by A. J. Downey
He let out an exasperated sigh and said, “You may have left my ass, and for good reason!” He put up his hand to stave off my argument. “But I still love yah, Marcie, and you’re still the mother of my children, so I gotta say, when Devon told me you were takin’ up with that fella, I have some concerns.”
I rolled my eyes. “I am a grown-ass woman, perfectly capable of makin’ my own decisions and handling my own self. As you well remember.” I know, I know, adding that last bit was a low blow but why everyone thought they had a right to tell me my business was beyond me!
“Well,” he said weakly, “I’ll have to give you that. The girls are just worried, is all.”
“The girls, or Devon?” I asked.
“Well, Devon… Dylan did tell me you’d say to mind my own business.”
“Which I’ve done twice now, don’t make it a third,” I warned sharply.
“Well then, who y’ gonna get to fix yer sink?” he asked, hands on his hips.
I smirked.
“I’d figure it out,” I said.
He shook his head and let out another loud breath. I knew what was comin’ next and sure enough…
“Woman, you like to be the death of me,” he said.
I smiled, “I know it.” But I kept the bitter creeping thought that followed to myself, Y’ already killed me… broke my heart… maybe it’s time to try something new. Maybe it’s finally my turn to be happy.
Which made me realize, Dragon and the time I got to spend with him? I can’t remember the last time I smiled so much. Did that mean I was ready for a whole weekend away? Well, it was in two weeks, and I was likely to spend even more time with him between now and then.
Oh! Who was I kidding? I’d already made up my mind. Wasn’t no sense in toyin’ with the man! That wasn’t something I wanted to do, not with him being so upfront and honest with me.
I would tell him yes, just as soon as the next time I talked to him.
11
Dragon…
“You doin’ alright?” I asked and dropped into a chair near Doc’s. He looked up over his half-moon specs and gave me a lopsided grin.
“Doin’ just fine, how about you?” he asked.
“To be honest,” I said, “I don’t rightly know.”
“Oh?” He lowered his newspaper and frowned.
“Don’t look at me that way, friend. It ain’t my health or nothin’ like that.”
“The woman you was tryin’ to fix me up with some weeks back?” he asked.
“Now, don’t go puttin’ it that way,” I said.
He chuckled, “She under yer skin?”
“No!” I shifted a bit uncomfortably in my seat and Doc raised an eyebrow. “All right, maybe,” I grudgingly admitted.
“So, what’s the problem?” he asked.
“You think the club’ll be able to accept me seein’ the woman who hit Cell?” I asked.
“The club?” he asked back. “Or Blue and Hayley?”
“You know how that goes,” I muttered.
“I hear you, but I think fer as smart as you are, yer bein’ stupid.”
I scowled. “How so?”
“You’re worried about Blue and Hayley, you should really be talkin’ to Blue and Hayley. Not me.”
“Well, you got that right. I may have done somethin’ a little impulsive…” I let the thought trail and he looked me over.
“What, I gotta drag it outta you?” he asked.
“I invited Marcie to ride with me on the Spring Lake Run.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“My friend, you have an extraordinary grasp on your surroundings and ability for understanding people,” he said. “Now, that being said, I don’t think you even realize it. It has been my observation that a lot of the things you attribute to bein’ your gut, or a bad or good feeling about this or that? Well, that ain’t the case at all. You have a keen mind, one that works overtime in the front and the back. A lot of things you take for granted as bein’ instinct, ain’t. Your subconscious has just worked it all out before your front brain had the chance.”
“Just what the devil are you getting at?” I asked, and was tryin’ hard not to laugh.
“What I’m gettin’ at, is if you didn’t think any of us would be all right with you bringin’ this woman around us, you wouldn’t have invited her. You would have gone to the folks in your club and made certain, if you felt somethin’ would be off about it.”
I nodded slowly, absorbing what it was he was tellin’ me and I couldn’t deny he was right.
“You got a point, there, Doc.”
“I know I do, so if you’re havin’ second thoughts after you’ve already asked her, it has more to do with you than anyone else and how they might take it.” He shook his head. “Besides, she could be a purple-people-eater from fuckin’ Mars or some shit – none of the rest of us would care.”
“Why’s that?” I demanded.
“On account of whatever she is to you, she’s makin’ you happier ‘n we’ve seen you in a minute… and by ‘minute’, I mean ‘since Tilly died’. Somethin’ about you is just…” he searched my face. “lighter, somehow. Like you’re not carryin’ as much. It’s good.”
“That’s just my fuckin’ haircut,” I grumbled and he laughed.
“Which, if I recall, we have courtesy of Ms. Marcie What’s-her-last-name.”
I chuckled. “So you’re tellin’ me I should have a chat with Blue and Hayley about it if I feel weird and stop bein’ such a damn knucklehead.”
“If the first makes you feel better, then yeah. Definitely the second, though.”
I shook my head and heaved myself to my feet.
“Where y’ goin’?”
“Dinner.”
“At a certain greasy spoon diner?”
“How’d you guess?”
He shook out his paper and went back to readin’ it. Didn’t even bother to answer.
I chuckled again to myself and went and found my jacket and cut. My helmet was with my bike. I did that here at the club, but not out and about. Learned that lesson the hard way one night, leavin’ it with my bike when I was just a kid.
I’d gone into one of them mini-mart places for a pack of smokes and some road beers. There was this drunk motherfucker at the counter and I guess they wouldn’t let him use the bathroom on account of he wasn’t a payin’ customer or somethin’. He goes storming out into the lot and I bought my shit, only to come out of the place to see this guy droppin’ a deuce in my fuckin’ helmet, which was hangin’ off my handlebar.
It was funny now, but then? I’d flown into a temper and beat the brakes off the guy ‘til he was nothin’ but a broken, bleeding, sobbing pile.
I’d seen the same kind of anger in my boy after his momma died, and I didn’t know how to fix it for him. Didn’t know how to straighten him out. Me? I’d learned the hard way.
The first and only time I’d caught Tilly in the mouth with the back of my hand, she’d kicked me right in the balls and I’d gone down like a ton of bricks.
She’d walked out on me right then and there. Only took me back by the grace of whatever God there was and on the promise I’d get that part of me under control. That woman did more to rein my temper in than anything.
I’d been hoping Dray would find the same, but it turned out to be Trig and his woman to teach him that particular lesson, far before he ever fucked up as hard as I did. He still did find a woman just like his mother, though. Everett wasn’t about to take any of that boy’s shit, and I was happy for him.
I don’t think most men realized the benefit of havin’ a strong, smart, and calculating queen by his side to rule with him over his personal kingdom. Any man who thought he had it right all of the time clearly didn’t. Any man arrogant enough to walk down the street naked, without the benefit of one of his own to cry out the emperor had no clothes, was a man that was doomed to ultimate failure.
I’d been lucky. Then I got arrogant. It was an arrogance I couldn�
�t afford, thinkin’ I was slicker than owl shit and that nothin’ could or would stick. Maybe it didn’t in a legal sense, but the universe schooled me the hardest way it could, and my poor wife had been the one to lose her life in the lesson.
There was a saying that went something like ‘It’s never too late to change your ways’ and while it was true? Well, it wasn’t too late for me. Just too late for her. I swore never again.
Never say never, lover…
Her voice caressed the inside of my skull and I chuckled.
“Never again am I gonna let someone else pay for my sins, baby. But you’re right. I did swear I’d never love again, but I damn sure feel somethin’ for that firecracker. I’d ask you what you think, but you already know I know.”
I listened, breathing slow and deep, waiting for something, anything, else from my late wife, but of course, there was nothing. Well, nothing except that familiar fractured ache in the center of my chest. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say it’d diminished by far from what it’d been.
I rode out to the diner that Hayley’s father owned and she waitressed at. The place was the center of Hayley’s world, and as such, it’d become the center of Blue’s. I could find him there when he wasn’t working road crew, and sure enough, when I went through the door, he was off to the side doctoring up some coffee, Hayley behind the counter returning the pot to the warmer.
“Hey, D.” Blue called out. I smiled and went over to his booth and slid into it, across the table from him.
“Hey, Blue.”
“What brings you in here?”
“Was hoping to talk to you and Hayley.”
Blue gave me a charmed sort of smile, had it been on anyone else I would have called it sweet, but you don’t say a badass biker smiled sweetly at you. Except maybe Reaver, but that fucker was crazy anyhow.
“This about the woman you’ve been seeing over the last few weeks? The one that was involved in Cell’s accident?”
I hitched in a bit of a laugh and took it back. These bikers gossiped more ‘n a bunch of little old ladies at Marcie’s salon.
“That would be the one,” I agreed. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by me, or any of the rest of the boys, that after Cell had died, Blue had somehow managed to find his voice. Gone was the silence, but when it was a big group of us, he still maintained a shy silence.
Hayley came over and slid into the booth beside her man, covering his hand with hers and said, “I heard you say you wanted to talk to the both of us. I only have a minute, but what can we help you with, Dragon?”
Blue smiled and looked her over with adoration. “I believe he’s here looking for permission of sorts.”
“Oh?” Hayley looked me over, smiling. “So, things are going well with the woman that Cell hit? How is she?”
Interesting phrasing, ‘the woman that Cell hit’. It wasn’t untrue, but good luck getting Marcie to see it that way.
“I asked her to join me for the Lake Run, but I wanted to talk to you two and make sure you were all right with it. If yer not, I have no trouble rescinding the invitation. I feel like I probably shoulda asked you first, but at the same time, I felt like you’d be all right with it.”
“Of course we are,” Blue said, and he and Hayley exchanged a look.
“It wasn’t her fault,” Hayley said. “Cell rode like a maniac. It scared the hell out of me, getting on the back of his motorcycle. It was an accident, and if it was anyone’s fault, it was his. I’m not mad about it anymore. It hurts, sure, but the blame rests with Cell. She was making her legal turn. He was being an idiot. That’s pretty much the end of the story.”
I sighed, “I wish it were as simple as that.”
Hayley’s face crumbled. “Oh, no… is she blaming herself? That poor thing! Yes. Bring her. I would like to meet her.” She got up smoothly and without further ado asked, “What can I get you?”
I smiled and loved that girl in that moment for her selflessness and generosity. I ordered the diner’s pot roast and she smiled and asked, “Extra gravy?”
“On the meat and potatoes,” I agreed. “You’d like to think I’ve eaten here before.”
She winked at me. “Not nearly enough.” And with that, she walked away.
I turned back to Blue, who was watching me, smiling softly. He shook his head.
“You know us, Dragon. You also know, that if he’d lived Cell probably would have broken or destroyed us by now.” He looked sad for a moment. “And I likely wouldn’t have been strong enough to stop it.”
“Don’t talk like that, Blue. You know we would have had your back,” I said.
“Oh, I know. You guys have been amazing,” he said. “But I don’t know how amazing I would have been if it’d come to it.”
“You got some strong women in your corner, Blue. I’m not just talkin’ about Hayley, either. You think Dani would have let you fall that far? Or that she’d let Thirteen sit on his ass?”
Blue smiled and swallowed hard. “I don’t feel like I do near enough for you all as you do for us,” he said.
“How about your boy?” I asked.
“No signs,” he said. “Not yet.” But he looked troubled.
“There ain’t gonna be, either.” I said with false confidence.
We’d met Cell’s parents, his sister, at the funeral. They’d come, and they’d been grateful that we’d taken care of everything. They hadn’t known what to do. They’d talked quietly with Blue and Hayley, and from what I’d gathered, they were good, God-fearing citizens. The kind of innocent people who worked hard all their lives and did everything they could for their kids. Cell hadn’t been abused, far from it. He’d been loved, cared for; he’d just been the epitome of ‘the bad seed.’ Born evil, through and through, a true sociopath. Serial-killer material.
His sister was downright grateful he was dead. I saw the haunted expression on her face and in her eyes. I’d bet even money he’d killed her pets, maybe even tried to kill her, when they were growing up. To say that his family wasn’t sorry he was gone was an understatement. If anything, their expressions spelled relief, guilt, and a deep sorrow. The sorrow, not because he was gone, but because they were glad for it, and no one should feel glad for the death of their kin.
I didn’t subscribe to the same philosophy, though. It was one of the things that marked me as ‘other’ from polite society. Someone done you enough wrong, blood or not, they weren’t family no more. You had every right to feel the way you felt about them dying. I know I was glad for a few kin’s passing. I loved my momma, but my daddy could burn in hell, the drunk abusive fuck.
I turned out just like him, I just channeled my ruthlessness into protecting what was mine, rather than destroying it. I’d be a liar to myself and the world if I tried to deny our similarities. I was a chip off the ol’ block. I was glad fer the fact I’d managed to break the cycle when it came to Tilly, when it came to Dray. Honestly, though. I think she had more to do with it than I did, my guiding light out of that particular darkness.
“Only time will tell,” Blue murmured and I smiled.
“You just keep loving that boy as if he were your own and everything is going to come out okay,” I said.
Blue gave me a blank look and said, “He is my own.”
I smiled and nodded. “You’re a good man, Blue. One of our best. I’m proud to have you in this chapter. I’m happy to be of any assistance you might need. All of us are. You’re home, and what’s done is done and in the past. For all of us. It’s time to look to the future.”
Blue smiled and said, “We’re all perfectly happy in our present with a future that’s bright. It’s your turn.”
I grinned and nodded. “I reckon you might be right.”
“So, when do you see her again?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’m hoping this week, but I’m not sure what to go do this time. I kinda pulled out all the stops last time.”
He grinned. “You know, Hayley was sayin’ there’s a farmer’s market the
next county over she wanted to check out.”
“You thinkin’ an accidental meetup might be in order?”
“I’m thinking it would be a good idea to lay old ghosts to rest before you brought her on something like a Lake Run.”
“You got a very valid point there, Blue.”
He laughed. “Shut up. You already thought of it. That’s part of why you’re here.”
I chuckled and nodded some. “True, true, I just didn’t know how I was gonna ease her into it. A meeting with you two.”
His face sobered and he sighed. “Are you sure this is the best way?”
“I think that it would be the easiest on her, yes. Though I don’t much like the sneakiness of it.”
Blue seemed relieved by my take on it and I couldn’t say I blamed him. The one thing about Cell was, everything was a manipulation. He’d been with the man longest, loving even when he couldn’t be loved in return. That was one hell of a mark left behind on his soul.
He finally nodded. “I’ll see if I can find a sitter. Hayley and I need some time alone together anyways. It’s been a while since we took an afternoon for ourselves.”
“You know we’re all here to help.”
“I know, but until we know, I’m just afraid to have Damon around the other kids. You know, just in case.”
“Blue, he ain’t big enough or strong enough to be a problem.”
“I know, but what if he bites another kid or something?” he asked, shifting uncomfortably.
I laughed. “Dray was a biter,” I said, and he raised his eyebrows. “Kids bite, doesn’t mean he’s like Cell. I know you both are scared, but you gotta let him be a kid, too. You can’t act like the world needs protecting from him. I know it’s hard, but Damon can pick up on things like that, so do other people. You treat him like there’s something wrong with him, other people will start thinkin’ there is, then he’ll start thinkin’ it, and it’ll be downhill from there.”
“Shit, you’re right. I feel like we’re walking a tightrope, D.”
“Maybe y’are, but you’re forgettin’ something.”
