by A. J. Downey
“Guess they’ve had enough of us doing that.” He said smiling.
“I think so!” I agreed and we went about finishing what we’d started.
“Tell me about your dad?” he asked me shifting things aside in one of his dresser drawers. I handed him some neatly folded tees.
“My da’ was a slender man. Tall and willowy with big hands.” I said. I handed him the last photo my da’ and I had taken together. Him in his Dockers and button down shirt, me in one of my dance costumes after one of my competitions. His hair had been freshly cut, business like and his round spectacle like glasses perched smartly on the bridge of his nose. Pride shone in his eyes as we both smiled for the camera, a trophy clutched between us.
“What did he do for a living?” Dray asked softly, his gaze roaming the photo in his hands.
“Worked in a warehouse, loading and unloading trucks and trains.” I said softly.
“My mom…” he paused and took a deep breath, “My mom was a bank teller when my dad met her. She left that to run the front office and the books for the club and the shop.” He said. I smiled.
“My da’ was tough on me.” I murmured. “He had grand plans for me, wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be but wanted me to be more than him, you know? More than blue collar working all hours in a warehouse or factory. When I told him what Mandy and I wanted to do he wasn’t all for it at first. I convinced him.” I smiled, remembering. We’d had one hell of a row over it at first and finally he’d relented on the condition I get a degree in business. I hadn’t argued the point accepting it as more than fair.
“My mom was like that too. There was nothing second rate for me, everything was first rate and she’d be damned if I would be treated as anything less… that I would accept anything less for myself. She loved me, she loved my dad and she loved the club. She was proud as hell when I said I wanted to be a mechanic like my dad.” He rubbed the back of his neck and I could tell that our conversation pained him.
“What do you miss the most about her?” I asked, “For me, it’s the way my dad would explain things. He was a great philosopher that one, always thinking. Always encouraging me to think, to look below the surface, to lift the stones and people’s hearts and to look at what was underneath. ‘Never take what you see at face value Evy, always look underneath. It’ll keep you safe and you might be surprised at what you find’ he’d always tell me.” I looked at Dray and he looked at me.
“My mom always knew how to get me to talk about it.” he said. “She saw though all the layers and all the bullshit and knew just what to say to pry whatever was bothering a person free. She’d always listen and then she’d find a way to help you fix it. Or some piece of wisdom would come out of her mouth like it was as effortless as breathing.” He swallowed and coughed like he was choking up and handed the photo of me and my da’ back to me. I leaned way across the bed and set it up on the bedside table he’d declared mine.
I returned to his side where he sat, shoulders hunched and I put my arms around him. I didn’t know what to say, so I just held him and said the only thing I could.
“I love you Draven.” He turned his head, dark eye flashing when they captured mine.
“Love you too Babe.” He said and we held each other close for a time before resuming integrating each other into one another’s lives.
Chapter 12
Dray…
“Fuck me!” I exclaimed. Everett blinked her pretty blue eyes in mild surprise herself. I tried turning Sadie over one more time.
Click!
Nothing.
“Battery?” she asked.
“Or starter. At least its dry today, come on. We’re going for a ride.” I got out of the car and she followed suit.
“I can tell you are just so broken up over that!” She grinned at me but her smile faded when I didn’t quite return it. I didn’t know what my problem was today but I had this, just, nagging bad feeling about it.
I wanted to lock Em in the house, pull the blinds; keep her safe. It was crazy and didn’t make a damn bit of sense.
“Dray what’s wrong?” she asked. I didn’t want to sound crazy so I grimaced inwardly and lied.
“Nothin’ Babe. Car’s just pissin’ me off.” I smiled and she looked at me with those steely baby blues as if she were trying to decide if I was lying. Let it slide, let it slide, let it slide… I chanted in my head and finally her shoulders relaxed as I slid up the garage door. She bought it but grudgingly so.
“Okay.” She said and put on her helmet and glasses. She slid the straps of the backpack over her shoulders and shut the garage door behind me as I rolled Matilda out. It was dark and colder and the ride was going to be a biting one. I fired up my bike and Em got on behind me.
“You good!?” I called over the growling thrum of the engine.
“Yeah!” she called back. She settled her thighs around my hips and her arms around my chest and gave me a squeeze with her whole body. I smiled. I couldn’t help it when she did things like that. I moved us out of the driveway and onto the street and took my girl to work.
It had been a couple of weeks since the night ride and Em and I had settled into a routine. Life with her in it was amazing. To have someone to hold at night, to wake up with her tight against my back, her arms around me. To come home on the days I had to go back into the shop and find dinner bein’ set on the table. To have someone love me, care for me, worry about me, support me… Fuck, man, it was an amazing ride.
I pulled right up to the shack and frowned when I caught sight of the blonde bitch she worked with. Em had told me how the broad had been cheating her out of tips. Had even gone so far as to whine to their boss that Everett was cheating the tip jar to throw suspicion off herself. Em got off the bike and pulled off her helmet. She’d keep hold of it and the glasses for when I picked her up. Didn’t have to worry about leaving them out on the bike. She gave me a quick kiss goodbye and I pulled her into it, making it last, letting it linger a touch longer.
“I love you.” She said against my mouth. I smiled. We didn’t say it often enough and I never got tired of hearing it.
“I love you too Babe.” I said and let her go. She smiled and disappeared into the brightly lit interior of the little drive up coffee spot. I rode to work at the shop, my feelings of unease growing the more pavement that passed beneath me. Finally I pulled up in front of one of the bay doors. I shut off the bike and got off, taking my keys. I unlocked the padlock holding the bay door down and lifted. The thing went up about half a foot and jammed tight.
“Fuck!” I screamed into the silent dark. I fiddled and wrenched on the damn thing until I stood in front of it breathless and defeated. Something bright captured my attention from the edge of my vision. I looked over and the bright light cut across my eyes again.
I watched the crucifix from my mother’s rosary swing and sway from my handlebar. I stared at it as the cross spun on its length of beaded chain. It twisted slowly, the blue white light of the shop’s flood light illuminating the parking lot caught it just right and the silver metal blazed. I put up a hand and frowned. The street was suddenly eerily silent. So still, so quiet you could hear anything and everything. I felt something. Deep down inside, somewhere out in the dark, in me around me and the cross flashed silver at me once more.
“Mom?” I asked softly… I knew it was crazy but…
That sense, that crushing unease I’d been feeling since I woke up, swamped me full force. Hit me square in the chest and squeezed the breath from my lungs.
Everett.
I didn’t know what the fuck it was but I wasn’t about to argue with it anymore. I threw a leg over Matilda and put my helmet on. I barely had it fastened and I was firing her up. She roared to life and I swear to Christ I heard my mom’s voice, whether it came from inside or outside my head I couldn’t tell you but it said one word and it was all I needed to know I was making the right decision.
“Go.”
And I went.
&nb
sp; Like a bat out of hell, I rode. Back the way I came, back to Everett because something damn sure wasn’t right…
Chapter 13
Everett…
I sighed as I entered my workspace and shut the door behind me, twisting the lock. Brandy gave me her customary dirty look and I smiled back. I wouldn’t stoop to her level, if anything I would do my utmost to use the Irish diplomacy my father had taught me growing up.
Irish diplomacy, unlike regular diplomacy, was pretty much the art of telling a person to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to taking the trip.
I hung my backpack and Dray’s spare helmet on the coat rack peg with my name written on a piece of masking tape underneath it. I tucked the safety glasses into one of the backpack’s side pockets. Brandy and I didn’t speak. I set about arranging my barista station the way I liked it and made sure everything I typically used was stocked. About ten minutes into this a young man walked up to my window. I slid it open and told him,
“I’m sorry Hon we’re not allowed to serve walk-up customers.” He was lanky, his hair hung greasy and he wore a faded band tee shirt under a leather jacket and motorcycle cut but it wasn’t a Sacred Heart’s cut. The colors were wrong, not white with blue writing but white with red. He looked left and right and pulled a small pistol out of his pocket and pointed it at me.
“Well you’re going to serve me.” He said and the whole world slowed. I saw Brandy give me a triumphant look out of the corner of my eye but then she put her hands up like you would in a movie hold up. Palms flat and facing out to either side of her face. I swallowed and stared at the gun. A serenity fell over me, a calm I couldn’t even begin to describe. I nodded slowly.
“Okay, Friend, what can I get you?” I asked.
I kept myself still. My chest felt tight and my blood raced through my veins but that sense of calm persisted. Don’t make any sudden moves Evy m’girl. Nice an’ quiet like, jus’ do what the boy tells you. I blinked slowly. Now was a really strange time to hear my da’s voice in my head… or had that been out loud?
“Open the cash drawers.” He ordered and I complied. “Good, good. Now open the safe.” He said.
“I can’t do that.” I said. My voice felt thick, sluggish coming out of my throat and I realized that tears were threatening. I really couldn’t open the safe. None of us could. Only Eddie, our boss, had the combo.
“Jesus Ev! Do what he says!” Brandy said frantically.
“I can’t.” I repeated and something flashed in the young man’s eyes. He lowered the gun and I sighed out in relief, but then the world erupted in a riot of sound. There was a flash and the smell of hell poured out into the small shack and something bit me, hard, in the middle of my left thigh. The ethereal calm that had fallen over me moments before shattered.
I fell backwards onto my ass and looked at my leg. Red welled and soaked the light denim of my jeans and I clapped a hand over the wound. A scream split the air and I looked helplessly at Brandy who had her hands clapped over her mouth. She looked down on me in a mixture of horror and revulsion. I turned my head to look at the young man who was screaming at me.
“Open the god damned safe! Open it! Open it now, or the next one will blow your god damned head off! You hear me bitch!? You hear me!?” he was screaming. Brandy started screaming at him.
“Jesus Ronnie what did you do!? You weren’t supposed to fucking shoot her!” I sobbed, the fire in my leg unbelievable. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I dragged air into my lungs through a throat raw from screaming and wept.
“Please don’t, please don’t kill me…” I begged piteously and he turned back to me from screaming at Brandy. She was pulling money from the kiosk’s drawers. Something flashed to the right of the window and the boy, man, I don’t know, disappeared. His face connected viciously with the stainless steel shelf on the outside of the window where we set drinks and I heard something metal skitter across the blacktop, under the kiosk.
He disappeared again and I closed my eyes. I opened them again to see the door to the stand shudder in its frame. The young man’s back fetched up hard against the glass by the door and the visage of king, like one on a playing card, filled my vision. Brandy was cleaning out the cash drawer and went out the window on the other side of the stand leaving me bleeding on the cheap linoleum floor.
“Everett!” I heard Dray’ voice scream and I screamed back.
“Dray!”
The young man who’d shot me slumped to the ground outside the window to reveal Dray, who stood heaving in desperate breaths.
“Oh god! Oh shit!” he yelled and went for the door, but I’d locked it.
The door shuddered once, then twice in its frame as Dray viciously kicked it before it finally gave way. It exploded inwards and I was peppered by shards of wood as the frame shattered around the lock. Dray slid in the door along the tile on his knees and came up next to me.
“Oh god, oh Baby, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay…” He looked at my leg and I turned my tearstained face up to him.
“It hurts…” I complained woefully. Dray got behind me and I leaned back into his chest, he put an arm across my chest and pressed his phone to his ear.
“God damn!” A familiar voice with a southern drawl made me turn back to the broken door. One of my customers, a trucker by the name of Mark, went to his knees on the side where I’d been shot.
“Hold on Evy, help’s on the way.” He said and pressed his big hands tight over mine. I cried out from the pain and Dray glared at the man but Dray was on the phone.
“Army medic back in ‘nam,” Mark said. “Gotta keep pressure on this.” Dray relaxed marginally and kept talking into the phone.
“No, no, she’s awake. Just get me a fucking ambulance bitch! She’s fucking bleeding!” he turned those dark intense eyes so full of panic to my own and rested his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes and fresh hot tears tracked down my face. We could hear sirens.
“You’re going to be okay Baby. You’re going to be okay Baby. I’m here. We’re going to get you to the hospital, we’re going to get you fixed up. You’ll see. Just don’t fucking go anywhere on me.” I sniffed and cried tears of relief.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, “I love you Dray. I love you.” I sobbed out.
“I love you too Baby. I’m right here. I love you too…” He cradled me tight against his chest and I closed my eyes.
Dray was here. I was safe. Dray was here… Oh God it hurt so much.
Chapter 14
Dray…
I held Em’s hand in my own. As soon as we’d gotten to the hospital they’d rushed her into a curtained area. Doc was on duty, thank fuck, and she was under his care. After a quick look he’d sent her to x-ray and now we waited.
She was in a hospital gown the nurses had put her in after cutting off her pants. Pillows were under her leg and gauze had been wrapped around the wound. The back of the bed was up so she was sitting but she looked pale and wan against the pillow behind her head.
She was alive. Thank you God, thank you Mom… she was alive. I was glued to her side, once they’d let me back to see her. I’d called my pops while they’d worked on her and he’d shown up in about fifteen minutes flat. Doc pulled aside the curtain and stepped in looking all official and straight laced and shit. It was weird as Hell for me. We all knew he was the local ER doc but we didn’t see it often enough for it to really hit home.
“Calvary is in the waiting room.” He grunted. Em opened her eyes and frowned. Her edges tight with pain. They’d given her something for it but it had barely taken the edge of. Doc looked at her and frowned then riffled though her papers. He cursed and went out. We could hear him chewing someone a good one but couldn’t hear what he’d said. He came back and put something through Everett’s IV and everything smoothed out. Her body going lax after a moment or two.
“Who’s here?” I asked.
“Your dad, Trigger, Ashton
, Reaver, Hayden, Loyal, Zander, Squick, and Data.” Doc said. He smiled down at Ev, his blue eyes sparkling. “Looks like you got yourself a fan club.” He said.
“Everett!?” Mandy, her best friend skirted around the curtain in her pajamas.
“Oh my God!” Large hands landed on her shoulders and the red head jumped.
“Easy Red. Let Doc do his thing.” Zander had ahold of her.
“Mandy?” Ev said, confusion tinging her voice.
“Yeah Babe, I’m your emergency contact, remember, you didn’t think Jerry was up to the job…” Everett nodded and closed her eyes. Tears slipped out.
“I’m okay Mandy.” She said.
“What happened?” her friend demanded.
“Brandy set it up… she knew him. Called him Ronnie…” Em swallowed.
“She was robbed, he shot her, I got him though. Cops have him.” I said.
“Everett I need to talk to you about some things before the drugs kick in too hard.” Doc said. Mandy nodded to me and let Zander take her out to the waiting room.
“You’re lucky.” Doc said flatly. I snorted and he ignored me.
“You were shot with a .22 long rifle round. It’s still in there and I got to dig it out, no surgery. I should be able to give you a local and go in right here. Okay?” Ev nodded and tears sprang to her eyes.
“Nothing’s broken Baby, we’re gonna keep you for a few hours and make sure you’re good before I let Dray take you home.” He rested a hand on her shin and smoothed over it with a thumb and she nodded.
“Will I dance again?” she asked in a tremulous voice and Doc’s posture eased.
