by A. J. Downey
Nothing
I’d hurt her, and I was surprised to find that the knowledge hurt me. Still, I needed to stick to my guns here. She was better off without me. I couldn’t give her enough of me. I wasn’t the man for that. Too much of me still belonged to Corrine and to Katy, and they were gone, and it was all my fault.
I worked on my bike, her accusatory glare boring holes in my back, which I deserved, so I let it fly. I still couldn’t figure out why I’d found her asleep in her car, and I was grateful she was a heavy sleeper. It made moving her a lot easier. I’d watched her for a while, asleep in my bed, and couldn’t help but think she looked good there.
She was the first woman I’d done anything with since Corrine and I felt guilty, not about what we’d done… no, I felt guilty about the fact that I didn’t feel guilty. I felt guilty for playing the mind fuck I did on her, but I had been really mindful up ‘til this point about not apologizing. She needed to stay away from me. Now more than ever, now that I realized this attraction went both ways. I couldn’t afford this to be a fatal attraction for a girl like her. She had too much to offer the world to have everything cut short.
I turned the wrench, tightening down a bolt, and it slipped. I busted a knuckle against the frame and dropped my tool with a clatter and a curse, sticking the offending joint in my mouth. Suddenly she was there, hands gentle around my own pulling it free of my face to have a look.
“Oh, we’re going to ice this,” she said soothingly, and I had to bet it was her nurse’s voice. The one she reserved for patients. I went to take my hand back but she’d already let go, and was at the freezer pulling out the ice tray.
“Melted?” I asked and she shook her head.
“Just a little around the edges, but not too bad, if the electricity comes on soon, you might be able to save what’s in there.”
“It won’t and I won’t, but that’s what the post-storm cookout is for.”
“Post storm cookout?” she asked, brow raised as she emptied the ice tray into a gallon freezer bag.
“Yeah, everyone brings their frozen food that didn’t make it and we cook it all into a one big ‘I survived’ kind of a feast. The whole town does, as far as I know. This is only my second hurricane and the first one wasn’t nearly as bad. It’s been about ten years since Florida’s been hit. We’ve been lucky.”
I was rambling, I knew I was rambling, but her hands were around mine again, gently laying the ice across my fingers, skin soft against my own and I couldn’t help but close my eyes. My cock stirred to life, wanting a round two, but I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, let that happen. Once was enough. It had to be enough.
“I don’t get you,” she said softly.
“You don’t want to.”
“That’s the problem, Nothing. I do, too. I really do.”
Fuck. I didn’t know what to say so I remained silent, and eventually with a defeated sigh, she moved back to her place on the counter. Eventually she started yawning, and the yawns became more frequent, until finally I looked up and said, “You’re welcome to go lay back down.”
She held on for about twenty minutes more before sliding off the Formica and onto her bare feet.
“Thanks,” she said shortly and padded off, back in the direction of my room. The room I didn’t sleep in anymore. The room I tended to avoid because of the memories on the mirror. I slept on the couch most of the time, but she didn’t need to know that.
I went back to work on the bike, and listened to the storm gradually grow less until the rain petered out and stopped. I checked out the front door. Still windy, the streets littered with debris, but for all intents and purposes, clear for her to go. I nodded, satisfied she’d be safe, and pointedly ignoring the empty pit the thought of her leaving caused in my stomach.
“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too,” I murmured to myself, shutting the front door. I sighed and went to my bedroom doorway.
She looked like an angel when she slept, the lines of her face smoothed out and peaceful while she dreamed. There was something more open, more fragile, about her but stronger at the same time, too.
She was beautiful. Ethereal in the blue white light cause by the storm lantern. It was so late at night as to be early morning. An hour or two more and the sun would start coming up over the houses. I guess her departure could wait until it was light out. It’d make it safer for her, so instead of waking her, I watched.
Who was lying to who now?
Chapter 13
Charity
I pulled into Cutter’s driveway, tires on the Jeep sloughing through leaves and palm fronds. I braked to a stop in front of the doors, and shut it off, throwing it into gear and applying the emergency brake. Slinging my bag of belongings over my shoulder I got out, the front door opening before I reached the top step. Hope looked pissed, and I guess she had a right to be, but my breaking down into tears on sight threw her for a loop.
Her face changed from anger to fear and her arms went up and out immediately. I fell into them and bawled against my oldest sister, and it was one seriously ugly cry.
“Charity, what happened?” Hope cried, and hugged me tight, smoothing down my hair. I heard masculine echoes around us.
“She alright?”
“What happened?”
“Is she gonna be okay?”
Hope gave an exasperated sigh and turned us, my bag was lifted off my shoulder and I blindly gave it up to whoever was trying to take it.
“Move! Out of the way, guys,” Hope said in her Corporal Badass voice and it was like the parting of the red sea, or in this case, the black sea for all the black leather vests.
Hope took me upstairs, Faith floating behind us like a ghost, and my sisters shut me safely in my bedroom, which was just as I’d left it.
Hope dropped us onto the edge of the bed, and Faith sat down on my other side, taking up my hand and squeezing it. I cried it all out in bitter, broken sobs against my sister and spilled the whole story.
Hope had gone wooden by the time I’d finished and asked, “He apologize for any of this?”
“No,” I moaned.
“That motherfucker,” she said low and with feeling. “Where the fuck does he get off using my baby sister like that? Getting you all worked up and for what?”
“I don’t know,” I moaned, “He’s an asshole.”
“Yeah he is,” Faith agreed, but she sounded uncertain, confused.
A knock at the door, and Hope got up, passing me into a hug from Faith. She opened the door and I caught a glimpse of Cutter and Marlin on the other side.
“Hey, she alright?” Marlin asked, and both he and Cutter wore mirrored expressions of concern.
“Let’s just say Nothing really took the prize this time, if the prize is King of the Assbags.”
“What’d he do?”
Hope glanced back at me and I sniffed, nodding. I looked away, humiliated, but she’d explained to me that the law with these men, was different. That they handled things differently and lived by a different code than the rest of the outside world, than your average… what had she called it? Civilian? No, that wasn’t right, no she had said citizen, only the way she’d said it made it sound like something less, like what dog was to human. With the same sort of affection a human would refer to a dog. Nice, cute, fluffy, and great to have around, but dumber than a box of rocks.
“They had sex, and it kind of escaped them both to use protection,” she raised a hand, before the guys could go there. “She’s on birth control, but when they finished, Nothing implied that he wasn’t clean in a bid to freak her the hell out. Pulled a real mind game on her and now she’s upset.”
“Fuck yeah, I’d be upset, too!” Cutter said, bewildered. He exchanged a look with Marlin and Marlin nodded.
“We’ll take care of it,” Marlin said, and didn’t sound at all happy about it.
“What does that mean?” I asked and Cutter looked up sharply from Hope’s face, to my tearstained one.
“Clu
b business, Trouble. I can’t say, but whatever happens won’t be your fault. Nothing brought this on himself. That was disrespect, plain and true, and you’re not a woman to be disrespected in such a way. There’re plenty of ‘em that come through this town, but not you. I’m sorry he did that.”
“You don’t get to apologize for him, but thank you for doing it all the same,” I said quietly and his face fell just a touch.
“Marlin,” he said.
“Oh, I’m on it, Captain,” the big blonde man said and he disappeared down the stairs.
“Don’t you worry your pretty head, Trouble. We’ve got this, and you’ll be gettin’ your apology, straight from the horse’s mouth.”
I was scared of Cutter in that moment, the cold radiating from his usually warm brown eyes. Hope murmured something to him along the lines of Nothing should be grateful it was one of the brothers going to deliver the message; that it wasn’t her heading over there. Cutter looked down at her and his gaze visibly thawed. He cupped her cheek, thumb grazing across her jaw before giving her a nod. He looked up and gave Faith and I a nod of our own before disappearing back down the stairs.
I looked at Hope and sniffed, “They aren’t going to hurt him are they?” I asked and she raised her eyebrows.
“Probably not as much as I think he deserves,” she said.
I bit my lower lip and shook my head, “Don’t hate him, please? I think there’s something going on with him.”
“Oh there’s a lot going on with Nothing, baby sister, but nothing that he gets to treat you like that. That’s how you treat a club whore, that’s not how you treat either of my girls. He needs to know that.”
I looked at Faith and she looked at me, her lips pressed into a thin line of disappointment mixed with distaste. She nodded her agreement and I think my mouth fell open in surprise.
“You agree, of all people?” I asked and she nodded emphatically.
“The pacifist was burned out of me a long time ago, Char,” she said and shuddered. I hugged her and she hugged me tight.
“It’s so nuts,” I whispered.
“What is?” Hope asked.
“The fact that even though he was such a dick, I still really like him,” I said.
“Hence why he needs to learn his lesson now.”
I looked at her, “Because there’s no way I’m going to let you invest yourself in a man who treats you like that, so I’d better fix him now before you do, because when you put your mind to something, we all know you’re going to do whatever it is anyways. You’re just like Faith that way.”
Faith laughed, and I looked from her to a smiling Hope and back again. I couldn’t help but smile, too.
“I love you, guys.”
“We love you, too, Blossom,” they said practically in unison and I felt better.
A rap came at the door, “Yo, Charity! It’s Radar, can I borrow your keys, Sweetie?”
Hope held out her hand and with a sigh I pulled them from my hip pocket, handing them over, a tiny knot of dread taking up residence in the center of my chest that grew with the guilt I fed into it.
Hope opened the bedroom door and slapped the keys into Radar’s hand, “Do what you need to do,” she said and Radar gave a curt nod before backing out of view.
“Don’t hurt him!” I called out before Hope shut the door.
I prayed silently, please don’t hurt him, and found myself praying that it would be enough.
Chapter 14
Nothing
I finished tightening the last bolt down on my bike, just as a hard knock came at my front door. Sounded like the guys were out and moving around. This was probably my call to the town clean up. I wiped off my hands with a rag and went for the front door, just as the next, more impatient knock landed.
I opened the front door to Radar’s fist in my gut.
“Oof!” I doubled over and hit the hardwood on my knees hard, trying like hell to suck air into my lungs thanks to my collapsed solar plexus.
Shit. Charity.
“She alright?” I wheezed and Lightning got behind me, putting his hands under my arms and hauling me onto my feet.
“What do you care?” he asked.
“I care,” I said.
“Yeah, I call bullshit,” Radar said and clocked me one in the side of the face.
I deserved this. I’d hurt her. She’d gone back to the Captain’s house and whatever’d happened, had sent my brother’s over here to teach me a lesson. One I richly deserved.
“Captain sent us over here to school you, Nothing. It ain’t personal,” Lightning said, and he held me up for Radar to deliver another blow. I did what I was supposed to. I stood there and took it.
“The fuck it ain’t personal,” Radar said. “That girl is Hope’s sister. She’s one of us; she ain’t a random piece of ass passing through town. What the fuck were you thinking doing her like that?” Radar demanded. He hit me again and I saw stars.
“That’s the problem, I wasn’t thinking,” I groaned.
“No, you weren’t,” he agreed. “Club voted, you’re going to take this ass whoppin’, then you’re going to help with clean up, and then, you’re going to go apologize to Charity. You get me?” he demanded and lifted my head by the front of my hair so I could look him in the eye. I nodded feebly and took my schooling well, and to heart.
He was right. Charity was one of us, and she hadn’t deserved what I’d done. She deserved better than me. She deserved one of my brothers to love her and protect her from the shit I’d delivered… Why the fuck was it, that the thought of her with one of them hurt worse than the whoopin’ Radar put on me?
He rained blows into my midsection, but avoided the face for the most part after only one or two blows to it. Probably because my thick skull hurt his hands and he needed his hands for what he did as a bail bondsman. Not only for all of the typing he had to do, but for the take downs and arrests. Hard to manipulate handcuffs with your hand in a cast or fingers in a splint.
“Let him go,” Radar said with some disgust, and Lightning dropped me like a sack of potatoes onto my living room floor.
“Get your shit together, Nothing. Way I see it, that girl is a gift from god when it comes to you. Lightning, let’s go.”
Lightning stepped over me and went out past Radar, a grim look on his face. He hadn’t enjoyed kicking my ass. Neither had Radar, but Radar could shut that part of himself off. Divorce his feelings from anything he did. It’s what made him a good Sgt. at Arms.
“You got an hour to get cleaned up and find the rest of us in town on clean up. I’d get moving if I were you.”
I coughed and pushed myself up into a sitting position. Radar spit on the ground and with a final disgusted noise that hollowed out the pit of my stomach, marched across the debris field in my yard and climbed into the driver’s seat of Charity’s white Wrangler. He leaned across Lightning and called out the passenger window, “For the record, she asked us not to hurt you! Not sure why that girl thinks you deserve mercy after the shit you said, but she does.”
He fired up the Jeep, put it in reverse, and backed out of my driveway. I sat for a few minutes and took stock of myself from a professional standpoint. I was going to be sore as fuck for a day or two, bruised enough to give it a good show, at least in my face, but all told, Radar had gone easy on me.
I got up and got a shower, pushed my bike, with difficulty, back out into the garage and filled her with fluids. Moment of truth, I fired her up, and she fired true. Well at least one thing had gone right.
I had fifteen minutes to get where I was going, which in a town this small? That was easy. I shot a text to Radar and asked where they were at. A second later he pinged back with ‘@ the Capt,’ so I headed there first, a knot of dread in my chest. I didn’t like pulling displays of humility after fucking up. No one did; but I was due one.
I rode carefully around and over debris, and pulled into the Captain’s circular drive. Several of the guys were standing around planning cle
anup, briefing on where to start. I kicked palm fronds out of my way until I had a patch of bare paver to lean my kickstand on. Tipping the bike gently, I leaned her over onto her stand and shut her off.
“We get the bikes?” Trike asked frowning.
“No, I just finished rebuilding my engine, she weathered the storm with me.”
“Oh,” he said and Stoker smacked him in the shoulder, talking down to him all the while giving me a harsh glare.
Guess no one would be talking to me until I made that apology. I’ll give my brother’s one thing… they were good at keeping a wayward man in line when he strayed off the path that was right by the club and his brothers. Seemed to me that Charity may have charmed the pants off of more than just me, I just seemed to be the only man here she’d done it to, literally rather than figuratively. I went up the steps, straightening my cut over my weathered Red Hot Chili Peppers band tee and with a sigh, stepped over the threshold of my Captain’s open front door.
It took a second for my eyes to adjust, even after raising my wraparounds to the top of my head. I blinked and glanced at Cutter, Marlin, and Pyro who wore triplicate grim expressions set in stone and I nodded.
“Anyone know where Charity is?” I asked.
“Right here,” she said softly and I turned. She was standing practically beside me at the bottom of the staircase.
“Hi,” I said, startled. She was dressed different. A peach, fitted tee replacing the pink tank, but the shorts were the same. She had on socks and what looked like hiking boots, a pair of work gloves sticking out of her back pocket. She’d straightened her hair and had it up in a high ponytail, and her makeup was done, light but there.
I wanted to ask her ‘who does their makeup to clean up a town’ but I didn’t. Instead I did what I came here to do. I got down on one knee and looked up at her and said, “I apologize, I was an ass and there’s no excuse for it. I’m sorry I scared you, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry that I made you cry.” I swallowed hard, the seconds ticking by one by one and added, “That’s not me, that’s never been me, and I don’t know what my fucking problem is.”
