by Harlow Brown
“Look, Fury. I don’t know much about moonshine, but I know there are stills. I would think that she isn’t going to build stills in the resturant. That would be stupid. I would imagine that she will have you build them at Acres and we can distribute the goods from the restaurant. You need to relax and have some faith. Charlie is a smart and tough cookie. Now that she is married to Whiskey, you guys are pretty set up. Her parents clearly left her more than I knew. All I knew about was the insurance policies, Acres, her mustang, and the house that she and Hensley lived in. I didn’t have any idea that she had land and the hook up with the higher ups in the surrounding communities. I suppose she is a very valuable asset. I know whatever you need, she would make happen for you, especially since you guys helped free her, and she has her happily ever after. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Fury. Accept it and move on. If it is that big of a deal, make it on terms,” Rumor said.
“Such as?”
“Well, if you don’t want it to look like she gave you the land, then put it in her name since it is her land. Her hubby is the VP of the club, so he will have interest in it. It will look legit, you are just over thinking things. Drink a beer. Chill out. It’s all going to work out and be okay. Just believe.”
Just believe. That sounded so nice. I wanted to believe, but so much is hanging in the balance of uncertainty right now. There is the fact that I am me, or Fury I should say. Rumor must never find out who I really am. Now we have all these new plans, we still have to go get Chief’s remains, and find and deal with Jay and Sully.”
“Look, leave it with Charlie while you are gone. Sounds like she has a plan anyhow. She is a very business driven person, and will not steer you wrong. She won’t do anything to sabotage your operation. You are going to have to trust her and your brothers. They trust her.”
“For someone that knows nothing about the situation, you sure nailed everything on the head. I have a hard time letting people take over. I really don’t trust people. I know that Whiskey and Briar wouldn’t do anything to hurt the club, it’s just that…” I stopped.
“Just what?”
“I am used to having to do everything, so that it is the way it’s supposed to be. I’m the one responsible for the well-being of the club now. If something goes wrong it’s on me.”
“Relax. No one here is going to let that happen.” She hugged me.
I let my arms wrap around her and allowed her to comfort me. As her words sunk in, a peace came over me. I wasn’t at ease completely, but enough that I could enjoy my time away. I pinched the cherry off my cigarette and put the butt in my pocket. I bent down for a kiss and was surprised when I was met halfway. There she was, again, soothing me when I needed it most.
“Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
“Welcome. I had to do something, because if you acted like an ass much longer, I couldn’t have saved you. Jazz is quiet most of the time, but when you piss her off, it’s no holds barred. She is vicious. Charlie is a package of dynamite, too.”
I nodded and agreed that I had been an ass. “It’s part of my charm.”
“Let’s go back over there and fish some more, or swim. I need to relax some.”
Chapter 18
Rumor
BACK AT ACRES, Roxxi cooked dinner. Her and Sax were talking about plans for building a tattoo shop here, if they decided to stay around. She left everything she knew in Panama City. She was starting over, too.
We all gathered around the massive table with our beer and dinner.
Magnum asked, “So, you guys have a good outing? Fish biting?”
“Yeah we caught some, but mostly just swam and shot the shit. You know, took some time to unwind.” Charlie said.
“When is Raige coming over?”
“Mag, dude, she don’t want anything to do with you, give it up.” Briar said, shaking his head.
“I can’t forget her. She is fine as hell, and I can not get her off my mind. I need more beer.”
“Yeah, like a hole in the head.” Whiskey said.
RING RING RING
“What?” Fury answered the phone, clearly pissed off again. It must be miserable to be that unhappy. I wish I could help him be more pleasant, to show him that life isn’t as gloomy as he makes it.
“I see. We’ll be there tomorrow. We will leave at day break. Have us a hotel ready.” He smashed the end button on the phone.
“Men, meeting now. Sax, you too.”
They all went to the living room to meet, they weren’t concerned with privacy, as we all heard what was being discussed.
“That was Canon. Chief is ready. I will pick him up tomorrow, and we can stop and see if he has any other leads on Jay. We will also go, under the radar, to find him and Sully. If you know anything, or anywhere they might be, it’d come in real handy about now, Sax.”
“I can get in touch with someone that can hook us up with intel on their whereabouts.”
“Make your call, do what you got to do, and find Sully. I’m sure when you find him, we will also find Jay. The puppet isn’t going to get too far from his master.”
“You got it.”
Sax came back in the kitchen and sat down. He made some calls, texted a few people frantically, like he was on a mission and he was running against the clock.
“Done.” He said, walking back into the living room.
“Damnation, that was fast.” Briar said in amazement.
“They are staying at Sully’s. He has a pretty sweet and expensive car collection and they are there guarding them. Apparently, the word on the street is that The Chosen Legion is after blood and they are hiding at the only place they think I don’t know about. They underestimate me.”
“Good work.”
“Men, we ride out at daylight. Have fun with your ladies tonight, we don’t return until we have one or both of these fuckers. Preferably both of them.”
Sounds of yeas and clanking beer bottles filled my ears. Over the noise and ruckus, my sights were set on Fury. Even with the scowl on his face and the worry etched in his features, he was simply gorgeous. Perpetually pissed off never looked so good. His long, tall frame was leaned against the wall, and his arms were crossed over his muscular chest. His reddish brown hair was disheveled, but looked perfectly messy. His hazel eyes glanced the room over until they met mine. Even though he always looked mad at the world, when his eyes met mine there was a sense of peace about him. He even gave me a half grin. I could tell something was eating at him.
At the risk of being yelled at, I made my way to him. When I got in front of all six feet ridiculous inches of him, I looked into his eyes and inquired, “So, you going to be okay?”
“Don’t have a choice but to be.” He was short.
“You know it is okay to show some kind of emotion. You don’t have to be the tough guy all the time.”
“I am showing emotion. Can’t you see? I’m pissed off.”
“Touché. Look, I don’t know, nor do I care, what is about to happen. From the look of rage on your face, I can only assume the worst. Just know that I am waiting here for you when you get home, yeah?”
“I don’t know when that will be, Rumor. It isn’t fair for me to ask you to wait.”
“Then don’t.”
“Huh?”
“You aren’t asking. I’m telling you that I’ll be here when you get home. Besides, I have this waiting game down like a motherfucking champ.” I said as I shot him a wink.
“I guess you do. Let’s go out to the gazebo where it is quiet. We need to talk.”
We made our way hand in hand through the crowd of people in the living room, which earned us some looks and comments from the guys.
“Briar, he is touching someone, and it ain’t holding them by the throat!” Magnum screeched.
Once we were outside, he let go of my hand and lit a cigarette.
“Rumor, this is your chance to walk away. I am telling you this is going to get rough, and if your ex is in with the WITSEC program
, then I don’t want you involved with me.”
“What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
He thought for a second, shut his eyes, and hung his head. I could tell there was something he wanted to share.
“The less you know, the safer you are. I won’t purposely put you in a shitty position, but I’m telling you to leave me alone, for your own good.”
Sadness tore through me. Memories of the short time we had been together flooded my mind and tears formed in the corner of my eyes.
“No, no sir. You, Fury, don’t get that luxury. You don’t get to tell me what is best for me. Remember? We’ve had this argument before. I get to make that call. I want you, and I am choosing to stay with you knowing that you aren’t exactly flying on the right side of the law. I don’t give a hot damn about any of that. I care about you. You are the one that made me see that I was wasting my life waiting on something that might not have ever returned. Granted, he did, but I don’t want my old life. I want to see where this goes. Lawful or not. I don’t care.”
Those words sank deep into his hard head, because it took him a while to reply. He cupped my face with his cigarette between his fingers, “I want to look into these eyes of yours more, I want to kiss you more, I want more and I haven’t wanted anything in a long time. You changed that, but what I want doesn’t matter. I can’t commit to this. It isn’t fair to you. Rumor, this has to end, it has to stop. You are too good for me and this life. Go live your life and don’t get caught up in my web. I’m not the one for you.” He look me in the eyes, smoke swirled in front of his face, and he said, “I am sorry Rumor. I’m sorry I ever got involved with you. If it weren’t for me you would be back with your fiancé now. Go back to him, he can give you stability. I can’t. I have nothing to offer you except what you see now.”
“Jazz and Charlie do it. Why am I any different? What did I do to make you change your mind? I thought we had an agreement.” I said as tears started to well in my eyes.
“It’s for the best. I said it’s done. You are safer and better off without me in your life.” He said with finality in his voice.
He walked back into the house, taking my crushed feelings with him. He managed to break me again. For the third time.
I walked back into the house after I dried my tears some and made sure my face wasn’t beat red. As I went to my room, I felt everyone’s eyes on me. They had to know something was off.
I got to my room and shut the door. I cried. I cried because here I was again. I was being robbed of something that I wanted so desperately. Fury is good. Why can’t he see that? He wants me to run back to the arms of Creed? Creed is the reason I’m in this position to begin with. I couldn’t let him go with out saying one last thing to him. I wanted him to feel bad and needed him to see and feel the pain he caused me. I sauntered to Fury’s room, and threw the door open. I caught him off guard. He dropped something, but didn’t immediately bend over to retrieve it, he just stared at me with a look of surprise.
“You are good, Fury. I see it. I see your heart. You don’t want me to see it, hell, you don’t want anyone to, but guess what, I see you. I see through that rough and tough exterior. I see that you are a good person, one capable and deserving. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be warning me to stay away. You wouldn’t be trying to push me back into the arms of the very one that broke me. Just know before you go, that you are sabotaging what we have. You could’ve made, no, we could have made this work. This is on you. Congratulations! You’re number three. The third one to break my heart. You promised you wouldn’t and you did.” I turned and walked back to my room. I fell to the floor and cried silent tears so no one else would hear me.
Daylight came and the only reason I was awake was I heard the bikes pipes rumble as they pulled out of Acres. Thoughts of yesterday flooded my mind. I thought about the resturant. Did he, or they, still need me? I would have to talk to Briar and Whiskey. I wasn’t giving my notice at work until I had something definitive.
I laid there in bed thinking of what was going to happen to us, to the guys. My thoughts raced as to what they could possibly be doing when they got back to PCB. I decided that I couldn’t lay there anymore, I needed coffee. I made my way downstairs, and Briar caught my eye. I tried to avoid eye contact, so I slid right by him and made my way to the coffee pot.
“Don’t listen to him.” He said as he walked out of the kitchen.
I snapped my head around, “What? How did you know?”
He came back to the kitchen island. He put down his coffee and said, “Shooter and I heard you guys last night in the gazebo. He thinks he is saving or protecting you from something, when in reality, he is just sabotaging the situation. He is going to be fine. Nothing is going to happen to him. He wants to kill Sully and Jay, but that won’t happen because the rest of the boys won’t let him do anything stupid. He is going to come back and be who he was before he got the call to return to Panama City. Just hang in there.”
I was unable to say anything, so I turned around and finished making my coffee. My head was a jumbled mess. Leave him alone. Don’t give up on him. If I listen to what everyone was telling me, I will never figure out what I need to do. I was feeling as confused as a chameleon in a bag of Skittles.
“What? Wait! Briar, hold on.” I chased him. I caught up to him on the back deck. I asked, “What the heck? I don’t know what to do. You’re saying don’t give up. He is saying don’t wait on him, and I deserve better. I need answers.”
He took a drink of his coffee and looked at me for a long time, too long for comfort, before he said, “Look, I can’t tell you that it will be easy. I can just tell you that since you have been around, he is happy-ish, and he is trying to save you from him. He has a good heart, but also he knows that we don’t always abide by the rules, as you have learned. Just don’t listen to him. If you want to keep this thing going, then do it. He will want it, too. He just doesn’t want you getting caught up in any kind of blow back from this.”
“So you are saying to wait it out and basically, don’t listen to him. You men are irritating, you know that?” I said as I left him alone on the deck. I went inside and headed to my room. I didn’t end up in my room, I ended up in Fury’s. I looked around and sat on his unmade bed. Thoughts of everything that happened and everything that was said in the last week were flying around my head. I have lived so much more in the short time that I have known him than I have in years. Did I really want to give up on that? Did I really want to move on, again, and go back to Creed? These thought gave me chills and a feeling of uneasiness.
I hung my head in my hands and looked down to the floor as I continued warring with myself about everything. Just thinking about everything that had transpired exhausted me. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, trying to force myself to relax. When I opened my eyes, I saw something on the floor. I picked it up and stared. It was a picture of a gorgeous Native American woman. She had the most gorgeous green eyes and long dark hair. Who was she? I flipped over the picture and read the back. I will always love you, Eric. Who was Eric? Why did Fury have his picture, and why did he look so sad when I busted in here last night?
I held on to the picture. I would give it back when he returned, and let him know that I was, in fact, not giving up on him. I had to know where this was going. All of a sudden, I felt deep in the pit of my stomach, a wrectching, nauseous feeling at the very thought of not having him in my life. I thought of Creed and knew I was not supposed to be with him. He didn’t do anything for me anymore. I felt nothing except anger and resentment for him. I knew then, while sitting on his messy bed, holding some guy named Eric’s picture, that I was meant to see what was in store for us. I had the feeling it wouldn’t be easy. I even felt like he was going to balk at the idea, but I knew that I had to stick it out.
I went back down stairs and refilled my cup. When I ran into Briar again, I insisted, “I listened. I won’t give up on us. I can’t go back to Creed like he told m
e to do.” He looked at me and smiled a soft smile. “Do you know who Eric is?”
“No, why?”
“I went in his room and sat on his bed for a bit. I had my head down, trying to wrap it around this whole situation, and saw a picture. The inscription on the back was written to a guy named Eric. Just weird. When I busted through his door to talk to him last night, he was looking at something and dropped it,” I explained.
“There’s no telling. It might be a picture that belonged to his parents. Maybe a picture that his grandma gave to his grandpa or something like that. I don’t know anything about him before he was in the club. No one does. He made sure we all knew that it was off limits to talk about when he patched in. It’s understood that we don’t discuss his life prior to The Chosen Legion. Magnum made that mistake once and he ended up with a black eye and a jacked jaw over it.”
“No one stopped him?”
“I wasn’t there. This was in Panama City, four years ago. I was an eighteen year old punk kid. Still trying to figure out what I wanted out of life.”
“How did you end up in the club? Weren’t you and Jazz together then?”
“Yeah, I went with some friends, Whiskey and a couple of other guys, to Panama City Beach for vacation. While we were there we encountered The Chosen Legion. We were all intrigued by Chief, Magnum, and Fury. We happened upon the beach in front of the clubhouse and were not so kindly told that we were trespassing. Fury, was actually the one to let us know. Long story short, Whiskey and I were the only ones that were cut out for it. We stayed in touch and ended up patching in down the road. When Chief decided that he couldn’t convince us to stay in Panama City, he said we could start a charter here in Rudy. Whiskey took off to Texas shortly after that.”
“Why haven’t I seen many of y’all around?”
“We are fairly little. Our bigger charters have most of the members. Here the only ones you will know are me and Whiskey. We have a few other members, but they don’t come around a lot outside of club business. You will likely get to meet them soon though, seeing as Acres is our home now.”
