Still Standing

by Kristen Ashley

  What he didn’t do was tell me how they reacted to this.

  Thus, I decided it was probably bad, or if not bad, then not met with exuberant curiosity that their dad was all of a sudden shacked up with a virtual stranger.

  I had been in Buck’s house for three days, including the one where I slept most of the day.

  This time was taken up with me inspecting Buck’s place, unpacking my stuff that his boys delivered, picking up Buck’s bedroom, doing some laundry and watching daytime television with Driver.

  It was enough.

  Moving around to keep my body from getting tight was one thing, but overdoing it was bad. I learned that clearing Buck’s floor space. I was still tender, but after succeeding in that feat, I felt pain.

  So when I was done, Driver and I fired up the television and watched soaps and reruns of Dynasty.

  Most of the soaps we watched were Mexican because Driver thought all the screaming, dramatic music and narrowed looks were hilarious (and I agreed). Neither of us spoke a word of Spanish, but still, they were funny.

  We watched Dynasty because it was even funnier.

  Buck was not around this whole time. He left me with Driver to get work done at Ace and to do Scary President of an MC Things.

  I learned to spot the difference quickly.

  If he was going to Ace, he’d share this with me.

  If he was doing Scary President of an MC Things, he didn’t share.

  The first night of my first full day in his house, Buck came home early with a pizza.

  Driver was not invited to stay.

  We ate it in front of the TV. Buck drank beer, I drank Coke, and Buck talked, mostly updates about my issues.

  These included that Esposito was laying low…

  “But darlin’, he has no choice. I was pretty thorough.”

  Yikes!

  Also no word from anywhere about Tia.

  Which I was trying not to think about, planting visions firmly in my head each leg of her imaginary journey on her road trip to freedom in Seattle (I decided she’d gone to Seattle, just because that was where we’d planned to go).

  When we were done eating, I cleared the box away (Buck didn’t do plates with pizza either, something I found difficult—eating pizza with nothing but my hands and a paper towel—but I mastered it on my third and final slice), and I brought him another beer.

  I fell asleep again with my head on his thigh, and as such, there was a repeat of him carrying me to bed where I woke up just long enough to feel my head hit the pillow.

  The second night, he came home late, had a beer and gave me another update on my issues (brief, since nothing was happening, which included no sign of Tia). He then told me he’d talked to his kids, he’d spent the day at Ace and that was the extent of our conversation.

  I was learning Buck needed to unwind at night and unwinding didn’t mean deep, soul-bearing conversations.

  It meant greasy food, beer and zoning out in front of the television.

  This was okay since he liked doing the last with my cheek on his thigh and his fingers playing with my hair.

  And anyway, I wasn’t up for soul-bearing conversations. I had enough of that for a while.

  I needed a rest.

  Although all of this was uneventful, the state of play of my life had shifted substantially.

  I had my stuff, such as it was, but at least I had conditioner and clean underwear. And I didn’t have my unpaid rent hanging over my head.

  I also didn’t have my car. I’d left it sitting too long, and in one of his updates, Buck informed me the repo men got it before his boys could get it.

  This stunk.

  Buck told me to kiss it good-bye and stop thinking about it, and since I really didn’t have any choice, I did that.

  Though, I did worry that they took the homeless man’s tarp when they took my car. He needed it. It didn’t rain much in Arizona, but when it did, I suspected a tarp came in handy.

  And not incidentally, when I shared this fear with Buck, he told me, “The boys’ll handle that too.”

  Later, after he got a phone call, he confirmed that they did handle it.

  I mean…

  This guy.

  And “his boys.”

  Seriously.

  On Mrs. Jimenez front: she was back at home. Buck’s men had located my purse and returned her nest egg. She reported to me she was fine—though Raymundo was looking for new accommodations for her.

  She promised me this was not about me except for the fact she liked me next door and whoever might replace me might not be a quiet neighbor.

  Unsurprisingly, Dallas didn’t expend a great deal of effort vetting his renters. Except for me, Mrs. Jimenez and Mrs. Ramirez, who lived on the first floor, all of our neighbors were loud due to screaming matches or being rowdy or both.

  “Sometimes, life gives you signs,” Mrs. Jimenez told me over the phone. “You get tied to a chair, that’s a big sign.”

  Well, at least she could be philosophical about it.

  My bruises got angrier on Thursday, but now they’d begun to fade, as had the aches and pains. I was days away from being back to myself, but the healing was kicking in.

  And last, but very much not least, it bore repeating, Tia remained unfound.

  When I allowed myself to think about it, I came up with the good part about this being the fact that Esposito didn’t have her. And word on the street (according to Buck), neither did any other bad guy.

  The bad part about this was she was smoke (Buck’s vernacular).

  So I was all in for visualization.

  Thus, after the time had come when she would have made it to Seattle, I tried to visualize her applying for jobs in coffeehouses.

  But, if I was honest, my visualization wasn’t working.

  I was scared for her.

  She knew Mrs. Jimenez’s phone number, though, and I just hoped she’d give Mrs. Jimenez a call. And Buck told me the word was still out, they were still looking for her and he still seemed confident she’d be found.

  I tried to suck confidence out of his confidence, but this wasn’t working either.

  I was worried about my friend.

  “Clara! They’re waitin’ and I gotta go!” Buck shouted, and I jumped.

  “Coming!” I shouted back, finishing putting in an earring, and my eyes dropped to the framed photos on his dresser.

  I’d had time to explore his house the last couple of days and I’d spent a goodly amount of time studying those photos.

  I did this because I was curious about Buck, I was curious about the pictures and I was curious about the people in them.

  Some of them, I could guess.

  His kids, both of whom were gorgeous, not just Tatiana. They looked like him. Dark hair, dark brown eyes, the boy tall and filling out, the girl was short though, and in some of the photos, getting curves. None of the pictures were recent but they weren’t older than a couple of years.

  The others I could guess.

  Parents, definitely.

  And a brother and two sisters, one of which was married (there was a wedding photo, and although she wore a pretty, albeit skimpy white dress, her other half was definitely a biker if the leather jacket he wore over a nice dress shirt to his wedding was anything to go by).

  There were a lot of photos, something I thought strange for a man like Buck to have on display in frames spread across his dresser in his bedroom.

  The frames weren’t designer chic, they were no-frills, but he made the effort to buy them and put the pictures in them.

  The photos ranged a lifetime, from when he and his brother and sisters were kids, to when they were young adults. None of these were recent either and they were a whole lot less recent than the ones with his kids.

  But all of them, his kids, his folks, his siblings, were close. There were smiles, even laughter. Arms thrown around each other.

  Hugging.

  Good times.

  Happy times.
<
br />   I liked this for him.

  I liked that he was a man who would display something like this, showing openly the people in them, and the times they shared, meant a great deal to him.

  I wanted to ask Buck about them.

  But I didn’t.

  He seemed very comfortable with our arrangement, but I was not.

  It didn’t escape me that I still barely knew him, I hadn’t even known him a week.

  Sure, asking him about those photos, his family, would be getting to know him, but I was hesitant.

  I was this because I didn’t want to pry. I didn’t want to seem pushy. Buck was definitely capable of sharing, but I figured he was the kind of man who did it when he was ready, and he wouldn’t welcome nosy questions.

  So I didn’t ask those questions.

  I walked to the bed, sat down and slipped on one of my high-heeled, strappy sandals, bending cautiously, as had become my habit to treat my body the last few days, to buckle it.

  I did this thinking that I’d also had time to explore the rest of his house.

  Along the landing, there was his room and master bath, another full bath and two more rooms.

  The one next to Buck’s was an office—desk, battered couch, computer and full-on mess.

  At the other end was another big bedroom, just without the master bath, and I guessed Tatiana slept there.

  This was a guess because there was abandoned makeup scattered on a low dresser, some underwear and T-shirts in the drawers, some jeans and a very cool leather jacket in the closet, and a vampire novel on the nightstand by the bed. I’d also found tampons and hair straighteners in the hall bathroom.

  But there was nothing else there that hinted at the personality of Buck’s daughter.

  Girls, I thought, claimed their space, made it theirs with posters and pictures of friends and boys they liked, jewelry dangling from mirrors, Christmas lights with flowers on the bulbs, stuff like that.

  But it looked like a guest bedroom where the guest left in a hurry.

  Not so the loft at the top of the stairs on the landing.

  Buck’s house was bigger than just what was on the landing and in the great room.

  Off the great room was a kind of den, slouchy furniture, another TV, what appeared to be a communal PC on an old-fashioned roll-top desk, a free-standing cast iron fireplace.

  Off the den was a large utility room with a deep, four-legged sink, washer and dryer, counterspace, not a small amount of cupboards for storage and an extra full-size freezer and fridge.

  The freezer was filled with meat. So much meat, it looked like an entire cow was in there alongside an entire pig.

  That was the extent of the bottom floors.

  But the loft was full-on Gear’s space.

  Unlike Tatiana, Gear had claimed his room.

  There were some deeply slanted ceilings and a skylight. There were also throw rugs on the floors and posters on the wall, mostly scantily clad, extremely buxom women, the majority of them wet with what little clothing they had on plastered to their bodies.

  Unmade bed, the sheets of which seriously needed cleaning (and I made a note to do that, after I met Gear, of course, I didn’t want him to think I was invading his space). Clothes tangled all over the floor with the rugs (just like his dad’s room had been, though not as bad). A stereo with so many CDs, Gear could stock his own music store (and it was weird, but kinda cool to see CDs—I didn’t know people did CDs anymore, I thought it was all about streaming). All of the music was hard rock or rap.

  There also seemed to be car parts or other pieces of mechanical equipment lying around.

  I could get a read on Gear from his room.

  He liked girls with large breasts. He liked music. And as his father had mentioned, he liked to tinker with stuff.

  I finished buckling my other shoe and walked quickly to the bathroom, not wanting to be rude, but at the same time stalling.

  I looked at myself in the mirror.

  Faded jeans but only faded because I’d owned them for a long time (I hadn’t bought any new clothes in over a year). A delicate salmon-colored blouse which I’d managed to keep in decent condition even though it, too, had been hanging in my closet for a while. Strappy matte bronze sandals which had been very expensive when I bought them three years ago and I painstakingly took care of them too.

  Luckily, when they seized Rogan’s and my possessions, they’d left me with my clothes.

  Unluckily, this was about all they left me with.

  Further to that misfortune, a good deal of these things I’d had to commission for the money (mostly handbags and shoes, but also designer clothing).

  I’d made careful selections of what to keep.

  Clothes that might help me find a job and some things that I could live in and not be reminded every day that my life was in the toilet.

  I hadn’t been able to camouflage much of the bruising around my eye, so it shone in high relief and my scabbed-over cut lip was impossible to hide.

  I wondered what Lorie’s friends would think of me. I wondered if they’d like me. Lorie thought I was sweet, and I got the impression Driver liked me. I just hoped the others would too.

  I wasn’t looking forward to this on a variety of levels, including the fact I had no money in my purse, and I couldn’t use my credit cards. If I tried, they’d probably be shredded by shop assistants at the register.

  I couldn’t even afford a cup of coffee.

  I felt my anxiety rising as I stared at myself in the mirror, and I was intent on doing that when I heard Buck.

  I jumped and whirled to face the bathroom door.

  “Babe, what the fuck?” he asked.

  “Do I look okay?” I blurted, and his chin listed back.

  “Come again?”

  “Do I…?”

  Oh God, was I really asking Buck if I looked okay?

  Did you ask a badass biker if you looked okay?

  No.

  No, you didn’t.

  From what I was experiencing, they seemed confident in every detail of their lives.

  Then again, the mystery of why Buck’s hair was always so fantastically cool had not yet been solved.

  And it was always fantastically cool.

  If my hair always looked fantastically cool, I’d be confident too.

  I shook my head and my ridiculous thoughts away and muttered, “Nothing.”

  I walked to him, head bowed, spiked heels clicking on the tiles, but I had to stop because he didn’t move out of the doorway. I looked up at him just in time to see his hand come up and then I lost sight of it when it curled around the side of my neck.

  “Baby, you look fine,” he said quietly.

  Golly, I liked it when he was nice.

  And it had to be said, he was nice a lot.

  As in, all the time.

  “You sure?” I whispered.

  His fingers gave me a squeeze. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Okay.” I was still whispering.

  “They’re gonna love you, Clara,” he told me.

  I nodded, ready to believe him that I looked okay, not so sure I believed that.

  I got another squeeze of his fingers. “Darlin’, they will.”

  “Okay,” I repeated.

  He stared into my eyes a second before he bent his neck so he could kiss my nose.

  All right, now I felt better.

  He lifted his head, and I smiled at him. His focus dropped to my mouth, his fingers tensed on my neck, pulling me slightly up as he bent his neck again then his mouth touched mine.

  Two days and I hadn’t had that. Outside of the mini make out session on his bed that first morning, he’d not even brushed his lips against mine.

  I missed it.

  So much, I leaned in, and when his mouth started moving away, mine followed it.

  Suddenly, his arms were around me and his tongue was in my mouth.

  Oh, yes.

  I missed this even more.

  I
wound my arms around him and kissed him back.

  It was wet, it was heated, and it was effective. I knew this because I felt it starting, my knees got weak and my nipples got hard.

  As ever…

  Amazing.

  He tore his mouth from mine, and with just one kiss, I was breathing heavy and holding on to him for dear life.

  “You’re feelin’ better,” he growled, his voice rougher than normal, which was saying something.

  “Yes,” I panted, and his arms squeezed gently, like he was testing me, his eyes studying my face.

  “Good to know I can take your mouth without you whimpering in pain,” he muttered, his gaze locking on mine.

  It was then it hit me that he hadn’t kissed me in two days because he didn’t want it to get heated because getting heated might cause me pain.

  Oh yes, I definitely liked it when he was nice.

  He carried on, “Tonight, we’ll see what else I can take.”

  Oh.

  Wow.

  “Buck—” I whispered, and I didn’t know why because I had nothing to say except, maybe, “Yippee!”

  He let me go, stepped back, and I watched him pull his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. I then watched him open it. After that, I watched him sift through a bunch of bills, all of them hundreds. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten…

  And onward.

  Yes, onward.

  And there were several more in there.

  He pulled those bills out, flipped his wallet closed and shoved it into his back pocket. Then he grabbed my wrist, lifted it, and planted the wad of hundred-dollar bills in my palm.

  I stared at it.

  “Have fun, Toots, but I want you to use some a’ that to get yourself a phone. Get a decent one with a good plan. They give you problems with the contract because of your credit history, you get Lorie to call me, and I’ll sort it out. Yeah?”

  My head tilted back slowly, and I stared at him.

  Okay, so there was a lot of money there because phones cost as much as some cars these days (slight exaggeration).

  However.

  “I can’t take this,” I said.

  His brows shot together. “Why not?”

  “It’s hundreds of dollars.”

  “So?”

  “It’s hundreds of dollars.”

  “Yeah,” Buck said slowly, then repeated, “So?”