by Tia Lewis
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, really, and I’ll rip every last bit of those nasty extensions off your fucking head if you don’t watch what you say around me.” I stood. Tamara nearly vaulted over the bar to stop me.
“Slow down! None of that here.” She turned to the girls. “I really think you’d both better go, unless you want me to call up your boss and tell him you were starting shit with the president’s old lady.”
“Is she his old lady, though? Doesn’t look that way to me.” She looked me up and down with a sour smirk on her face.
“Bitch,” I spat.
“Whatever.” She flipped me off before leaving. My heart pounded so hard, I thought I might pass out. The girl she’d been with had the good grace to at least look apologetic before skittering off behind her friend.
“Fucking bitch,” I whispered. “I was ready to kill her.”
“I was ready to do it for you,” Tamara muttered. “That trashy piece of shit. I have half a mind to tell Drake about her.”
“Don’t, please. That would mean telling him I was here.”
“You were obviously here. You brought his clothes, remember?”
“I know, but he doesn’t have to know I was hanging around.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re both too damned much.”
“Promise you won’t say anything, okay?”
A heavy sigh. “Fine. I promise I won’t say anything.” I gave her a quick hug and left before anything else happened, like the roof falling in on my head. It would be just my luck.
17
Drake
I sighed heavily when I got back from the hospital. Jack was worse than I had ever seen him. We’d sat around talking for about an hour. He had looked too tired to go on, so I’d left. He was getting out in another day or so—they’d run all the tests they could run on him, and he’d already told them he wanted to go home. He didn’t want to die in a hospital bed. I couldn’t blame him for that.
I just wished it didn’t feel like somebody was ripping my heart out every time I thought about him.
“How is he?” Tamara asked, then she looked at my face and didn’t ask anything else. I saw her swipe a hand across her cheek a moment later.
“We need to have that party. Tomorrow, the next day. No later than that.”
“God. So fast?”
“It looks that way.” I watched as she poured me a drink.
“I guess it’s a blessing. I would hate to see him suffering for longer than he has to,” she said. “I hate to see it at all.”
“I guess you’re right about that.” I hated seeing it, too, and if it were some long, drawn-out thing, it would only be worse.
“Are the guys ready to see him, do you think? You’re the only one who has so far.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know. I’ll have to warn them about how bad he looks.”
“Is he really that bad?”
“He’s not a skeleton yet, but if he loses much more weight, he will be. No energy. But I think he’ll save up what he has for the party. You know he never could say no to one.”
“Poor Jack.” Tamara leaned on the bar, head in her hands. “I can’t believe it.”
“I know.” Harris walked in, and we tried to change the subject. He could clearly see there was something wrong, and he stopped walking.
“It’s okay, kid. We were just talking about some things.” I waved him over.
“I don’t wanna interrupt,” he said. Sometimes I was just waiting for his voice to crack, I realized. He had that sort of “aw, shucks” thing about him. He reminded me of the kid from that old Happy Days show—tall, gangly, with that bright red hair. I knew he was really sixteen—I had looked at his ID one day when he left his wallet lying around—but I would have guessed fourteen if I didn’t know any better.
“You’re not interrupting,” Tamara promised. “You want a soda, buddy?” He nodded, and she poured him one.
“We were just talking about Jack,” I explained.
“Oh, right. Is he still real sick?”
I smiled a little. “Yeah, he’s real sick. He’ll never get any better. We’re gonna have a party for him, maybe the day after tomorrow.”
“Will he be up for a party?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but we’re gonna throw him one anyway. We want him to know how much we care about him, and how much we’re gonna miss him. I’ll want you here to help Tamara behind the bar. It’s gonna be a big night. She’ll need you to keep her stocked, keep the glasses coming from the kitchen, that kind of thing.”
“Like that last party with the Vipers,” he said.
“Right. You did a good job that night.” I patted him on the back, and he grinned. I wondered if he had ever had a positive male in his life. I remembered being that happy whenever Jack would show me a little bit of encouragement when I was a kid. I thought Jack might be happy if he saw me with Harris. Paying it forward and everything.
“You’re pretty much the president now, right?” he asked, sipping a Coke. I could tell he felt important, sitting there with me, having a drink—even if it was only a soda.
“Yeah, pretty much. Not official, but we can’t really have a ceremony. He’s too sick for that—I don’t know if he’ll be able to handle a party, even. My old bedroom’s right down the hall. He can sleep there when he’s too tired to keep going.”
Tamara nodded. “I’ll ask Violet to make sure there’s clean stuff in there for him.”
“Is there anybody else in his life?” Harris asked. “Like family or whatever?”
“No. He’s alone. Why do you wanna know?”
“I was wondering if we should, like, collect money for flowers or something. I know that’s what people do when somebody dies, right?” I heard Tamara’s strangled sob, and she turned away.
“That’s a good idea,” I said, trying to overcome what was happening inside me. “But I don’t think there’s anybody to buy flowers for.” The three of us were quiet for a long time. Then I remembered something that would change the subject and pick things up a little. I stood up, running a hand through my hair. It was too long. Nicole would have made sure I got it cut. Just another way her not being around had screwed up my life.
“I almost forgot something. I have something for you outside.”
Harris pointed to himself. “For me?”
“Yeah, for you. Come on. I can’t believe I almost forgot all about it.” I had been too busy worrying about Jack—not that he wasn’t worth worrying about. Harris followed me out to the parking lot, then to the shed where we kept our tools. I had hidden his surprise behind it.
“Here you go.” I motioned to the old bike sitting there against the back of the shed. It was more like a Frankenbike, put together from the pieces of a lot of other old bikes. Creed and Phil had helped me put it together.
“What’s this?” His eyes went big and round, almost bulging out of his head.
“It’s yours, if you want it.”
He let out something between a sigh and a groan. “Really? My own bike?”
“Well, if you wanna be a member of the Blood Riders one day, you’ve gotta have a bike of your own.”
He turned to me, mouth hanging open. “You mean it? I can keep it?”
“It’s yours, kid. But it’s yours to work on, too. I think you know enough from what I showed you to get it running like new.”
“Holy shit. Drake, I don’t know what to say.” I thought he might explode.
“You don’t have to say anything. It’s cool.” I watched him gape at the old bike—it was a piece of shit compared to the ones the members rode, of course, but to him it was everything. I remembered feeling that way about my first bike. She was more precious to me than anything, and I babied the hell out of her. It wouldn’t matter how many other bikes I owned or how much they cost me, I would never have one I loved as much as that first one.
I was grinning to myself as I walked back into the clubhouse. At least there was
something to be happy about in the middle of a lot of bad shit.
Ace burst through the door to my office. “Mail’s here. You got another letter. And something else.” He held out the manila envelope—same writing, same postmark. Then he held out a titty magazine.
“What’s this?”
“I found it out by the dumpster. There were two more inside.” He flipped through it. I saw what he was talking about—some of the pages had letters cut out of them, others had entire words and headlines missing.”
“Wait. You mean somebody here is doing this?”
“Either that or whoever it is wants you to think it’s somebody here.” He shrugged. “I thought it was worth mentioning.”
“Yeah, you could say that.” I looked down at the envelope in my hands. It was like holding a snake.
“You gonna open it?”
“Of course, I am,” I spat. He waited while I pulled the letter from the envelope.
“TELL YOUR WOMAN TO WATCH HER BACK. ANY DAY NOW.”
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, laying the paper on the desk for Ace to read it. He whistled through his teeth.
“Motherfucker,” he muttered. “And Nicole’s okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. Tamara checks in with her every day and I had Creed check on her too. I know she’s working at some restaurant in the city—can you believe that shit?”
“Why’s she doing that?” he asked.
“Because she’s fucking stubborn, that’s why. Nobody else would go that far. Only her. Just to show me she doesn’t need me.” I shook my head, staring down at the paper.
“We could take turns watching her,” Ace offered.
I grinned. “Yeah, like she wouldn’t see you a mile away. And she would give you so much shit for it.”
“I know, but it would make me feel better. I don’t know how you’re sleeping at night, brother.”
I glared at him. “Who said I am?” I had been running on a couple of hours a night plus a lot of coffee, and I could feel my body burning out more and more.
“Sorry,” he shrugged.
“So who’s doing this?” I asked Ace, like he knew.
“Somebody close.”
“Or somebody who wants us to think it’s somebody close?” I asked.
“Either way, it’s nobody with fingerprints in the system. They’ve already tested those letters. Besides our prints, the only other set came back with no matches.”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” I swept the papers off my desk in a show of rage. Pointless, meaningless rage. There was nothing I could do, and it was killing me to know it.
“I wish there was something I could say, Drake,” Ace mumbled.
“Yeah, I know.” I was out of breath like I had just run a marathon. I thought my heart would pound out of my chest. I even felt dizzy.
“Hey, Prez. You should sit. You don’t look too good.”
“Don’t call me Prez anymore,” I panted. “I hate it! Call me by name!”
“Okay, Drake, okay. I’m gonna get you some ice water.” While he went out to the bar for water, I sat down and wondered who wanted to kill my woman. If it were anybody on the force, their prints would have come up as a match. One of the whores from the Vipers? Why would they have anything against Nicole? Besides, they weren’t part of the picture when the letters started coming in. They only showed up after the first letter had already been sitting in my desk for days. Nicole’s aunt? Why would she take the trouble to drive in from Brooklyn to drop magazines in the dumpster—unless she and Tommy were in on it together and he told her to do it. But why? Maybe to make me think somebody in the club was responsible.
I had no answers by the time Ace came back with a bottle of cold water. If anything, I had even more questions than before.
18
Drake
Two days later, we kicked off a party like Jack had never seen before.
He sat in a chair in the lounge, surrounded by friends and a lot of women. Many, many women—some of Bobby’s girls, some of the girls who usually hung out around the club. Violet was there, and Darcy. Both of them looked like they wanted to cry, but they were under strict instructions from Tamara not to let him see how upset the way he looked made them. Everybody had gotten the same warning before I brought Jack to the clubhouse. I’d told them how thin he was, how his eyes were a little bit sunken in. He looked tired, old and worn, I’d told them. But it was one thing to be told and another to actually see somebody when they were just weeks away from dying.
Still, everybody was strong and made a point to have a good time for his sake. They didn’t need much help, really. Alcohol did it for them. The whiskey and beer flowed all night, the music never stopped, and there was a group of girls dancing just for Jack’s entertainment all night long. I knew I would never forget the smile on his face when he watched the girls bumping and grinding together, right in front of him.
The only thing that would’ve made it better would have been if my fiancée had shown up, but she couldn’t be bothered. I guessed she was working. Just the thought was enough to make me take a drink. Working. Like she didn’t already have a job with the club. We were never good enough for her. She needed to work in some fancy fucking restaurant with a bunch of snobby fucking people who wouldn’t give anybody in the club the time of day. That was the world she had always belonged in, wasn’t it? The one I had taken her away from. Had she ever forgiven me for that? Probably not, which was why it was so easy for her to stay away from me.
The worst part was, as much as I missed her—and I did, so much—it got a little easier every day to be without her. As long as I didn’t see her or hear her voice or smell her perfume, I was fine. I could pretend she was just a passing thing I went through, a phase.
I heard laughter coming from Jack’s corner of the room, and I heard Creed telling one of his tall tales about a run he and Jack went on years ago. The both of them had barely gotten out of it with their lives, but from the way Creed told the story it had all been a big adventure. Jack laughed just as hard as anybody else when Creed got to the part where his bike almost kicked on him. He had to ride behind Jack the rest of the way to the clubhouse.
“So there’s my fat ass behind this fucking giant over here,” he said, doubled over with laughter, “and I’m afraid I’m gonna fall off, so I grab him around the waist.”
“And I said, that’s my dick you’re holdin’ onto,” Jack finished. Everybody roared. “I couldn’t help it! Like you never got a hard-on when you were gettin’ chased. Please.” He waved a hand—I would miss seeing him wave his hand like that, I thought—and laughed with the rest of them. I only smiled. It was a good thing, watching him sit in the middle of the group, everybody paying attention to him.
“He looks better than you described,” Tamara shouted over the music and voices. She handed me a drink.
“Yeah, he does look a little better. I guess everybody looks better outside the hospital.”
“And he’s happy. This was a very good idea.”
“I think so.” I wanted him to have the goodbye he deserved. If we had to say goodbye, we needed to say it the right way. I just wished it didn’t have to happen.
I looked at Tamara. “Did you tell her this was going on tonight?”
She nodded, looking sad. “She had to work—she doesn’t wanna get fired for skipping a shift so early. You know? She really did wanna be here. She cried when I told her.”
I couldn’t make myself care that she cried. She deserved to cry. We were okay for her to care about when she needed us, when she was in trouble. The minute she felt safe again, all secure in her house on Long Island, she decided she didn’t need the club anymore. I downed my drink, signaling for another. It was easier to think about her that way. It didn’t bother me as much.
“You should slow down,” Tamara advised, but she poured me another drink anyway. “You’ve got him to take care of tonight.”
I knew what she meant. There wasn’t anybody els
e in the club Jack would let take care of him but me. When he got too tired to go on, he would give me a signal, and I would help him to my room. Nothing bigger than that, nothing more obvious. He didn’t want everybody making a big deal about him needing to go to bed. And when he did, we would wrap things up—not that we had to leave, but we’d have to calm things down so he could sleep. It was all for his benefit, anyway. I had the feeling the minute he was out of the lounge, the place would quiet down pretty quick.
But he was still having fun, so I still sat back and watched him. I saw Creed joking with him again, saw Diesel and Ace and Phil talking with him. I saw the girls dancing in front of him, sitting with him. Whenever any of them turned away, I saw the strain on their faces. They were trying so hard to keep up appearances for him, just like he was trying for them. I knew he was exhausted, almost too exhausted to keep his head up. He wouldn’t let any of them see him fall apart.
It didn’t take long before he was worn out, no matter how hard he tried. He signaled me, waving me over. I wanted to jump down from my stool and lead him away, but I took my time. No hurry, no big deal, no reason to let anybody know the shape he was in. It was all a game, all a big lie, all a show. He was a proud man, and he didn’t want any of them to see him crumbling. I had to respect that.
Everybody wished him a good night before I led him down the hall with a hand on his arm. He was determined to make the short walk on his own—looking over at his office door as we went—but the second we were in the room, alone, he stumbled a little.
“Here. I’ve got you.” I helped him sit down on the bed, and he sighed like he had just walked thirty miles instead of thirty feet.
“Damn. That took it out of me, son.”
“I guess it did. You’re okay now. You did a good job out there.”
“You did a good job out there. Make sure everybody knows how grateful I am, okay?” He was a little out of breath, a little shaky, but he was determined to take his own damned shoes off. I wanted to help him, just to make it a little easier on him, but he wasn’t having it. He waved my hands away.
