by K. Ryan
I trailed after Isabelle, taking in the way she moved with lithe steps like a dancer, and I had to swallow back the lump in my throat when she finally sank down into a swing in the backyard. Following her lead, I dropped into the swing just a few feet away from her. She was still close, just within reaching distance, but the little bit of space between us seemed to take away some of the nervousness penetrating the air around us.
Isabelle rested one hand on the metal chains, swinging her body a little, as she brought the wine bottle up to her lips.
"You sure you don't want me to get you a glass?" I smirked at her.
She just batted her free hand my way. "Nah. This is easier. And way classier."
"Right," I chuckled.
Now she held the bottle out to me. "Wanna give it a try?"
"Fruity girl wine?" I grimaced down at the bottle and shook my head. "No thanks, Iz."
"Fine," she shrugged. "More for me then."
She took another long swig from the bottle and I had half a mind to just take it away from her now. While she wasn't even close to being half in the bag yet, I didn't exactly want to see her drink herself into a puking stupor either. If she wanted to get drunk, that was fine, but something told me it'd be way worse if I wasn't here and the idea of Isabelle alone, drunk, and crying on this night twisted something painful inside me.
Besides, I'd take whatever she was willing to give me.
"So what did Theo Wallace want?"
I wasn't sure how much I should tell her; the details weren't really important, but judging by the expectant look in her eyes, I probably had to give her more than the nothing she'd gotten from me earlier.
"Something I couldn't give him," I sighed and ran a hand over my face. Shit, I really needed to shave.
Her eyebrows lifted into her forehead and she stared back at me for a few moments. She swiveled around in the swing to face me head-on. The one time I got her so close I could touch her also just happened to be the one time I just didn't want to talk. But just like all the times before this one, I couldn't tell her no.
"He wanted to give me money to expand the shop," I relented.
"Wow," Isabelle exhaled and took another pull from her bottle. "I didn't know you were looking to expand."
"Yeah, well, I am. I've been shopping around some banks to see what kind of interest rate I can get on a loan."
Just when I thought her eyebrows couldn't reach any higher, they slid even further up her forehead.
"New equipment, more space, that sort of thing," I told her and batted a hand dismissively. "Anyway, I can get the money on my own just like I did the first time. I don't need anyone's help. I told myself I'd never put myself in a position again where I need to take those kind of deals to make ends meet and that's how it's gonna stay."
Her eyes flashed and I suddenly wished I hadn't opened my mouth. Given why we were sitting out here in the first place, letting all that fly was probably a bad choice.
"Why would he even offer then?" she asked softly. "There's gotta be a catch, right?"
"There's always a catch when it comes to club business," I told her darkly. "And the catch is that Wallace gets to piss off the Horsemen and he gets to shove his foot in my ass whenever he wants."
"Because of what happened, right?" she asked softly and at first, I almost didn't catch it. "With his family? He blames all of you."
"How did you know that?" I frowned.
She just lifted a shoulder. "Dom filled me in on a few things that day he picked me up from the gas station. Did he really lose one of his kids when he was in prison?"
I nodded and stared down at my feet. We were treading on some shaky ground right now and this conversation didn't need to push her even further.
"Dom said that was just a rumor he heard."
"It wasn't," I murmured.
She huffed a little angrily and shook her head. "You know, I can understand why he hates all of you, but it's not like you guys put his kid in the hospital or forced his wife to leave him. Those things might've happened even if he hadn't gone to prison."
"It's not really about that," I told her softly, my eyes still focused on the ground. "Guys like Wallace need someone else to blame for their problems. They can't accept that anything they've done is responsible. They need a scapegoat so they can sleep at night."
And that was exactly why I hardly ever slept at night.
"And those kind of guys," I pushed on with a heavy sigh, "are the kind of guys who can't be reasoned with."
And, I thought grimly, those are the kind of guys who won't stop until they've gotten exactly what they wanted.
"Did you let anyone know he was there today?"
I nodded and shot her a quick glance to reassure her that was all handled. "I called Dom after Wallace left. I'm sure the club met for church after that to talk about what to do next."
"What do you think they'll do?"
"I don't know," I shrugged a little too easily.
A few quiet, awkward moments of silence passed between us before Isabelle glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and cleared her throat.
"So, um, when do you think my dad's car is going to be done?"
I chuckled at the not-so-subtle subject change. "I think your dad's car is a non-issue since you've got your very own personal driver now."
"And here I've been so spoiled by all those awesome taxi drivers in New York."
"Well," I laughed. "You'll get the VIP treatment here. Trust me."
I might have been laughing, but the truth was, I trusted every single one of my guys, except for Lucas, to treat her like the precious cargo she was. They'd be polite, respectful, and most of all, they'd do whatever it took to protect her all because I asked them to.
"I figured as much," she smiled. "Saul was really nice, by the way."
"He better have been."
Isabelle laughed and in the moonlight, she looked like something out of a dream. Beautiful and just as untouchable. Just as out of reach.
"I'm serious, Caleb. He was."
"Did he happen to mention how we know each other?"
She nodded stiffly and tightened her hold on the swing's chains. "He did."
I figured he wouldn't be able to keep that to himself and it was just as well.
"Hey, um, I didn't want to ask him earlier, but...what did he do?"
I pushed out a rough sigh. That guy was my brother, my father, and my best friend all in one—if we hadn't come into each other's lives when we did, I didn't really know where either of us would have ended up. And even though it was Isabelle who was asking, I still couldn't betray his confidence.
"You know, Iz," I sighed. "That's his story to tell if he ever wants to tell it to you."
She nodded silently and I knew she wouldn't push. She was too kind-hearted and compassionate to push for more information. And now, she was quiet for a moment as she stared at the ground, letting the swing rock her from side to side a little, before she spoke again.
"I think you did the right thing."
"Even if it means giving Wallace more ammunition?"
I didn't need to add the rest because we both already knew it: even if it means putting you in more danger?
"You can't predict what he'll do. You also can't waste your time looking over your shoulder and letting other people dictate your life."
"Thanks," I smiled softly.
"Besides, you said yourself nothing's going to happen to me. I trust you."
She had no reason to trust me, no reason to believe in me, but she did. That was all I needed. Before I could stop myself, my arm reached out until my fingertips brushed her shoulder, sliding all the way up so I could tuck some stray blonde hair behind her ear. Then my eyes dropped to the dark lines of ink etched right below her left ear and my fingers itched to trace them. I didn't know how I'd never noticed it before, but now I couldn't stop staring at those three tiny stars.
"When'd you get that?"
She just shrugged. "A few years ago, I guess."
> My eyes dropped to my left forearm, right to the upside down compass she'd sketched out for me at that patch-over party so long ago. God, that felt like another lifetime ago. Sometimes, I wondered if it even happened in the first place, if the happiness I'd felt whenever I was with her was just a figment of my imagination. My mind flew to the other place I knew she had some more ink—did she still have it? Part of me didn't want to know...I was probably better off just not knowing.
But now, with the evidence right in front of me, there had to be some sort of connection between the compass and those stars tattooed right under her ear. Even my imagination couldn't make that up on its own. After all this time, after all this distance, we'd somehow found ourselves back here again, tentatively reaching out, gravitating in each other's direction, and unable to stop it. I didn't want to stop it.
"Do you ever regret it?" her soft voice called out.
"Regret what?"
"Leaving the club?" her lips lifted in a sad smile. "Do you think things would be easier if you'd just stayed?"
I didn't even need to think about it. "No. I don't regret it. And I don't think things would be any easier for me if I'd stayed either. They'd be worse."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck in thought. "Life in the club was never really what I thought it was. I thought it was about the brotherhood and about putting that above everything else. It was something to live for, something to work for, but I just didn't know any better. Didn't know anything different. Didn't know how to do anything different. If I'd stayed, I'd probably be back in prison or working my way toward it at the very least."
Or six feet under in a hole somewhere, I thought grimly.
Her face tilted up to me as she listened and thankfully, she set the wine bottle down by her feet.
"At some point," I pushed on. "I guess I just realized it wasn't really about the brotherhood, at least not the way I thought it was. It was every man for himself, even though I'd been raised my whole life to believe we were all a family who'd do anything for each other. That wasn't true then and it's not true now."
Isabelle nodded tightly, willing me to continue and finally tell her everything I'd always wanted to say, but had only managed to get out in my notebook. There were other things I needed to tell her too, but for tonight, this would have to be enough.
"It's all about protecting themselves, and sometimes, that means people need to be sacrificed. I never realized how ridiculous that was until I was on the other side of it."
Her blue eyes shone in the moonlight and her lips parted. "You mean with Becca?"
"No," I shook my head and looked down at my feet. "I'm talking about you. All the suspicion they threw your way...it was just completely insane. None of them, save for Dom, really gave two shits about you as long as they saw you as a potential threat. It didn't matter that I was standing by you. It didn't matter that they had no reason not to trust you. And then they would've happily sacrificed both of us for the good of the order if it meant they'd all go free."
"What do you mean?"
I pushed out a rough breath and ran a hand over my short hair. "If they thought you'd done what Becca did, even if they didn't have any proof, they wouldn't have cared about anything else. They would've wanted you gone and they would've wanted me to do it."
Isabelle exhaled slowly and bit down on her bottom lip as her words washed over her. She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut.
"I didn't really let myself think about that too much when it was happening."
"That was probably for the best," I nodded. "And, not just that, but they would've let me sit in prison for the rest of my life for murder too. They wouldn't have cared because to them, it was my job to put the club above anything and everyone else."
"Who cares about your life, right?" she smiled sadly.
"Right," I nodded tightly. "I figured, if I didn't, then no one else would. After I got out of prison, I knew I couldn't spend the rest of my life doing the same shit I've always done and expecting a different outcome. My life was never gonna change unless I changed it."
For a brief moment, I wondered what my life would be like right now if I'd chased after her all the way to New York, if I'd told her I wanted to leave the club as soon as I made the decision, if I'd asked her to wait for me just a little bit longer, but I hadn't done any of those things because I hadn't earned it yet. I couldn't let myself forget that.
I pushed those thoughts away as she spoke again.
"And you did change it," Isabelle's eyes seemed to glow as she leaned her cheek against the chain. "I'm really proud of you, Caleb. You're so much smarter than you ever gave yourself credit for."
"Yeah, well," I laughed. "Considering I had to completely 'throw my legacy in the shitter', as Wallace put it, in order to get out, there had to be some sort of consolation somewhere."
"But it wasn't what you wanted anymore."
"No," I shook my head firmly. "It wasn't. It cost me everything that ever really mattered."
Her eyes flicked up to me and in that moment, I wished I could just wrap my arms around her and let everything I needed to tell her pour of me. But what was the point of drowning in regret when she was here right now, in that swing, on this night, listening to me? This kind of night and this kind of moment made every hurdle I'd climbed through worth it.
"You know," I went on. My voice cracked, but I didn't care. I needed to say this to her, even if this was as far as I got tonight. "When I was a kid, I always thought if I just had a bike to ride, a cut on my back, and a place at that table, my life would be perfect. Up until the moment you walked into the shop's office looking for a job, I was completely content to live that kind of life. Being with you made me want something else."
I squeezed my eyes shut as Marcus's cold, callous dark eyes flashed in my mind.
"You've got a responsibility to this club," he'd sneered at me when I'd sat them down and threw my cut on the table. "You're not throwin' that away over lost pussy and a dead kid, are you?"
It had only taken a second, but that was all the time I needed to lunge forward and punch my club president right in the face. In the end, all it did was solidify what I'd already known: he didn't really give a shit about me. Not if he'd stoop that low, especially not when I'd had every intention of trying to have a civil, honest conversation about why I needed to cut myself loose. According to my mom, Dom, and pretty much everyone else, I was lucky Marcus had let me leave without any repercussions, but from where I'd been standing, and was still standing, that was nothing compared to the blows I'd already been dealt.
I walked out of the clubhouse that day without my cut and without my club and I never looked back.
"Anyway," I cleared my throat and cast her an anxious, sideways glance to find her still watching me with watery eyes. "I guess the club got me into prison, but prison got me out of the club."
"It's funny how life works like that, isn't it? Nothing ever really seems to go the way you planned..." she trailed off as the smile playing at her lips dropped.
Her eyes flew to something over my head and I turned to see some movement in one of the upstairs windows. The blinds twitched and I caught a flash of Sam's face before he realized he was caught. Those blinds slapped down just as quickly and Isabelle shook her head at the window.
"Nosy jerk," she grumbled under her breath.
I just chuckled. If I were him, I'd probably want to know what the so-called reformed outlaw was doing out here with my daughter too. My breath hitched on the last part of that and I glanced down at those three letters inked permanently on my skin. The tribute didn't do her justice, but I'd wanted it somewhere I could see it so it would be like I was carrying her with me, just like that upside down compass carried so many memories of her mother.
And now, as my eyes found her again, it was like we'd been transported back in time, before all our plans were shattered, before all our hopes and dreams evaporated into thin air.
/> . . .
Isabelle
"What're you thinking, Iz?" his quiet, hoarse voice called out and yanked me out of my thoughts.
I didn't even know where to start. So I decided to play it safe instead and take a page out of his book by skirting around the real issue.
"I was just thinking about how much simpler everything was when we were younger. Back when my biggest problems were pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper or getting a B on an exam and being scared to tell my dad," I laughed stiffly, acutely aware he was observing me a little too closely. "I guess I had no idea what the real world was really like when I was 20 and didn't know any better. Even after my mom died, worrying about my dad kicking me out seems easy now compared to everything else."
There was a lot left there that could be open for his interpretation, but I'd always had no problem telling him more than I'd intended to anyway. Besides, I had a feeling, with the way this night was headed, that I'd tell him just about anything he wanted to know if it meant I could spend more time with him like this.
"I think I know what you mean," he told me quietly. "If someone had told me 10 years ago that I'd be out of the club at 30 with two years of prison behind me and a new business in front of me, I think I would've laughed until I cried. But you never really think about how much those things you think you want will cost you in the end. You just think about what you want when you want it."
I nodded in silent understanding and decided to lighten things up a little more. "Just think, Caleb, 10 years ago you were wrapped around Ariel's little finger. Now look at you, all mature and grown-up with a college degree. I bet she'd barely recognize you if she saw you now."
Caleb laughed and lifted his eyes to the night sky with a shake of his head. "Wow, I haven't thought about that name in years."
"Kinda seems like forever ago, huh?"
"Shit, yeah," he chuckled.
My next words just popped out before I could even really think about what I was saying: "I saw her once in L.A. actually."
Caleb stilled on the swing and his head whipped around to face me.
"What?" he laughed, but the confusion in his voice was unmistakable.
