by C. M. Marin
“You good, sweetheart?”
Melvin’s concerned voice shakes me out of my thoughts.
“Sure,” I lie. “Since you’re here, what about I hire you?”
Lazily crossing his arms, he leans against the doorframe. “What’s the job?”
“Packing, loading up and moving a bunch of heavy furniture, cleaning up. Exciting things like that.”
“Your apartment?”
I nod.
He hums, and I expect him to ask more about my plans, but instead, he says, “What’s the salary?”
“A dinner at one of the best Italian restaurants I know?” I grimace.
He grins brightly. “Deal.”
* * *
I pop open two beers and hand one to Melvin, who is slouched into the futon set underneath the window. The futon, the chair I just moved to sit in, and the few boxes piled up in the entryway are the rare things still unpacked. The apartment is nearly empty.
We did an awesome job that I couldn’t have done by myself. Not in one day anyway. After this much-needed break, there will only be a little bit of cleaning left to do and we’ll be ready to bring everything to the goodwill. I decided to leave my bond check to the landlord so he could take care of repainting the apartment himself. Not enough time to do it myself, but mostly not enough motivation. The only thing I want is to leave that place behind like it never existed. Which is why the very first things that were shoved into a trash bag were the pictures of me smiling up at Colin. All of them are now right where they belong, among old cosmetics and rotten food.
“What are your plans now? Not that I don’t like playing babysitter in LA, but I like Texas better.” He smirks and lifts his bottle to his lips.
I don’t hesitate more than a short moment before deciding I should as well tell him the truth. He’ll probably have to report anything I tell him to Nate, but if Nate wants to know anything about my life, I’m under the impression that he’ll find a way to get the information anyway. I can’t see why he’d want to know anything, though. It’s hard to understand why he even sent someone to make sure nothing happens to me.
“I sent an email to the school principal early this morning. I resigned,” I summarize.
That’s a decision I didn’t make this morning.
When I left Texas yesterday as the sun was barely rising, it was to never come back. My plan was to find a new apartment in LA and go back to work as I was supposed to. I mean, Nate and I never talked about the possibility of me staying in Texas. Did he want me to stay? I don’t even know. I think he did, but he never said so. That’s why I didn’t plan on going back anywhere near Twican. But the closer I got to LA, the stronger loneliness grew. This feeling I had lived with for so long before meeting Nate came back to weigh on me the instant I turned away from him. It felt so heavy on my chest that it became difficult to breathe. I knew right then that going back was the only option for me. So I resigned.
I’ll be going back to Texas as soon as everything is settled here. But going back to Texas doesn’t mean going back to Nate. I can’t take the risk of him getting hurt, but the end of whatever our relationship was can only be more bearable if I’m at least back there.
“Good.”
My beer pauses midway to my mouth, and I arch a brow. “I don’t have a job anymore, and all you have to say is good?”
He shrugs. “You’re the one who quit, and you did it for a reason. You’re coming back, then? I mean, why else would you have quit.”
The truth is what I give him once again. “I plan to come back to Texas, but not to the club. I…” I trail off with a sigh that ends up on a groan. “Do you ever get used to the possibility of people you’re close to being hurt?”
“Is that why you left? Because you realized Nate could get hurt?”
That, I can’t tell him. It’s too dangerous. Because of what I already told him, I’m afraid Nate could start to question whether I really left because living the club life isn’t something I want. It broke my heart to write those words down, because the last thing I wanted was for him to believe that. But it’s not like I had a choice. And I can’t mess it all up now. Me being back in Texas could already make Nate cogitate on things that need to be left alone. And if he finds out Colin not only approached me but led me away as well, he’ll lose his mind and do something that could get him hurt, or worse. He could get killed. He could get killed because of me.
“You know,” Melvin goes on when I don’t say anything. “When Nate offered for me to prospect for the club, I thought about it for days before accepting,” he admits. “My childhood had never been stable, and I needed stability more than anything. I needed that for my little brother, Max.”
What?
“You have a brother? But where is he? I never saw him at the club.”
“He doesn’t come to the club. The guys don’t know about him. Don’t forget I’m a prospect,” he grins, but a sad veil falls back over his face quickly. “Max is in foster care,” he says, and his eyes are reflecting so much sorrow that I want to hug him. “We don’t have the same father, but both men took off before we were even born. Not a bad thing, considering our mother’s talent for poor choices. Let’s just say that men and booze have always been more important to her than us. And for six years, we did good, Max and me.” A small smile appears on his lips at the thought of his brother. “We did good until less than a year ago, just before I met the Chasers. I had just turned eighteen, and my mother was arrested for prostitution and drug possession. After losing her waitressing job because of her drinking habits that were only getting worse, she thought snorting drugs and screwing some perv for money were the solutions to her problems,” he snorts. “I was eighteen, so I escaped the foster care, but Max wasn’t even six years old.”
He was eighteen, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need help himself. This is heartbreaking.
“I saw a lawyer, hoping I could ask for custody. The guy told me that the chances of succeeding were slim to none. I had just graduated from high school but didn’t have a job. I got busy trying to find a job straight away, but I had to let Max go anyway. And you know the way it is in small towns. Everyone knows you’re the trash’s son living in an old trailer park that doesn’t have electricity half the time. No one wants to hire guys like me.”
I don’t know why he’s telling me all this, and I don’t know in what way that answers my question, but it seems like he needs to get those things out, so I ask, “Is it the reason that pushed you to accept Nate’s offer? Because you didn’t have a choice?”
“Honestly, I first thought that the life I’d live in a biker club would be just as chaotic as the life I’d known growing up. I thought of bikers as a bunch of criminals, probably alcoholics and junkies. And I was certain I’d never get Max back if I joined a club like that. But the truth is, yes, I didn’t have a choice. I needed a job, and Nate was the only one who offered me one. But I quickly realized that he offered me more than a job. He offered me a goal. Despite their shady activities, I found guys who can become family to Max and me. If they patch me in, I know they’ll accept him, too. And I know they’ll help me get him back. Because that’s what family does. So, yes, it’s always worrying to see family get hurt,” he finally voices the answer to my question. “But that can happen to anyone, biker or priest. But I think you know that more than anyone.”
Nodding, I think about it. He’s right. My parents lived a normal life, never taking any unnecessary risk, and I lost them way too soon anyway. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. So, yes, he’s right, but he still doesn’t know everything. By changing my mind and finding my way back to this life I came to love, I’d be risking all the guys’ lives in full knowledge of the situation. And I can’t do that.
“Are you still seeing your brother?” I change the subject.
“Every Saturday,” he grins. “We play ball or video games, that sort of thing, you know? Only thing that keeps me from losing my mind is that he’s got a nice foster fa
mily. They’re good people.”
“That’s great. Will you take him to meet the guys once you’re patched in?”
“Only once I have him back. The lawyer I saw told me I needed damn solid proof that I can support a child if I want to have a chance to get him back. That obviously means a steady job and an apartment, but it also means keeping Max away from any bad influences. And I’m afraid the club would fall into that category for any judge.”
A few months ago, that’s what I would have thought, too. But then I met the club life and the members who are also fathers. Those men not only love their children and do everything possible to see them happy, but they also give them all they need to have a stable adult life one day. They teach them hard work and values such as integrity and loyalty. They’re good parents.
My phone rings with a text, cutting through the conversation. I glance at it as it rests on my lap.
“It’s the landlord asking me when I’ll be ready,” I say.
“Just the time to finish loading up and play cleaning women for a bit,” he jokes, his light mood back as he stands. “I became damn good at it. An hour, tops, and he can show up.”
I let him take care of the few boxes left while I type my answer.
Thank God I’ll soon be out of these walls for good.
Chapter 28
Nate
I wish I were anywhere but here. Don’t even know why I tagged along. Because I’m a fucking masochist, that’s why. Cam and I hadn’t come to Dona’s since that morning before she was snatched from her burning house, but it still feels wrong to be here without her. All my eyes can see is her smile across the table. All my ears can hear are the sounds she makes when she eats her pancakes. Her laugh and her voice as she talks about the kids she teaches. All I smell is her sweet scent. All I can sense is her presence even though she isn’t fucking here.
The hole she’s dug into my chest is painful, and I’m all the more pissed at her for it.
“Here, everyone,” Dona says as she pours us some more coffee.
Jayce is sitting beside me, and Lilly and Cody across from us.
Lilly and Dona kept in touch a few times a year most of the years Lilly lived in Colorado, but until this morning, they hadn’t met in person since Lilly disappeared twenty-five years ago. They spent the first twenty minutes after we arrived firing up words to each other like they expected to catch up with two damn decades in five minutes.
And here they go for round two.
I tune them out, my mind wandering back to Camryn. She’s in my head at every damn moment. Just like the fear. The fear is clinging to my stomach at every damn moment, too. I trust Melvin―he wouldn’t be the one having eyes on her right now otherwise―, but I’m the one who should be by her side. Or she should be here with me, rather. She should be sleeping in my bed at night. Not in a cold hotel room. But I must admit that I’m fucking thrilled she doesn’t sleep in the bed she used to share with that bastard who’s unfortunately still breathing. Not that I thought she’d want to go back there. I obviously know she didn’t leave Twican because she wanted her life with him back.
“Nate.”
“What?” I answer Jayce with a bored sigh.
I really should have stayed put at the club. I don’t even want to talk.
“Your phone.”
“Don’t have yours?” I ask him, annoyed, though I already lean back in the booth to fumble into my pocket.
“What? No, I don’t want your phone, dumbass. Just saying it’s been buzzing for the past fifteen seconds.”
My gaze lowers as he reaches for the said phone that actually wasn’t in my pocket but on the table.
I don’t remember putting it there and I didn’t hear it buzzing either.
Three pairs of eyes are assessing me curiously, which brings me to notice that Dona has gone back to work. I ignore them all, my own attention quickly shifting to my phone. Finding out who called me is all I’m interested in at the moment. But like every time my phone went off in the past couple of days, crushing disillusionment fills me as Cam’s voice isn’t the one meeting my ear when I listen to the message someone left.
I put my phone back down on the table and tell Jayce, “Looks like you got some family left. So has Camryn.”
His breath audibly lodges in his throat as he must understand it was Doc calling. But then he conceals any trace of emotion with a smirk.
“How many beatings do I owe my sister’s boyfriend?”
See? This, right here. The pain slashing my guts is so sudden and sharp that I almost need a user manual to remember how to take the smallest breath. No air can weave its way in without my chest being torn open when Camryn is brought up. And now my best friend happens to be the brother of that girl I can’t properly function without but who doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.
Wonderful.
“Not her boyfriend,” I remind him, not tempering my harshness.
My blatant irritation doesn’t unnerve him. It makes my fist itch to punch his face, just like his following reproach.
“Get your head out of your ass. Something’s off. Ben believes it, too. Everyone does. Something was off when you guys got back from her house. Something wasn’t right, you have to see that.”
“Of course something wasn’t right. She was about to fucking run off,” I growl.
It’s exasperation that stews in me now.
“That doesn’t make sense, dammit. Why would she shut off out of the blue? Did she ever say she wasn’t happy here? Did she even look unhappy? Alex told Liam that Cam told her how she didn’t feel alone anymore since she got here. She―”
“Alex told Liam, huh?” I cut him off, my tone purposefully gushing sarcasm. “What about I’ll get my head out of my ass when you do?”
Like his family’s death, his relationship with Alex is an off-limits subject. We don’t bring it up. I just thought it’d be as good a way as any to get a rise out of him. But I can’t even get that right, visibly.
Not flying off the handle, he stays infuriatingly collected. “Fair enough,” he admits. “But let me be clear. She’s my sister and I want to get to know her. That implies her coming back here, even only occasionally, when shit is handled with the Spiders. As for in the meantime, I’m even less fond than before of her being so far away while two twisted fucks think they own her. So, either you reach out to her yourself to know what the fuck happened three days ago that made her run off on you, or I will.”
“Okay, you’re starting to get loud, and I don’t think that’s going to suit Dona just fine.”
Jayce blows a frustrated breath at Cody’s warning. “We got the meeting in thirty anyway.”
The meeting. I’m aware there’s serious shit we need to discuss―a good part of this shit being finding out a way to ensure Camryn’s safety―, but I still just want to go back to the club and lock myself in my room with a bottle of strong liquor until it puts me to sleep again.
“Great,” I mumble, throwing a fifty on the table.
Without waiting for Lilly to do whatever she’s trying to do with her hands buried into her purse, I go to the counter where Dona is drinking some orange juice as she seems to be taking a break.
“You knew who Camryn was all along,” I get straight to the point. “That’s why you let her sit at that table that day.”
She smiles, but there’s a sad glee in her eyes despite it.
“I would have let her sit there anyway, but I won’t say I wasn’t glad you both could meet. Of course, I never envisioned you and her growing that close, but when I saw her back here, alone and…lost, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help her meet this world she came from. I knew it was a risk, since I didn’t know Rod had already found her, and I was afraid you could lead her to him involuntarily, but the fact that a girl like her was going through life without any family just broke my heart.”
“And you knew Jayce was her family.”
She nods, apologies heavy in her eyes. “It wasn’t my
secret to share, though. Mary made a choice that was hers to make, and Lilly was trying to respect it. I hope you don’t hold it against her, because her strong ties with Mary and what she did to protect Camryn led her into a life of loneliness. She gave up a life with the man she loved to protect Camryn as well as Cody’s best friend and his boy.”
Lilly lived more than two decades of her life far away from the man she apparently never stopped loving. I can’t even begin to imagine that. Cam has been gone for three days. Three days, and I’m in such a chaotic state that I feel like the only way to quiet my distress would be to ride like hell to the Spiders and trigger a killing spree.
“No one is holding anything against her,” I reassure her.
She nods. “Lilly told me you have eyes on her, but I’m worried, Nate. Rod won’t give up.”
Feels really nice to be given the impression of failing the only girl you’ve ever let in, even though it’s her who left without saying goodbye. I don’t feel like shit at all.
But what am I supposed to do? Kidnap her and lock her up? Yeah, that would be so different from what CJ wants to do. It’s not my damn fucking fault if the life I live drove her away. And it’s not like I could just go and live hers either. I’d do any-fucking-thing for her, but how would I find a place in her world?
“Hey, Dona, can I have some pancakes to go? Like, twenty,” Cody asks her, leaning his elbows on the counter. “Ben’s throwing a fit because we didn’t invite him,” he tells me then.
I’ll give him my spot next time. No problem.
“Hank always has some ready,” Dona chuckles as she sets her glass on the counter and walks away to her husband and skilled cook.
