by A. J. Downey
The place I worked some nights was a cowboy bar that was mostly on the right side of the tracks as compared to where I’d come from. It was popular, and usually pretty busy. A lot of the business was college kids, and ranch hands from some of the racehorse farms around here. Usually it blared country, but right now I had some Stone Temple Pilots on the system. I could only handle that country shit when patrons were around and it was your typical work night.
“Hey Archer, wake up! Your brothers are at the door,” Cindy called from behind the bar. I looked up, and sure enough, Rush and Nox stood outside and neither one of them looked very happy. I couldn’t blame ‘em, but this shit was important. I went to the door and unlocked it, letting them in, and locking right back up behind ‘em.
“Dude, what is so fucking important that it couldn’t wait? Some of us have to get our asses up and work for a living come tomorrow,” Nox griped.
“Melody showed up today,” I said and that shut him up. Rush eyed me, and I could see the gears turning.
“Spit it out, Arch. What’s the rest?” he asked.
“She has her kid with her… Grind’s kid,” I said unhappily. Nox almost physically reeled, looking a lot like I’d felt when Grind’s boy had first looked at me with our brother’s eyes. He fell back against the bar lightly, but leaned heavily on it.
“Holy fucking shit,” Rush uttered, and swept the bandana off his head. He rubbed a hand back and forth over his close cropped hair and shook his head in disbelief.
“You’re sure it’s Grind’s?” Nox asked.
“Looks just like him,” I said unhappily.
“Where they at?” Rush asked.
“My place, for now… there’s more. She showed up here looking for Grind. Our old chapter, the brothers didn’t tell her. She didn’t know he’d died.”
“What the fuck? She been living under some kind of a rock?” Rush asked, the look on his face like he’d smelled something bad, which he had. The distinct odor of bullshit, I thought to myself and I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy at all.
“So is that why Grind left?” Nox asked, and he looked as crushed with disappointment as I’d felt when Mel had told me.
“According to Mel, she told him she was pregnant and he upped and left her an’ the boy both… came out here.”
“Karma took that one too far,” Nox muttered and sighed, swiping a hand over his face.
“I wanna see him,” Rush said.
“It’s late and she drove here by herself, all her shit’s in garbage bags too, like she left in a big damn hurry. Nothing but pampers and clothes, I ain’t seen anything like it.”
“What’s she running from?” Rush asked.
“Good question,” Nox agreed.
“No idea, I dropped her and the boy off at my place and came here. What’s a kid that’s a year old even sleep in?”
“A crib, I think. How the fuck should I know?” Rush asked.
“Well I gotta get me one. Where the fuck you find one at three in the morning?”
“Twenty-four hour Wally-World is my best guess,” Nox said.
“Got a cage?” Rush wanted to know, “I ain’t actually built any cribs yet.”
“Yeah, hers… it’s out back.”
“Let’s do this then,” Rush said, “I ain’t going home and crashing until I see this myself.”
“Pitch in, I ain’t leavin’ ‘til this place is closed up,” I told them both. Closing was wrapped up double time and my brothers followed me first to Walmart then back to my apartment, a fuckin’ crib tied to the roof of Mel’s car.
The boys helped me bring it inside and I found everything exactly as I’d left it, bedroom door still shut and all. I worried for a sec that they’d be gone but when we opened up the bedroom door it was to find them both racked out hard in my bed. Nox and Rush stood to either side of me and we watched them for a while.
Melody was drawn, and though she slept, the exhaustion was apparent in the tight lines of her face, even in sleep. The dark circles under her eyes made her seem a lot older than what I knew she was, too. Rush took a step forward like he was gonna go in and wake ‘em up and I put a hand against his chest. He glared at me and I scowled right back, knowing he’d back down. I was scarier and we all knew it.
“Tomorrow,” I grunted quietly.
“Yeah, let ‘em sleep,” Nox agreed, and I knew he’d back me. Out of all four of us brothers, he’d always been the softest.
I shut the door and sighed, looking at my two surviving brothers, first Rush then Nox, “After you both get off of work, come on back here.”
“Need a hand bringing anything else in?” Nox asked.
“Nah, Bro, but thanks; I got it. Try and get some sleep and we’ll see y’all tomorrow.”
“What are you going to do?” Rush asked, brows knit together.
“Don’t have a fuckin’ clue, but for right now, until I figure it out, you’re lookin’ at it.”
He and Nox nodded in unison and let themselves out while I set to putting the damn crib together for the living room. An hour and at least two beers later, it was done and I was dragging some ass but I still brought up all of her and the baby’s shit from the car, piling it on the dining room table.
I went over and flopped down on the couch after it was done, throwing an arm over my eyes. I had no fucking idea what I was doing, none whatsoever. All I knew? That boy in there was blood. Grinder’s blood, sure, and even though we were foster brothers, coming up in the system together, it didn’t matter. Grinder’s blood, Rush or Nox’s blood, it was as good as my own and you didn’t abandon family.
Mel was the boy’s mother, so like it as not that made her family too. I didn’t have to like it, I just had to live with it. Of course, living with it isn’t exactly the worst hardship ever, now is it you fuckin’ pussy? I asked myself. I sighed, and shifted on the couch uncomfortably. I’d always been a little jealous of Grind when it’d come to Mel. She’d been the prettiest of any of the girls to come around the club, but once Grind set his sights on a piece of ass…
Not so ancient history, but history none the less. I didn’t make a habit of dwelling on what was in my rearview, and this was no exception. Besides, I needed to figure out the road ahead because this particular hairpin curve had been totally unexpected. It took me a while, but I managed to fall into an uneasy sleep. I could deal with this shit after the day job. It would just have to wait.
Chapter 5
Melody
Noah becoming fussy is what woke me. I pushed myself up and looked at him, asking automatically, “You got a stinky butt?” His best answer was to start fussing louder, beginning to cry.
“Okay, Baby. Up we go!” I stood up and picked him up. Taking him and his diaper bag into the living room which seemingly had exploded with our belongings overnight.
“Wow,” I uttered, Noah squirming in my arms.
I fetched a towel out of the pile of our clothes and stuff on the dining room table and laid it down on the carpet, along with Noah right on top of it. I played with my son, singing and rhyming and generally trying anything to keep him smiling and giggling while I worked him out of his choo choo train pajamas. Archer was asleep on the couch, and I was terrified of waking him. God knew what he’d do if we did.
I finished changing Noah and picked him up, hugging him and asking, “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah,” he said in his soft baby voice and it was one of the things that made me smile. He was growing up so fast, and so many things he said were clear but then he would come up with something silly and it was a never ending source of joy… my only joy now.
“What does he eat?” my head snapped up and I quailed at Archer’s voice I started to immediately apologize and he gave me one of his withering looks, like he didn’t give a fuck, so I quit while I was ahead and shut my mouth. “What does he eat?” he asked again.
“Anything, he isn’t allergic to anything,” I said.
“I meant formula, baby food; cereal? That ki
nd of thing,” he said and with a grunt he sat up.
“Oh, regular food like what you and I eat,” Noah shifted in my arms and I readjusted him.
“Mamma, hungee!” he said and Archer almost, almost cracked a smile. I couldn’t help myself, I smiled.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Chicken nuggets,” he said clearly and I sighed.
“Okay, chicken nuggets is not breakfast food, how about cereal?” I asked.
“Pancakes good?” Archer asked.
“Pancakes!” Noah lit up and I laughed.
“I think you have a winner there,” I said and Archer nodded, climbing to his feet.
“I’m gonna run out and get you guys breakfast, but I need your car to get to work,” he said stretching.
“I thought you just got home from work,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I’ve discovered you have to work twice as hard at a living when it’s honest,” he said with a frown.
“Oh,” I murmured softly. Back in Arizona I’d known the club to be in less than legitimate dealings. Drugs, money, weapons, you name it and they ran it for the cartels out of Mexico. Still, I wasn’t so dumb that you would ever hear me talk about it.
“What am I supposed to do about lunch or dinner?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it for now, that’s what. I’ll bring back some rolls of quarters, since you’ll be here all day you can sort out this mess,” he said, gesturing to the piles of mine and Noah’s clothes.
“Okay,” I was looking at the crib and asked, “Where did that come from?”
“Never mind,” he grated. “I’ll be back,” and with that, he hauled himself onto his feet and left us. I sighed and hugged Noah, eyeing the TV.
“Cartoons, buddy?” I asked and Noah threw his arms around my neck with an enthusiastic “Yah!”
I turned on the TV and looked for the remote, switching channels until I landed on Billy & Mandy, which would just have to do.
“Okay, bud?” I asked but he was already gone, fully absorbed in the happenings on the screen. I sighed, “Right, okay,” I muttered to myself and began sorting through the rest of the mess on the table, sorting laundry by type, whites, coloreds, and darks.
I had no idea how I was supposed to do laundry with Noah, the laundry room being downstairs? Somewhere? Maybe? In any case, I wasn’t about to leave my son alone not even for a minute. Too many things could happen, he could fall, he could choke, and I tried so hard, I tried too hard, to protect him…
Archer returning, opening up the front door, startled me. He froze and I did likewise, my hand pressed to my chest. He didn’t say a word, just finished entering his small apartment, closing the door behind him. He had a couple of bags of fast food clutched in one hand.
“So what happens now?” I asked softly.
“Now you feed the boy and I go to work, I already said that,” he said frowning.
“And after that?”
He sighed, “You both can stay here, for now, until you find something better. In exchange, I expect you to keep this place clean and to fix meals.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, “I’ll find a job as soon as I can, start saving, get an apartment of mine and Noah’s.”
“Whatever,” he grunted and dropped the bags on the coffee table. Noah got down off the couch and started to go through them and I sighed, going over to him and getting him out of the bags so I could take care of him.
“Anything you need, make a list. We’ll get it taken care of tonight. This is the best I can do until I get off. Here’s money for food, and the quarters. Order pizza for lunch or something.” He paused and looked around. “I mean it, I expect this to be sorted out by the time I get back.”
He dropped an envelope and two rolls of quarters onto the coffee table and turned to leave.
“And I mean it, Archer… thank you.”
“The boy –”
“Noah,” I said, and Archer scowled at the correction.
“Noah, is family. Grind ain’t here to take on his responsibility; that leaves me,” he said and it was less than a rousing endorsement, especially given his tone. He left the apartment, shutting the door tightly behind him, and I felt my shoulders drop. Archer clearly wasn’t happy about our being here, but he was giving us a chance, and that was really all I could ask for. If he weren’t awful to Noah, well, then that was really better than I expected. He could treat me poorly, but to be honest, given his track record thus far, I think both the best and worst I could expect was his cold indifference, which was fine.
Indifference beat getting slapped around, it also beat being derided and insulted on the regular. I didn’t want Noah around either of those things. He needed to grow up understanding how to treat women. It was a big part of why I’d left Arizona in the first place. I hadn’t known what to expect, coming here, to be honest. So far, it was both better and worse than I imagined.
I fed myself with the breakfast sandwiches in the bag, and Noah with the pancakes and syrup cups. There were two things of orange juice in one of those cardboard drink carriers. I poured some into one of Noah’s sippy cups for him, and put the rest into the barren refrigerator. I drank the other, and with a sigh, continued dealing with the piles of laundry.
Once they were all sorted, I had to figure out how to go about carting both them, and my one year old, back and forth to the laundry room with me. It was a daunting task to be sure. I gathered the first load into Archer’s lone laundry basket and was about to open my mouth to tell Noah we were going to go when a knock fell on the front door.
“Melody!” A woman’s voice called from the other side, “Melody, we’re some of the ol’ ladies from the club, can you open the door?”
I peeked out the blinds, through the window over the couch and sure enough, two petite women stood in front of Archer’s front door. I went to it, and unlocked it at the knob, opening it up.
“Hi!” the one who’d called out said brightly.
“Um, hi,” I said back nervously, stepping aside.
“I’m Ashton, this is Hayden. Trigger is my ol’ man and Reaver is hers,” she said and they both breezed into the living room, arms loaded with plastic bins; paper grocery bags in them.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know any of the brothers’ names here yet, Noah and I just got in yesterday.” I shifted uncomfortably and closed the front door.
“I heard all about it,” the one introduced as Hayden said, rolling her eyes.
“Was Reaver one of the men there, then?” I asked.
“Yeah, he’s my husband,” she said smiling.
“Look at you!” Ashton cooed, and she smiled, waving at Noah, “I’m Ashton, what’s your name?” she asked and I went to Noah and picked him up.
“Can you say ‘hi’?” I asked him.
“Hi,” he said softly. For some reason I wanted to instantly like these women, but I was still reserving judgment. Back in Arizona, the ol’ ladies of the club there wouldn’t hesitate to throw you under the bus. Snakes in the grass, all of them.
“He’s Archer’s?” Hayden asked and looked tickled pink.
“Oh, no… he’s Grinder’s,” I said softly.
“Oh, you poor thing!” Ashton said and touched my shoulder.
“I… I still don’t know what happened,” I said and my eyes welled. It was still so awful and new.
Hayden sighed, “Tell you what, let’s get this place sorted, and laundry going and then we can all sit down and talk about it.”
Ashton was nodding, tossing her long auburn braid over her shoulder. I bit my lower lip and asked, “Did Archer call you?”
Ashton and Hayden exchanged a look and rolled their eyes, “No, Reaver told me about you, and Ashton and I figured with Archer’s bike still at the club he had you holed up here like some kind of prisoner, all by yourself, with an infant.”
“We figured we’d come to the rescue with a welcome and some grown up conversation, but don’t you worry. We swung by the garage he works at to a
sk permission first. He told us you probably needed a few things like laundry soap, and some bins to stash your stuff, so here we are.” Ashton smiled brightly and these two struck me as genuine. Still, I kept on my guard.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“Not a problem, and you’re not you know,” Hayden said.
“Not what?”
“A prisoner, silly!” Ashton laughed. “You get used to these guys acting like Neanderthals and doing what they want like you’re some kind of afterthought,” she made a face, “The good news is, they usually make it hard to be mad at them, because they’re just doing it to protect you.”
Hayden’s look grew distant and she muttered something to the effect of, “Oh trust me, you can still be mad.”
Ashton sighed, “He meant well,” she said and I was bouncing between the two of them like a tennis match.
“Well you know what they say about hell and good intentions,” she said dispassionately.
“I feel like I’ve missed something significant,” I said, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“Trust us, it all ties in to what happened surrounding your man,” Hayden said. I must have made a face, because she froze, both her and Ashton looking at me, “I’m sorry did I say something wrong?” she asked.
“Grinder was never technically ‘my’ anything,” I uttered. “I was just a club...” I paused and looked at Noah who was playing with a lock of my hair against my shirt. “Well, you know…” I uttered.
“A club bunny?” Ashton supplied and I smiled.
“That’s what we call them here,” Hayden murmured. “It’s a little more kid friendly and not quite as rude to the girls.”
I laughed, “I’ve never met an ol’ lady who cared about that.”
“Well, we do things a bit different here,” Ashton said and smiled.
“Right, so how do we want to do this?” Hayden asked, “All three of us to the laundry room?”
