by Jane Slate
“Forget me for a second. Where were you last weekend?”
He was referencing the club Sunday dinner Kade had missed. It was the third in weeks. Nash took it pretty seriously. It was the one time of the week that all the brothers put their differences aside and came together.
Kade placed a ring box on the bar and nodded at it.
“I was picking this up.”
Richie arched a brow and looked at Kade sideways.
“Go on, open it.”
Richie opened the box. The wedding ring Kade’s mother had worn on her hand for over twenty years glimmered beneath the harsh fluorescent lighting of the bar. Kade had taken it to a shop in town to be resized, a feat that had quickly turned into an expensive and all day affair. Richie snapped the box shut and slid it back to Kade, clearing his throat. As usual, he was all jokes.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m real flattered brother, but I don’t really see our relationship reaching this new level.”
“I guess I’m just not that into you.”
Kade rolled his eyes and stuffed the ring box back into the front pocket of his cut. He gave Richie a nudge and swallowed back another shot.
“Ha-ha, very funny, dipshit.”
Richie held up his arms, feigning non-judgment.
“Hey, different strokes for different folks.”
Suddenly, he was all business.
“Really, man. You sure about this? Mel is sweet and all but since when does the infamous Kade Colton feel a need to be permanently indited to anyone?”
Kade shrugged. He didn’t owe anyone, especially Richie, some pretty little explanation as to why he was marrying Mel. A bullshit response was easier.
“I’m marrying her because it’s what she wants...”
“The free sex for life is sure as shit a plus.”
Richie reached for a shot glass and this time Kade didn’t stop him. He raised it in the air.
“I’ll toast to that!”
Kade snickered. A waft of air from the doorway caught his attention, signaling someone’s arrival. Kade jumped to his feet, immediately on guard. A detective had sauntered into the clubhouse, flashing his badge when a prospect tried to deny him entrance. Richie spoke before Kade could stop him, slurring his words in a drunken haze.
“What the hell do you want, pig?”
There it was. Any filter Richie might have had in the light of day was gone. The scent of bad cologne filled the air as the Detective, whose badge read Lewis, took a step forward and removed his aviators. He grabbed Richie by the collar of his cut and shoved him backwards. He stumbled and knocked over half-empty cans of beer in the process. A few men took notice and flashed both men pissed looks, but Detective Lewis countered them with a shit-eating grin worthy of some type of award.
“I’m here on business boys.”
He spat tobacco through his teeth. Some of it caught in his stupid ass crowbar mustache but he wasn’t too quick to wipe it away. Kade rolled his eyes. This was nothing new. Law enforcement came sniffing around the clubhouse once or twice a week, always on some new form of business. Kade cracked his knuckles and spoke up.
“Yeah? What this time?”
Detective Lewis took a seat at the bar. Richie crossed his arms over his chest and flexed his biceps inadvertently. Kade could tell by the look on his face that he knew what the man was getting at.
“Rich?”
“You want to tell me what he’s talking about?”
Richie snickered and remained quiet. Detective Lewis lit a smoke and spoke up.
“I want to ask you boys a couple questions about Nash.”
He paused and surveyed the clubhouse, sweeping his calloused palm over a fine layer of dust that covered the bar countertop.
“I see he ain’t here right now. Could that have something to do with what happened last night with Mason Roberts? You know, that new prospect of yours? The one who was beat down and left for dead? You boys wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Beat Down? Left for dead?
What the fuck?
Kade scowled at Richie.
“Rich,” he said evenly.
“What the fuck is he talking about?”
Richie shrugged and remained cavalier but there was a level of guilt in his expression that only Kade could read.
“I don’t have shit to tell you, Detective.”
Detective Lewis shook his head and laughed stoically. He ran a hand over his facial hair and cracked his neck. In a flash, he socked Richie off his feet and snapped his arms behind his back, pressing his face against the bar. Kade subtly gripped the switchblade in the pocket of his cut and flicked the ash off the end of his smoke, tying his hair back for a fight. A few other men stepped forward but Detective Lewis was quick to flash them his badge to keep them all at bay. Richie groaned and squirmed beneath the man’s surprisingly strong grip, spouting off expletives.
“Get the fuck off me you motherfucker!”
Kade reached out to grip Richie’s arm. He gave him a stern look, indicating that he had already said enough.
“Detective, how about you let my brother go?”
Kade nodded at Richie. For a man that was known for his diligence in a fight, he sure was doing a damn good at keeping the peace.
Maddox would be proud.
“As you can see, he’s pretty shit faced. I doubt you’re going to get anything worthwhile out of him. How about this, you give me your card and I’ll talk with Nash and give you a call. See if he can shed any light on this.”
Detective Lewis chewed on the end of his cigarette and thought the offer over for a few moments. Finally, he relented and pushed away from Richie. Kade exhaled a deep breath and watched as the man sauntered for the door.
As usual, it was Richie’s erratic behavior that put a wedge in things. He charged away from the bar before Kade or anyone else could stop him, tackling Detective Lewis to the ground.
The series of events that followed were a blur. As VP it was Kade’s job to protect his brothers at all costs, a reality that wore hard on his conscious when it came to dealing with someone as off the handle as Richie.
Kade told himself that as soon as Nash came back into town, they would have a long good talk about revoking Richie’s role in the club entirely, but for now, it was his job to ensure that no permeant damage was done that would land any of the men behind bars. In one move, Kade heaved Richie off of Detective Lewis, securing his arms as he flailed.
“Calm the fuck down!”
Detective Lewis stumbled to his feet and grasped for his crushed aviators on the ground, patting his back pocket for his cuffs. Kade shoved Richie over to a waiting prospect, fully aware of the fact that someone would be stuffed into the back of Detective Lewis’ patrol car if he didn’t find a way to make nice with the man in the next three seconds.
“Now just hold on a minute.”
Kade spoke evenly, not wanting to ruffle the Detectives feathers any further. The room fell completely silent as everyone stared on, wide-eyed and anxious. Someone had stopped the music. Kade took a step toward the man and held up his arms to indicate that he didn’t mean any harm.
He was met with a bloody fist that damn near shook his teeth. When he opened his eyes, Detective Lewis was smiling at him menacingly, satisfaction etched across his aged face.
Kade winched in discomfort but didn’t grace the man with a reaction. If a run of the mill beating from a dirty cop was what it was going to take to square everything off, then so be it.
The sound of flesh against flesh turned every head in their direction. If everyone wasn’t already watching the scene unfold, they were now. Kade’s “opponent” was good. There was really no denying that fact. The only difference was that he was better.
Much better.
Detective Lewis’ punches were clumsy, thrown haphazardly without any kind of method. Kade had danced this dance more times than he could count and had come to understand what to expect. Not being able to fight back? We
ll, that was something he sure as shit wasn’t used to. A few prospects tried to break up the one-sided battle but Kade wasn’t having it.
“Stay back!”
A glass bottle whizzed past him and shattered on the ground. Someone had thrown it from behind the bar with the intention of making impact. Kade knew that someone was Richie. What he didn’t know was what man he was trying to clock.
Fucking senseless.
That’s all Richie ever was. Here Kade was, defending his and the clubs honor in the most physical way possible, and all Richie was doing was making shit worse.
Figured.
Detective Lewis and Kade fell to the ground. A few prospects and their girls jumped out of the way of the brawl, stumbling against barstools. Detective Lewis swung once, making sharp impact with Kade’s temple, then twice, upper cutting his nose until blood began to seep from his nostrils.
When he had finally had enough, he eased off of Kade and stood up like nothing had happened, stepping over his bruised body. He loosened a knot in his neck and sauntered out the door and into the night as quickly as he had arrived.
Two prospects lifted Kade off the ground and eased him into a barstool without having to be told. They were still only boys. Couldn’t have been any older than eighteen or nineteen, but Kade saw more loyalty and honor in them than he did Richie. Disjointed, he scanned the room for him through swollen eyes as one of the prospects pressed an alcohol soaked bandana against his wounds. He furrowed his brows and winched. The shit stung.
“Where is Richie?”
Prospect one shrugged. The other nodded toward the door of the clubhouse. Kade could hear the sound of Richie’s Harley starting up. It was an older model that needed work and it made a distinct clunking noise when the engine started up.
“God dammit,” Kade muttered.
That was Richie’s way. Get shit faced, stir up bullshit, and leave. Kade would have been surprised if he had done anything but. Especially with Nash away.
Suddenly, heavy rock music was blaring again and people had scattered throughout the clubhouse in clumps, losing interest in Kade’s bloody form.
That was how fights always went.
People enjoyed witnessing the brutality of it all.
Not the aftermath.
“I’m heading out.”
Kade stood up and wiped the blood from his face, catching a glimpse of himself in the dusty mirror behind the bar. If he didn’t already feel like shit he certainly looked like it. Still, he had something he needed to do. Tonight. He could deal with Richie later.
The girl who had been eyeing Kade earlier flashed him a look of disappointment as he stumbled past her and out the door. The chilly February air greeted him and stung his face. It was a brutal cold that surrounded him as he straddled the seat of his Bonneville and started up the engine. With an unsteady hand, he revved down on it hard, heating it up. The bike shook to life beneath him.
He eased down on the clutch and sped out of the gravel parking lot, upshifting until he was going sixty in a twenty-five zone. He made an aggressive turn and pressed down hard on the throttle, passing lone vehicles in the night, mostly logging trucks whose drivers honked at him.
Stella.
Kade didn’t know why her smiling face always had a way of flashing through his head. It had been five years. Long enough to forget her. Long enough to forget any woman. But she was never just any woman.
When she left, wherever it was to, she had taken part of Kade with her. Not that he could blame her. A years worth of accumulated mistakes on his end had made it impossible for her to stick around.
Kade sighed.
Fifteen minutes later he found himself parked in front of Mel’s tiny trailer. Her blinds were closed but the lights were on and Kade could make out her moving shadow behind them.
It didn’t make much sense—him being here. But then again, nothing had made much sense since Stella had left.
Kade switched off his bikes ignition and walked across Mel’s driveway. His boots crunched against the gravel as he ascended the dirty concrete steps that led to her front door. He hesitated before ringing the doorbell, catching a brief glance of his reflection in the storm door, illuminated by the streetlights. A rustling noise sounded from behind the door but Mel didn’t answer.
Kade opened the door and paused with his fist rose in mid-knock. He patted the pocket of his cut to make sure the ring was still there.
It was.
He started to turn away. He told himself that he was making a huge fucking mistake. Every part of him told him to run away while he still could. But drunken ideas had a way of taking hold.
Kade could hear Mel inside talking to her daughter Stevie, who had just turned six. She probably didn’t even know that he was outside. There was still time for him to turn back and go on with his life, or at least what was left of it.
It wasn’t like Mel was incapable of finding someone else. Hell, there wasn’t a warm-blooded man within a hundred miles that wouldn’t have dropped his hat at a chance to be with her. But for whatever reason it was Kade whom she fancied herself with.
It was an accident really.
A decision made in the heat of the moment on a night when they had both found themselves missing Stella and Maddox. It had started with a shared cigarette outside the SOW clubhouse but magnetic warmth brought them together. Kade’s hands explored Mel’s body with a hunger he hadn’t experienced since Stella had left. But it was the reminder that Mel wasn’t her, could never be her, which kept him grounded.
When it was over, Kade didn’t chop it up to much. He figured it was a onetime thing. A fluke encounter. But as usual, life had a way of making other plans.
This time around Kade made sure there were no secrets. He was honest with Mel in a way he had never been with Stella. He told her that she deserved to be happy in the long term but that he didn’t think he would ever be. Through years of precise practice he had learned how to fake it. How to put on a face and appease people when he needed to, but Stella was the only person who had ever dug deeper. The only one who had ever seen Kade’s self-destructive behavior for what it was. And even though he was a complete basket case, she stuck around for as long as she could. She loved him and she persevered.
Still...
Kade couldn’t allow another woman to make the same mistake. His misery was nagging and perpetual in nature and it wasn’t up to Stella, Mel, or any woman to save him.
When he shared this fine print with Mel, the look in her eyes told Kade it was okay. She didn’t understand it. She couldn’t have, at least not fully. But regardless, she was sweet about it.
That was her problem. She was sweet about everything. There was none of the fire in Mel that had burned incessantly inside of Stella. But Mel, like Kade, was broken. All she wanted was someone to pass the time with. Someone her daughter could call a father. And if a couple silly vows spoken in front of a holy man and a crowd of people dressed in their finest was what could make that happen for her, well then Kade figured it was the least he could do.
Sometimes when he was with her he felt like he actually wanted to be. Sometimes he thought it was love, or at least a semblance of it.
Kade’s internal monologue was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Mel stood in front of him with a confused expression etched across her classically pretty face.
And it was then that Kade had an epiphany. A single stream of thinking took over the entire moment. He would marry this girl. And even if he didn’t love her yet, he would learn to.
“Kade?”
Mel reached up to touch the bruising on Kade’s face with a look of horror.
“What’s going on? You’re bleeding.”
She stepped aside and allowed him to pass her, calling out to her daughter, who was glued in front of the TV with her thumb in her mouth.
“Stevie, go into your room sweetie. I’ll be in soon to say goodnight.”
Stevie nodded and gathered up the heap of stuffed animals th
at surrounded her. Kade gave her a wink and a smile and she giggled before entering her small bedroom. She was all too familiar with his battered appearance. It was Mel who found it uneasy. She entered the kitchen and grabbed a rag and some alcohol, nodding at an empty chair at the table.
“Sit down,” she instructed, “I’ll clean you up.”
Mel never asked what happened, and for that much, Kade was grateful. He took a seat and allowed her to rub the alcohol soaked rag over his wounds. She was careful and precise.
“Are you alright?”
She kept her voice low, not wanting Stevie to overhear anything. Kade nodded and reached up, grazing his fingers carefully over her jaw. He smiled.
“I am now.”
Mel blushed and took a seat across from Kade at the table. She really was quite pretty. The kind of woman any man would have been happy calling his wife. Kade couldn’t help but study her.
Mel furrowed her brows.
“What?”
“Do I have something on my face?”
Kade shook his head.
“Nah, you’re just beautiful. That’s all.”
Mel smiled softly and looked down as a deep blush spread over her face. She wrung her hands together and said nothing. Kade exhaled a deep breath. He didn’t see the point in putting it off any longer. All the other boys were getting married—hitching up and having kids with their old ladies.
There was just nothing gratifying to Kade about jumping in and out of bed with random women he’d never get to know. Not anymore. With a sudden dose of confidence, he reached into the pocket of his cut and pulled out the tiny velvet ring box, setting it down in front of a visibly confused Mel. She stared at it with wide eyes, tracing her pointer finger over it before opening it.
“Kade...”
“What are you doing?”
Mel spoke softly, stumbling over her words. Her honey blonde hair spilled over her pale shoulders and fell into her face. She brought her legs up beneath herself in her chair as she analyzed the ring.
It was beautiful.
“I want to marry you.”
Kade spoke steady and with purpose. He reached for Mel’s clammy hand from across the table and gave it a squeeze. She shook her head and looked up at him with a frown.
