Walk Through Fire

by Kristen Ashley

  High’s jaw got hard at his words because they spoke to what Snap thought of High because back in the day High had once been like Rosalie’s boyfriend, riding that edge, going for the high, doing this with and without his Rosalie.

  But fortunately, Snapper wasn’t done.

  “The no offense part is the fact that the Bounties know Chaos history. They know the shit they’re gettin’ into is fucked up and they know just how that shit can fuck up a club because it did that to Chaos. And they’re gettin’ into it. I know a lot of those brothers don’t like it but they sit a table just like us. Gavel doesn’t drop until a decision is voted, so they’re votin’ that shit in. Rosalie doesn’t know how her man is voting. But he’s doin’ that shit and that says a lot.”

  “Club goes a way, you’re a brother, you go that way,” High pointed out.

  Snapper didn’t say anything and High knew why.

  Because that was the straight-up truth.

  High kept going.

  “Tack wanted me in with you to take your back but more, to take Rosalie’s. That’s my focus. Keepin’ her safe while she does Chaos a good turn. You gotta be all in on that and you gotta be that for her. It isn’t about what she’s doin’ for the Club or what she makes you feel when you’re with her. It’s about her. And that’s the way of it, brother. She’s yours or she’s not, she’s a woman and you’re any kind of man, you look out for her every way you can.”

  High turned on his signal and slowed to make a turn as Snapper kept silent.

  He’d made the turn, they were cruising, and High said no more. His point had been made. Snap didn’t take it, for Rosalie, High would have no choice but to inform the brothers and Snapper would be removed from her detail.

  “I’ll get a burner,” Snap muttered.

  High drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

  Then he just drove.

  * * *

  After High parked at the Compound, Snap didn’t waste time jumping from the truck and taking off.

  High watched him as he angled out, but he looked toward the back of the store when he heard Hound call his name.

  “Man inside lookin’ for you,” Hound said, raising a hand, thumb extended to indicate over his shoulder and into the store.

  High lifted his chin, slammed his door, and hit the locks.

  “Know him?” he asked.

  “Nope,” Hound answered.

  Hound headed to the garage.

  High headed to the store.

  He went in, turned right to head up an aisle to the cash register at the front but stopped two aisles in when he saw Dot’s husband, Alan, looking at the fan belts.

  He sighed.

  Then he moved down that aisle toward Millie’s brother-in-law. Alan caught sight of his movement and gave his attention to High, doing this, turning full body to face him.

  High stopped a few feet away.

  “Alan,” he greeted.

  He didn’t get a greeting back.

  “Dot says you’re movin’ into Millie’s,” he stated.

  “Not doin’ it,” High told him. “Did it. I’m in.”

  He watched Alan’s mouth get tight before he noted, “Movin’ real fuckin’ fast, man.”

  “May seem that way to you. Me, waitin’ twenty years to have her back seems real fuckin’ slow,” High replied.

  High watched as something changed about Alan and he watched it knowing he wasn’t going to like the change.

  Then the man opened his mouth and proved High right.

  “Pretty lucky for you, you walk away from your family, find yourself livin’ in an RV, you also find an ex who’s still hung up on you. An ex with a sweet crib. And you got her back a coupla days and your clothes are in her closet.”

  High stood there, motionless except to take in a deep breath.

  Then, quietly, he returned, “Could buy my girls a house, that bein’ all my girls, my two babies and Millie, layin’ cash down on somethin’ that’d make Millie’s pad look ghetto. Could do that, upgrade my truck, buy another bike, and, bud, I already got three, and do that in cash too. Do all that and take Millie on a five-star trip back to Paris, give her the luxury. Do all that and not even touch my girls’ college funds. You didn’t know any a’ that shit. I get that. Now you do.”

  “You could buy your girls a pad, why’re you livin’ in an RV?” Alan shot back.

  “You got kids,” High said. “Hope like fuck you and Dot stay strong. Shit happens and you don’t and you gotta put your kids through a split, you don’t just rent any place where they gotta lay their heads. You give ’em a home. You find the right one. I looked. Didn’t find it. While doin’ that, found Millie. Her place is nice. Not my scene but it’s hers, she loves it. So that’s where we are. And when I have my other two girls, that’s where we’ll all be.”

  “Got all the answers,” Alan clipped irritably.

  “Got ’em because there are answers,” High replied.

  The man crossed his arms on his chest. “Right. That’s good. ’Cause, see, I need more answers. You got a history, man. In that history, it’s clear you got no problem walkin’ away from things that matter. Walked away from Millie. Walked away from your family. History like that repeats itself and you’re livin’ proof of that shit.”

  High again stood silent and motionless to give himself time to talk himself out of laying the hurt on Dot’s old man.

  When he found control, he spoke.

  “You look at me, you know the man I am ’cause I reckon you see yourself in me. So you know I’m not a big fan of explainin’ myself to anyone and sure as fuck not a man who’s comin’ at me like you’re doin’. But you mean somethin’ to Millie and you’re gonna be in my life for a long time so I’m givin’ you this respect. Once. Just once, Alan. Not fuckin’ with you. You keep comin’ at me like this, it’s not gonna be good.”

  Alan’s eyebrows went up. “So now you’re threatening me?”

  High shook his head. “Bud, you walked into my store on my turf and came at me with this shit. I pulled up the patience and shared where I was at. I get this is new for you. I get you’re lookin’ after Millie, which is another reason why I’m eatin’ your shit. What you gotta get is that your wife and Millie’s girls are all down with me bein’ back. You give me a shot, I’ll show you it’s good for you to be down with that too. But advice. Look around at how the people who matter to Millie, who know the real history, are behaving. And do it bein’ careful. ’Cause not only am I not gonna take more of your shit, I got a job of it bringin’ Millie back to happy and I’m not lettin’ anyone fuck with that. Not even you.”

  “Can’t say you’re impressin’ me,” Alan fired back. “Me askin’ pertinent questions and you makin’ threats.”

  High took a step toward him and it said a lot the man didn’t move a muscle.

  “You’ve got no fuckin’ clue,” he stated low.

  “I got a clue, Logan,” the man returned. “I heard everything Millie said about what you did to her when you two got back into each other’s lives. No decent man treats a woman like that.”

  “You got no fuckin’ clue,” High repeated.

  “Know we nearly lost her to your shit.” He lifted up his brows again. “She does somethin’ where you feel she needs taught another lesson, what’s she gonna get?”

  “You know, you turn the tables, you know this shit isn’t any of your business.”

  “You’re wrong,” he spat, losing it. “Millie’s absolutely my business. Been in my life for twelve years, Logan. Longer than you had her. Through that time, I watched her exist. Saw the mess you and your brothers made of her before she went to Paris. You turn the tables, man, and tell me again it isn’t my business.”

  It sucked, but the man had a point.

  “She kept comin’ back for more,” High told him through gritted teeth.

  “Way I heard it, you kept comin’ back to give her more.”

  “And she took it. Took it. Held on tight. And didn’t let go.�
�

  Alan shut his mouth.

  And there was High’s point.

  “It would suck, what you got with Dot isn’t what I feel for Millie. What Millie gives back to me,” High said. “I’d want that for Dottie, to have something like that. She’s a damn fine woman. She deserves that beauty. I’ll tell it to you straight, when I saw Millie again, I had no idea the heartbreak my girl’s been dealin’ with for twenty years. What she sacrificed to give me all I got. But even if that shit wasn’t there, I wouldn’t care. The dance we danced when we hooked up again was fucked right the hell up. But it was a dance we had to dance. A dance that led us outta hell and back to beauty. Lotta folks work the hurt out a lotta ways. Even if Millie didn’t have the best reason in the world to get shot of me twenty years ago, I’d be back in her bed ’cause that’s what we got. That’s what we’ve always had. That’s what we been missin’. And older now, a fuckuva lot smarter, we know not to let it go.”

  High stopped talking and Alan didn’t start.

  So High kept going.

  “Straight up, you got this kinda love for my girl, I dig that. But she’s walked through fire, man. That’s done for her. You don’t like my threats, don’t be a threat to what I gotta build for my woman.”

  Alan held his gaze steady.

  Then he looked to the fan belts.

  High leveled his tone when he spoke again.

  “Millie’s the kinda woman who deserves everything in life but life chose to fuck her and not give her the one thing she wanted most. Only way she can get even a little of that is through your kids and through mine.”

  Alan looked back to him.

  High went on, “I know you don’t like this now but we’re a team. We got a goal we gotta see to the rest of our lives. We both love Millie and we both got the job to find a way to give her what she deserves. You’re not with me on that, bud, that’s your problem. But I’m not gonna let you make it Millie’s. You don’t like me. Pretend. But I got a big job ahead of me. I’m not expendin’ a lot of effort on you.”

  When Alan didn’t say anything, High decided he was done. So he made his way around the man and moved toward the front of the store.

  He was five feet beyond him when Alan called, “Logan.”

  High turned around.

  “Millie calls me that. Dottie calls me that,” High stated. “I’m High to you. You don’t get that, man, I don’t give a fuck. Logan is theirs. It ain’t yours.”

  Alan looked confused for a beat before he powered past it and focused, muttering, “Whatever.” Then, louder, like a command, “Be real.”

  “I’m real,” High returned.

  Alan again held his gaze steady and High could barely hear him when he repeated, “For Millie, for God’s sake, be real.”

  He said nothing else and didn’t give High a chance to reply before he turned and walked away.

  * * *

  At five oh five that night, High found himself leaning against his truck again.

  He was this way outside Deb’s work.

  He’d called her and asked her for fifteen minutes after work to have a chat about Zadie.

  When he’d done that, she’d replied, “Yeah. Figured Zade didn’t take this weekend too great.”

  She said no more and agreed to meet.

  High did not want to be there. It was the last place he wanted to be. The first place he wanted to be was at Millie’s waiting for her to come out in her sweater dress.

  But their reservation wasn’t until seven.

  He had time to do this and he had to do this.

  So he was there, doing it.

  He watched as Deb walked out, plastic lunch bag in her hand that she undoubtedly packed with carrot sticks, apple slices, and other shit that was good for you. Purse on her shoulder that he knew cost over five hundred dollars because he saw it on the credit card statement—handbags, dyeing her hair, and buying expensive makeup at department stores the only girl weaknesses she had.

  Other than that, she was in jeans, a maroon button-down that had her company’s insignia over the breast pocket, her hair in a ponytail, her face made up like she did it for work: mascara, foundation, some blush, and done.

  It’d help if she found a man. Zadie would begin to catch on if his ex also moved on.

  He suspected she might go to a bar and hook up.

  Other than that, she’d never bother.

  “Hey,” she greeted as she got to him at his truck that was parked next to her car.

  “Hey,” he replied. “Thanks for the time.”

  She nodded.

  “Won’t take a lot of it,” he told her. “But gotta share with you that Zadie was not good with meetin’ Millie.”

  “I figured that,” she said. “She bitched about it a lot since you took them to pizza at Bonnie Brae.” She threw out a hand. “Sorry. I probably should have warned you about that.”

  “She warned me at the time seein’ as she wasn’t pleased about it then and she’s Zadie. She had no problem communicatin’ that. I warned Millie but I didn’t know where she’d take what she was feelin’. Where it took her was pretty much dumpin’ her full Sprite in Millie’s lap even though we hadn’t even ordered dinner at the Spaghetti Factory.”

  He watched Deb’s eyes get big and ticked.

  “You’re kidding me,” she snapped.

  “Wish I was,” he told her. “Consequences of that were we left without dinner. She hid the shit she did the next day and Millie didn’t share what it was. But got it outta her that Zadie said some things to her. Millie canceled plans because she thought the girls could use a break. She was right. I was pushin’ too fast, too soon. But I had a chat with them this mornin’, laid some things out about Millie and my history, and nothin’ sunk in with Zadie. She was a snot to Millie and she was a snot to me.”

  Deb tipped her head to the side and asked with mild curiosity, “What’s your history with Millie?”

  It struck him then he’d never given her that.

  And it struck him then, since he hadn’t, even in the little he knew they had, how little they’d actually had. He didn’t dig deep with her. She didn’t dig deep with him.

  He and Millie had talked all the time. It wasn’t just good times and good fucking. She knew everything about his life. His thoughts about it. His feelings about it. And she’d given the same.

  He gave none of that to Deb.

  And he got none of it back.

  “We were together, my early twenties, and we were together awhile,” he explained. “We both wanted a family and were gonna start when she finished school. We started. Or we tried to start. She found out she couldn’t have kids. Instead of tellin’ me that, she dumped me so I could have them.”

  Deb straightened her head and he saw understanding wash through her features.

  She knew how much he loved his girls. She knew how tight he was with all the family he had. Fuck, it was him who opened the negotiations that led to them having Zadie.

  And he reckoned the only things in her life she truly wanted, truly loved, were their girls.

  “Oh, High,” she whispered.

  Yeah, she understood.

  “It sucked. We reconnected, wasn’t pretty ’cause I was in deep with her and didn’t take it real good when she cut me out. Eventually found out why she got shot of me. We worked it out. But she made a sacrifice for me that I get ’cause if I was in her shoes back then, I’d make the same one. That’s over now and we’re movin’ on. I just need the girls to move on with me.”

  “I’m not trying to be a bitch, really I’m not, when I say that the way Zadie’s being has a good deal to do with you. You’re too soft on her, High.”

  “That’s why we’re talkin’,” he stated. “’Cause I got that right in my face this weekend. Millie got more of it. And I gotta put a stop to it. Zadie’s gonna react, you’re gonna hear it, likely see it and have to put up with it. I realize it’s totally uncool, me standin’ here askin’ you this shit, but I got three girls
in my life who I want to get along, so gotta do it. And that’s me askin’ you to take my back with this.”

  Her brows snapped together and she said, “Of course, High. God, you don’t even have to ask. It’s not like I don’t want you to be happy.”

  He had no fucking clue what Deb wanted second to second, day to day or for her life.

  But he was shocked as shit she wanted him to be happy.

  It wasn’t that she’d want him to suffer.

  It was just that he didn’t think she gave much of a shit.

  “Means a lot, Deb,” he muttered.

  “You want me to talk to her?” she asked.

  “Think she should sit on what she’s done and what she knows. Cleo is Cleo. She’s on board. Maybe she’ll have a word.”

  Deb made a face that said it all.

  No one had much effect on Zadie when she wanted something, not even her big sister.

  He grinned. “Worth it to hope.”

  He watched Deb’s lips curl up slightly.

  He continued, “Just want you to be aware so you aren’t blindsided by any of her shit. And if she starts bitchin’…” He shook his head. “Whatever you could do would be appreciated.”

  “I’ll keep an eye and we’ll have a chat if she gets bad,” Deb offered.

  “Like I said, whatever would be appreciated.”

  She nodded.

  Great.

  That was done.

  “Leave you alone to get back to our girls,” he muttered, pushing away from the truck.

  “Right. Talk to you later, High,” she said, starting to move to round the hood of her car to get to the driver’s side door.

  “Deb,” he called.

  She stopped and looked back at him.

  “Hope you know, want you to be happy too,” he told her.

  “I know that,” she replied.

  He was mildly curious when he asked, “Got any clue what’d do that?”

  “Got it,” she told him. “Good job that pays well and is only a headache on occasion. Two good girls, though one can be a pain in the ass, but that’s usually only on occasion too. Really all I need, you know?”

  He didn’t know.

  Getting woken up with a phenomenal blowjob.

  Bickering about alarm clocks.