All That Matters (Nightshade MC Book 3)

by Shannon Flagg

  “They're getting ready to do the speeches in there. We should go back in.” Train plucked the cigarette out of Meg's hand, took a long drag. “After they're over, we'll head back to the clubhouse. Caroline's got food coming.”

  “Actually, if it's that late, I should go. I promised Caroline that I'd set things up.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Someone has to,” she answered. “And since I wasn't as close to Danny as everyone else, I volunteered, so they could have a little more time.”

  “He liked you. Said that I was a lucky bastard to have you.”

  “He was pretty smart, I liked that about him.” Meg replied. “And I don't mind going. Really, I don't.”

  “You're uncomfortable here,” Train observed. Meg noticed Caesar walking away to give them space.

  “I hate these fucking things. I mean no one likes them, but I fucking hate them. I feel like I'm going to crawl right out of my skin.”

  “Keep your skin on. Come on, let me walk you to the truck.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “I was thinking that when all this is over, we can maybe go away for a few days or maybe just hide from the world for a while. Maybe work on that thing we were talking about.”

  “Cleaning out the attic?” Meg knew what he meant, but she couldn't help but tease him a little. He was so excited about the idea of beginning a family. He'd flushed her pills down the toilet the day after they'd agreed to try.

  “That better be some new slang for knocking you up.” He squeezed down on her shoulder. “But yeah, the attic does need to be cleaned, now that you mention it.”

  “If we stay home, we can do both.” Meg took her keys out of her purse as they approached the truck. “If we go, though, we've got to bring the game with us, just in case Leo tries to reach out again.” Since the last message that he'd sent Train, he hadn't logged on. Meg wondered if he'd simply decided that he'd been abandoned and had given up.

  “He will. We'll stay home. It'll be nice. I'll make it nice.” He took the keys out of her hand, opened the door. “Text me when you get there.”

  “It's like six blocks. I could walk there without breaking a sweat.”

  “I don't care if it's one block; text me when you get there.”

  “I will,” Meg promised. “You don't have to worry.”

  “I will anyway.”

  Meg knew that was true. He'd always worried about her, it was more intense now, but she'd given him great reason to worry the night that Roxie had got the boys back. She still wasn't sure if she'd realized what she was doing when she'd washed those pills down with liquor. It was all a blur. When she thought back to it, she could remember the intense pain like it had only happened yesterday. The one thing that she knew for sure was she would be dead if not for Train coming and finding her.

  “I'll see you in a few.” He closed the door after she got in. Meg started the truck and pulled away. It took her less than five minutes to reach the clubhouse. She sent the text as she walked into the building.

  The first thing she saw was Claire, and the woman had been busy. There were several other women helping out as well. They were dressed more for a street corner than a memorial, in Meg's opinion, but she held her tongue. She went straight for the kitchen. “The caterer didn't come yet?” she called out.

  “No!” Claire rushed into the kitchen. “And I've called them twice, it goes straight to voice mail.”

  “Fuck me,” Meg sighed. “Alright, try to call again.” Claire took her phone out of her bra, dialed and shook her head a moment later. “This is not good. Okay, I'm going to call Gino's. See how fast they can start getting food here.”

  “Pizza at a memorial?” Claire frowned.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “No.”

  “While I call Gino's, I want you to go to the Chinese place. Get some of everything. You know what they like.” Meg took her phone out and dialed Gino's. After a quick conversation with Gino himself, she was assured that all sorts of food would be on the way to them.

  Meg found the caterer's number hanging on the corkboard in the kitchen. She dialed it and got the voice mail. If she'd been able to leave a message, it would have been heavily laced with profanity and threats of violence. She knew for a fact that Caroline had paid them in advance. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck me.” Meg felt herself starting to sweat.

  If this whole thing went down in flames, it was going to be on her. She was the one tasked with getting everything ready. People would be arriving soon. Amelia was going to walk in and find food better suited to a kegger than a memorial. Meg vowed to personally throttle the caterer if she ever saw the husband and wife duo again.

  “Excuse me, Meg?” Charity, one of the pass-arounds, came into the kitchen. “I just went to grab plates and there are none. We're really low on napkins and utensils as well.”

  “Go to the dollar store, stock up on everything.” Meg opened her purse and pullet out her wallet. She had fifty three dollars in cash, so she handed it over to the woman. “Please, do it quickly.”

  “Got it.” Charity tucked the bills into her bra.

  Meg thought that she might just have a panic attack when she had a moment to do so. She made another attempt to contact the caterer, with no luck, before she sent a text to Train asking if they were still at the funeral home.

  Of course they weren't; he sent a text back that they were just leaving. In five minutes there were going to be people everywhere. If she couldn't feed them, she could make sure that she had drinks. Meg walked into the main room, checked the bar. It was fully stocked.

  It took her a minute to realize she couldn't remember the names of the two women who were still there. They were relatively new, sisters if memory served. “Ladies, they're on their way. I need you behind the bar, please.”

  “Sure thing, Meg.” The taller of the two women, a perky blonde, smiled. She looked straight out of a toothpaste or shampoo commercial. “Come on, Karen. Let's get to work.”

  “Thank you, Karen and Kendra.” Meg felt relief that she'd remembered the name. At least one thing had worked out in her favor. The sound of approaching engines told her she'd been optimistic about the trip taking them five minutes.

  The front door opened a moment later; Amelia came in with Caroline and Buster at her side. Maggie hovered not far behind. All three wore identical looks of concern, and it took Meg a moment to realize that Amelia had Danny's urn in her hands.

  Caroline broke away from them, walked over to Meg with purpose. “Why isn't the food out yet? I thought you understood that the food needed to be out when we got back.”

  “I did understand that. The caterer never showed, I've tried calling, but it goes straight to voice mail,” Meg explained. “I called Gino's, they're going to send over food, and I sent Claire to the Chinese place too. Charity is at the dollar store getting plates, utensils and napkins.”

  “The caterer was supposed to bring all that. I'm going to call them now. Voice mail or not, I'm going to give them a piece of my mind.”

  “The voice mail is full. I had the same thought. I know that Gino's and Chinese isn't what you had in mind and hardly appropriate, but it was the best that I could think of.”

  “The thing you should have thought of was to call me,” Caroline all but snarled the words; it was the first time that Meg had ever thought of her as being rude. “Instead, we're going to have food fit for a kegger.”

  “What's the problem?” Amelia's voice startled them both. She stood there and stroked Danny's urn the way that she often did her belly. It was a little unsettling.

  “There was an issue with the caterer,” Caroline sighed. “Don't worry, I'm going to fix it.”

  “I called Gino's and sent Claire for Chinese. I know that it's not the best, and I'm sorry for that. Maybe I should have just called Caroline.” Meg felt like she was shrinking smaller with each word, especially when she noticed Caroline's expression.

  “Pizza and Chinese?” Amelia smiled. “That sounds
perfect to me. Two of Danny's favorites. And Gino knows what the guys like. So does Claire, in more ways than one. All of you have gone to so much trouble. He'd have loved the attention.”

  Maggie came over, her voice gentle. “Amelia, maybe you should sit down for a little while.”

  “If I wanted to sit, I'd sit.” There was a sharp edge to Amelia's voice that Meg hadn't expected.

  “You're exhausted. You must feel overwhelmed. If you don't take it easy, I'm going to have to recommend that you return to the hospital to be admitted for observation.”

  “No way in hell is that happening,” Amelia informed her coldly. “Tonight, I'm going home and sleeping in my bed. I'm not going back to the hospital until I'm in labor. Right now, all I need you to do is back off of my shit. I need all of you to back off my shit and stop staring at me like I've lost my mind. I haven't.”

  “You're carrying Danny around in a vase,” Train observed. “You've got to admit, that pretty much indicates that you've lost your shit.”

  “Fuck you,” Amelia whirled around to face him.

  “I've said it before, no thanks.” Train grinned.

  “You are such an asshole. How did I forget that? Here I was thinking you just might be human.” Anger colored Amelia's cheeks.

  “Train!” Maggie shouted. “That's enough. She's in a delicate condition. What is wrong with you?” She moved forward to place her hands on Amelia's shoulders.

  “Quit hovering,” Amelia snarled as she pulled away. “He's the only one not treating me like I'm going to break into a thousand pieces.”

  “It would be understandable if you did, Amelia. You just buried your husband.”

  “No, she didn't,” Train corrected. “She's still holding him.”

  “Yeah, and he's heavier than he looks,” Amelia replied.

  “Give him to me, I'll put him on the bar,” Train offered. “Even pour him something to drink if you want.”

  Amelia rolled her eyes. “I'm not delusional, I don't think an urn can drink. But on the bar sounds like a good place for him.”

  “Why didn't you bury him, Amelia?” Train walked over to where Amelia stood and took the urn.

  Meg felt her eyes going back and forth between the two of them like a tennis match. For as much as Train said he didn't like Amelia, Meg thought that he did, somewhere deep down. She doubted that he'd ever admit it. “You gonna keep him at the house? Carry him around? It'll be hard to juggle an infant and this urn, it is heavier than it looks.”

  “I'm going to scatter his ashes.” She replied. “But not right now. Leave it be for right now, Train.” Meg was surprised Train let Amelia have the last word. He simply turned and walked over to the bar to set the urn down.

  “I'll call Gino's so that I make sure he sends enough stuff.” Caroline still looked, and sounded, pissed. Meg thought that she was taking things a bit too personally, but she bit her tongue. “Why don't you go in the kitchen and start taking out the baked goods? Where the hell is Jillian?”

  Meg looked around and didn't see Ace, so she had a very good idea of where the woman was, but she figured telling Caroline that the woman was probably having sex wasn't going to go over well. “Don't worry, I can handle it.”

  Caroline scoffed at that. Meg stopped short, stared at her. Tension which had never existed before was now in full force. Before either of them could say anything, Train came back over. He looked between them. “What's going on?”

  “Just trying to salvage this cluster fuck,” Caroline kept her voice low probably so Amelia, who had stepped away to talk to Sharon and Manuel, wouldn't hear.

  “What cluster fuck?” Train made no effort to keep his voice down. “Seems like to me that there was a problem and Meg handled it. Handled it really well, in my opinion. What would you have done differently?”

  “First off, I'd have sent the girls to a grocery store. I would have cooked something, actual real food, so that we could put out a spread not straight out of every frat house on the planet.”

  “If you'd have gone to a grocery store, shopped and started cooking, you'd still be cooking. These people would be sitting around with their dicks in their hands for hours. Meg's way, there's going to be food here within the next few minutes.” Meg didn't think that she'd taken a single breath since Train had started talking. He held Caroline in seriously high regard. She'd never heard him raise his voice to her or even disagree with anything that she said until this moment. “I know that you're stressed out and that's fine, but you're not going to take your bad mood out on my old lady.”

  Caroline opened her mouth to speak, seemed to think twice about it. She cleared her throat. “I'm going to go call Gino.”

  “You do that,” Train replied. “Come on, Meg.”

  Meg moved along with him as he took her hand, they went through the crowd and towards the stairs. “I probably should have called her.”

  “No, you shouldn't have.” His grip on her hand tightened. “You were in a situation, you made a judgment call. There's nothing wrong with your judgment. You handled things. Amelia is happy, and that is all that matters.”

  At the top of the stairs, they nearly smacked into Ace and Jillian. Jillian's hair looked rumpled enough that Meg knew she had been right about where the two had taken off to. It made her smile. “Hey,” Ace grinned. “What are you two doing up here?”

  “Just taking a breather, it's pretty intense down there,” Train replied. “We'll be back down in a few.”

  “Only need a few? They've got blue pills that help with that.” Ace laughed at his own humor and dodged Train's playful, or maybe not so playful, blow. Next to him, Jillian rolled her eyes and pulled him towards the stairs.

  “He'd know all about those pills. Not me,” Train huffed. He glared at Meg as she started to laugh. “What's so funny?” Meg wasn't sure what was so funny, maybe it was the tension of the day getting to her but once she started laughing, she couldn't stop. The harder she laughed, the more that Train glared. “Oh, you're going to get it.”

  Meg continued to laugh as he pulled her into one of the rooms. It wasn't occupied, and there was the lingering smell of cleaning products in the air. She stopped laughing when his mouth covered hers. She'd expected him to be rough, to take control, but instead he was soft, even sweet. Immediately Meg was turned on, but she was all too aware of the crowd of people downstairs and her inability to keep herself quiet when he was inside of her. “Wait.” She broke the kiss. “All those people are downstairs and...”

  “You're getting shy on me, huh?” He chuckled. “Alright, let's pick this up when we get home.”

  “That sounds good.” Meg leaned into him. “You could hug me though, that would be really good.” He wrapped his arms around her, held her tight against his chest. She shut her eyes, inhaled the scent of him as he ran his hands over his back.

  “I've got a surprise for you. It's from your friend Drea's shop. I think that you're going to like it. I know that I'm going to like it. Even comes with shoes and accessories.”

  “I'm sure I'll love it.” Meg knew that she would, if only because he'd love it. With Train, she did things that she never thought she could do. They weren't all sexual, either. She was braver because of him, had survived what should have killed her. “I love you.”

  “Love you too.” He pressed his lips to her hair. “Let's go see if the food is here. You should eat.”

  <#<#<#<#

  It was well past dark when Meg followed Train through the front door. She was more than a little drunk. The food had arrived, and after everyone had their fill, they'd begun to toast Danny. Meg had lost count of the toasts after the fifth round of tequila. Everything after that was a comfortable blur. She remembered the laughter as stories were shared. There were no tears that she could remember, even from Amelia.

  “If you puke, you're cleaning it up,” Train cautioned as he flipped on the lights.

  “I'm not going to puke.”

  “I'll believe that when I see it. Alright, time fo
r bed.”

  “I'm not tired.” Meg pouted at him. “I want my surprise.”

  “Meg, you're way too drunk for your surprise. You'll never be able to walk in the heels. It'll keep.”

  “Heels? I fucking hate heels. I walk like a drunk penguin in heels.” Meg walked over to the couch and sat because the room had started to spin. She glanced at the coffee table and saw the remote for Train's game. “Oh, we should check your messages! Which button do I hit on the remote to turn the channel thing.”

  “Just give it to me.” He took it out of her hand.

  “Maybe I shouldn't have sent him that message,” Meg sighed. She'd spent hours composing her explanation to Leo. She hoped that he'd be able to understand it was an impossible situation and not think that she'd given up without fighting. She'd fought until she had no fight left. There was no alternative or option.