by Vivian Lux
I let out my breath in a whoosh of frustration, but he didn't hear it. "Any way I might be able to use your shower?" he continued.
I swallowed hard as my traitorous brain immediately leapt to images of Crash's well-muscled body slick with soap and lather. "No problem," I told him, hoping that the excitement would stay the hell out of my voice.
He kissed the tip of my nose. "Thanks," he said simply, then stood up and stretched. I took in every bit of him as he stood there in a shaft of light, from the muscles on his torso to the scars on his head. I hadn't seen them properly until just now, the network of fine lines that ran like a spiderweb down the right side of his forehead, dragging the lid of his eye down with them. There was a deeper one, heavy and thick, running up the outside of his leg, from his calf all the way up to his thigh, but I hadn't noticed it until he stood in the light because it was intertwined with an intricate tattoo. The menacing, hooded figure of death, reaching for a man on a motorcycle who was just out of his reach.
It made me shiver.
Crash padded to the bathroom, completely and unashamedly naked. I lay back down in bed and contemplated joining him. The ever-present dilemma of curly-haired women - is it worth getting my hair wet?
My stomach decided for me. In all of the fucking, I had forgotten to eat, and the digital clock on my bedside table told me it was close to two in the afternoon. I decided to surprise Crash with a late lunch, figuring he had to be at least as hungry as I was since he had done most of the work in bed.
I pulled on my clothes and padded over to my miniscule little wall kitchen. Poking around in my refrigerator yielded me some habichuelas my mother had sent me home with after the last family dinner. I quickly set about steaming some rice, and warming the beans, filling my little apartment with the rich scents. I hoped Crash wasn't afraid of a little Puerto Rican home cooking.
I hummed a little as I looked out of my kitchen window onto the slushy main street. Lenape wasn't so busy that I regretted living on the main road, but I still sometimes felt like I lived in a fishbowl, especially when I had to find on-street parking. I was zoned out, mindlessly enjoying the novel pleasure of preparing food for someone besides myself, when I saw the car slow down in front of my place.
The loud noise of the water in the pipes shut off and I knew Crash had finished his shower, but I was too caught up in the man getting out in front of my house. He looked down at a clipboard and back up to the house several times before he started up the walk.
I was at my front door before he had a chance to walk. Seeing me seemed to startle him.
"I'm looking for Benjamin Nelson?" he asked, looking down at his clipboard to double-check.
Crash emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. His face darkened when he saw the man at the door, suspicion clouding his features. "Who are you?" he barked, his voice laced with leathery menace.
"Are you Benjamin Nelson?" the man asked with no small amount of trepidation.
Crash didn't answer, only staring at him. I looked between the two of them, wondering if I should speak. "He is," I finally said.
Crash shot me a murderous look and I swallowed hard. But the man only nodded.
"I'm here from Morgan County Elder Care. Marion Hunt had you listed as her next of kin, and our log had you residing at this address." The man looked up at both of our shocked faces. "We had no contact number, so I had to come out personally," he added, sounding aggrieved. "I regret to inform you that Marion passed away about a half an hour ago."
My heart stood still and I looked back at Crash. I waited for his cry, his shock and grief. But the only sound was the water dripping from his body to a puddle at his feet. His face showed nothing at all.
Chapter Fourteen
Declan
A belch bubbled up into my beard. I dug my fist into my chest, and tried to suppress it, but it snuck out anyway.
This fucking indigestion wasn't getting any better. I could chew Tums like candy and it still wouldn't be able to stop the acidy fire in my chest. Fucking shit food, shit conditions, it was no wonder my stomach lining wanted to eat itself.
I was miserable, and everyone else needed to suffer for it.
I burped again and right on cue, Case walked right into the cloud of acidy fumes. "Jesus fucking Christ, Doc, " the asshole complained, waving his hands disgustedly in front of his nose.
It made me feel marginally better to know that I'd pissed someone else off too. I grunted and swung my aching legs down off the sagging cot and looked out into the crowded common area of the safe house.
A fucking safe house. This was insane.
No one was allowed in or out. Storm MC guards seemed just a happy to keep us locked up as they were to keep watch for cartel spies. There were guards at the front door, guards in the upstairs windows facing the lonely highway, guards in the back of the house watching the field that stretched back to the Pines. The place was crawling with guards, and after only twenty-four hours in here, I was ready to punch something into oblivion.
There was nothing to do but play cards, drink and get on each other's nerves while we waited to find out the plan.
As far as I was concerned, they could all go fuck their plans. I was old, I had seen shit, and I was tired of it all. I signed up to ride bikes and party with my best friends, not to squat in a safe house like some pussified coward, waiting for the fight to blow over.
We had been stupid. So stupid and careless, that it made me sick to think back on all the mistakes of the past forty-eight hours. We got complacent, used to our tiny little corner of Philadelphia, safe and out of the thick of things. The years of sticking to Teach's code, of keeping our heads down and our noses clean, had made us complacent. We had forgotten basic safety procedures and it had almost cost us our lives.
We acted like amateurs, heading right back to the clubhouse after that dustup with the low-level cartel members that nabbed Case's girl. They had followed us, because of course they did, and we led them right to our front door.
The firebomb had hit the front of the clubhouse. The store, the legit front for our legit business. The sum total of Teach's livelihood had gone up in flames.
But the metal garage hadn't burned. And the garage was where we were all congregated, bickering like schoolgirls over Crash's exit.
When the noise and confusion had died down, we stood coughing, and choking in the huge clubhouse parking area, watching and dismay as the storefront burned. But we were all alive, and for that I silently thanked Crash. If he hadn't left like he did, then we would have woken like it was another morning, taking our breakfast in the common area adjacent to the store. Those of us who hadn't burnt in the initial explosion would have been trapped in the smoky aftermath. Instead we were clear of the bomb, and suffered nothing more than the loss of everything we had.
And for that I was grateful. My life might not be worth nothing, but I liked living it.
I made sure not to voice this opinion to the rest of the guys though. Crash was now public enemy number one, with Case seemingly deciding that the bomb was somehow his fault. The rest of the guys didn't seem to far off from this opinion. And I understood why. A sworn brother taking off like that was a deep offense, made worse by the fact that it was over a chick.
But I still couldn't manage to harden my heart against the kid. It was Crash who had made me quit medicine. Up there at North Jersey, up there in my old life, I had been in charge of the boy's rehabilitation. And I had banged my head against brick wall after brick wall in trying to get him the care he needed. His grandparents seemed to think that a traumatic brain injury was something he should be able to just shake off, as if then had suffered nothing more then a couple bruises.
Their refusal to follow the treatment plan was made worse by Ben's amnesia. Finally, running out of options, I had come to Teach, my old neighborhood friend from back before I went off to med school and remade myself as a fancy-pants doctor. But all the fancy-pants degrees couldn't help me when it ca
me to getting Ben that treatment he needed.
I came to Teach with my hat in my hand and in his implacable, fair way, he gave me a price that was the easiest I could pay. Leave medicine entirely and come work as the club doctor.
I had no trouble leaving the high stress world behind. I grew out my beard and began reveling in the freedom of living outside of society's expectations. It wasn't a heavy cost, but it was a lifelong one.
Ben never knew who paid for his treatments. And I made damn sure he never had reason to ask. He was my mission, my life's work, the one thing I could point to and say, "there. I made that. And I am proud." I had done a damn good job of giving him a new life after his old one was shattered.
Good enough that he was now out there on his own, making his way by himself… I hoped.
But was there was still that nagging worry. A seizure, a mood swing. The wrong thing said to the wrong person in an emotional outburst. For six years I had been there to smooth out the rough edges of Ben's life. If he needed me now, how would he find me out here at the edge of nowhere behind armed guards?
How could Crash come back now?
Chapter Fifteen
Gabriela
My three-year-old nephew was standing at the door, his cheeks stuffed full of food like a chipmunk, completely naked.
"Hola, Sammy, where's your abuelita?"
Sammy pointed with a chubby fist, just as my sister came flapping up the hallway, gathering discarded toddler clothes as she came. I had to grin, like I always did, when I saw my big sister as a mother.
Ada looked up at me sheepishly as she bundled her wayward little nudist into her arms. "Hola Gabi," she sighed tiredly, kissing me on the cheek. "Mama's in the kitchen, of course."
"Of course," I echoed as I stepped over the threshold into my parents' house.
It was only recently that I started to think of it as my parents' house and not my own. It still felt the same, still the same little Cape with the blazing yellow door. My mother's taste for bright colors was still evident everywhere, as were the pictures of my sister and me through the years. The whole house was a cluttered joyful mass, strewn with Sammy's toys, the importance of family, and legacy written in every treasured object.
Sometimes it felt like the whole house was expecting something of me, and I wasn't making it proud.
My father came down the stairs, making as much noise as possible, like always. The man had never learned to walk. He stomped.
"Hi there, baby," he smiled, kissing my cheek. He pulled back and looked at me piercingly, his dark eyes darting back and forth. I immediately blushed, certain that my dad could see every illicit thing I had done over the past twenty-four hours. "You look… Happy…" He ventured.
I ducked my head away from his close study. "I'm fine," I said, trying to deflect attention away from myself. If one or both of my parents decided to focus their attention on me, there was no way I would be able to keep from telling them all of the sordid details.
Crash had left with the man in the suit. I had offered to go with him, but he insisted that this was not my problem. "It really shouldn't be mine either," he had added, and the casual disdain for the woman that raised him had hurt my heart. I knew he had no memories of Marion, but I just couldn't understand how he wasn't mourning. I think I was more shaken up than he was.
My general unease had sent me over to my parents' house like a homing pigeon returning to the roost. My mother had seemed utterly thrilled at my sudden desire for a home-cooked meal, and had thrown herself into a frenzy of cooking that, from the smell of things, had gone on all day. My sister and her husband were invited of course; my mother watched Sammy most afternoons and my nephew was probably more comfortable here that he was in his own apartment.
Six people was about the maximum capacity that this house could fit comfortably. We were always bumping into each other, always underfoot. There was no privacy, and that was what had sent me fleeing to the sanctuary of my own apartment the minute I found the job at the bridal salon. But now I was finding I missed it. The sadness that hung in my heart for Ben, no, Crash, had me feeling extra appreciative of them this evening.
"Good to see you, papi," I told him, kissing his stubbled cheek.
He gruffly smiled and gave me one of his signature pats on the back, whacking me so hard that I had to stifle a cough. I always suspected that my father had tried from an early age to groom me into the son and heir he never officially had. "Go say hi to your mama," he told me, giving me another thwok for good measure.
I took a deep breath. Entering my mother's kitchen when she was in the middle of a cooking spree was always a dangerous proposition. She may be in a sentimental mood, deep in the maternal bliss of preparing a feast for her precious offspring. That was always a good time. But just as likely was the possibility that she had overdone it, causing her back to go out and consequently we were all ungrateful vultures who didn't properly appreciate our sainted mother.
I hovered in the doorframe and watched her bustle around her tiny kitchen. It was ten degrees hotter in here than in the rest of the house and I could smell the sofrito as it hit the oil. Her hair was pulled back from her face and I got to watch her lips purse and twitch. She was thinking deep thoughts, and I felt a rush of affection for her.
My mother was still beautiful, possible moreso now that age had softened her and life had etched its joys and sorrows into her face. She married my father the minute she graduated from high school, their whirlwind interracial puppy love still as intense as ever. Her Puerto Rican parents initially balked at my father's black skin, and I think that only made my mother cling to him harder. Everything and everyone eventually gave up in the face of my mother's stubborn will, and her parents were no different. All traces of racial strife was wiped away by the time I was born, and the whole extended family bonded over a shared love of loud music and copious amounts of food. And the fact that he still carried a Dominican last name from years back was just a bonus.
Growing up, I had thought my mother hated my dad. After all, she was always yelling at him for some failing, real or imagined. But when I got older, I realized that was how they loved. She and my dad were like teenagers together, in all the best and worst ways. Intense fighting, intense passion and intense drama that she loved to pour out onto the shoulders of her grown daughters whenever my father stepped out of line. I used to worry that they'd kill each other when I moved out, but now I realized they would die if they didn't have the other.
I was twenty-three and I had felt that kind of passion only once.
Last night.
That realization hit me like a ton of bricks to the chest. I must have made a noise of shock, because my mother whirled around in fright. "Ay, Gabi, what are you doing sneaking up on me like that? Are you trying to kill me?"
My attempted reply was absorbed by her shoulder as she pulled me down into her crushing embrace. She murmured in Spanish, stroking my hair, and I prepared myself to be there for the duration. Hugs went on for exactly as long as my mother wanted them to, and not a minute earlier. If she wanted to hug me for ten minutes, well then I had better be ready to stand here for the next ten minutes.
It took three minutes, by the digital clock on the oven, not a record by any means. She pulled away and looked up at me. "How are you? You look thin, you need to eat more. I told you moving out was a bad idea. You're wasting away." She didn't let me get in a worded edgewise, as she plucked at my clothes, pinching the fabric in her hands, implying that it was hanging off of me in an unflattering way. I hugged my arms around my waist.
"I'm fine, mama," I smiled, trying to diffuse the maternal onslaught. "Something smells really good."
She smiled wide. "I hope you're hungry, I've been cooking all day, ever since you called to say you wanted to come see your parents." She cupped my cheek with her hands. "Mi hijita linda," she cooed. Then her face snapped down seriously. "Go help your sister with the baby," she barked and turned back to the stove.
I sighed,
trying not to roll my eyes. My older sister had given her a grandson. and as such needed to be deferred to at all times. I know my mother silently boiled with resentment that I wasn't over babysitting every free moment. I knew my time was not valued at nearly as much because I was not a mother.
But then again, I did love my nephew. So I nodded. "Sure mom," I agreed, and headed around the kitchen to the sunken living room.
"Titi Gabi!" Sammy shouted, now fully clothed.
"Hola mi sobrinito," I smiled, bending down and grabbing his chubby body. "Oof, you're a chunk, what has mama been feeding you?"
"Anything he can shove in his face," Ada smiled, "not to mention all the sweets he can con out of his abuelita." She shook her head, then stood up from the couch and gave me a big hug. "How are the brides?" she asked me, a knowing smirk in her voice.
I sighed and pulled away. "Thankfully most everyone still believes in the illusion of a fairytale wedding," I smirked back.
Ada chuckled ruefully. She and Manuel had gotten married in the courthouse in jeans, an offense that my mother would probably never forgive. I was deeply aware that I was her last hope of having a daughter all bedecked in a dazzling white gown at a huge church wedding, and so far I had been nothing but a disappointment in that regard.
"More power to them," she sighed. "Fairy tales can be fun."
There was a strange, wistful note in Ada's voice, and I noticed for the first time that Manuel was not here with her. My older sister was born practical, the kind of serious child who saved all of her birthday money and announced her pregnancy by telling us she was looking forward to a new tax deduction. She and Manuel enjoyed that kind of steady companionship, no drama, more like roommates than lovers. I had always thought this pleased her. "I thought fairytales pissed you off?" I asked, sitting down on the couch and letting Sammy clamber up onto my shoulders.
