by A. J. Downey
He sank to the end of the bed, never breaking eye contact and said, “Just think about it, you don’t have to answer me now –”
“Yes,” I said, voice hollow. It was impulsive, but it was far from irrational. In fact, it made perfect sense. It was just daunting, but I would do anything, and I mean anything for my child and this? This was no exception.
He adjusted himself, laying down on the other side of Noah, I laid down too, facing him, my child between us.
“Yes?” he asked and I eased onto my side so I could face him across the pillows.
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes and nodded faintly, opening them again and voice rough with an undefined emotion he murmured, “Sleep. I’m here to stand watch, you’re safe, Noah’s safe and no one is going to hurt either of you; not anymore.
I closed my eyes and nodded faintly, and when I opened them again, Archer was gone and Noah was nose to nose with me.
“Moooooommy! Wake up!” he said and I smiled in spite of myself.
“Good morning,” I said softly and he grinned.
“I’m hungee,” he whispered and I sat up.
“Cereal?” I asked.
“Tix!”
“Trix it is,” I said and stood, picking him up when he reached for me. We went out into the living room where we found Archer, standing with a concerned looking Rush and Nox.
“Did you seriously agree to marry this asshole?” Rush asked and I immediately scowled at him.
“Language!” I admonished.
“That doesn’t answer the question,” he said.
“Yes, and it’s my business and Archer’s,” I told him.
“Oh my god, why? Why would you do that?” he asked and looked completely baffled.
“Do you really have to ask?” Nox leveled his twin with a downright tempestuous look.
“Shit, man. I just never thought I’d see the day, let alone that it’d be –” he stopped mid-sentence and looked like he was struggling.
“What? That’d it’d be Grinder’s leftovers?” I asked softly.
Silence met my question and I set Noah down in a chair at the table. I brought down a bowl and filled it with his favorite cereal and added milk, bringing it and a spoon over to him. I sat down with my son and helped him eat, we were doing really well with him feeding himself and making less mess in the process. I smoothed down his bed head and watched him for a moment while the guys all stood around looking guilty or just plain at a loss for anything to say.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you can say whatever you’d like about me, treat me how ever you’d like, as long as Noah is treated well and you don’t treat me poorly in front of him, okay?”
“Rush, Nox, I think you guys had better go for now,” Archer said pinching the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. Nox punched Rush in the arm.
“Ow!”
“Shut up, you big baby, let’s go,” Nox said and he didn’t sound at all happy with his twin. I didn’t blame him. Rush had a bad habit of opening his mouth and inserting his foot. This was no exception.
The boys piled out of the apartment’s front door and shut it behind them leaving Archer and I staring at one another over my baby’s head as he happily munched his cereal, apparently none the worse for wear over what’d happened the day before.
“Change your mind?” he asked. I shook my head silently.
Archer nodded and rolled his lips, “I’ll uh, get us an appointment at the courthouse.”
I nodded and swallowed hard, “You should let your brothers know, not just Rush and Nox, but the rest of the club, you know? So that they can be there; they might get upset if they feel left out. It’s kind of an important milestone.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea, you know its Saturday. You don’t have work, why don’t we go over to the club and let folks know what’s up. I don’t think it’s a good idea you hanging around here today, you know, after what happened.”
I nodded again, and smoothed my lips together, “That’s a good idea,” I murmured.
Archer sank into the seat next to mine and asked, “What’s bothering you?”
“A lot of things,” I said quietly.
“Talk to me,” he said and I closed my eyes.
“It’s okay,” I told him, “You don’t have to pretend all of a sudden to care because I’ve agreed to marry you…”
He sat up straight and shifted in his seat, leaning back, “If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have asked you to in the first place; don’t you think?”
I sighed and fixed my gaze to the tabletop, “I know the reason you’re doing this is for Noah, and that’s okay. I’m used to being an afterthought.”
“Right, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Why do you put words in my mouth?”
I looked up sharply, “Excuse me?”
“Have I ever said you’re an afterthought?”
“No…”
“Okay then,” he stood up, “finish feeding our little man, I’m going to grab a shower then I want you to get dressed so we can get going.”
“Okay,” I murmured, once again feeling thoroughly dismissed. He went into the bedroom and I sighed, putting my face in my hands.
“Mamma sad?”
“No, Baby. Mamma’s just frustrated.”
“Okay,” he said and I had to smile. I don’t recall if I’d ever gone over ‘frustrated’ but we had a long ways to go yet so it didn’t much matter.
When Archer came out of the bedroom, freshly dressed and running a towel over his hair, I had Noah wrapped up with coloring on some plain sheets of butcher paper with crayons. I rose quietly and went to slip past Archer and he stopped me with a light grip on my arm. I startled and looked up into his green-gold eyes which had always been so intense and slightly ethereal with how beautiful they were. Not that I’d ever admit it to him, that just seemed like such an awkward thing to do.
“You don’t have anything to ever be afraid of out of me,” he said. “You have my word.”
I stood there open mouthed for a moment, the proclamation from him being totally unexpected, I didn’t know what to say and what came out of my mouth was the best I could think of with how simply overloaded my mind was, “Thank you,” I said and it was apparently the right thing to say. He let me go, and inclined his head in a gentle nod and I let my feet carry me the rest of the way to the bedroom.
I dug out clothes to wear, some jeans and an old, club, ladies cut tee from the Arizona chapter. I showered and pulled my hair into a pony tail while it was still wet. I dressed slowly and deliberately and when I finished, I sat for several long moments asking myself just what it was I had done by agreeing to marry Archer… I mean, I barely knew anything about him!
I think it was just finally hitting me, and even though I knew in my heart of hearts that it was the right decision for Noah, I was afraid. For all that we’d been living together for the last few months, Archer and I might as well have been ships passing in the night with our working schedules. We didn’t speak much beyond what was for dinner, or anything regarding Noah. We didn’t talk about old times, he didn’t bother to ask anything about me, and I had treated him with the same regard.
It wasn’t like open curiosity was welcomed by the man. At best, he was coldly indifferent about my presence, at worst, he regarded it with open disdain. I had been both lucky and grateful that Archer at his worst didn’t show up but once or twice since I had arrived, the worst of it being upon my arrival and he had kept true to his word. Any negative remarks in the time since, he had kept either to himself, or had leveled them at me well outside of Noah’s presence.
Yet here I was, three or so months into mine and Noah’s stay and I had readily agreed to marry the man who might as well have been a stranger to me. Not only had I agreed to marry him, I had agreed to bear him at least one child, right along with everything that entailed. I swallowed hard and gave myself one last passing glance in the cra
cked mirror above the bathroom sink before rejoining my son and his uncle… my soon to be husband, out in the living area of the sad, one bedroom apartment.
Oh my god, I thought to myself, what had I agreed to do?
One look at my son and it all came rushing back, I smiled bravely at my little boy and reminded myself, likely not for the last time, I secured him a better future. That’s what I did… and it was true.
“Ready to go?” Archer asked and I gathered my purse and my keys. Noah’s diaper bag remained in the car.
“Ready,” I affirmed and hoped I looked braver than I felt. Archer looked me over with what appeared to be new eyes in that moment.
He nodded and said, “I’ll lead.”
I nodded again and found myself thinking, isn’t that what you’ve always done?
Chapter 18
Archer
“How’s she doing?” Trigger asked as we all stood around watching her disappear back into the media room.
“She’s okay, she’s tougher than she thinks she is,” I said. “Probably why she agreed to marry me so fast.”
Silence met my proclamation, “You’re getting married?” Dray demanded.
“Yeah, I need to set an appointment down at the courthouse for some time this week –”
“Oh the fuck you are! Archer if I knew your first middle and last name I would so be using it right now, you are not, I repeat, you are so not taking that away from her!”
“Woman, what the fuck are you on about?” Ghost demanded and all of us turned to where his pregnant ol’ lady, Shelly, was coming out of one of the bathrooms.
“Bad enough she drives across the country out of that hell hole she was living in, bad enough she’s had it almost as rough since she got here, now you want to take her special day away from her too!? No, just no. I need you, I need all of you to think for just a damn minute about this. Did you even get down on one knee? Did you even bother to get her a ring? I bet you didn’t.”
The look on my face must have said it all, because she scoffed, “Gah! You’re such a jackass!” Shelly cried and Ghost went to her, gripping her by the arm and giving her a flat and unfriendly look.
“Shells, I’m not going to have you disrespect a brother, not now not ever, you need to cool it right the fuck now,” he said, consternation in his tone.
“Me? Oh that’s rich, Ghost. That’s real rich! What about him? You’re all freaking unbelievable!”
“Shut it, woman! Does she even want a wedding?”
“You didn’t even ask, so how would you know she doesn’t!?”
By now women were filtering out into the hall, apparently Shelly’s harpy call had brought the rest of them out of the media room. Melody was among them, Noah on Hayden’s hip looked on curiously, but my eyes were on Mel whose eyes glinted with tears.
“Archer, I think the reason Shelly is so upset, is because when we’re little girls, it’s all about the day when we grow up that we get married. It’s supposed to be our one special day. Every little girl dreams about the day that her perfect knight in shining armor gets down on one knee and asks her to be his forever. It’s so much a part of the very fiber of our being… while she gets the why of it, the how is really hard to understand.” Red said gently, and I looked back to Mel where Everett hugged her gently into her side, her one hand stroking up and down Mel’s shoulder in a comforting gesture.
I didn’t physically roll my eyes, but it was a very near thing. I sighed out and used the best argument I had in my defense, “Weddings are expensive as shit, and I ain’t got that kind of money. Nor do I want to waste a whole bunch of fuckin’ time on this either.” Mel very nearly flinched and I kicked myself again. I was batting a thousand with my mouth with these bitches. All I wanted to do was get shit taken care of where she and Noah were concerned. Take on the burden that dulled her sparkle so damn much. She used to laugh, and smile back when she was with Grind and it made her beautiful. In the months she’d been here I could count on one hand the number of times she’d smiled and have fingers left over. None of those smiles had been what they once were, either.
Dragon hadn’t had much luck getting the full meal deal out of her about what had fucked her shit up back in AZ, just that it hadn’t all been the club to do it. I remember Grind had said that her mamma and step-daddy were a piece of work, so I’d surmised that whatever it was had more to do with them. She didn’t trust me or anyone here enough to open up about it, and I had a feeling that had a lot more to do with them and the AZ chapter both than it did with any of us.
I sighed, and looked at the shine in Mel’s eyes, the fear radiating out of her and as ever, Ashton to the fuckin’ rescue.
“Give me a week, a week and a half,” the diminutive woman piped up. All eyes drifted in her direction. “I love a good wedding, and I’d be happy to pay for it, that’s your only stumbling block isn’t it? Affordability?”
Trigger was positively beaming at his woman and he was a good brother so I gave a sharp nod, “If I want to get us out of that shithole apartment and into something more suitable for a family, yeah, it is.”
“Good! Then it’s settled, you work on that, we’ll work on the wedding, and everyone can be happy,” Shelly said and I couldn’t disagree without looking like even more of an asshole than I already did. I caught Dani giving me a meaningful look from the back and I scowled. She cocked her head and raised an eyebrow, and when she was sure no one was looking, gave me the finger… her ring finger that is. I did roll my eyes at that point. I hadn’t exactly planned to ask Mel like I did. I’d thought about it, sure, but it’d sort of slipped out in the heat of the moment. Looking at her and the kid laying there all busted up and exhausted. I’d just wanted to make things better and here I was, so it seemed, just making everything worse… again. Fuck I sucked ass at these things.
“Fine, sure, yeah, do whatever the fuck you want. You have two weeks. Make you happy? I just want this shit done and over with by Friday week after next. Think you can handle that?”
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Reaver asked, “These women can handle anything.”
“Love you, Baby,” Hayden called and Reaver grinned.
“Right, let’s all stop hanging out in the hallway with our dicks in our hands and get this church outta the way. Leave these girls to it,” Dragon grunted.
“Best fuckin’ idea I’ve heard all morning,” I grated and followed my Pres back out into the main room. Rush slipped behind the bar and poured a line of shots for everyone.
“The fuck, boy? It ain’t even noon,” Dragon laughed.
“The fuck, man. Archer’s getting married,” my jackass little brother said and Nox started laughing silently, his shoulders shaking. “Might as well be the fucking apocalypse, surprised there ain’t blood raining out of the sky and shit…”
“Alright, knock it the fuck off!” I griped.
“Rush is right, I need a fuckin’ drink. Can’t believe you’re getting married before me,” Trig said, and Reaver grinned.
“I beat all of y’all motherfuckers to that finish line,” Reave said, beaming proudly and Ghost looked a bit stormy.
“After that little display, I’m not sure if that’s worthy of any kind of bragging rights,” he said picking up a shot. We all downed one in agreement.
“Could have been worse,” Rev said, and Ghost coughed a bit, looking dubious.
“Don’t I know it?”
I closed my eyes, the tequila going down smooth and tried not to let the ribbing get to me, I hadn’t exactly pictured this going down for me either… like at all. I’d actually been caught off guard when she’d agreed. Fuck me swingin’.
“Right, congratulations Brother Archer, now let’s get this shit started and out of the way,” Dragon said. Anything to get the attention off of me, I was all for it.
“Let’s,” I agreed under my breath and Reaver started laughing his ass off at me.
Duracell and Blue came through the front door and Cell asked, “What’s
so funny?”
“Archer’s getting married in two weeks,” Reaver said, tears leaking out of his eyes. Blue grinned and gave me a silent nod of approval while Cell made things worse by bursting out laughing harder than Reave.
Fuck. My. Life.
“Awright, knock this shit off! I’m callin’ this shit to order,” Dragon said and I could have blessed him. Didn’t take long for business as fuckin’ usual after that. Thank fuck. I wasn’t good when the focus was on me.
Meeting went fast, the rest of the club brought up to speed on the happenings of the night before. A lot of these motherfuckers weren’t laughing so hard about my impending marital status after that. If anything, their humor turned to looks of respect in some cases, a little pity in a couple of more. I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t feel like talkin’ about it. Talkin’ didn’t settle a lot of shit for me. In fact, it was pretty fuckin’ useless all said and done.
Nox caught up to me after the meeting was adjourned, and asked me “You sure about this, man?”
“Yeah.”
He looked grim and nodded carefully, thoughtfully, “Okay.”
“Thanks,” I said and he nodded.
“Anything I can do?”
“Just do what you been doin’, help out with Noah and the like. Be a good uncle.”
“Always,” he said gravely.
I nodded, he slapped me on the back and moved off in a different direction. Dragon came over to me and asked, “You want to handle the ride to Arizona before or after this wedding?” he asked.
We’d been meaning to put a ride together to head out that way but the weather in parts of the country heading over wasn’t exactly favorable. With a lot of the brothers having kids or weddings of their own coming up, we didn’t want to risk injury or death on this run, so we decided to wait the few weeks for the conditions to become more favorable across the board. Now we were a chunk of the way into summer, it being June, and we could finally go – except in two weeks I was getting married, now. Fuck.
