by Deja Voss
Gavin
Leaving her there alone in the dark without any answers or any explanation feels like shit.
Leaving her period.
It’s painfully clear why she pushed me away today, and even if she doesn’t realize it right now, she’s smarter than she thinks. As long as the club is functioning the way it is now, this is no place for her. How could any woman be happy in this sort of chaos?
“We need to talk about what happened today, gentlemen,” my father says. He’s puffing on a cigar, dark clouds of smoke filling the war room.
Seated around the solid oak table are the Mountain Misfit officers, plus my sister. Everyone is half buzzed from celebrating our short term ‘victory’ but I know for a fact that this is only the beginning of a long and ugly war.
We are on the verge of something catastrophic, and I’m not sure why.
All I know is we sent a message loud and clear to the Sabers. Don’t fuck with us.
It could be an effective scare tactic or we could be facing retaliation beyond anything we could prepare for. By the jovial overall feeling in the room, I don’t think anyone’s thought that far ahead.
“What I’m wondering is,” I say, staring at my father and my sister, “why Blane Jaso was up here poking around just yesterday, and now all of this is happening. Obviously there’s some sort of connection.”
“Don’t blame me,” Esther is quick to bark. “I did my part. Fortunately, after a couple whiskeys, the guy passed right out.”
“I’m not blaming you,” I tell her, “and thank you.”
“Oh, he’s got a bug up his ass because I cut him out of the Feldman deal,” my father says. “It was on neutral territory. He’s gotta get over it. We sent him a message this afternoon. I’m sure he’ll retreat.”
None of us are a fan of the drug game that my dad has us wrapped up in right now, and the only person who seems to be keeping a map of these alleged ‘territories’ is him.
“And if he doesn’t?”
His sinister smile lights up the room. It makes me shudder.
“We’ll just keep doing whatever it takes to make sure he does. We can take our traveling circus downtown no worries. I got a list of home addresses, kids, grandkids, you name it.”
I’m pissed. I understand why no one else in the room wants to get in the middle of this with him, but surely I’m not the only person who is frustrated by his recent actions. We don’t know who our friends are, we have no idea who the enemy is, and apparently, we need to be watching our backs at all times in case of a random drive-by shooting.
“How much money did we make from this alleged Feldman deal?” I ask, point-blank, staring down Clutch, our treasurer.
“I honestly don’t know.” He shrugs. “Kinda got away from me today.” He motions to his arm, wrapped in layers of bandage.
“Right? Because you got fucking shot at, along with six more of our men. So hear me out. These little one-off drug runs, how much money are we actually making for the club?”
“It’s complicated, son,” my dad growls.
“How much is your arm worth, Clutch? How about Goob’s leg? An eye? An ear? How much do you value the LIVES of these men sitting in front of you, old man?”
He’s gonna fucking kill me the first chance he gets, but I’m so fired up right now, I can’t stop.
“That’s a stupid ass argument you’re trying to make there. You gotta take the bad with the good. That’s how this business works.”
“I see. Clutch, what is the club’s top income source?” I ask. I know the answer.
“Please, Gav, can we not do this tonight?” he begs. My dad is shifting back and forth in his seat, obviously growing more and more uncomfortable with every question.
“We’re totally going to do this tonight. I’ll just say it. The top income source for the club is my bar. Coming in second is the moonshine business, which is probably a direct correlation to my bar. Then there’s guns.”
It’s common knowledge, but nobody ever dares to come right out and say it for fear that my father will go off the deep end. He’s losing more and more power every day.
Heat clears his throat and looks right at me, concern washing over his face. As chaplain, when he talks, everyone listens. He seems like he’s at loss for words right now though.
“We’re in the middle of a world war right now, like it or not. There’s blood on all our hands,” Heat says slowly. “We don’t need to start a civil war. Stand down, son.”
It’s not what I expected him to say at all. He always has my back. He wants to see my grandfather’s legacy come to life as much as I do.
“We’re gonna talk about this, and we’re gonna talk about this soon. Moses, you fucked up and you know it,” he says directly to my father. “Now we gotta figure out how to fix it, but we’re not having a dick measuring contest over money right now in a time of trouble. That’s not what this club stands for.”
“Why don’t you guys understand that we don’t need to be in trouble? Ike and his brothers, our founding fathers, set us up with everything we need to live out our lives exactly how we want on this mountain. The club stands for freedom more than anything, and the fact that we can’t even ride our bikes down the road without getting shot at is pretty much the exact opposite of that, wouldn’t you say?”
“Son, I just watched you slice a man open from his neck to his dick and you’re trying to get saintly on us now? What the fuck did that girl do to you?” my father asks.
“Leave her out of it,” I growl. “This has nothing to do with her and everything to do with Grandpa. Plus, look at everything she’s done for us. Nobody made her hide Goob’s drugs or take care of Clutch.”
“Exactly.” He shrugs. “Why would a girl like that go out of her way to help people like us?”
He laughs his villainous laugh and I feel like a little boy again, like the grown-ups are talking and I just said something incredibly juvenile and stupid.
“Oh, Gavin. You think that broad seriously likes you? Son, she is up to something. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m sure as shit going to find out.”
“You’re fucking nuts, old man.” I lunge across the table at him and grab him by the shirt collar.
“That’s enough,” Brooks shouts, the first words he’s spoken all meeting. He’s our sergeant at arms, and anything that comes out of his mouth is carefully considered, always has been. “Obviously you two have some sort of beef right now. We get it. But you’re wasting the rest of us guys’ time. So can you please figure out what we need to do to get a sit-down with Jaso so we can put this shit to bed?”
“I’ll make some calls,” my old man says, his eyes not leaving mine. We might not be battling verbally anymore, but this stare down hasn’t ended yet.
“Anything else that absolutely can’t wait ’til tomorrow?” Brooks asks.
“You gotta take a shit or something?” Clutch chuckles. “I feel like things were just starting to get good.”
Everyone at the table is grumbling. It’s been a long day for these men. Lows and highs, adrenaline and testosterone running high. I know I want nothing more than to go back to my room and join that sweet girl waiting for me in my bed, but I’m not going to be able to sleep for a while.. I’m pissed off and confused. This meeting didn’t go my way, but I know I’m not thinking in the best interest of the club right now. I’m only thinking about my father and how fucked up he’s made things.
The hole he’s dug us.
The fact that he’s trying to attack my lady.
As everyone begins to shuffle out, my father pulls me aside. I notice Brooks stands outside the door, fidgeting with his cellphone, trying to look inconspicuous.
“What kind of shit are you trying to pull here, son?” he barks. “You know better than to attack me in front of the guys. It makes you look just as bad.”
“I don’t care how it makes me look, Dad. My loyalty is to the club first and foremost. If you’re fucking up, I’m going to call yo
u out on it.”
“You don’t know jack shit, Gavin. You’ve been so busy playing farm house and idolizing your dead grandfather that you can’t see what’s going on right in front of your face. It must be nice to live in a fantasy land. I’ve been breaking my back since before you were born getting the club where it is today. You think you’re all above ground and holier than thou; what do you think funded your little side projects? What do you think paid for your college education? Sure as shit wasn’t selling corn on the side of the road like my father expected us to growing up.
“You need to get your mind right, boy,” he sneers. “That girl isn’t helping matters any.”
“What Sloan does has no impact on my relationship to the club.”
“I don’t trust her. And I don’t trust you to do what you need to do when you’re all pussy drunk. She’s gotta go,” he says, staring me down.
“Since when do you care what I put my dick in? Lord knows you’ve fucked enough crazy in your day.”
“There’s a difference between crazy and shady. One will just shoot you in the head, the other one will slowly take away everything you care about, everything you’ve worked hard for, everything you’ve ever loved while you make excuses for them from a jail cell.”
“I think you’re wrong,” I insist, staring him down. He doesn’t know the first thing about her. He’s just trying to throw some power around.
“What if she proves me right?”
“I’ll take care of it,” I say.
“Oh you sure will. Know that for a fact. That blood will be on your hands, son.”
I know he’s dead serious. It makes me sick to my stomach, even though I have absolutely no reason to believe Sloan would do anything to betray my trust.
“After I watch you kill her, I promise you’ll be next. This is your third strike, son.” He laughs like a villain, over the top.
I roll my eyes at him. I’ve been on my third strike since I was thirteen.
“Always with the histrionics, Moses. Why don’t you go draw yourself a nice warm bubble bath and sniff some calming lavender and stop acting like such a dramatic bitch.”
He clenches his hand into a fist and I leave him standing there, jaw agape, rage on his face.
“Real nice, son,” he calls after me. “You’ll see. Just you wait.”
Chapter 19
Gavin
“Come on, man,” Brooks says to me as I quickly trudge past him in the hallway. “Want to walk?”
He fishes a joint out of his pocket and I nod. I’m too jacked right now to even try to be near Sloan. I don’t want her to have to witness this part of me, the part of me that only my father knows how to wake up.
We head to the giant boulder on the side of the cliff that hangs over the ledge of the mountain. It’s a pitch-black night, the September sky so clear and cold you can see every cluster of stars that hangs overhead, along with your breath.
“He just threatened to fucking kill me, Brooks. He’s out of control.”
“I heard him. You know he’s full of shit, though.”
He lights up the joint and begins to puff, its cherry glowing in the darkness.
“Do you think there’s something wrong with Sloan?” I ask him.
“Other than the fact that she lets a guy like you stick it in her, I think she’s pretty alright.”
“You don’t think she’s shady?” I draw in a long hard lungful of pot, letting myself unravel a little bit.
“I have no idea, dude. I haven’t even talked to her. All I know is that you’re fucking nuts about her and I don’t want to see you get hurt. Having an old lady is a major commitment. Having an old lady who’s smarter, better looking, and earns more money than you is like chopping your balls off and handing them to her.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be with someone who makes you a better person?”
His laugh booms through the valley below.
“And what do you plan on making her?”
“I hadn’t thought about that. Happy I guess?”
He shrugs and takes a toke. “That’s more than most folks can say for themselves. So she’s gonna be your woman?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Probably don’t need to be barnstorming in there tonight and trying to make that happen.”
I look at my watch. 3 a.m. “Shit no. I gave Ollie my keys anyway so she could sleep one off.”
“You think that’s all they’re doing?” He grins deviously. “Maybe I should go check on them. Make sure they didn’t get any leg cramps from scissoring too hard.”
“Sometimes I wonder why you’re single. Then you open your fucking mouth.”
Sloan
I feel the mattress sag next to me, waking me from my deep sleep. I sit bolt upright, realizing where I am. My heart flutters for a moment, knowing he’s back.
Instead, I’m greeted with a mop of blonde hair face down in the pillow. I’d never kick her out of the bed, but she’s not exactly what I was hoping for.
She’s wearing the leather minidress she had on earlier, and as uncomfortable as it looks, I can tell by the way she’s just sprawled there that she doesn’t even notice.
“Sorry,” Olive says. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.” She turns her head to look at me.
“It’s ok.” I muster up a smile. “What are you doing?”
“I drank a little too much. Gavin gave me his keys and said it was ok if I stayed here with you. I promise I’ll take us home first thing in the morning.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh honey,” she says, brushing my hair out of my face. “I have no idea, and I know better than to ask too many questions.”
My dumb ass asked zero questions. Maybe I’m better at this than I think. Maybe I’ve just been conditioned that way. If you don’t really want to know the answer, it’s better to just not ask.
“I’m starving.” I figure I’ll change the subject before she starts lecturing me again. Our last conversation left me feeling pretty terrible, and right now I just want to hang out and not feel alone. “Wanna raid the fridge?”
She rolls over on her back and laughs. “You’ve always had a one-track mind.”
I realize I’m wearing nothing but the comforter, but I don’t care. I wrap it around my body like a puffy black toga. I’ve known Olive since I was a kid. We’ve seen each other at our best and worst, and it wouldn’t be the first time one of us caught the other with their pants down.
I walk across the room to the little efficiency kitchen and pull open the door of the refrigerator. She follows close behind me.
“Of course,” I say, pouting. There’s a gallon of milk, a bunch of raw chicken breast, some broccoli, and a head of lettuce on the shelves.
“You think those abs are made of pizza?” she giggles.
“Wouldn’t that be something. Wait a minute.” I pull open the freezer and start rooting around, pulling out bags of frozen vegetables and unlabeled Tupperware containers. “Jackpot!”
I pull out a tub of chocolate ice cream and she fishes around in his drawers until she finds two spoons. She opens up a cupboard overhead and grabs a bag of tortilla chips.
We crawl back in bed and start devouring it. She flips on the TV to some trashy late-night talk show and we watch in fascination as some lady is united with the high school kids who catfished her and wiped out her retirement fund.
“Kinda reminds me of back in the day,” she says, but by the look on her face, I know she instantly regrets it. “I mean, like, the fun parts of back in the day.”
She’s right though. Throughout my entire relationship with Arthur, my favorite memories are of when he’d go out of town and she’d come stay at the house with me. It was like everything shitty about my life would disappear as soon as she walked through the door. We’d have slumber parties, drink wine, eat junk food until we were sick, and pass out on the couch like a couple of teenage girls.
I hated when those times would come to an end.
> It meant that things would go back to dark. Evil. Always on edge.
“I know you feel like you need to protect me, Olive,” I tell her.
“I blame myself every day for not getting you out of that hellhole sooner. I had so many opportunities. I just thought if it was really that bad, you’d let me help you.”
“Don’t pin that shit on yourself. You tried so hard so many times. I was just tangled up too deep and I didn’t want him to come after you, too. You gotta let it go now, Ollie. Everything is different now.”
She lets out a long sigh.
“I know. There is literally not one single similarity between Gavin and Arthur that I can think of, other than the fact that they both are crazy about you. The more I get to know Gavin, the more that becomes obvious,” she says. “But this life, it’s not for girls like you.”
“I hate when you say stuff like that,” I scold. “Why do you think you’re so different than me? We came from the same trailer park, you know.”
“Yeah, but you had the drive to do something great with your life. I just wanted people to think I was pretty.”
“Well you are,” I assure her. “And if we’re comparing apples to oranges, I live in a shit apartment and drive a car that needed to be scrapped about five years ago. Everyone at work hates me and avoids me because I just don’t quite fit in with their expectations for me. You have a nice vehicle, a gorgeous home, and from the looks of it, a lot of people who love and care about you. What else do you really need?”
“Yeah, but when you finish your fellowship your whole life is going to change.”
“Is it really though? Maybe I will have money, but I’ll still be alone. I’ll still have nothing going for me but my career. Becoming a surgeon has helped me through a really dark time in my life, but it’s just another way to hide from my past by burying myself in my work.”
“You’re not alone,” she says, stroking my hair. “I’ve told you to move in with me a million times. You’ve helped me out of so many jams, it’s the least I can do.”
