But you stuck to your guns. I’m proud of you, girl.”

  His words.

  Those words.

  No one had ever said them to me.

  And so, in hearing them for the first time at age twenty-seven, I couldn’t stop it.

  I burst out crying.

  But unlike the many times I’d done it before, the instant it started, I was engulfed in a bear hug that communicated caring, warmth and pride.

  Which made me cry even harder.

  Those arms didn’t loosen.

  My phone in my hand rang and they still didn’t loosen when I forced it between Tex and
me to look at the screen.

  It said “Stepdad Rob.”

  “It’s my stepdad,” I mumbled.

  “I think you’ve had enough for today, darlin’,” Tex advised in what I read as a Tex Gentle Tone. And I read that because it was kinda loud, but it rumbled in his chest in a way I just knew, if a baby was resting against that chest while he spoke in that voice, the noise would make no difference. That baby would be lulled right to sleep.

  I looked up at him. “I don’t think I should draw it out. I just want to have it done and move on.”

  “Your call, Evie,” he said.

  I nodded.

  He let me go.

  And, swiping carefully at my eyes with one hand (because I felt I had a shiner, maybe two), I took the call with the other.

  “Rob,” I greeted and didn’t let him get a word in, especially when I heard my mother wailing in the background. “No offense, but I said all that needed to be said to Mom.”

  “Okay, Evie, all right, sweetheart.” He was speaking fast. “But please don’t hang up because I don’t know what’s happening. She’s in a state like I’ve never seen and she’s sayin’ you been kidnapped and shot at?”

  “No. I was just kidnapped while cleaning up my apartment that was searched, nearly everything in it destroyed, and the man I’m seeing who was helping out, he wasn’t only shot at, he was shot. Through and through to the shoulder.”

  “Holy fuck,” Rob breathed out.

  “And I’m in a mood, so take this as you will, I wouldn’t normally get involved, but Mom knew. She knew my apartment had been destroyed and she didn’t give a fuck. She phoned me and hurled words at me, ticked I didn’t keep those drugs safe for Mick. They got them, after jacking up my car to steal them from my trunk. I’ll grant she couldn’t know that would move onward to me being kidnapped and Danny shot. But since Mick is a drug dealer and he involved me in his work, it isn’t a big surprise either.”

  “Did you know?” he asked, not me.

  “Is that her? Is that my Evie?” I heard Mom ask in the background. “Let me talk to her.”

  “Did you know about her apartment and those drugs being taken?” Rob pushed.

  “Let me talk to her, darlin’. I gotta know where she is. I gotta see with my own eyes my baby’s all right,” Mom pleaded.