Aidan pulled back and shook his head. “Physically, he’s gonna be fine. But he was throwing shit at the therapist a few minutes ago.”
Alarming to consider. Of all his men, Tango was the most placid, the most troubled by violence, the absolute least likely to be picked up for a bar fight.
“Shit.”
“I’ve explained it to him,” Aidan went on. “But he’s snapped, Dad. He doesn’t give a shit about anything anymore.”
As evidenced by the suicide attempt.
“Let me talk to him.”
Aidan’s brows lifted, and an unfamiliar hardness moved through his dark eyes. After Sam, after Lainie, after Tango’s rescue, Aidan had lost the shine of youth and impetuosity. Gone was the trod-upon young man who’d stood up to his father in half-measures.
Thank God.
“Hey,” Ghost said, careful to soften his tone. “I know what’s at stake here. I’m not his president right now.” He plucked at his black and white Lean Dogs sweatshirt as proof: no cut, only soft colors.
Aidan gave him a long, hard stare.
“Take your girls home,” Ghost urged. “Grab a shower.” He was crusty with dried blood. “Get something to eat. I’ll stay with Kev ‘til you get back.”
Aidan sucked at his lip, torn between brotherly and husbandly duty.
Sam stood and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I can take Lainie home, and you can stay.”
He turned his head toward her, expression softening. “I don’t want you driving if you’re tired.” He exhaled; sounded completely done in. “Come on, baby.” Sharp look at Ghost. “You’ll stay?”
“Cross my heart. Mags and I are gonna be here a while anyway, with Ava having the baby.”
“Shit. Right. Kiss her for us.”
“I will.”
Sam stepped forward and kissed Ghost’s cheek in parting. “Love you.”
“You too, sweetheart.”
He watched them go, Aidan carrying the baby seat, free arm around Sam’s waist. Two people very much in love. A biker and the support he needed from his old lady.
Not for the first time, Ghost sent up a silent thanks to the powers above for bringing Sam into Aidan’s life. He knew exactly how lost he’d be without Maggie.
Then he took a deep, bracing breath and headed down the hall.
He knocked once on the door, then let himself in.
Tango, propped up with pillows, swallowed by a pale blue hospital gown, looked nothing less than skeletal. His hair hung in tattered streamers down his neck. His eyes stared into the middle distance, glassy, lifeless.
The change hadn’t occurred overnight, but it had been so easy to dismiss the slow decline: the weight loss, the hair growing out, the deepening detachment from everyone and everything. A slow transformation, yes, but one that had been unfolding beneath all their noses. Half-denial that they were losing him, half-unwillingness to strap the boy down and force their love down his throat. They’d been trying, all of them, but they hadn’t taken the necessary drastic measures.
Tango had been drastic instead.
The sense of failure was crushing.
Ghost’s chipper greeting died on his tongue. “Ah, Christ, Kevin.” He walked to the bed, sank down into the chair that waited.
Tango didn’t acknowledge him, but his throat worked as he swallowed.
Ghost reached to cover one bony, tattooed hand with his own where it rested on the sheets. “Kev. No.” His throat felt tight. “Son, no, this isn’t the way. This won’t help you.”
Tango closed his eyes. His narrow jaw trembled.
Ghost tightened his hand. “Aidan says you won’t talk to the shrink. He says you blew up at her.”
He took a shivery breath, eyes still closed. “What am I supposed to do? Tell her – tell her how I used to suck cocks for a living?”
Ghost knew he didn’t have the tools to handle the snakes in the boy’s head. There was a possibility he would do more harm than good. But someone had to break through these self-destructive walls. “I want you to talk to her about whatever you feel like talking to her about, so you can come home with us.”
Tango’s eyes popped open, tear-bright and wild when they slid to Ghost. “But don’t tell her too much, right? ‘Cause I can’t say anything about the club. Or about Don Ellison’s basement.”
Shit. “I’m not worried about any of that right now.”
“Do the others know?” Faint note of defiance. “Do they know what I did? You’ll have to strip my patches now. They’ll never let me stay.”
Ghost sighed. A large part of him wanted to take Tango by the shoulders and shake him until his teeth snapped together. But that would solve nothing. Swallowing the impulse, hoping for patience, he said, “No one knows but the family.”
Tango stared at him with his eerie, fevered gaze.
“Mercy, and Aidan,” Ghost explained, “and Mags, and Ava, and Sam. And me. Aidan and Merc brought you in the truck so there wouldn’t be a call on the scanners. None of our brothers know where you are or what you did.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell them?”
Snapped was right. Snapped was a damn understatement.
Ghost said, “Because if I have to rewrite the entire goddamn MC rule book, I will to keep you from getting excommunicated, but for starters, I want to try keeping it secret.”
“You should tell them.”
“No.”
~*~
“Mind if I join you?”
Whitney jerked, startled from her deep contemplation of her coffee cup. She sat at a small table tucked up against the wall of the ground floor hospital café. A warm, cheerful place, with honey walls and potted ferns, strategic lighting. The bakery cases and buffet line were full of unexpected treats: huge sticky cinnamon rolls, gourmet cookies, grilled chicken and asparagus, some sort of Asian dish in dark sauce that looked like it would be heaven spooned over rice. She hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of the cafeteria, but this little place was charming, full of human chatter, and smelled of rich cooking things. Wall-to-wall tinted plate windows looked out onto the hospital drive, cars crawling past, ribbons of gray exhaust snaking from cold tailpipes. People bustled up and down the sidewalk, wrapped in jackets and scarves. She could almost pretend she was at Stella’s, and that she wasn’t in a hospital, worrying about her suicidal, bisexual…whatever he was.
Maggie Teague stood beside her table with the double stroller that held Mercy and Ava’s two wriggling boys. She was, as always, pretty, unselfconscious, and smiling, and for those reasons a little intimidating.
“Sure,” Whitney said, surprised to see her. “How’s Ava?”
Maggie took the chair across from her and put a hand on the stroller, pushed it idly back and forth, which made Cal giggle. “She’s great. The baby was born about twenty minutes ago. Ten fingers and toes, screaming like a banshee.” She beamed with maternal pride. “Ava’s a trooper. I said I’d give Mama and Daddy some alone time to catch their breath.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for them.”
Maggie nodded, then grew serious. “But you’re not happy in general, are you?”
Whitney blinked, surprised again. Maggie gave the impression that she’d eat you alive if the occasion called for it, and there would be no warning. By the time you noticed her fangs, they’d already be sunk in your throat. “I’m sorry?”
“What’s happening with Tango has you all upset,” she observed. “You looked ready to cry when I walked up.”
Whitney tried and failed to smile. “I was.”
Maggie leaned her elbow on the table, cupped her chin in her hand, expression thoughtful, and penetrating. “He’s special to you.”
“Very.”
“Can I ask why?” Her eyes said she knew exactly why, but there was the question, thrown down like a gauntlet between them. Tell her why…and risk revealing herself as young, and shallow, or worse, the kind of girl who romanticized fixing broken boys.
Whitney took a deep
breath and stared down into her untouched coffee. She’d poured too much creamer, and it trailed in lazy swirls across the surface. “When we were…when we were in that basement.” It was physically painful to go back there in her mind. “He kept me safe. He sacrificed himself for me. And I was just a stranger, and he didn’t have to do it, but that’s just who he is, isn’t it?”
Maggie nodded.
“But that’s not why he’s special to me.” The tears threatened, and she swallowed them down, chased it with a fast sip of coffee. “My brother’s heroin addiction killed him.”
“I know that.”
“I couldn’t save him. I didn’t do enough, or say enough, or try everything that I could. I lost him. Because I let him push me away.” She shook her head. “But maybe I can save Kev. Maybe, if I don’t quit, and I won’t leave him alone, and I won’t be pushed away, I can keep him here on earth with us.”
Maggie sat back, hazel gaze hard to read. “You know, most doctors would say that you can’t save a person. That he has to make the decision to save himself.”
“What do you think?” Whitney asked.
“I think when you hate yourself badly enough to slit your wrists, you can’t haul yourself out of the hole. You have to be pulled out.” She offered a bare smile. “Keep pulling, sweetheart. We can always use an extra set of hands.”
~*~
The next afternoon, the most unusual of lunches took place at a few pushed-together tables in a back corner of the hospital café. Untouched mugs and plates cluttered their haphazard table, and a strange sense of togetherness had them all leaning toward one another, as if drawn by magnets.
Mercy, a just-released Ava, in sweats and cradling the new baby. Maggie, Ghost, Aidan, Sam, Whitney, and Ian. Bruce the bodyguard sat alone at the next table, enjoying coffee and an oatmeal cookie the size of his considerable head.
Ian had the floor, his crisp British accent heavy with sadness. “I was much like this when I did it. I didn’t want to be alive anymore.” His composure almost slipped, lean jaw clenching. “But finally the breakthrough came, and the ice melted, and I wanted to live again.”
“What was the breakthrough?” Ghost asked.
The Englishman met the president’s stare boldly, big blue-green eyes full of grief. “He was.”
“Hmph.”
“But….” A tremble in his breathing, a fast glancing away. “I don’t think it will be me for him this time. I don’t…I don’t…”
“We’ve got to get him out of this damn hospital,” Aidan said. “And Jesus Christ, he needs therapy, but he won’t agree to that.”
“Discharge first,” Maggie said, “therapy second.”
Ava said, “I have an idea.”
~*~
His memory had gone fuzzy around the edges. That was the morphine they’d dosed him with. The past and the present flickered together and then apart, like dancers, legs flashing, feet catching behind knees. Together, the embrace, and then the spin, fingertips clinging. Everything was now: the razor, the hot enclosing water of the tub, the therapist with her professional sympathy. And there was Miss Carla, too, with her cigarette breath and her stained teeth grinning at him. And Ian, not of the expensive suits and cashmere scarves, but the Ian of old, with eyeliner and bronzer, and the delicate kiss he pressed to the hollow of Tango’s throat.
Now was the cell, and the broom handle, and the stink of sweating men. Now was the thick red dirt of Mama’s front yard, and the gleaming white steel of the fancy car pulling up at the mailbox. Now was yesterday, and tomorrow, and twenty years ago. The future took on the shapes and colors and sounds of the past, and he would never escape, he realized. The nightmare would never be over; a pretty boy…he was just a pretty boy…someone’s little loverboy.
It became a song in his head. First Whitney’s clear sweet voice. And then Miss Carla’s. He thought he would scream.
But instead, the door opened, and Ava poked her shining dark head into the room. “Kev?” And he remembered where he was, and all the dancing images snapped back into place. This was now, and they wouldn’t let go of him, his people.
He blinked against the grit in his eyes, and struggled to sit up higher against the pillows. “Yeah?” His voice was an awful croak.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.” What the hell did it matter at this point? Aidan, Mercy, Whitney, Ian, Ghost…what was one more person telling him how important it was that he get out of this bed?
She eased the door wide with her shoulder and came into the room, and that was when he realized something was off. The last time he’d seen Ava, she’d been very pregnant. Now, the bulging belly was gone. She was dressed in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and carried a white-wrapped bundle in her arms. She walked slowly, gingerly, wincing he saw, as she drew close. Still sore.
“You had the baby.”
“Yesterday.” She beamed, proving that even exhausted and haggard, new mothers were the most beautiful of women. “Can we sit?”
He shifted over on the bed. “Yeah.” And she took a careful perch on the edge, hissing a little through her teeth.
“The third time, and it doesn’t get any less painful, only quicker,” she said with a wry grin. She twisted so the baby was right in front of him, almost in his lap. “Here, hold her.”
“Oh, no, I shouldn’t…”
But Ava was putting the bundle in his arms, and he had no choice but to cradle the small body, and cup the back of her little beanie-covered head. A pink beanie because, as Ava said, she was a girl.
When his hands were safely full of baby, Ava curled a hand around his forearm. “Uncle Tango,” she said, voice bright and official, “meet Camille Nanette Lécuyer. Nanette for Mercy’s Gram,” she explained. “Three weeks early. She just couldn’t wait to come out and meet everybody.”
Camille. Pink, and new, and perfect. She yawned, tiny mouth opening wide, eyelids fluttering.
“She’s beautiful, Ava.”
“I think so, too, but I’m her mama, so I’m a little biased.” Then her voice changed, and her hand tightened on his arm. “Kev.”
He tore his eyes from the baby to meet her mother’s serious, dark gaze.
“When my boys are your age, they’re going to be Dogs too. And sometimes it scares the hell out of me, but I won’t deny them their legacy. And when they’re grown, and patched, and the clubhouse is theirs, they’ll walk through the rooms and find all the old framed photos on the walls, the ones of members past. And their father and uncles will be in those pictures. They’ll find one of you and Aidan standing together, and they’ll say, “That’s Aidan, and that’s Tango.”
She smiled sadly. “And I want both of you to be gray, and wrinkled, and too arthritic to get on your bikes in that photo. I want you to be an old man in that picture, Kev. We all want that. I want to sidle up next to you at Camille’s wedding, and make some stupid remark about the good old days being long gone.”
He had to look away from her then, back to the baby, Camille’s pink new face blurring as tears filled his eyes.
Her voice changed again, tear-choked now. “The world is full of terrible things. But there are beautiful things, too, and you’re one of them.”
She stood and put her arms around his neck, held his head against her breasts. “Come home. Just please come home.”
Camille squirmed in his arms, and now was just two pretty girls who loved him like family. That was the beginning of the next, the longest, the last chapter of his life.
Five
The apartment welcomed him back in pristine condition, warm, the central heat chugging and the windows fogged with steam. Maggie had baked white chocolate chunk blondies, his favorite, and left them cooling on the counter; the whole apartment smelled like vanilla and sugar. Night was falling, and the Christmas lights strung up in the businesses across the street were coming on with multicolored twinkles.
“Home sweet home,” Aidan said behind him, and dropped his keys on the counter.
Tango did a slow revolution, taking it all in, as though seeing it for the first time. There were changes since he’d gone to the hospital: the old bookshelves under the window were now full of books, tattered second- and thirdhand paperbacks. A new curtain in the window. Several warm throws were draped over the back of the sofa. Magazines – car, bike, and gun – were spread artfully across the coffee table.
He looked down at himself: skinny pale arms full of track marks, bandages on his wrists, still. They’d kept him in the hospital until he was done detoxing. For the first time, food sounded good, and he was thirsty for a drink, and the feel of air moving across his skin didn’t make him want to scream. But…look at him. He was a bundle of scarred sticks, haphazardly held together with tape and well-wishes.
“Alright.” Aidan slapped his palms together and chafed them back and forth, all excitement and anticipation. “First, beer. Then this awesome shit Mags baked. Then not one, but all three Expendables movies. Make popcorn,” he directed. “And I’ll set up the DVD player.”
“I don’t have one.”
“You do now. Present from moi.”
“Mercy teaching you French?” he asked with a snort.
“Ha ha, asshole. I’m married to a professor. I’m cultured and shit now.”
Tango smiled. It was exhausting to do so, taxing to the muscles in his skinny face, but he couldn’t fight the urge. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Call you an asshole? No, that was kinda bad.”
“The DVD player, I mean.”
Aidan shrugged and wouldn’t meet his eyes as he slit the tape on the box with his boot knife. “I did if I wanted to watch movies.”
Deciding his best friend was never going to be comfortable with gratitude, he went to make the popcorn.
~*~
Miss Carla’s bony fingers running down his cheek. Her fetid breath against his face. “What a pretty little loverboy you are.”
Tango woke with a shout, jackknifing upright. It was dark, and the TV was still going, and as the nightmare faded, the reality of the night returned. He’d nibbled on popcorn and Maggie’s blondies in front of a movie marathon with Aidan. They’d dragged the sofa cushions and bedroom pillows and blankets and the sleeping bags Aidan had brought to the center of the living room floor and made a pallet in front of the TV like little boys. He hadn’t thought he could fall asleep, but he had, and then, of course, the nightmare.
Loverboy (Dartmoor Book 5) Page 4
