by Brook Wilder
I lead them inside. Though it’s a double wide, between the tubs and the number of people in here, we’re a little cramped.
“Sorry about the space,” I say. “I started getting all of this together last night and started working on the rest this morning, but there’s still some that I needed to get together.” A thought occurs to me. “But if this is too much, then I can…”
“Pack everything you want to take with you,” James says. He’s already got one of my tubs in his arms, carting it out the door. “I told you I had space.”
I watch him lug the tub, stuffed full of clothing, to the pick-up truck where he slides it effortlessly into the back. When he turns he catches my eyes, and I avert them so he doesn’t think I’m staring. He comes back into the trailer, and I swear there’s a little smile on his face.
“Alright. Why don’t Abel and Dom help you and I get everything loaded? I think we’ll only need to make one trip between here and the house.”
We work well like that. Abel and Dom are eager to help, Dom being more energetic and Abel more reserved. All my clothes already in the tubs, I start getting personal things out of the bathroom while Abel and Dom work on the kitchen.
“Whoa, she has so many cooking things,” I hear Abel comment. “Hey, Lena, were you planning on bringing all this stuff with you?”
I know that he’s referring to the large collection of pots, pans, and utensils that I’ve collected over the years. While I’m no chef, I do like to cook most of my meals. I peek my head out from my bedroom.
“Uhm. If it’s alright with James. I don’t want to overcrowd his kitchen.”
Dom snorts.
“You say that like James cooks anything at home.”
“Shut up, Dom.” James nudges Dom, playfully even. “I cook.”
“Ramen noodles and TV dinners aren’t cooking, James.”
“Says who?”
I can’t help it. I laugh. James and Dom look over at me, and there’s a bit of surprise in James’ eyes. It occurs to me that I’ve never laughed in front of him. I wonder if it sounds weird; I haven’t laughed in general in a while.
He offers me a small smile.
“You cook a lot, then?”
“Most of the time, yeah. I don’t really like take out.”
“Hm…” He gives a look around my kitchen, and then nods. “Sure. We’ll load all this up, too. Make sure you’ll be comfortable while you’re at my place.”
An hour or so later, there’s several tubs loaded in the back of James’ truck. We didn’t pack away any of my furniture, for obvious reasons. Not only would they not fit in the truck, according to James he had an extra room already furnished, with plenty of space for everything that I was bringing. Here and there, during the hour of packing, people in the park venture out of their trailers to see up close what exactly we are doing, to eye us with nosy glances, and then leaving or talking among themselves. I ignored them; I knew that having James and Dom as well as Sheriff Miller around meant that no one here would want to poke the bear (pun intended.) And with Marc thinking this was all a part of the master plan to help him, he wasn’t going to send anyone my way to try and stop them.
As I look through my trailer, I go through my head to check if there’s anything that I’m missing. Aside from my photo albums, maybe a few books, there’s nothing too sentimental that I have to make sure I bring. I could probably live with leaving everything behind and starting over fresh—or pretending to do so.
“You alright, Lena?”
Dom and Sheriff Miller stand outside, waiting. James comes up beside me, though, looking at my trailer too. What does he see? A young girl who has made a mistake, trying to start new? Or does he see something pitiable, and pathetic? I know the northside of the city, the side the Grizzlies rule, is a lot better off in a lot of ways than this one. I wonder if he thinks I’m destitute.
“Lena?”
I realize that I never answered. I shrug.
“Just thinking,” I say. “I’ve lived here a lot of years. Gone through a lot with the Vipers in those years, too. I guess I always just assumed I’d be here forever. It’s strange to be getting out of it.”
James nods. “I get that. Is there… anyone you want to call? See? I can’t say that we’re gonna be riding through here for visits, ya know.”
I shake my head. I could say goodbye to the girls down at the Snake Pit, but I think that would be particularly cruel of me to do. I care about them and, in the weeks, months, that I’ll be with James, I’ll worry about them and miss them. But they’ll carry on without me.
“I don’t really have any friends,” I say. “We Viper girls tend to be loners when it comes down to it. It’s easier.”
“I see. Well-uh- let’s get going.”
We head over to his truck. He surprises me by opening the door for me, even taking my hand in his hold to help me up into the huge thing.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
It’s strange to me how casual his help is. He doesn’t seem put off by it, never complained about loading up the truck. He insisted that I didn’t even lift any of the tubs that I loaded. He’s so… uncommon.
“You can choose the music,” he says, flicking on the radio.
It settles on a rock station; I decide to leave it.
“Abel and Dom seem like nice people,” I say.
It’s the truth, but I need to probe a little more about them, what they are to James.
“Yeah. They’re good guys—my best guys, actually. I’ve known Dom forever, and he’s always been a ride-or-die kinda man. When I told him about the situation, he didn’t even ask any questions, didn’t try to talk me out of anything. He asked what I needed out of him. And, when I told him it was to help me protect you and keep you safe, he was on board. I couldn’t ask for someone better than him.”
He speaks so highly about Dom. I can’t help but smile.
“And Sheriff Miller?”
“Ahh. Not everyone likes having a Sheriff in the know of things, but it helps. Abel is really about keeping the peace and making sure people don’t get hurt. He’s gone toe-to-toe a long time with the Vipers—his brother in law was even taken down by one. He could have started an all-out war, but he knows that that would have ended up leading more bad places than good. Abel does that sometimes, but… the greater good above himself. It makes him a better man than most. Operations wise, Abel keeps things on the down low. Anyone else were to know, we’d be a little up shit creek. But Abel says, as long as we don’t make waves, he doesn’t have to act on anything. We appreciate.”
“More than the Vipers do, I’m sure.”
He glances over to me, head tilted.
“How long you been with the Vipers, Lena?” he asks, curious.
“Oh… Since I was fifteen, about. Almost ten years.”
“What made you join up?”
There, I’m silent. I didn’t expect him to go for those kinds of questions so soon.
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he says quickly. “I was just curious. You’re… Different than a lot of the Viper girls I’ve come across. That’s all.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Let’s just say home wasn’t so great and, at the time, I thought the Vipers were where it was at. I had my boyfriend. The world seemed like it was perfect. But everything isn’t always as it seems, and I think I should have learned that a lot sooner than I did. But… Here I am.”
I leave it at that and James drops the subject. Though I’m here to manipulate him, pull at his heart strings, my past isn’t something I’m willing to put on the table just yet. Whether or not that makes me a hypocrite remains to be seen, but I’ve had a man use it against me once. I don’t think I could bear to have it cast against me again.
Chapter Ten
James
Lena’s got baggage. I can tell from the way she doesn’t fully answer my question about why she joined up with the Vipers that there’s probably a lot of it, between why
she joined and the death of her boyfriend. I’m curious, I’ll admit, but I get it—sometimes you come from a place you don’t want to discuss with anyone, even people who are helping you.
I look over to her. She’s got her head leaned against the window, her breath fogging up the glass. She’s fallen asleep, and I feel a little guilty that I’m gonna have to wake her up soon. But she’s captivating like this. There’s none of the tension that tends to weigh down her brow, and for once she doesn’t look so sad.
I want to learn more about her. I know nothing of her, and what I do know of her isn’t enough to say she’s going to be the mother of my child. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that, how I could have been so careless and irresponsible, but what’s done is done. I’m not going to leave her high and dry, and I’m not going to try and get her to get rid of the baby, either. That would be a heinous thing for me to do.
Pulling into the drive of my house, I park and nudge Lena gently.
“Hey. We’re here.”
She stirs, making a cute little sound as she stretches. Her body arches and she turns, looking to me with bleary eyes. I smile.
“Hey. You have a good nap.”
“Mmm.” She clears her throat and sits up, looking out the window. Her eyes widen a bit. “Oh… wow!”
I won’t say that I live in a lavish place—I don’t. But in comparison to her double wide I imagine that my two story, ranch-style house is something of a wonder to her. It was the home that Sarah and I had bought together, and the one that I had expected to make a family in with her. I guess in a sense I’m going to have my family in it, but it’s certainly not in the way that I thought it was going to be.
“Home sweet home.”
I hop out of my truck. Dom and Abel are already unloading the pick-up. I decide to show Lena around, since she’s the one that’s going to be living here with me.
“Come on. I’ll give you the tour.”
She follows behind me as I lead her up into the house. First thing inside is the entryway, the living room off to the right, the kitchen and dining room to the left. Just ahead is the staircase, but I lead Lena to the kitchen, since she had all the cooking things in her own home.
“Kitchen. You’re welcome to it anytime. I have… kind of a system. There’re some cooking utensils around just because Sarah used to cook, but they haven’t been used in a while.
She walks around, taking everything in. I have a fairly open kitchen, with one of those islands in the middle. I watch as she peeks around, looking into the cabinets and getting a feel for the layout.
“Dom was right,” she says.
“About what?”
“You do have a lot of ramen.”
She giggles, stepping aside as she holds my pantry door open, showing several shelves of plastic packaged noodles.
“We’ll go grocery shopping sometime this week,” I say sheepishly.
From there, I take her into the living room, then back to the extra room downstairs that serves as a library, of sorts. There’re tons of books in there I haven’t bothered to pick up in a while, but I figure that, if she wants to read them, she’s free to.
I gesture to the closed door, the office.
“I do some work in here, sometimes have business go on. You can pretty much do whatever you want in the house, but that’s my space, okay?”
She nods.
“No problem.”
I nod and bring her upstairs.
“Bathroom,” I say, pointing. “Closet. My bedroom is down the hall and this one here will be yours.”
I lead her into the guest bedroom. It’s pretty simple, just a single bed and a dresser with a mirror mounted over it. But there’s lots of floor space and the closet is pretty big, too.
“There’s not much to it, but, if you like, we can get you some things to make it a little more personal for you. I know it’s like… a thing.”
“A thing?” she sounds amused and looks at me with a raised brow.
“You know, a women thing,” I say. “You like things being personal.”
A smile tugs at her lip and she looks back around at the room.
“I like it,” she concludes. It’s… cozy.”
That’s just what Sarah would say about it.
I clear my throat.
“I’ll help Abel and Dom bring your stuff in. Feel free to just look around.”
I leave her alone, and the light feeling that I’d had up until now has gone. I’m thinking too much about Sarah. Thinking too much about the implication of having this woman in my home like this. Bringing her here. Letting her live here.
Heading downstairs, I start to help Abel and Dom unload the truck. Dom gives me a look.
“You good, James?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
He makes a sound like he doesn’t believe me, but I’m glad that he doesn’t push the issue on me. We unload the truck, carting the tubs of Lena’s personal things into the bedroom, and the kitchen things into the kitchen. The whole time, I have the uncomfortable feeling that I shouldn’t have done this; what the hell was I thinking? Helping her was one thing, but this was…
The right thing to do. It’s just my own fault that I’m having to do it.
When we’re done, Abel and Dom head outside.
“You need anything, just let me know,” Abel says.
“Yeah, you know I’m on call to do whatever,” Dom says. “You need her watched or escorted anywhere, it’s all kosher.”
“Thanks, both of you.”
They leave and I head inside. I need to lay some ground rules down about Lena’s stay. It’s the only thing that’ll keep me from getting too… close to this. Closer than I already am.
“Lena?” I call her name, looking around.
She’s made her way downstairs, putting away the cooking utensils she brought.
“Hey. Is there any particular place you want these things?” she asks.
“No. Do whatever.”
I come to stand by the island, watching her as she puts things away. She’s new here, a foreign body. Her short shorts and belly-revealing shirt are something that Sarah would never have worn. I latch on to that, trying to keep the wall up between myself and Lena, trying not to give in to how right she seems in here, how well she fits despite how different she is.
“I wanted to lay some things down,” I say. “About this arrangement.”
She turns, looking at me. “Alright…” she trails off, cautious.
“There’s some things I want to make sure are clear. About this pregnancy. No smoking, no drinking.”
“Obviously,” she says flatly.
“I’ll pick up some prenatal vitamins when we go out for groceries, too. And, because I want this clear, this isn’t a permanent situation,” I say, gesturing between the two of us. “You can stay here, my boys will look out for you when I’m not around, you’ll be safe, that much I can promise you. But once you have the baby, that’s it.”
She stares at me.
“What do you mean, exactly?” she asks.
“You won’t be staying here after its born. I’ll help you—money, you can have it, whatever. But this living situation isn’t gonna stand. I’ll be there for support. That’s it, you get me? I’m not in this for a relationship out of wedlock kind of thing.”
Lena sets the pan in her hand down. She stares, her expression growing harder with every second.
“I didn’t come to you for a relationship, anyway,” she said. “I’m only here for my baby.”
I didn’t expect the venom in her voice, though she is a Viper girl, so maybe I should have.
“I just mean…”
“I know what you mean,” she says. “You don’t need to explain yourself.”
She doesn’t say anything else as she walks around the island and goes up the stairs. I listen to her steps, one after the other, and I hear the door to the guest room snap loudly shut. Sighing, I pull out my phone.
Guess we’re ordering-in to
night.
Chapter Eleven
Lena
I’m not hurt by James’ request that I leave when I have the baby. It was never going to be a permanent situation anyway. It doesn’t matter to me; I don’t care whether he wants me here or if he doesn’t.
I tell myself this as I soak in the tub upstairs, refusing to go back down there tonight to save face. I shouldn’t be surprised by his request; I don’t know why I thought it would be something different.
