by Ryan Michele
My attention went solely to him. “Come again?”
Spook grabbed a beer, took a heavy pull, then pointed the end of it at Trapper. “That motherfucker is nuts.”
Trapper laughed. “Aw, you love me.”
“Fuck no.” Spook turned his attention to me. “By the time these fuckers got there, we were talkin’ to Gonzo. Your mother was still in the car, and Gonzo still thought he had the upper hand. That motherfucker”—he pointed at Trapper—“ended up comin’ in from the inside and shooting Gonzo in the back of the head. All I did was watch him fuckin’ collapse.”
Trapper shrugged. “Me, Collector, and Deacon went in the window I got your woman out of. Snuck in. We went up quiet, listenin’ to what was goin’ down. Those assholes, again, were stupid, so fuckin’ concerned about you guys they didn’t check their backs. Took out four guards and one man in the living room then the asshole at the door who thought the sun rose and fell with his ass. Not.”
“Javier, too?” I asked Spook who nodded. “So this shit is really over, then?”
Trapper pulled on his beer then said, “Yep, Superman ain’t got shit on us. You can thank us by getting one of those hot little things you got around here to come ride my cock.” He chuckled, grabbing his crotch.
I felt so damn relieved. True, I’d wanted to fuck the man up—both of them—but I was just happy the shit was over. Now, if my woman would wake the fuck up, I’d be golden.
“T, I’ll call up as many as you fuckin’ want.”
“Fuck yeah!” Trapper said, slamming his beer onto the table.
Fuck yeah.
I USED EVERY BIT of strength I could to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t cooperate. I could hear people in the room talking about me through a fog; still, I was not waking up. I was here, but I wasn’t. Confusion swarmed me, and I wanted to scream that I was here and that they didn’t have to worry.
I could hear crying, and I was pretty sure it was from my mother. That didn’t bode well, because my mother never cried. Being a tough cookie who could hack anything, she never had to. As a result, me not waking up appeared to be a big deal.
That scared the ever-loving shit out of me.
“How’s she doin’?” Stiff’s voice grumbled, and I tried with everything I had to reach out to his voice and latch on to it.
Then I felt a squeeze on my hand, but I couldn’t squeeze back. Nothing in my body would work, so why was my mind so engaged?
The warmth from his hand filled my body, and since it was the only thing I could get at the moment, I took it and buried this moment in deep, along with every single one of them I’d spent with him. As much as I didn’t want to think about it, I had to. I might be dying. That was the only reason I could think of for why I couldn’t open my eyes, talk, or squeeze my man’s hand back.
The burn in my heart hit me hard. If I could have moved, the burn would have been a physical blow that put me on my ass.
What if I never saw him again? Never spoke to him? How could I tell him how important he was to me? How much he’d made me feel when I hadn’t wanted to, but he’d done it all the same? How much, in such a short period of time, he’d given me hope for a future? How I was falling in love with him or had fallen? How was I going to tell him all of that?
Panic crushed me so badly I fell into darkness.
I HELD ON TO MY woman’s hand tight as she lay there, breathing on her own yet not waking up. For two days, she’d been like this, lying motionlessly, and I fucking hated it.
“Needles,” I growled as he checked Chelsea for the third time today. “What’s going on?”
His eyes met mine, and then he pointed to some machine he’d hauled in here. “Her brain waves are good. Heart’s good. Breathing good. Head was grazed by the bullet. All the labs I drew came back good. Her body is just healing, and we need to give her time for that.”
“Fuck time,” I muttered, going back to my girl’s hand.
Needles’ words didn’t placate me in the least. I wouldn’t live the rest of my life without Chelsea by my side. I refused to give up. I refused to let her give up. I refused to let Needles give up.
She would wake up, and then we could move on with our lives.
THE FOG SLOWLY began to clear. The sounds of people in the room became so clear the fog I’d heard them through before dissipated. Stiff, my mother, Jenn—I could hear them all as clear as day.
I wiggled my hand, and for the first time in I didn’t know how long, it moved. I tried my eyes, and while they opened, it felt as though someone had shoved sandpaper in them, causing me to blink rapidly, the light in the room burning them.
“Chelsea?” Stiff asked from next to me, his body a blur.
“Hey,” I croaked out, my throat raw.
“Thank fucking Christ.” Stiff lifted my hand and kissed the back of it.
“Am I okay?” I didn’t feel okay. My leg and face hurt, which surprised me because before, when I’d been in my cloudy haze, I felt no pain.
Stiff brushed my hair back out of my face with his big hand. “Yeah, Fire. You’re gonna be good.”
I blinked, and my man finally came into focus.
His eyes looked tired; big, dark bags hung under them. Worry lines marred his face even more than his usual sun-created ones. He was scared.
“I’m okay,” I tried reassuring him. “But I need some kind of pain meds.” I wasn’t a sissy, but the burn in my leg was rough, and even a few Advil would work at this point.
“Call Needles,” Stiff ordered someone as I slowly turned my head.
My mother was there with her eyes shining at me while Jenn was next to her with unshed tears in her eyes. Grams wasn’t around.
“I’m good,” I told them.
They each came up and kissed me on the forehead, said a few words, then left so I could rest. What I didn’t get was that I’d been resting for a while. I knew this because my muscles ached like I hadn’t used them, and I felt a bit weak.
“How long was I out?” I asked Stiff.
“Four days.”
That shocked me. I’d missed four days of my life, lying in this bed. However, I thought about it and realized I could have spent those four days in the morgue.
Then everything started rushing back to me: my father, being kidnapped, and the strange man who’d saved me.
“My father?” I asked first.
“Dead.”
A pit of regret hit me, though I still hated him. He had been willing to hurt me, but that small sliver of a child inside of me had hoped he would change. That was now gone, and I wouldn’t shed a tear for him. No way. Not after everything he’d done to us.
“What about the other guys? And the one who got me out of there?”
“The guys who kidnapped you are dead. Trapper, the one who went in and got you, is part of another club.”
“He is? How did he know where to find me?” I asked.
“You get stronger, and we’ll talk all this shit out later.”
I slowly nodded, but it felt like it was being smashed by a sledgehammer, so I stopped.
“So we’re all safe now?”
His eyes gleaming at me, Stiff stood above me, still holding my hand. “Yeah, Fire. You’re not goin’ back to your trailer. We’re movin’ your shit to my place, and that’s where you’ll stay.”
Even with the thumping of my brain, I knew I didn’t want to go back to that house, not after what my father had done to me there.
The images of the fork going into his eye came back to me, and my stomach roiled. I knew I was a strong woman, able to hack quite a bit, but doing that to my own father … That was something I would never get out of my head.
“You and me, Fire.” He lifted my hand. “You and me.” Those words were the most beautiful ones I could have heard. Yes, it was Stiff and me.
3 Weeks Later
IF I WERE CHARLIE, I would fire me. I didn’t want to be fired, but I’d been off from work now for three weeks, despite the fact I’d been moving arou
nd pretty good over the last few days.
Who would have thought a gunshot to the leg would suck so badly? Not me, because I’d never thought I would be shot.
I told Charlie I would be back next week. Stiff had told him I’d be back the week after that.
A month off? He’d lost his ever-loving mind. I couldn’t afford that.
I hadn’t been back to my trailer, but Stiff and a few of the guys had. It was utterly pitiful the amount of stuff they’d brought back that was salvageable. Clothes made up the bulk of it. Everything in the kitchen had been trashed, and my beach had been destroyed. That had deeply saddened me. Nevertheless, I couldn’t go back there, because of the memories of my father.
While I hadn’t seen him after I’d blacked out, Stiff had filled me in on what had happened and where his body had been found. Therefore, I wanted nothing to do with any of my sheets, blankets, pillows—anything.
That meant I had to replace most of those items and start again, which quite frankly, sucked. Even staying with Stiff, I still wanted a place of my own. He could come with me if he wanted, but I couldn’t let everything that happened to me hinder what I’d worked so hard to achieve for so damn long.
He knew this because we’d talked about it. Hell, with him, we talked about everything except one thing, and it was getting to me.
That one thing was where he’d been spending the bulk of his time this past week. Yes, he’d been around, but not like usual. Instead, Xander, Hooch, and even Bosco came around to hang out with me, saying hanging out with me was like a cakewalk.
When I had asked Stiff where he’d been, he would only tell me he’d been busy. Despite the trust built between us this past month, I was losing it with him since I knew he hadn’t been here doing his busy. And since having sex hadn’t been on the top of my to-do list, I couldn’t help wondering if he was getting it from someone else.
I wanted that trust. I wanted to feel it, but with each passing hour he was gone without explanation, it waned. I never asked any of the guys, even though I really wanted to ask Xander.
Some nights, Stiff would come home and go straight to the shower. That pit in my gut festered because my first thought was, He’s washing off another woman. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t a woman who would be in that type of relationship. Ever. And the more I let that sink in, the more it took root.
That was why I was sitting here on the couch in the dark at eleven twenty-three at night, waiting for Stiff to get home. I needed answers, and I wasn’t sitting around another minute to get them.
Unfortunately, my fire only lasted so long, and I eventually lay down on the couch at twelve forty-seven a.m. Moments later, I was out.
“Chelsea, I’ve gotta go,” Stiff’s deep voice came from beside me.
My eyes fluttered opened to see I was not, in fact, on the couch, but at some point, Stiff carried me to bed. He was dressed in worn jeans and a navy blue T-shirt that spread across his chest.
When my eyes met his, I froze, remembering why I’d stayed up. Why I was done with this. Why I was putting an end to it.
Carefully, I sat up in the bed, still in my T-shirt and shorts from the night before. “Where are you going?”
“Work.”
“Where at? And don’t tell me it’s at the shop, because I know that’s a lie.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You checkin’ up on me?”
“Do I need to be?” I retorted, turning fully toward him.
“No, and I don’t appreciate you doin’ it,” he snapped back, his brows furrowing.
Feeling like this was going way worse than it needed to be, I decided to cut to the chase.
“Stiff, if you’ve got someone else, you need to tell me. I’m not sleeping in the same bed with you while you’re with other women.”
His face turned pained, like I’d struck him so hard that it had gone clear down through his bone to his soul.
My heart lurched. I’d never wanted to do that, but it was something that needed to be discussed.
“Fuckin’ sucks ass that the first thing you think of is that.”
That was a direct punch to the gut and heart.
“I—”
“Need you to get dressed.”
I stilled.
“Gotta show you somethin’,” he said.
“Where?” I asked as he rose from the bed. It was a bizarre turn of events—going from talking about him being with someone else to him wanting to take me somewhere.
“Get dressed, and I’ll show ya,” he replied, his body tense and eyes hard.
My heart squeezed, and tears pricked behind my eyes. Was this going to be the end of us? I didn’t want that. More than anything in this world, even having my own place, I didn’t want that. I’d fallen head over heels in love with the big lug.
Slowly, I got dressed, and Stiff took me out to his Jeep. We climbed in, and then he drove.
“Stiff, I’m sorry,” I told him after a while.
He turned to me. “Just fuckin’ kills me that me bein’ with someone else is the first thing that comes into that thick head of yours. Don’t want anyone else, Chels. Only fuckin’ want you.” He reached over and took my hand, squeezing it.
I was unable to stop the tears from leaving my eyes. I felt every word of that deep. So damn deep.
I said nothing else, looking out the window, but Stiff wasn’t done.
“Know Bee had assumptions on how I got my name, and from your reaction, I’m gettin’ you think that, too. So let me clue you in on how I got the name Stiff.” He squeezed my hand, and I turned to focus on him. “Learned quick in life that if I didn’t stand up for my brother and myself, we wouldn’t make it. Therefore, my spine got stiff. I didn’t let shit get to me or bend me to its will. I fought to keep it straight, and I did.” He let out a huff of air. “Not gonna lie to you and tell you I haven’t had women, because I have, but not once since you came to the clubhouse has my dick been anywhere except inside you.”
“I was an ass. Sorry,” I whispered. “Then where have you been every night? I haven’t gone to bed with you in days, Stiff. What else was I supposed to think?”
“What you do is trust that your man is takin’ care of you. Have I ever let you down?” he asked.
“No.” And he hadn’t, not once. “Trust is hard for me and … I’m sorry.” Damn, I was now repeating myself. Shit.
“I get you, and I know it is. You get this. I’m pissed, but I’m lettin’ it go. I’m lettin’ it go because I’ve been hidin’ somethin’ from ya.”
My heart fell to the floor of the Jeep, rolled under the tires, and was getting pummeled with each turn of the tires. While I knew he had been, after his big talk about not having another woman, I didn’t want to think about what he had been hiding. Fear gripped me since I didn’t know what it could be or why he would.
“You’ll see in a minute,” he said as I took in the surroundings.
Trees, lots of trees, and I remembered coming down this way one of the times I had been on the back of his bike. The one time he had taken me to—
That was when I saw the open clearing as Stiff drove down the road. Cars, trucks, and bikes were spread throughout the space, all of which I knew and knew well.
“The cabin,” I whispered, my eyes going round.
It no longer looked dilapidated. No, the windows had been painted and new screens attached. The siding had been replaced with new wood, only making it look so much stronger. And the porch had been completely redone with new beams and posts.
As the Jeep came to a stop, my eyes shot over to Stiff as he put it in park.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
He turned fully toward me, resting his beefy arm on the steering wheel. “Know you wanted a place of your own. Know you wanted to buy it. Know you wanted to be by the beach and water. It’s not the ocean, but you liked it here. I liked it here with you. So this is for us, a place for us to call home.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “This is where you�
��ve been every night? Working?”
He reached over and took my hand. “Yeah, Fire. Me, the brothers, your mom, and Grams. Boner dragged his ass out, and even Charlie came by. Been tryin’ to get it finished before you went back to work. Wanted us to have a home, start something permanent. Not you stayin’ with me because you can’t be at your place anymore. No, here will be ours.”
Boner came? He’d taken two bullets for me and had to have surgery, but pulled through.
I let the tears fall freely.
“I love you,” I whispered softly. “Not just for this, but for you being you. Being Stiff. Not letting me go once you got ahold.”
He reached over and pulled me to him, bringing his lips close to mine. “Never lettin’ go, babe.”
“The moments,” I uttered softly.
“Moments?” he questioned.
“Grams always said for me to cherish the moments. You’ve given me so many, and I keep them locked in my heart.”
His lips came to mine in a soft kiss, and as he pulled away, he looked into my eyes. “Love you, Fire.”
Yeah, this was better than the beach. Better than the plans I’d laid out for myself. Better than anything I’d dreamed about. Stiff made all of that come true for me.
One month later
“THE WHISKY WASN’T enough,” I told my brother when we pulled up and parked in front of the jewelry shop. I’d only had one shot because I was driving, and it wasn’t hacking it.
Xander chuckled, taking off his helmet. “After we do this, I’ll get ya a bottle.” He hopped of his bike as I did. Then he hesitated before going into the store, turning back to me. “She’s not gonna get cleaned up, is she?”
We’d had our mother locked up for what felt like forever. She had been so far gone Needles had been forced to give her certain drugs to help her come down off them. We’d thought she was doing better and let her out of her room. And I didn’t know how, but she must have had a stash in her purse that I hadn’t found, because she was found on the floor of the bathroom, high as a kite. Then the processes of bringing her back down had started all over again.
