by A. J. Downey
“I don’t have to, I want to. It’s all part of things and my pleasure serving a pretty girl like you.”
“Aww,” I laughed lightly and blushed, handing the keys over, “Thank you!” He nodded once, and trotted off in the direction of the parking lot. I noticed the big colorful patch in the center of his vest was missing and filed it away for later. I didn’t know how any of this club stuff worked and usually the conversations with my sisters on the phone had been brief, either because of things on their end, or because of things on mine. Classes and studying had eaten my life whole, especially with taking the absolute maximum of classes allowable at any given time in order to graduate sooner.
I’d wanted to get down here and now here I was, and I was just so mentally and emotionally exhausted after such a harsh whirlwind of activity to get here, I didn’t know where to start.
That was okay, apparently, according to the men and women of The Kraken, I would start by being introduced to every last one of them. A cold drink was shoved into one hand and pretty quickly, maybe midway through the introductions, a plate of food was shoved into the other. I sat down around a cold bonfire pit in the sand, back against a fallen piece of driftwood with Hope on one side and Faith on the other. Their men ranged out on the other side of their women. I listened to stories of my sisters and how they’d found their way to Ft. Royal.
Things grew a bit somber and quiet when they reached the part about finding and rescuing Faith, and I grew more than a little emotional. I looked to my older sister who looked back at me. We were very nearly a mirror of one another except for our eyes. Hers were a brilliant green-blue like the shallow waters just down the beach. Mine were just plain blue, and wet with tears as my throat closed on anything I could possibly say. Frustrating, that. All I had wanted was to drop everything and come down here and say so much and now, now I was here and couldn’t say anything at all. What was there to say? Once again, when things had gone pear shaped, I had been coddled and relegated to the baby’s table.
Except I wasn’t a baby anymore. I was a twenty-four year old woman with world travel experience and a four year nursing degree under my belt. I looked over at Hope and Faith in turn and had to sigh inwardly. There were some things that would never change when it came to my little family of three… my being ‘the baby’ was likely one of those, no matter how hard I resisted the idiocy of it.
Chapter 2
Nothing
Only one time before had it happened; that feeling like I’d been punched in the gut, just from looking into a woman’s eyes. The first time it’d been my wife Corrine’s eyes. A strange shade of lavender as she’d beseeched me not to let her die. I scrubbed my face with my hands as I tried to banish the painful image of our first meeting out of my head before images of our last barged their way in.
Charity’s eyes weren’t lavender like Corrine’s had been, so it wasn’t that. I don’t know what it was about them, other than being a startling, pale, shade of blue. Like shadows on ice, crisp and refreshing under the heat of the baking Florida sun. I’d led her to her sisters, but as soon as I was able to, I put a little distance between us, but my gaze hadn’t exactly been sidelined from watching her.
Lightning dropped down next to me and knocked his shoulder into mine. “What ‘cha looking at?” he asked and I tore my gaze away from Faith-lite.
“Not a damn thing,” I grated.
“Bullshit,” he said grinning, “She’s single, according to Hope. You finally going to give it up and try something new?”
“Hadn’t planned on it and still don’t; I’m married.”
“Were married,” Radar said, dropping his ass into the sand on my other side. “At some point, man, you gotta give up carrying the torch for Corrine. She’s gone, and it’s been something like three years. You can’t punish yourself for somethin’ you didn’t do for forever.”
“What do you fuckin’ know about it?” I demanded, and shoved some food in my face, chewing automatically.
“I know Corrine’d be pissed lookin’ at you livin’ like this, day in and day out. Hell, you aren’t even living, you’re just down here grinding it out. That ain’t no way to be, my brother. That ain’t no way to be.”
“What would you fuckin’ know about it?” I demanded again, and it sounded petulant, Like something Katy would have said which just drove the knife that much deeper.
“You ain’t the only one to have dealt with loss, Nothing. Fuck you for suggesting otherwise.” Radar said coldly and I wanted to punch myself in the face. He wasn’t wrong.
“Sorry, man.”
He got to his feet with his beer and his plate, “Get over yourself,” he shot back over his shoulder and moved off to a different small grouping of us. I hung my head and gripped the back of my neck.
“Two points,” Lightning said coolly.
“Yeah, batting a thousand,” I groused.
“That’s on you, Man,” he said getting to his feet.
I swore softly under my breath… and then there was one. Just me, all alone, which is pretty much all I fucking deserved in this life.
I rolled my neck and shoulders and finished my food and beer, figuring I could go help Trike with the girl’s stuff. It’d give me something productive to do without having to be around the rest of the guys in my fouled mood. They didn’t deserve it, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could rein it in. So what if I had the ulterior motive of digging into what kind of person she was?
Charity had knocked me off balance with one look and that scared me some. No one had ever been able to do that before. No one except Corrine, and I didn’t want to go down that road again. I really didn’t. It ended on a lonely stretch of highway over near the glades. It ended with a lot of screaming, broken glass and loads of pain.
It ended with two dead bodies and left me behind with no way to pick up the pieces or to stitch the wound left by my guilt.
It left me what I was.
Nothing.
Chapter 3
Charity
The party moved down to a little bar in the leading edge of town called, not surprisingly, The Plank. I had to laugh at the sign above the door; it read The Plank in burnt in big block letters and below that, it’s beachy, it’s manly, it’s made of hard wood, in a gilded script.
“Who came up with that?” I’d asked and someone had launched into the story of Mac, the bar’s previous owner and the club’s old president.
We, and by ‘we’ I meant Faith and I, had been driven there in an old, beat up, green Subaru wagon full of paint in the back. Marlin had done the driving and it’d been nice to watch him hold my sister’s hand as he’d taken the two or three turns, refusing to let go, compensating for his lack of grip by using his knee to hold the wheel while he repositioned his one hand to follow through. He really loved her, and it showed.
The bar on the outside was unassuming, even nice to look at, fitting with the rest of the town with its white clapboard sides and royal blue trim. It didn’t have windows in the traditional sense, but rather old, reclaimed portholes edged in bronze, and really rather huge, were set into the building’s side. The glass was thick and discolored with age, and one of them was cracked, appearing to have taken a B.B… or bullet.
Neon beer signs glowed from within one or two of them and when we went through the door into the loud, dimly but warmly lit interior, it was to the rain just beginning to patter down outside. Marlin led us into the back, past a front room filled with tables and chairs, and off to one side, pool tables and dart boards. The alcove he led us back through opened up into a smaller room, a raised dais directly across from the opening against the back wall, similarly set with portholes to the outside.
On the raised little stage was an electric chair, and on the electric chair, Cutter held court, my sister Hope in his lap. I blinked at the near absurdity of it all. The portholes to either side of the chair lit up blue, the thunder crashing in time with the lightning and I jumped. Laughter ensued at my expense and I couldn�
��t help but laugh nervously in turn.
Marlin took a seat at a four person table to the right of Cutter’s oddball throne, and tugged Faith, similarly, into his lap. He curved his arms protectively around her and she smiled, resting her forehead against Marlin’s, murmuring something only he was likely to hear over the jukebox.
I sank into the seat beside Marlin’s where I could see everything going on, and it wasn’t lost on me that every male in this back part of the bar and at the bar were in Kraken colors. The prospect from earlier jogged out from behind the bar and up to me, asking “What’ll you have?” with a warm smile. I smiled back and bit my bottom lip.
“Jack and Coke?” I asked.
“Seriously?” he sounded surprised. I nodded and he smiled even bigger, “Coming right up!”
Radar dropped into the seat across from mine and asked, “What’d you order?”
“A Jack & Coke.”
“Nice!” The prospect came jogging over and Radar held up a hand, “Cough it up buddy.”
“Ahhh!” He made a mock noise of being severely put out, but his smile never faltered. He reached into his back pocket and slapped some money into Radar’s palm before returning to the bar.
“You guys bet on what I’d be drinking?” I asked amused.
“Yep. Trike there thought you’d go for something girly, I said, Nah. You’re a girl that likes the basics.” He grinned at me and wrinkled his nose and I had to laugh.
“Think you have me all figured out, huh?”
His mouth downturned in that way that said he wasn’t trying to be impressive even though he was trying to be impressive and I fought down the urge to laugh at him. He gave a one shouldered shrug and didn’t commit to an answer one way or the other, I raised my eyebrows and took a sip of my drink which was good and stiff. I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easy.
“More or less,” he said breaking into an even broader grin.
“Uh huh,” I said dubiously. “Coffee or tea?”
“Are you kidding? You’re just coming out of grad school, coffee.”
“That was an easy one,” I leaned back in my seat and tried again.
“Fine, okay, dog or cat?”
“Cat.”
“Reasoning?”
“Self-sufficient creatures, a lot like you!” Hope called and I frowned at her.
“You stay out of this!”
There was laughter and a shadow fell over me, a droplet of water splashing onto my arm, I whipped around and looked up. Nothing stood by my seat and held out the keys to my Jeep to me.
“I put the soft top on, it’s out front,” he said and I blinked.
“Then how’d you get so wet?”
“Walking to the door,” he said with a shrug and sniffed. Water streamed down his face, and plastered his hair to his forehead and cheeks.
I took the keys and said, “Thank you, is it really coming down out there, or what?”
“Or what,” he said and with a shrug, turned and walked away. I stared at his back and felt myself frown.
“What’s his deal?” I asked the empty air and no one in particular.
Radar answered me, “That fucking guy,” he said shaking his head, “Doesn’t know when to quit.”
“Quit what?”
“Grieving,” Marlin said simply, but before I could ask, a new song hit the jukebox, pulse pounding and loud. Radar laughed, jammed for a second on an imaginary air guitar, bounded to his feet and dragged me up by the hand to the little patch of cement floor left bare for dancing. I laughed and obliged him; he seemed nice enough for all that he wasn’t my type in the looks department, being around even with my height and rather compact. I preferred my men taller than me but that was neither here nor there when it came to the men of the club. I’d taken Hope’s warning to heart that these guys liked to play for keeps and to get my kicks somewhere else… but honestly, my mind kept drifting back Nothing’s way.
Something about him was nagging at every instinct I had to heal, fix, and protect and Marlin’s little admission had the gears turning in my head. What was it Nothing had to grieve? By the sounds of it, it was an old and deep wound. I should leave well enough alone but I had to ask…
“What did Marlin mean?”
Radar grinned, “Got a thing for our boy, Nothing?”
I blushed; I couldn’t help myself, “Just curious more than anything.”
Radar spun me out and then back, when we came back together, he said, rather somberly, “I’d give any ideas about flirting or whatever the boot right now. Nothing ain’t over his wife and kid.”
“Oh…”
“He should be, it happened forever and a fuckin’ day ago. I lost my Ol’ Lady to cancer something like two years ago. I can’t imagine living like it was only yesterday that she died for almost four years.” He shook his head, adding, “That shit just ain’t right.”
“Oh my god…” I uttered, “His wife died?” I felt horrible, and more than ever wanted to fix it.
“And his kid,” Radar said. “It was a stupid fucking accident. Anyways, best just to steer clear, he’s pretty much turned into a lost cause. We all fuckin’ love Nothing like a brother from another mother, but he ain’t gonna change. He just ain’t got it in him.”
“Is that why you call him Nothing?” I asked.
“No, he calls himself Nothing. The road name we gave him, he pitched after it happened.”
“I got the impression you were stuck with whatever was given to you, so is that even allowed?”
“Yeah, not so much, but we made an exception. He wasn’t gonna let it go.” Radar grinned and spun me one more time and back in, the song ending. Other couples around us broke apart applauding and I smiled.
“Thanks for the dance,” I said and almost immediately regretted it, because Radar winked at me.
“Sure, no problem,” he said, before melting through the archway and sidling up to the bar. I cursed myself and went back to my seat and my now watered down drink, taking a strong sip. I really hoped he didn’t think I was interested or up for anything more. It was a knee jerk reaction from spending the last four years in a college town with entitled trust fund douche bags who took a smile as ‘pursue me.’
I was truthfully also a little disappointed, I’d been hoping Radar would finish the story, but oh well. It wasn’t like I was going anywhere and Nothing either. I was sure there would be plenty of time to learn more.
The rest of the night was spent dancing, because apparently Radar was a trendsetter and everybody had to get their time in with the new girl. I was beginning to get the picture that as far as semi-permanent or permanent residents went, Ft. Royal was as small town as they came and there wasn’t a whole lot to choose from out of the native stock.
Lucky me? Oh well, I’d always been raised to make the best out of every situation thanks to Hope.
Chapter 4
Nothing
She was dancing with Stoker. I sat at the end of the bar and watched her, curious about this woman, this girl, who made me feel something after so long. Of course, it shouldn’t have surprised me. Her older sister, Hope, had made my dick stir back in New Orleans, even if making out with her had been in the line of duty, so to speak. Still, Charity had accomplished something only Corrine had ever been able to do before. She’d stopped me in my tracks with one look. My heart stuttering in my chest like I was some teenaged fucking nerd boy who’s crush had spoken to him for the first time.
I didn’t know what bothered me more, that, or the fact that unpacking her things, I’d found nothing but evidence of a loving, driven, loyal and all around sweetheart of a young woman. The first thing I’d encountered was the carefully bubble wrapped framed diploma she’d received on graduation. I’d hung it for her, right over the bed, the first thing you saw when you walked into the room she would be calling home for the foreseeable future.
Helping Trike unload her shit was probably the creepy as fuck way to go about it, but that’s what I’d done. I’
d learned a lot moving her boxes from the trailer into the Captain’s house. One, she was organized, every box neatly labeled in her clear, precise, handwriting. Two, she was a fucking minimalist. Three boxes of clothes, a couple of books, and a damn few of those judging by the weight. She had only one box of toiletries and one box labeled ‘personal items’ and that was it.
I hadn’t split anything marked ‘personal’ open, at least not on purpose, but the bottom had dropped out of the personal items box. Picture albums, a jewelry box that must have been something she’d had since she was a little girl, and a few other items of no consequence. The pictures that were framed, a few of the glass plates had broken, and the jewelry box had spilled out onto the bed where I’d gone to set it when the bottom of the box had given way. I’d cleaned up the glass and busted out the vacuum, careful to get it all while Trike had gone to work putting the top onto her Jeep before the rain could set in.
The hard top we’d stashed against the side of the house, and the paperwork for the little U-Haul trailer we’d found on the passenger seat of her rig. I’d had Trike it back to the closest one while I’d carefully put away Charity’s things for her. It was like once that box had split giving me a deeper glimpse into her life, I’d needed to know more. Before I knew it, over half the boxes contents were put where they belonged. Clothes hanging, and useless bedding relegated to the linen closet. I’d taken the time to run out and get her some useable bedding before heading to The Plank. She had a thing for the color blue, like light blue, so I’d gotten her sheets that would match her eyes.
She was all moved in, completely set, and I had some really mixed feelings about it. I turned on my bar stool and rapped my knuckles on the scarred wood surface of the bar. Trike loaded my glass with another double and I took a decent slug of it. I was way past the burning sensation and in that territory where the buzz was beginning to blur into a haze. Radar, slapped me on the back, hanging on me for a second before dropping onto the stool next to me. I only halfheartedly shrugged him off and he stared at me with that shit eating grin of his that screamed ‘I know something you don’t know.’
