Her Pained Blue Silence

by A. J. Downey

  “What?” he demanded, and nearly choked on another swig of beer.

  “You heard me. Let’s all start out together. I don’t want or need you thinking anything stupid, like I’m going anywhere on you. It’s always been you and me; that shit isn’t changing.”

  “Shouldn’t you check with the little missus before making unilateral decisions like that?”

  I looked back to Everleigh and sighed. “You know, bro… she’s so generous, so kind, I don’t honestly think she’d have a problem with it. I know it’d make me feel a fuck of a lot better.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, for one, if we’re on opposite work schedules, it means she’ll be home with someone I know I can trust to protect her, rather than by herself.”

  “True dat,” he agreed.

  “You’d save money, we’d save money, and really, things only have to change up if you managed to get yourself a woman…”

  He snorted, “That’s the last thing I need.”

  “Eventually,” I said and he nodded.

  “Eventually, but right now, I think I’m cool with one new normal at a fuckin’ time.”

  “So you’ll think about it?” I asked.

  “As long as Bright Eyes is cool with it, or it’s what she wants, then yeah. Yeah, I’d do it.”

  “You just want unfettered access to some hot pussy,” Oz declared, knowing how we rolled. I laughed, and Driller finally did have beer come out his nose.

  “She says ‘No’ I don’t touch,” he said.

  I smiled, “Only reason I’d see her saying ‘No’ is if I weren’t home and she starts second-guessing herself, or me. She fuckin’ loves you, dude.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “But nothing like the way she loves you.”

  “That’s why she’s my girl and not our girl. You never know where life’s gonna take you, though.”

  Driller snorted and Oz shook his head, “You two fuckers are just too weird for me with the sharing shit.” He walked away and Driller and I traded a look and practically rolled our eyes at the same time.

  “Doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Driller declared.

  “Doesn’t have a homie that he’s tight with like we are,” I said.

  “Kind of sad for him when you put it that way.”

  “Right?”

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’m game if she’s game, but I need to hear it from her.”

  “That’s fair enough, bro. You coming back with us tonight?”

  “Nah, your first night having your woman in your bed; that should just be you two.”

  I snorted.

  “I ain’t slept in my own bed for so long, it probably isn’t even comfortable to me anymore.” I looked at Driller, who gave me a look in return, and I immediately went on the defensive. “What?” I demanded. “I can’t even remember what it feels like, it’s been so long!”

  He started cracking up and I rolled my eyes. Like seriously, he started laughing so hard he couldn’t even speak, wheezing out between gales of it, “You stupid.”

  The laughter was infectious and before long, I found myself laughing too, even though what we were laughing about was so fucking stupid.

  “You guys are fuckin’ ridiculous, man,” Oz declared, shaking his head. “Y’all ain’t even that drunk.”

  “Leave them alone, sensual chocolate,” Pasquale came to the rescue from over by Everleigh, who’d been delighted to see him again. “It’s probably stress and a whole lot of tired.” He cocked a hand against his narrow waist and arched one overdone eyebrow at Oz as if daring him to challenge him on it. Oz was too busy laughing himself, shaking his head, because unlike us, he was that drunk, which was rare for him.

  Everleigh drifted over and wrapped her arms around me, resting her chin on my chest and turning those luminous eyes up to me.

  “Hello, beautiful,” Driller said as I opened my mouth to say essentially the same thing.

  She smiled and said softly, “Hey, how are my handsome men?” I barely heard her over the din of the bar, but couldn’t help but smile when I made out her words.

  “We’re good,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Overwhelmed, but I’m good too.”

  “You ready to get out of here?” I asked.

  “You guys ready to take me?” she asked, and Driller and I exchanged a look.

  I winked at him and smiled down at her and said, “Sure are, babe. There’s something we want to ask you about…”

  She smiled a thousand-watt smile and nodded, “Then let’s go.”

  I was nervous about letting Everleigh into my apartment. I mean, it really was a piece of shit and I was kind of a minimalist. I didn’t have a whole lot of personal shit. There wasn’t any point, when I didn’t spend any real time here.

  I let her come in only after I swept the place and made sure there wasn’t anyone lurking, still on high alert. I was pretty sure it was just going to be ingrained habit, and considering our accomplishments, it was likely to be a good thing. You know what I mean?

  I left her in the care of Driller while I did my quick sweep and when I came back to the front door, my best friend was pouring on the charm, keeping my girl relaxed, and flirting like the pro at it he was.

  “Okay you two, get in the apartment,” I declared, and Everleigh burst into a fit of giggles at the face Driller made. He escorted my girl past me, his hands on her shoulders and I shut the door behind them and secured it.

  Everleigh stood at the foot of the bed and did a slow, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn to take the place in.

  “I can see why you want a house,” she said softly, and Driller and I exchanged a look. She picked up on it right away and froze, cocking her head to one side and asking, “What?”

  “Actually, we wanted to talk to you about that,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  I nodded slowly and went to her, resting my hands on her waist, pulling her close, smoothing my hands under her little jean jacket, over her dress, and feeling up her lithe body underneath it. Driller moved in to stand behind her and took her jacket from her, tossing it carelessly onto the foot of my bed. He smoothed his hands over her back, along her shoulders, digging his thumbs ever-so-slightly in between them.

  I smiled as Everleigh groaned in pleasure, her eyes slipping shut. I smiled at Driller, who winked at me and put his lips next to her ear.

  “How would you like this whenever you want it?” he murmured low and rough, teasing.

  “Mmm,” she hummed out happily with the notion as he placed his lips on the cap of her shoulder in a light butterfly kiss.

  “I would know you were safe.” I said, pitching my voice low, “even when I couldn’t be home.”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at me through her lashes, her pupils already dilating with desire as Driller deepened his attentions, kissing the erogenous zone on the side of her neck. I let my hands wander over the smooth cotton and rough embroidery of her little tank-dress and she let out a little breathy sound that immediately had my dick stirring behind the fly of my jeans.

  “I’d have my own room, separate from yours, so no pressure.”

  “Have a bad dream and I’m not there, you can go crawl in with Driller,” I murmured, kissing her softly.

  “It’d lessen the financial load on y’all and on me,” he murmured, cupping her breasts through the front of her dress.

  “You don’t have to seduce me into thinking this is a good idea, you know,” she whispered, and we both laughed while I captured her mouth and Driller unzipped her dress to kiss down her back.

  Loving her between us had become so damn easy, and she’d gotten better at trusting and feeling us both out. I was sure with time and clear communication, this would work for the three of us well. I was glad that she seemed open to the idea of the three of us living together, and admittedly, it took a load off my heart, knowing that she would be good if I had to be away.

  She fell so naturally into our arms, fit so beau
tifully between us, it made my heart heavy with joy, made it ache and hurt so good with happiness, the peace it brought me a soothing, calming balm to my soul.

  Even without a roof over our heads, the future was bright, held happiness and hope, and for Everleigh, it had been a long time coming.

  A long time coming.

  29

  Everleigh…

  I straightened with the frame for the hive I was working on in my hands. Chrissy had spoken to Golden’s girlfriend, Lys, about me and Lys had used several of her connections through her florist business to find me a beekeeping job. It was in the city, too, at the university-run conservatory in Hilltop Park. The big, old, glass building was full of growing plants from all over the world that needed pollination, and they needed an experienced beekeeper for their six hives.

  Lys had managed to get me an interview, which really consisted of me proving I had the necessary skills and that I knew what I was doing, which I had, three weeks ago.

  Things were far from perfect. Narcos was on suspension for his relationship with me, and could potentially be fired. Driller was also facing disciplinary action for his conduct surrounding his refusal to tell his higher-ups where we were at at any given time throughout the whole debacle.

  As it turns out, his hunch was correct on that. The Knights of Crescentia had gladly given up their contact inside the Indigo City police department. It had actually turned out to be a small group of somebodies, all of them in Narcotics. One of them was Driller and Narcos’ very own Captain.

  They were still trying to decide what to do with Narcos, considering it was the same Captain that had put him on disciplinary suspension without pay to begin with. Narcos was working with the police officer’s union to mitigate the damage, but the whole thing was one big, giant mess.

  The only positive it afforded any of us was that he had the time off he needed to go house-hunting.

  His lease had come up on his apartment, and we had moved everything temporarily, to his storage unit and were staying in Driller’s slightly larger apartment for the time being. I found it to be stifling, though, with the apartment’s lack of windows and light, though I wouldn’t admit it to either one of my lovers. Still, Narcos knew, and he also knew that if it hadn’t been for this job, with its green growing things and my ability to be outdoors flitting from greenhouse to greenhouse, I probably would have gone completely batshit insane by now.

  The sound of a motorcycle pulling through the park caused such a confusing mix of apprehension and excitement in me that my stomach lurched, yet I maintained my focus on what I was doing, lest I injure any of the bees I’d been charged with caring for. When it was safe to do so, I straightened and looked around.

  “Everything okay, Evy?” Professor Donnell, an older, thin man with round spectacles who reminded me of Captain Picard from the Star Trek series, eyed me from behind his beekeeper’s mask. He wore the full suit while I just kept to my self-made beekeeper’s hat. I lifted the thin veil of gauzy material back over the brim of the straw hat I’d affixed it to with my careful stitching and smiled precariously, nodding.

  He didn’t know anything about where I’d come from, and I preferred it that way. I felt the knot of apprehension loosen in my chest when Driller popped up over the slight grassy hill that separated the area we kept the beehives in from the park’s driveway back to the greenhouses where we did the growing, which were much different from the big greenhouse where we kept the plants on display.

  “Oh, dear,” Professor Donnell said, following my gaze. The sappy smile slid off my face and I waved Driller off. He stopped a ways away while the Professor explained.

  “Please do be patient with us, I’d hate for you to get stung!” he called out to him.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Driller called back, and then hung back while the Professor and I finished up reassembling the hive from our check.

  When our work was done, a matter of twenty minutes or so, I forged across the grass, my full skirt brushing along the perfectly-mowed top of it and went to Driller, giving him a hug.

  “You knew I was coming, right?” he asked.

  “Of course I did, I just wanted to finish what I was doing and help out as long as possible.”

  He smiled warmly and kissed the top of my head, giving me an extra squeeze.

  “You all good, Doc?” he asked. “If so, we got a house to go look at!”

  The professor pushed his glasses up on his nose, the fringe of his hair sweat-soaked and sticking up at odd angles from his scalp and I was glad I skipped the hot, heavy, beekeeping suits in favor of my cooler, lighter ensemble.

  “Oh, yes, our work is finished. You two have fun!” he called.

  I rolled my eyes slightly.

  House hunting was proving to be difficult. We just hadn’t found anything that suited us yet. It wasn’t like we were being overly picky, it was just that we knew what we wanted and the right place with the right feel at the right price hadn’t come along yet. It was like the things we wanted were at each point of a triangle and everything we had looked at so far only had two.

  Driller walked with me to one of the greenhouses, where I kept my things, an arm around my shoulders as he asked about my day. I answered his questions, relaxed and comfortable with the close contact. I felt a little sad that while I was growing to love him a great deal, I just didn’t find myself in love with him the way I was with Narcos. While it bothered me a great deal sometimes, it didn’t seem to faze Driller in the slightest, which was something I was eternally grateful for. In fact, he was so laid back and easygoing about it, I almost wondered if he were really human and not some sort of angel, sometimes.

  “You doing okay?” he asked, leaning against the inside of the doorframe as I hung my beekeeper’s hat on an exposed nail.

  I smiled and nodded, “Of course, why?”

  “You looked, I dunno, almost sad there for a second.”

  I sighed, then spoke my mind, something both Narcos and Driller had been encouraging me to do more of.

  “Sometimes I worry about you,” I murmured. “I feel, I don’t know… guilty.”

  He smiled and it was a good smile, before he pushed off where he rested his shoulder and came to me. He paused in front of me and caressed my face lightly with the back of his knuckles.

  “You love me, don’t you?” he asked.

  I nodded, “I do…” I trailed off, trying to figure out how to tell him in a way that wasn’t quite so brutally honest, but he winked at me, and I think he knew in his own way.

  “That makes me feel pretty good, Bright Eyes.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, and I knew it held an edge of melancholy.

  “Considering how in love you are with my best friend, the fact you’ve got any room for me left in that big ol’ heart of yours… I’ll gladly count that among my blessings,” he murmured.

  I smiled and bowed my head and said carefully, “Someday you’re going to make some woman very happy, the way Narcos makes me happy.”

  He tipped my chin lightly with his fingertips and his eyes were serious when they met mine.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am for the both of you, baby. What you two built in the face of all that fucking bullshit? Well it’s a goddamn miracle and it couldn’t happen to two better people. I’m grateful that you two make room for me in the face of it all.”

  I smiled, happy tears threatening, and hugged him tight. He laughed and hugged me back, saying “Right, can we drop the heavy emo shit for now and get going? Your man is waiting for us.”

  I laughed and nodded stepping back and said, “Sure.”

  “Oh,” he said, and I turned from taking up my purse, my eyebrows going up. “In case you were wondering, I love you, too, girl.”

  I smiled and laughed lightly and he reached out; I stepped past him and he put a hand on my back, a comforting, gentlemanly gesture and let me lead us out the doorway.

  The ride to wherever this new house was was freeing. The wind therapy blew
away some of the cobwebs and cares. We went over the bay bridge, which was always one of my most favorite rides to embark on. Nothing but water stretching out wide, and the road rushing beneath the bike’s tires, the wind washing over me, my fears and doubts left to drown in the bay.

  Driller was a little more of an adventurous rider than Narcos, gunning the engine, going faster than my beloved, less concerned when I wrapped my legs around him and threw my arms wide, tipping my face into the sun. The laughter he sent flying behind him hit me full-on in my soul and I felt as bright on the inside as the summer afternoon sun shining down on my face.

  The salty air whipped past us, and I put my arms back around Driller, cuddling against his back, the Indigo Knights colors rough against my cheek but in an undeniably comforting way.

  When I’d first hooked up with the Steel Wraiths, Sledge had told me everything about how an MC was supposed to operate, about the principles they held dear, about brotherhood, about family, about how it was supposed to be you and your brothers standing against all comers, protecting what was yours and living life on your own terms.

  It had sounded beautiful, and freeing, and I had wanted to believe that it could really be that way, but I quickly realized that the outlaw life? It was simply trading one ‘man’ for another. Instead of government ruling over them all, putting them in shackles, in chains, they had worn chains of their own making, shackled themselves to a life with no roots, dooming themselves to a life of constant running, constant kowtowing to men stronger than themselves.

  They’d turned themselves into animals, fighting for scraps from the president’s table, stabbing each other in the back, cutting each other’s throats to rise in the ranks, shitting on anyone lower than themselves in the hierarchy just to make themselves feel better.

  It wasn’t even a bastardized version of what it was supposed to be, but all of them were so focused on themselves they couldn’t see how their chosen leaders kept their boots on their necks, kept them down in the ranks while they laughed at the gladiatorial show the members put on while they feasted.