by A. J. Downey
“You always want what you can’t quite have, don’t you?” I said.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Won’t be long now,” I promised and I heard him smile, his breath hitching in a small laugh.
“Twenty-four more days.”
“You’re counting?” I asked surprised.
“You bet your sweet ass I am.”
I felt myself grin and said, “I’ve got to go or I’m going to be late to work.”
“Okay, Angel. Be careful.”
“I will, and thank you, they’re all so beautiful,” I said twisting in my seat to look into the back.
“Not half as beautiful as you. I’ll see you later.”
“Okay.”
I left the school feeling energized and renewed, and I hated that I could only stop at home long enough to bring in the flowers and teddy bear, taking three trips to get it all up to my room; only so I could change clothes and rush off to work.
Sage wasn’t home yet, which wasn’t completely unusual. Sometimes he liked to stay for the after school program and sometimes he didn’t; when he did, I would pick him up. Today just wasn’t the day, though.
I tried calling him, but his phone went straight to voicemail.
“Dammit!” I muttered harshly and went back out to the garage. I got in the car and tried him again. Straight to voicemail.
I was going to kill him.
I drove to his school and found him in the after school program area playing Ping-Pong with one of his teachers.
“Sage!” I called out and he turned, smiling which took some of the edge off my mad. His face fell a little and I tried to head off the souring of his mood right off the bat with, “I was worried about you, did you turn off your phone?”
“Oh, yeah!” he cried and pulled it out of his pocket.
“Come on, I’m already late. I’m just glad you’re okay.” I hugged him around the shoulders and he squirmed out of it but not angrily.
I exchanged pleasantries with his teacher and raced my brother home, he got out of the car at the curb and said, “I’m really sorry, Maren. Mrs. Trenkle made me turn off my phone and I forgot to turn it back on.”
“It’s okay, Sage. Just be a little more careful? I need your help on some of these things. It’s the only way we’re going to keep making this work.”
He looked a little sad and said, “You shouldn’t have to do all of this stuff by yourself,” he said.
I laughed a little, “No one else to do it, bud.”
“I know,” he said, a weird look on his face.
“Close the door, I’ve got to go!” he grinned at me and slammed the car door. I waited the extra two minutes for him to run to the front door and unlock it, only taking my foot off the brake when he disappeared inside.
Despite my best efforts, I was over ten minutes late to work. I breezed into the back room and clocked in at the computer. My manager looked up and sighed.
“I’ll need to talk to you at the end of your shift, Maren,” she said tiredly.
“I know, Holly. I’m sorry, I had to go get Sage.”
“Just come find me before you clock out.”
“Okay.”
I felt yet another write up in my future as I took myself to my till and spent the next five and a half hours cashiering. By the end of my shift, all I wanted was to go home, fix a sandwich, and go to bed. I almost forgot to go find Holly, but Holly found me as I was finishing up just before clocking out.
“Maren, good, glad I found you… listen… I really hate to tell you this, but I’m going to have to let you go.”
I blinked and said, “I’m sorry?”
“You’ve just been late too many times. Well past what corporate will tolerate.”
“Holly, you know me! You know it’s not always my fault, I need this job!” I cried and tried valiantly not to cry, my eyes misting up on their own.
Can I please just catch a break!? I thought savagely to whatever powers that be might be listening. Yeah right, if they were listening or cared they wouldn’t keep doing this to you. I thought with a heavy sigh.
Holly looked like this was killing her and I scrubbed my face with my hands, I let out another heavy sigh and sniffed and said, “It’s okay Holly, I know this isn’t your choice.”
“It’s really not,” she said miserably. “You’re one of my best employees except for the tardiness lately, which I completely understand, but this is a big box chain, they don’t care about anything but timetables and numbers. I’m real, and I mean, really, sorry.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day to me,” I muttered under my breath and swung into my coat.
Holly winced, “Your last check will be mailed to you,” she said.
“Thanks,” I muttered and left quietly, without a fuss. I pulled my phone from my pocket and then the tears really did start. How was I going to tell Nox? Was he going to be disappointed? Would my dad if he were here? What was I going to do for a job? This was the first one I’d ever had, and now I was fired for being unreliable. How would I ever get another one?
The phone rang in my ear and I closed my eyes; trying to breathe slow and keep the panic at bay.
Chapter 21
Nox
“Aw shit, Baby. Really? I’m so sorry.” I slipped further up the hall and turned my back on the curious looks from my club brothers and sisters. Maren sobbed piteously on the other end of the line, in full meltdown, I assumed in the parking lot where she worked – scratch that, where she used to work.
“I just can’t seem to get ahead no matter what I do!” she wailed and her breath stuttered and hitched. My heart damn near broke for her and I sighed. I didn’t think there was a fucking thing I could do to make this one better.
“It’s just a job, Angel, and I know it seems like the end of the world right now, but we’ll figure it out. Okay? One day at a time. So tomorrow, when you get out of school, you and me will get online and start looking and putting in applications. Okay?”
A hand fell on my shoulder and I turned, Everett smiled at me and gently took the phone out of my hand.
“Maren, Honey? It’s Evy,” she said evenly. “Hi, yeah I was shamelessly eavesdropping and I want you to calm down, because if you want it, Mandy and I have a job for you at Soul Fuel any time you’re available.” She paused and it was a long one while Maren spoke.
“Yeah, we own it. You didn’t know?” Everett laughed a little and said, “It’s fine, we get your situation and ten or even twenty minutes late isn’t that big of a deal. As long as you’re pretty good about not missing days entirely and can make up coming in late by staying later or coming in early the next day, we can totally work with that.”
I looked past Everett to the rest of the club and the smiles and looks of patience on everyone’s faces. Dray and Rev had mixed looks of love and pride on their faces for their women and I have to admit, it was a sentiment I shared by like a lot right now.
Maren and Sage were sort of semi-fixtures around lately. Sage had even made a friend in Reaver’s son, Connor, as they were only a couple of years apart. They would sometimes come over here for movies on the big screen and the occasional club Sunday dinner and it hadn’t taken too long for most of the club to see what I saw in Maren. Not everyone had come around, though.
Everett’s voice drew me back to the conversation, “Can you come by tomorrow after school? We can have you fill out an application and the rest of the paperwork, maybe talk about it some more?”
I mouthed ‘thank you’ at Everett and she waved me off like it was nothing when actually, this was pretty fucking huge.
“Okay, four o’clock sounds good. Just remember, when one door closes another one opens, okay?” She listened some more and smiled, “Okay, I’m going to hand you back over to your man.”
She handed me the phone and I pressed it back to my ear, “Well I didn’t expect that,” I said, “but there you have it.”
Maren sniffed on the other end of the line, my heart went out to her; she w
as absolutely right, she just couldn’t seem to catch a break lately, at least until just now with Evy. I felt my shoulders drop. Even though we agreed that we couldn’t really viably pull off seeing each other between our work schedules tonight, she’d had it rough and all I really wanted to do was hold her.
“Want me to come over?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said miserably and it was all I needed.
“I’ll bring ice cream,” I said and I heard the smile in her voice when she said, “You know me so well.”
I laughed a little and told her I’d see her soon, and hung up. It was getting harder the closer we got to her birthday, to maintain control, and I swore up and down to keep it in my pants tonight. I stepped back into the common room of the club to a bunch of expectant looks.
“See you later, bro,” my twin said and waved. He didn’t even take his eyes off his poker hand.
I rolled my eyes and told him, “If it were your woman, you’d do the same thing.”
“You ain’t lyin’,” he said and half his mouth went up in a sardonic smile, but then he ruined it by adding, “’Cept she ain’t a woman; she’s a little girl. Don’t end up in prison, asshole.” I knew Rush was a little on the lonely side. He didn’t do club sluts as a general rule, and even though the two we had left were lookers, Cherry was a fucking cunt, and Moira was all but spoken for. She wasn’t really interested in anybody but Lucky and Lucky wasn’t really interested in anyone but her.
Still, where Lucky and Moira were concerned? The dude was dense as fuck and wouldn’t make ‘em official which was total bullshit. I always thought Moira deserved better than that. It was a weird dynamic, those two. Of course, who was I to judge? Like Rush pointed out, I was the thirty-six-year-old perv with a seventeen-year-old girl. Even if she didn’t feel seventeen in my head, or even when I was with her, it was still there. She was above the age of consent, sure, but I was smack in the middle of the fucking Bible belt. Consent would be inconsequential to a bunch of these motherfuckers out here. Just sayin’.
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me sometimes, or if I said it never occurred to me, Maren’s age. Sometimes it didn’t, but then, sometimes, like tonight, when she freaked out so heartily over the loss of her fuckin’ minimum wage job at the fuckin’ corporate ninth circle of hell, well… then I was reminded and reminded hard that she was still brand fuckin’ new to this life shit. She should probably still be writing in her diary about her latest crush and not being a parent to her snot-nosed little brother, or worrying about how she’s going to pay the fuckin’ electric bill. Or hooking herself up to a dude old enough to be her father. Right, you damn prick?
I shoved the voice of self-deprecation away and instead thought to myself how her situation was so damn tragic. All I wanted to do was fix it… but it wasn’t my job to fix it for her all the time. That’s how we landed in this mess with a bunch of millennial fuckin’ whackjob kiddies in the first place. Mommy and Daddy doin’ everything for them and not letting them do for themselves.
That wasn’t my goal as Maren’s boyfriend. My goal was to be there when she fell to help her back up, sure, but she had plenty of this shit to do on her own. I could encourage, I could love her, but I couldn’t do it for her, as much as I wanted to. The girl had just plain been through enough and she couldn’t do it all by herself. Assists were needed…
“Hey, Nox.”
I turned around and lifted my chin, “What’s up?”
Dragon, who I’d last seen in the club’s barroom, didn’t say anything right away, but finally, he came out with “Be careful, it’s icy.”
“Yeah, sure, P; no problem.”
That was weird, I thought to myself, as I shrugged into my jacket and cut, and picked up my helmet off the edge of my dresser. Dragon had come all the way back here to my room in the outbuilding, just to tell me to be careful? I mean he was a good dude and an even better President, but he’d never done that before.
I didn’t know if it was more of a silent comment or judgment on myself and Maren, the age difference, or what. For the most part, I could ignore the looks of concern, but every once in a while, like with what just happened now, my brothers made it hard to ignore. I found my president smoking a cigarette under the eaves of the main club building, outside its back door. I set my helmet aside on one of the picnic tables and leaned a shoulder against one of the posts supporting the little slant of the roof to keep the weather off the back stoop.
“Got something you wanna say, D?” the conversation had taken a turn I didn’t like, to be sure. I dropped the honorific of ‘P’ and went with ‘D’ instead. It was bordering on disrespect but wasn’t quite over the line. I needed the outlet, though, and I think my president could sense that because he didn’t call me on my bullshit.
Instead, he sighed, and blew smoke into the night, “She’s a looker, Nox. Ain’t no one denyin’ that, but yer playin' with fire an’ it’s more ‘n just a lil bit here, isn’t it? Just be careful, right?”
“Just a few more weeks,” I muttered.
“Ain’t gonna change us worryin’ about you none. Not ‘til the statute of limitations runs out. You know how it goes.”
“Not really sure I take your meaning, D. You tryin’ to say I’m breaking club guidelines on the jailbait clause? ‘Cause I ain’t. I know our by-laws just as ready as the next dude and its fuckin’ bullshit the way everyone walks around here with accusations of shit that ain’t happening in their eyes.”
“No one is sayin’ you’re breakin’ club doctrine –”
“Really? Because it sure as fuck sounds like that’s exactly what’s goin’ on here. Not only from you but from my own fuckin’ twin. I would never, I have never. Maren and me, we’ve kissed a couple of times, but that’s it, D. Not that I really have to fuckin’ explain myself to any of you on that.” I shook my head, “Jesus Christ, I’m getting tired of the side-eyed looks around here.”
“Can you blame us for being worried?” he asked simply and took another drag, I sighed out harshly and raked a hand back through my hair.
“I can’t,” I said. “Still would be nice to feel like y’all had a little more faith in me than what you do, though.”
Dragon chuckled, “Is that what you think? That we ain’t got any faith in you?” I stared my President down and he shook his head ruefully and said, “Nox, if we didn’t we wouldn’t be keeping our mouths shut.”
I arched an eyebrow and asked, “And this is what this is? Keeping your mouth shut?” Dragon gave me a flat look, bordering on unfriendly, but not quite there yet.
“You’re really done in by this girl, eh?”
“She’s mine,” I stated flatly.
“Ever done that before? Declared someone your property?”
“Nope always hoped someone would come along, but no one did, not until Maren. I’d lay down my life for her without a second thought.”
“That’s what we’re worried about, Nox. Might not be her that asks it of you, you see what I’m sayin’? There are other ways to give up your life other than just dyin’. You know that, though, don’t ya?”
“Yeah, I know. Blue almost did it, and Cell, for this club.”
“Yeah, yeah they did. You’re straight telling me she’s worth risking it all?”
“D, if she weren’t worth risking everything for, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I said tiredly. “Now if you don’t mind, Maren is out there, she’s scared, she’s tired of being run through the mill, and she needs me right now. I know her, she wouldn’t ask if she really didn’t need me. She’s made of some pretty tough stuff. You should try and get to know her a little bit more past the fresh face.”
Dragon looked thoughtful, “I reckon I should.”
I let that be it between us and swept up my helmet. I got on my bike and made one quick stop on the way to my girl’s; the woman who made me laugh, who made me feel lighter when the shit got heavy at work or around the club. I just about always found that I couldn’t wai
t to see her and when we parted? I almost started missing her before she was even out of sight.
When she opened the door, I looked up and damn near had a heart attack. I hadn’t expected her to be in that black satin number that made my cock jump on sight. Usually, she had on some leggings or something. I gave up holding up the damn paper bag with her favorite ice cream in it and settled for crossing the threshold and kicking the door shut behind me.
I dropped the bag and pulled her into me, Dragon’s questions still scalding my mind, adding to the heat that was rising in my fuckin’ jeans. I covered Maren’s mouth with mine and folded her tightly in my arms where she went limp with relief. I held her to me, hands smoothing over all that satin, craving the feel of her warm, supple skin beneath –but dammit I have to wait.
That didn’t stop me from kissing her like it would be our last, and it didn’t stop my body from going through the motions either. My hands found her ass, then the backs of her thighs, and I lifted her. Her lithe, long legs going around my hips as I made strides over to the couch, laying her down, my body grinding against hers, my dick aching something fierce, her hands at the back of my neck pulling my mouth tightly against hers as our tongues danced and intertwined.
Fuck, I was gonna go. I was gonna come in my fucking pants like I was the teenager and right that second I was like, fuck it, I wanna.
I wanna, and I wanna make her come too, but I couldn’t, because as much as I loathed the little fucking reminder, Dragon’s words were still chasing around in my head. I couldn’t stop myself, though; I ground against her and ran my hand along the outside of her thigh, pushing the satin material out of my way, fingers smoothing along the silk of her skin and fuck I was dying. This waiting was poison, and Maren? Maren was my antidote; my only chance for survival.
“We have to stop,” she uttered, her voice strained, and it was like a bucket of ice water. I stood up and retrieved the ice cream off the floor, making strides in the direction of the kitchen while she tugged the long skirt of her nightgown down over her sopping panties. God, that sight made it so hard to keep walking, but I had to. We needed a minute and we needed some distance or neither one of us was going to stop and that wasn’t right, at least not by society’s thinking.
