BRUF

by Jessie Cooke

  Sabrina felt tears trying to rise to the surface. She fought them back. The last thing she needed was to get emotional. Wolf would take that as a sign of weakness and confirmation that she was just as immature as he presumed she was. “I’m not talking about living with him, or even having an instant relationship. I’m not that stupid, Wolf. What I want is the chance to get to know him. I want the chance to find out for myself if he’s the type of man that I could, or would want to, make a life with. I want you to stop assuming that you know what’s best for me...for both of us...and let me figure it out on my own.”

  “You’re going to get hurt, Sabrina. He’s going to hurt you, and in the process, ruin the relationship that I have with him.”

  “Is that the problem, Wolf? You’re not so much worried about me as you are about losing what you have with Bruf? You feel like you’d have to pick sides and because I’m your blood and the ‘weaker’ one in your mind, you’d have to choose me...and you would lose Bruf. Am I right? Is that it?”

  He didn’t say anything for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer her, but finally he said, “Yeah...I guess that’s the best way to explain it. I don’t want to lose either one of you and I feel like I will if the two of you end up together.”

  “You’re dooming us before we even have a chance. It’s not fair.”

  “Maybe not, but a few days ago, Sabrina, you were planning your wedding, going to school, planning your future...”

  “I’m not going to school. I put it off until next year.” She blurted that out. Wolf looked surprised. He pulled his brows together and said:

  “Why did you let me believe you were in school all this time?”

  “I never told you I was enrolled. I never touched that money you insisted on putting in an account for me to use for tuition and books...”

  “But you never told me you weren’t. It’s the same thing as a lie, Sabrina. Why did you lie to me?”

  “Because I didn’t think you’d understand my reasons, and I wanted to talk to you about it face to face. I wish I’d had the chance before all of this stuff came up with Bruf. It’s only going to be harder now to convince you that I haven’t completely lost my mind.”

  “Try,” he said, running a hand through his beard. He did that the first night she met him. The night that Bruf had a gun to her head. She’d come to realize he did that when he was trying to calm himself down. She hoped it worked as she said:

  “Melanie...Devin’s sister and my best friend...had been trying to have a baby for a long time. She and her husband want kids more than anything. Melanie doesn’t want to work as a nurse any longer, and she doesn’t have to. Scott can afford to support them well. She wants to be a stay-at-home mom, but she hasn’t been able to carry a baby to term and they told her she probably wouldn’t even be able to conceive.”

  He frowned. “That’s sad...but I’m confused about what it has to do with you and school.”

  “I’m getting to that,” she said. “See, Melanie wanted to adopt, but Scott wouldn’t hear of it. He grew up in the system, and it wasn’t kind to him. Instead of wanting to get involved and help fix it, he just wants nothing to do with it at all. He wants a baby that has his DNA, and ideally, Melanie’s.” Wolf shifted in his seat like he was getting bored with the story. Sabrina could only imagine everything her brother, the president of the Westside Skulls, must have on his plate. Yet, there he sat, listening to her ramble on. She told herself to suck it up and spit it out, and even as the words tumbled from her lips, the color began to drain from his face. “They asked me to carry a baby for them...in my womb.” She stopped and waited for his response. He stared at her for a long time before finally saying:

  “Please tell me you said no.”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I really had a choice. Devin wanted me to do it, and they had it all worked out and on paper before I even agreed to it. I was swept up in what they wanted and what I felt was my obligation to my family...”

  “You signed legal papers?” She could almost see the wheels turning in Wolf’s head. “That’s okay. Our lawyer can...”

  “I’m pregnant, Wolf.” If there was any color left in his face, other than the dark beard that covered most of it, it was gone, just like that. At least he wasn’t thinking about her and Bruf any longer, she thought, almost with a maniacal laugh, although she did have to wonder if he was sitting there wishing that he’d never met her at all. She’d been nothing but a pain in his ass since she’d come into his life, and now she sat there and told him she was no longer engaged, she was practically in love with one of his best friends, she wasn’t in school, she wasn’t employed, and she was pregnant...with a baby that wasn’t really hers. Yeah...she supposed that in the grand scheme of things, she could see why he might possibly think she wasn’t quite mature enough to make her own decisions. “You want something to drink now?”

  His eyes finally focused on hers and he nodded. “There’s a bottle of Crown above the refrigerator – bring it here,” he said. She stood up and almost asked him if he wanted a glass...or water...but one look at his face told her to keep her mouth shut for once, and just bring the man his whiskey.

  13

  “You gonna talk to me, or you just going to pace back and forth all day?” Bruf had tried hard to be patient. He’d been sound asleep when Ash pounded on his door and said Wolf wanted to see him...now. He’d put on his clothes and shown up at the clubhouse in minutes. And now, he’d been sitting in a chair in the meeting room, for at least twenty minutes, watching Wolf pace the length of the room. His patience was quickly waning, and he was afraid of what might come out of his mouth if that patience left him altogether.

  Wolf stopped pacing and focused his dark eyes on Bruf’s face. Bruf wasn’t afraid, at least not that Wolf was going to hurt him. He might, but Bruf could handle physical pain. What he was afraid of was that Wolf would kick him out of the club...and then he wouldn’t have a clue what to do with his life. “You went behind my back,” Wolf finally said. “You probably weren’t even gonna tell me...”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Shut up.” Wolf said it calmly, but his facial expression and body language said otherwise. Bruf closed his mouth...for now. “She’s a kid. She’s an immature kid who has no idea what she’s getting herself into. If you had any respect for her at all, you would have...at the very least...told her what she was getting herself into. You have to know that she’s not just about fucking you. She’s not one of these girls around here that are okay with letting you use them and walk away. She thinks that she has real feelings for you, and you’re fucking with her heart and her head, and for the first time in the ten years I’ve known you, it makes me want to beat your ass.” Wolf scratched his beard, pulled at it, paced some more, and then finally sat down. Bruf sat quietly the entire time...and waited...not so patiently. “I’m done!” Wolf growled. “But be careful that you’re thinking through what you’re saying before you say it.”

  “Well, first off, I do know that she’s not like the club girls, and I do have respect for her.” Wolf rolled his eyes and Bruf’s blood grew hot. He told himself to remember who he was talking to before he went on. “I realize that sleeping with her before I told her about me...my past...was a bad idea. But you know how sometimes things just happen...” Wolf’s glare darkened and Bruf decided he’d be smart to move on from talking about fucking the guy’s sister. “Anyways, I never planned on just walking away. I know you don’t believe this, because of my past, but Sabrina means more to me than any woman ever has. This whole year that she’s been gone, I still thought about her every day. I know that she has plans for her life and I don’t want to get in the way of anything she’s doing with school or...” Wolf held up his palm and Bruf stopped talking.

  “She didn’t talk to you about school...or what she’s currently doing with her life?”

  “No...we didn’t do a lot of talking...”

  “That’s enough,” Wolf said. “She
’s engaged...to a doctor.”

  “A doctor who treats her like she’s a child and doesn’t care to let her make her own decisions. She’s not happy with him, Wolf, even I can see that. Besides, I was there last night when she talked to him on the phone. He broke up with her...”

  “And you were right there to swoop in and pick up the pieces – what a guy.”

  Bruf took a breath before he started talking again. “Look, I didn’t plan any of this and neither did she...but I have to say that I don’t understand exactly why you’re so dead set against us being together. I know you care about her and I thought you cared about me too...”

  “What does she know about you, Bruf?”

  Bruf held out his arms and said, “This.”

  “And you think that’s enough? You think she doesn’t deserve to know where and who you come from? You think that she deserves to get into a relationship with a man that refuses to talk about his past?”

  “I just don’t understand what any of it has to do with Sabrina. It’s my past.”

  “Really?” Wolf raised an eyebrow. “So...one of these days you come face to face with the man that killed your parents, you’re gonna leave that in the past? You’re gonna walk away?”

  Bruf could actually feel his blood pressure rising. He pictured that guy...vividly. Then, he pictured his parents...dead. They were strange. They were different. But they were peaceful people with good hearts and that monster took them away from him, and because of that, he was raised by a different kind of monster. One that never really hurt him...but twisted him up nonetheless. His pause was long and it hung heavy between them, so heavy that he knew he couldn’t even try to lie about it. “No...I’m not gonna walk away. I’m going to put a bullet right between his eyes, right after I tell him who I am and why he’s about to die.”

  Wolf nodded and said, “You need to tell my sister that, before you get your dick wet again.”

  Bruf hated talking about his past. He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people he’d told in his lifetime and he didn’t want to add to that. He honestly didn’t understand why Sabrina needed to know any of that. None of it was going to affect her. His parents were dead and if he ever found the man that killed them, he’d be dead too. His brother was out of his life...for the most part. Sabrina knew what she needed to know about him. He was a Westside Skull, sergeant at arms...and it was the proudest position he’d ever held in his life. He looked up at his president and he saw there in his eyes that whether it mattered to Sabrina or not, it mattered to him enough that there was no way he’d ever allow this thing between them to happen if Bruf refused to tell her about his past. So basically, he had a choice to make...Sabrina, or his privacy. It pissed him off, and before he thought it through, he opened his mouth.

  “Does Blair know everything about you? Does she know everything that you’ve ever done, or wanted to do? Hell, I’m sure there are things you don’t know about her, and things I don’t know about Sabrina. Would it change how you felt about your old lady if you found out she’d done something in her past that you don’t approve of?” Bruf couldn’t imagine what that might be. So far, Bruf’s sleeping with his sister was the only thing Wolf had found that he strongly objected to. Otherwise he was a big advocate of letting people live their own lives as they saw fit.

  “You think you and Sabrina have what Blair and I have, then go ahead...go for it with her, make her your old lady, let her move into your trailer, raise that baby with her...”

  “Excuse me? What baby?”

  Wolf smiled and said, “I guess my sister has been about as open as you have.” Bruf watched him stand up, look at his watch, and say, “I gotta get to the gym.”

  Confused as hell, Bruf said again, “What baby? Sabrina has a baby?”

  Wolf looked him in the eyes again, this time with compassion, and he said, “Talk to her. I’ll have Smoke and Ash ride with me today. Figure this shit out with my sister and let me know what the two of you decide.” Bruf opened his mouth, and then closed it. He waited for Wolf to leave and then took out his phone. He called Sabrina and as soon as she answered he said:

  “We need to talk.”

  “Okay...is everything alright?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You tell me...you have a baby?”

  “Shit. No. I’m going to kick my brother’s ass.”

  “So, you don’t have a baby?”

  “No, not yet. I mean, even when it’s born, it won’t be mine. So technically, no. I don’t have a baby.”

  “What? You’re not making sense.”

  “Wolf didn’t tell you the whole story...did he?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me anything. He let something slip about a baby and I have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about.”

  “He’s talking about the fact that I’m pregnant, with my friend’s baby.”

  Bruf refused to go inside so Sabrina was sitting on the steps outside the little house and he was standing up next to the steps, looking like he was about to run. “Will you at least sit down?” Sabrina asked him.

  “Just talk,” he said. “Tell me what the hell you meant about being pregnant but the baby not being yours.”

  She sighed. “I’m pregnant with my friend’s baby. I’m a surrogate because she couldn’t conceive and carry a baby to term.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why the hell would you do that?”

  “Because she asked me to, because she’s my friend, and because my fiancé at the time asked me to do it as well.”

  “Your fiancé wanted you pregnant with someone else’s kid? That’s weird.” Sabrina almost laughed at the face he made...but none of this was funny. Wolf obviously knew exactly what he was doing when he told Bruf she was pregnant. It was written all over his face how he felt about it. She knew she was naive sometimes but moments like this solidified it. It had never occurred to her that he’d be so...repulsed...by this. She kept talking anyway, hoping that maybe he just didn’t understand.

  “She’s Devin’s twin sister. She was my roommate in Haiti and Devin was there too; that’s how we met. They’re good people, Melanie and her husband Scott. They have everything to give to a child, they just can’t have one.”

  He looked at her belly and said, “So they’re cooking one in you.”

  “Not the classiest way to put it, but okay.”

  “Sorry, I’m not a doctor. I wasn’t raised with perfect manners and grammar.”

  Now he was getting in his digs about her and Devin. Maybe he was just looking for an out. “Bruf, are you just looking for a fight here? Because if you don’t want this to happen...me and you...you’re welcome to get on your bike and ride away. I’m not going to follow you.”

  His jaw was clenched so tightly that it looked like he might break it...or his teeth. “So, it’s not your kid? You’re not going to want to keep it later on? It’s all...you know, theirs?” He was asking her if the baby had her DNA. She wasn’t sure why that would make a difference to him, but at this point there was no point in lying. Wolf was going to find everything out. She figured he already had someone on their way to Miami to look into it.

  “It’s not my baby...but yes, they used my eggs. Melanie couldn’t make viable ones.”

  “So it’s half yours.”

  “No, Bruf, you’re not listening to me. I signed away all of my rights to this child. It’s not mine. It’s Melanie and Scott’s...that’s it, not mine. It’s like if I was a baker and I made them a cake. I made it, but it’s not mine.”

  He frowned, and she could see the wheels turning in his head. “What if you change your mind? What if you want to have your cake and eat it too?”

  “That’s what you’re worried about? You’re afraid I’m going to want to keep it...and then what? Saddle you with a kid that you don’t want?”

  “It’s a reasonable question,” he said. “I mean, if you’re talking about wanting to be my old lady someday...and all the shit I’m
going to have to deal with to make that happen...then I get to ask questions.”

  “All the shit you’re going to have to deal with?”

  “Wolf’s not going to make this easy. He’s already saying how this is going to go down.”

  “What is he saying?” She could tell by the look on Bruf’s face that he didn’t want to talk specifics. She was about to push him on it when he said:

  “When were you going to tell me about this?”

  “I was going to tell you. I just told Wolf. I had to tell him first...Bruf, do you not want children? Is that what this is about? Because like I said, this child is not mine. You won’t have any responsibility toward him or her.”

  “Unless you change your mind and decide to keep it.”

  She sighed. That wasn’t going to happen, and she knew it. Yes, it made her sad to think about carrying the child for nine months and then giving it up, but she’d never break her promise to Melanie. It would break her friend’s heart and she would never do that. But what bothered her the most about Bruf’s confrontation was that it sounded like he didn’t want children at all...ever. “Bruf, I told you that’s not going to happen. But I have to ask, do you not want children, ever?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know I don’t want someone else’s kid. You don’t know what...” He stopped himself and ran a hand through his hair.