Walk Through Fire

by Kristen Ashley

  “Welp, that shit’s out the window come Friday,” she declared.

  She was right.

  It was Wednesday, almost a full week after the kitty incident. Logan had set up lunch the first day Deb could get away, so that day, we were having lunch.

  And the coming weekend, even though I still felt it was too soon, the girls were coming to stay.

  According to Logan, Deb was all in to help and once she’d learned what Zadie had done (which was the very next day when Logan called her), scaring me about Chief, she’d laid into her daughter.

  I’d worried this would make Zadie hate me even more.

  But lunch at the Compound was another ingenious Logan move.

  He’d told me Deb had never been one with the biker life. She rarely came on Chaos or participated in any of the things they did with old ladies and families.

  But she didn’t stop the girls from doing it and Logan also told me they loved their Chaos family, enjoyed hanging at the Compound with their dad, his brothers, their women and kids.

  Even though our time having lunch there was short, Logan’s message to his daughters being that I was still around and not going anywhere, for the girls, it was also a revelation.

  I didn’t know how the Chaos brothers and their families had treated Deb, but after our lunch, I had a clue.

  This was because there were a lot of wide eyes from Cleo and Zadie about how they treated me. Along with the Chaos family giving that to the girls (and obviously Logan), to me they were welcoming, affectionate, loving, teasing. Even the new brothers, Shy, Snapper, Roscoe, and Speck were all over meeting me and getting to know me in a way it was obvious they were opening their arms along with the rest of Chaos.

  And then Rush, Tack’s son, had come in.

  He was older than Tabby and maybe that was why he remembered me better.

  But remember me he did.

  And when he walked in and looked at me, and while I was staring at his adult handsomeness that was on par with his father’s back in the day (and now), he folded me in his arms and said loud enough for the girls to hear, “Heard you were back. Since I heard, been lookin’ forward to seein’ you and givin’ you a hug. Good you’re finally home again, Millie.”

  It was sweet as Rush could always be. He’d been a little boy on the go, something to do or see or experience and he didn’t want to waste any time doing it, seeing it, or experiencing it (thus his nickname was Rush).

  But in all that, he was always sweet, a good kid, a loving son to his dad (and his mom, even though I knew that was more difficult for him because he was also a loving brother and Naomi never treated Tabby right).

  So, for me, it had been a lovely reunion.

  For the girls, it was an eye-opening one.

  I’d worried in the dramatics of the kitty incident that I would lose headway with Cleo along with Zadie digging in against me.

  Luckily, that didn’t happen. Cleo greeted me with a big smile the minute I’d walked in and with the way Chaos was with me, it just got better from there.

  On the other hand, Zadie hadn’t been bratty, but she’d been back to sulky and mostly silent.

  The good part about that was that she had plenty of attention to give what was happening at the Compound with Logan and Chaos.

  And Logan was a part of that because he’d also changed his strategy.

  Apparently, he had been withholding some of his displays of affection for me.

  I knew this because at the Compound he’d let it loose. There was more touching, hand holding, arm around shoulders or waist, and a lingering (though not wet) kiss when I first arrived to meet them.

  Not only in deed but in word and in look, he gave it to me.

  He also gave it to his girls, lavishing the same on them at every opportunity in a way that was so natural, I knew it was just how it was with them.

  It was cute.

  No, not cute.

  Beautiful.

  Cleo obviously blossomed under it.

  But Zadie did too.

  I figured she just loved her dad. Though I figured it was more, his behavior with her when I was around being indication he was not angry with her and was moving on.

  I just hoped she’d sort herself out and move on, too, the right way.

  I would find out that weekend when Deb dropped the girls off at my house for them to stay the weekend.

  “Mmm,” I mumbled to Kellie’s comment about the girls spending the weekend, my mind consumed with that, my eyes wandering to my computer monitor.

  “Why’d you end it with him?”

  Her question, voiced gently, but still a sneak attack, made my gaze fly back to her.

  I’d never told them, not her or Justine. Only Dottie.

  And I’d still not told them.

  It was now time to tell them but both my bestest besties weren’t there and, after all these years, giving that only to Kellie wouldn’t be fair.

  “I think that I should share that with you when Jus is around, babe,” I replied in the same tone she’d given me.

  “You can’t have kids,” she declared.

  I felt my lips part.

  She shook her head, her face softening in a way that made my heart fill with such love, it became so heavy it hurt, and she leaned toward me at my desk.

  “Me and Jus, we guessed a long time ago. Figured it out when you were all about trying to surprise him with getting knocked up and goin’ at each other like bunnies. Then, poof,” the word was a soft explosion, “he’s gone.”

  I watched her eyes get bright and fought the same happening with me as she continued speaking.

  “Then the way you were when Dot had Katy, then Freddie, all happy at the same time so fucking sad. Same when Jus and Ronnie had Raff. Killed watching that, babe.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice husky.

  She shook her head again. “Nothing to be sorry for. A girl’s no girl at all for her sisters if she doesn’t get that sometimes a sister has to share the hurt, sometimes hold it close. That happens, a girl’s gotta stand by her sister the way she needs her, not the way that girl needs to do it.”

  God, I loved Kellie so… fucking… much.

  “Thank you for doing that for me,” I said.

  “Not a hardship. You give back, Mill. The sisterhood works that way.”

  That was true, and I was getting choked up, so the only thing I could do was nod.

  I pulled it together before I shared, “I messed up. He understood when it all came out but I lost—”

  She leaned back and her tone was now firm when she ordered, “Stop it.”

  It was me shaking my head when I told her, “It keeps coming to me. I’m happy he’s back. We’re working. We slid right into what we had before and it’s good. It’s good like it was, which means it’s great. But it’s actually better because we’re older and we know more about life and what’s important. But there are things that hit me. Like he’s a partner now, Kell. Not in the way he was before where he’d make me coffee when I had to study or tell me how beautiful I was anytime he looked at me. He’s a partner. Like he takes out the trash. And I didn’t teach him that. Deb did.”

  “See you’ll be having some things fuckin’ with your head when you sit down to lunch with her too,” she muttered.

  “I envy her, no doubt about it,” I confessed. “She had him for thirteen years. They weren’t a love match and that never grew between them. She still had him. And she gave him—”

  “Stop that too,” Kellie cut me off.

  “Kell, you have to know that cuts deep,” I told her.

  “Of course it does,” she replied.

  “He has his two girls. He dotes on them. I cannot express how happy I am that he has them but that doesn’t mean I don’t think. Even though he isn’t holding any anger about what I did, he still told me that what I did meant he couldn’t be around to help us build a new dream. He’s a biker and there was a good deal of shady going on in the Club back then but ma
ybe we could have adopted. Maybe—”

  “Girl, stop it.”

  I shut my mouth.

  She went on.

  “Sister, you came this far. You went through hell. You gave it all up and then you got it back. Your story is impossible. Shit like that doesn’t happen. Seeing your guy at Chipotle and ending up with him back in your life, just as into you as he ever was, committed to building a future. Now there are so many ways to fuck that up, it boggles the mind.”

  She leaned into me again and, as was sometimes her way, got bossy.

  “Beat that back, Mill. You get stuck in your head about all that you lost. All that’s passed that you can never get back. All you couldn’t give to him. All he couldn’t give to you. Mistakes that may or may not be just that. You get stuck in that, you’re gonna lose hold of the one thing in your life you ever truly wanted, Millie. And you can’t do that.”

  She held my gaze, reached out, put her hand on my desk, and gave me the rest.

  “I know you wanted kids. I know you wanted a family. What you gotta get is that maybe you didn’t. Maybe you wanted that because you wanted it all from Logan and with Logan and you wanted to give it all to Logan. Because, babe, seriously, you have family. Lots of it. You have love around you. Lots of it. From the moment I met you, anything you wanted, you got because you worked at getting it. But the only thing I ever saw you really, really want, the only time you were really, really happy, was when you had him. Now you have him. Do not get mired in what could have been. Rejoice in what is now.”

  She was soooooo right.

  “For a crazy bitch, you’re also super smart,” I blurted in order not to get emotional and burst into tears.

  “Van Gogh was crazy. The guy was also a master,” she returned, taking her hand from my desk and sitting back in her seat, grinning.

  “I think I read somewhere he might have had a neurological condition,” I told her.

  “Yeah. His neurological condition being that he was crazy and crazy talented,” she replied.

  “Are you taking up painting?” I asked.

  “Nope. And not gonna win the Nobel Prize like that dude from A Beautiful Mind. But that guy was a genius and he was bonkers too.”

  “He wasn’t bonkers, Kell. He was ill. He had schizophrenia,” I informed her.

  She smiled. “We genius folk who are bonkers can call each other bonkers. It’s in the handbook.”

  I started giggling.

  She joined me.

  I stopped giggling abruptly and said, “Thanks for understanding about…” I paused before finishing lamely, “everything.”

  She shook her head again, no longer giggling but her lips were curled up.

  “Sister, I got a ton a’ friends but only four real ones. That’s because the others like having fun with me but they don’t get me. You don’t have to thank me for shit. You give that understanding back and that’s just the way it is.”

  “I think I feel the need to hug you now,” I told her.

  “Beat that back too,” she returned. “The only time I feel physically affectionate is while riding the rush after crowd surfing and there’s no concert on my imminent schedule, which is bumming me out.”

  I raised my brows. “That’s it? There’s no one you feel physically affectionate for at the present moment?”

  “If you’re asking if I’m getting it regular, no. Which is also bumming me out.”

  “Time to go on the prowl,” I remarked.

  “There was a time when I’d try to drag you with me but I’m thinking Low would frown on that.”

  I was thinking she was correct because he always had. He hadn’t said much when Justine, Kellie, and I hit the town or a party without him. But back then we were all young, fun-loving, and attractive, so he also didn’t hide he didn’t like it much either.

  We might not be able to claim the adjective young anymore, but we were still fun-loving and attractive, and at this early juncture, I didn’t think it would be good to test Logan on that unless he was at my side.

  Hard for Kellie to be on the prowl with a hot biker hanging around.

  “Perhaps you should take Justine with you,” I suggested.

  Veronica didn’t mind that Justine went, mostly because both of them had been through the romantic wringer before finding each other. Neither would stray and both knew it.

  Logan knew I’d never stray either but he was a badass biker. They got aggressive about that kind of thing.

  “Gonna set that shit up,” Kellie declared.

  “And Claire. She’s probably due to get dumped by one of her six boyfriends soon. She’ll need to fill that slot.”

  Kellie grinned.

  I grinned back.

  And I did it thinking again life was as weird as it was wonderful.

  Because we’d discussed something that lay buried between us for years. Something she and Justine had guessed, but I’d never dug it up for them.

  Now it was out in the open.

  And we were as we always were.

  She was right.

  I had a lot of family around me.

  I also had a lot of love.

  * * *

  I caught Logan in my rearview on the way to the place we were meeting Deb for lunch and I almost got in a wreck due to experiencing a mini-orgasm on first sight.

  It was cold, but sunny, no chance of snow.

  So he was on his bike.

  But to keep warm, he not only was wearing his cut.

  He was also wearing a black bandana around the bottom half of his face, shades over his eyes, and his unruly, thick, dark, overlong hair was untethered.

  He looked like exactly what he was.

  A modern-day outlaw.

  It was hot.

  I found a parking spot that had a free one next to it. I parked and, as I expected, Logan backed in beside me.

  I jumped down in my high-heeled pumps, slammed my door, and turned, seeing him off his bike, lifting a leather-gloved hand to yank down the bandana.

  “I will seriously make it worth your while if you consider doing me wearing that bandana,” I announced before I even said hey.

  I couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses but I saw all his white, even teeth because he smiled huge.

  Then he stated, “Gag you with it, blindfold you with it, but, babe, nothin’ hinders my mouth when I’m doin’ you.”

  “Those alternate scenarios are acceptable,” I declared immediately.

  He burst out laughing, doing it with his arms shooting out to take hold of me so I slammed into him when he yanked me to his body.

  I rested my hands on his chest below his shoulders, head tipped back, smiling up at him, watching him laugh.

  I hadn’t seen him laugh that freely or for that long since I got him back.

  I’d have to see to that.

  Immediately.

  His laughter quieted down to chuckles, through which he said, “See we got our plans for tonight.”

  “Stop it,” I retorted. “I nearly crashed having a mini-orgasm seeing all that’s you in my rearview, that bandana over your face. I don’t need another one or it’ll take you forever to get me where you want me to be so you can get what you wanna get.”

  He pulled me closer, dipping his chin to bring his face near mine.

  “You had a mini-orgasm?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I answered.

  “What’s a mini-orgasm?”

  “It’s yet another boon to being a woman you men won’t ever understand since it’s something you men don’t get but we can have them willy-nilly. Say, while watching the TV show Vikings or driving our cars to salad bars with a hot biker trailing us.”

  He was still smiling big when he continued questioning. “What are the other boons to being a woman?”

  “High heels. Handbags. Facials. We get to look at and touch our knockers anytime we want, even if festivities are occurring alone. And we get to take cock in a variety of orifices.”

  His eyebrows ov
er his shades flew up. “You seriously talkin’ dirty to me before I gotta force down a fuckin’ salad?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  His eyebrows disappeared as he muttered, “One of the reasons I love you,” right before he dipped deeper and gave me a lip touch.

  Our enjoyable chat was clearly over, for when he lifted his head, he released me but slid an arm along my shoulders and started guiding us to the restaurant.

  We’d taken three steps when he noted quietly, “You seem okay.”

  “Not sure this is gonna be easy on Deb or me. So we’re on common ground.”

  His hand at my shoulder gave it a squeeze. “She’s cool, Millie,” he assured.

  “And I’ll be cool too,” I promised.

  “Already know that,” he said, eyes to the restaurant.

  But it wasn’t exactly a restaurant, as such. I didn’t know what you called it outside calling it a salad bar.

  It was Deb’s choice. This was because it was her favorite place close to work. This was also because, Logan told me, she was very healthy, worked out a lot, and ate food that was good for her.

  Learning this, I was beginning to lose my surprise at all things that didn’t jibe about Logan and Deb.

  Logan worked out, definitely. But he ate and drank whatever he wanted, back in the day and, I’d noticed, now.

  I did the same, for the most part, not counting the seventeen thousand, two hundred, and eleven diets I’d been on since losing him, all of these lasting from one day to three weeks, and, of course, the one Pilates session I’d attended.

  Normally, if told I was going to a salad bar for lunch, I would balk.

  But I knew this one and they had squares of pound cake and really good vanilla pudding at the end so I was looking forward to it.

  I was thinking this as I got another squeeze of my shoulder. I looked up to Logan to see his profile had changed. It was no longer relaxed and natural. It wasn’t hard either.