by Jc Emery
Only, I don’t know when I decided to confront him.
I take several deep breaths and gather my wits before I climb out of the car with paperwork in hand and walk toward the front porch, smoothing my black pencil skirt the entire way and hoping I don’t look as terrified as I feel.
As I round the garage and catch sight of the open front window, I find several lights on inside the house.
Now or never, Holly.
I lift my hand to knock then wait for the door to open, but it never does. I knock again, louder this time, and again, I wait. Still, no answer. Finally, I knock as hard as I can, determined to get a face-to-face with the man who has spent months avoiding me.
The door swings open and, instead of Mr. Grady standing before me as I expect, it’s Cheyenne. Her dark brown hair is up in a messy bun, and she’s wearing a pair of torn jeans and a dark red tank top with no shoes. Her expression turns flat when she realizes it’s me.
“You were serious?” she whines. I had warned her once I’d show up here to meet with her dad, and she hadn’t believed me. Then again, at the time, I hadn’t believed me either.
“Yeah, Cheyenne,” I say with a raise of my eyebrows. “Is your dad home?” To this she snorts.
“Oh man,” she says, “Today is so not the day for a house call. Seriously, Dad’s going through some stuff.”
“Listen, kid, I’ve been trying to meet with your dad for months now, and since he’s had trouble with his phone, I figured I better drop by before Mr. Beck goes through with expelling your ass.”
“Okay, but he’s not here. So we should do it another day. I can let you know when he’s free.” Her eyes are wide and she blinks nervously the more she speaks. She’s a gorgeous girl, really. And as long as I don’t push too hard about her grades, she doesn’t give me too much lip.
“And you’re actually going to give him the message?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes and huffs. I’m about to explain to her my next step should she not deliver the message to her father when the deep rumble of a motorcycle engine sounds from down the road. Motorcycles aren’t uncommon in Fort Bragg—we’re a coastal motorcycle town known for our hometown outlaw club. Being barely over seven thousand strong, we’re a big enough town to vaguely know everybody’s business, but not small enough to know all the gory details. My knowledge of the Forsaken Motorcycle Club begins and ends with two things: A.) They’re outlaws, totally disregarding of the law and its purpose; and B.) They party hard, loud, and don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of them. Other than that, I’m basically clueless about the club.
Despite sharing the same small town as the club for my entire life, I have avoided all things club-related. Still, I’ve always been curious about them and have even come to some conclusions of my own over the years. But in not one of them did I ever assume that a member would have any business in this part of town. I always figured they’d live in either the trailer park or in town in the less expensive housing. The roar of the bike nears as Cheyenne fidgets. I realize too late that the bike is pulling into the driveway.
“Do you know this guy?” I ask Cheyenne, immediately worried for her safety. The large bulking man turns off the bike, removes his half helmet and glares at my Jeep. My hands clutch at the paperwork I’m holding and my breath catches. As he climbs off and stands to his full height, I’m able to fully appreciate his size. He’s tall, that’s for certain, but it’s the bulk of him that has my attention. He’s all muscles and tanned skin with a thick neck and black hair that curls slightly and tucks behind his ears. I move to stand between he and Cheyenne just in case he’s someone who intends to harm her. Though it would be a shame if he were that awful of a human being. So much pure male beauty wrapped up in one package to be a psychopath, but you never know.
“Not you, too,” Cheyenne mutters. I move to look at her, but can’t take my eyes away from the man walking toward us. He walks up in dark blue jeans with a black tee shirt and his leather cut over top. He places his hands on his hips and fixes his glare on me.
“Who the hell are you?” he asks. His eyes travel from my face and linger on my breasts, then down to my waist and right on to my exposed legs.
“Holly Mercer from the high school,” I say and nervously reach out to shake his hand. The man emits intimidation and sex appeal like they’re disposable, yet charm is something he lacks. He looks down at my hand and then back up at my face.
“Cheyenne in trouble?” he clips.
“No,” I stutter and instantly regret it. She is in trouble, actually. I make the attempt to correct myself, but don’t get far. He barks out to Cheyenne and then to me to explain my presence.
“Are you Sterling Grady?” I ask.
“Grady,” he says.
“Pardon?”
“Don’t call me Sterling,” he says. I fight back the urge to do it just to spite him, but think better of it.
“I’ve been calling to speak with you regarding the welfare of your daughter for months now, sir. I just need a moment of your time.”
“The welfare of my daughter? Let’s get a few things straight, lady. My daughter’s welfare is perfectly fucking fine. You want to talk about her grades? Tell her to bring them up. You want to talk about her attendance? Tell her to get her ass to class. She thinks she’s damn grown, so she can take responsibility like she’s grown.”
“She’s seventeen,” I respond.
“She’s totally right here,” Cheyenne quips from beside me. Grady’s eyes don’t even bat her way, but he lifts his arm and snaps his fingers and points inside the house. She waits a moment, huffs, and then stomps off and lets the door slam behind her.
“You telling me how to raise my kid?” he asks, taking a step forward.
“I’m telling you that your daughter is on the verge of being expelled,” I say. “I’m doing everything I can to help her, but I need your signature on the counseling form.”
“She’ll figure out that’s a bad idea real soon,” he says. “Kid don’t really listen. This shit’s on her.” While I hadn’t expected Cheyenne’s father to be a biker—much less to be Forsaken—my commitment to be someone who has her back doesn’t wane.
“That’s the problem. She’s a kid, not an adult. She needs guidance and advice and to have consequences for poor behavior. She needs boundaries. She needs you to tune in,” I snap, surprising myself with my vigor.
“Bitch, Chey’s my kid, and I know what she needs. What she doesn’t need is your uppity ass coming to her home and harassing her about shit. Next time you show up here, it better be to drop to your knees and to suck my dick.”
My cheeks heat, and my mouth drops open. I’m stunned into silence and embarrassment to the point of being unable to respond. Suddenly, everything makes much more sense—from Mr. Beck handing me the case and telling me not to pay it too much attention to the other admins cautiously avoiding talking with me about Cheyenne and her absentee father.
“Excuse me…,” I say, unable to word anything else. Grady leans forward and smirks at me as he invades my space.
“I bet you’d like that, to suck my dick,” he says in that ridiculously husky voice.
“You’re disgusting,” I say and lean forward as well. It doesn’t matter that I’m practically shaking in my pumps. I won’t let him see that. Going for mildly professional, I say, “Don’t speak to me like that.”
“Or what?” he says.
“As a representative of the high school, I have the duty to report any conditions students are living in which may worry me. Please don’t tempt me to report your behavior.”
“Report me, file all the paperwork you’d like. See where it goes.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, “I will.” And with that, I storm off the porch and down the drive to my car. I start her up and peel out with such anxiety that I can barely breathe until I’m back on school property.
That was such a bad idea.
Chapter 2
Grady
THE TANG O
F cheap whiskey rests on my tongue, practically sizzling with its ferocity. It’s been a long time since I’ve drunk as much as I have in the past few days, but it’s also been a long time since I’ve had to bury a friend. And fuck this shit.
Leaning over the solid, wooden table that sits in the center of the room we hold our club meetings in, I wrap my fingers around the mostly empty bottle of whiskey. From across the table, our charter’s vice president, Wyatt, shakes his head. His long hair flops over his shoulders with the movement, and the lines around his eyes fold as his eyes squint. I tighten my grip on the bottle, daring the bastard before me to try and stop me from finishing it off. As far as I’m concerned, he can take his judgment and suck his own dick with it.
In the background, Jim, our charter’s president, goes on and mother-fucking-on about the man we’re burying. He was a good man. He made us proud. He was a brother, and today we put him to rest. It’s always the fucking same when we have to lay a brother down—Chief being the sixth one I’ve had the motherfucking pleasure of putting six feet under. Because with the way shit has been going lately, a cheap pine box is a goddamn gift.
With one quick glance at my empty glass, I lift the bottle to my lips, tilt it back, and suck down as much whiskey as I can before my throat contracts and I’m forced to set the bottle down. A fiery burn erupts in my mouth and throat as the liquor slides down and settles in my gut. I suck in a deep breath and shake off the shiver that runs down my spine. In the background, I hear Jim asking us each to pour ourselves a drink and to raise our glasses in celebration of Chief’s life.
The man to my left makes no sound as he pours himself a glass of shitty bourbon. Ian’s always been a quiet one—stoic and tortured most of the time. It’s the man on his other side, Ryan, who clanks the bottle against his glass and spills a few drops on the wooden table top. I turn just slightly to my left and eye the droplets as they invade the clean surface. Ruby, Jim’s Old Lady, did a lot to clean this place up for today. I sat with her, just yesterday, as she scrubbed the stains out of our chairs and wiped down the table. She wanted everything to be clean for today. And her asshole stepson just made a mess.
I hear the men around me say, ‘to Chief!” loudly. Their voices echo around the edges of the room, but I can’t bring myself to raise the bottle in my hand. It’s Ryan’s fault my best friend is lying in a goddamn box, well overdue for his final burial. The kid’s been making a mess of shit since he was small. He’s selfish and narcissistic and never thinks of how his actions affect anyone else. Not that he’d give a shit even if he did.
The men around me quiet down, and I find myself continuing to focus on those fucking drops. Finally, I drag my eyes up Ryan’s cut and past his ROAD CAPTAIN patch, up his throat and to the scowl on his face. The scowl that never really leaves falls for a moment when he catches my eye. All emotion disappears from his face, his eyes don’t leave mine, and he gives me a quick nod, like we’re tight or some shit. We’re not.
“Clean up your mess,” I say. He doesn’t budge, but he does give the drops a moment’s worth of attention before his brows furrow and he stares at me like I’ve got two heads or something. “Your mother cleaned this table. Don’t be a prick. Clean up your fucking mess.”
From across the table, Duke, our secretary, says in disbelief, “Since when do we give a shit about making a mess?”
“Seriously,” Trigger says. His annoyance is profound. Nothing I say is going to make him understand or give a shit. The only thing I have is the potential of pissing him off to get him to fight me. The urge to fight, to do something, runs through my bones and thuds loud and hard in my veins.
“Why don’t I have that bitch of yours lick it up?” I say, knowing damn well that talking about Alex is going to piss him off. I barely have the words out of my mouth by the time he’s on his feet. His glass falls to the floor beside him, and his chest heaves in agitation. Slowly, I rise to my feet and meet his stance. The men around us—our brothers—push their chairs back and stand. Nobody says a word when I deliver the first blow, nor the second. When Trigger, who’s a good decade my junior, lands a blow to my gut, it knocks the wind out of me. Still, nobody interferes. Eventually he works out his aggression and stops fighting. Laying into him isn’t appealing once he stops fighting back, and I give up. And, unfortunately, the room now looks ten times worse than it did before.
This is how we work through our shit. We fight it out and when we’re done, we go back to dealing with whatever we were before someone had the sudden urge to lay it down. But this time, it’s not going to fix a fucking thing. The pain helps slightly. Blow by blow, it numbs out all of the goddamn feelings I’ve been having lately. I haven’t had this many mixed emotions since the day my daughter was born. But it’s been a damn long time since then, and I’m too old to feel shit this strongly. Despite having spent years numbing shit out, I’m feeling this—Chief’s death—in a way I hate to admit. It makes me feel like the fucking pussy I’ve spent my entire life making sure I’m not.
I met Chief even before I hooked up with Layla, my estranged wife, and long before the best fucking thing in the world came along—my daughter, Cheyenne.
And now he’s gone.
And it’s because Trigger just had to get his dick wet.
“Our brother is dead, but his spirit will live on.” Wyatt reaches to the center of the table and grabs the good scotch that we only break out when shit gets this bad. Our previous president, Jim’s father, Rage, used to say that when your spirits are high, cheap booze is all you need, but when everything’s gone to shit, good liquor is the only thing you’ve got. Rounding up the ten empty glasses, Wyatt breaks open the scotch and pours each glass full, then he slides them down the table, sloshing all the way. He meets my eyes, daring me to say a word about the mess he’s making.
The ten of us raise our glasses in the air and shout, “to Chief,” at once, then we toss the liquor back.
The scotch burns as it slides down my throat. When I set the glass down, black fabric with red and white stitching stares up at me, taunting me, from the table before me. Chief’s memory patch. The patch we wear in honor of a fallen brother. The patch I lift from the table and hold between my calloused fingers. It can’t be more than a few ounces, but it feels like lead in my hands—the ever-lasting reminder of this loss.
Fish stands from his seat and strides across the room. He returns with a wooden chest that he sets in the middle of the table. My brothers and I stand and carefully dig into the chest to retrieve needles and black thread. Then we sit down and proceed to sew our patches onto the back of our cuts, above the seam, tucked into the left side.
When we’re done, we each stand and return our supplies, then walk out into the main room, which is filled with family.
Across the room, I catch sight of my kid, who is seated at a small, round table, her elbow atop it while she engages in easy conversation with my mother. Cheyenne is closing in on eighteen years old, and God help her, she looks just like her mother. She’s convinced that when I say I’m going to shoot the first motherfucker I catch making a move on her that I’m kidding. What she doesn’t get at her age is that I was a teenage boy back when I got ahold of her mother.
Cheyenne says something that makes my mother laugh, and the two throw their heads back with short laughter before they calm themselves and let out hefty sighs. It’s then that I see the tears pooling in the corner of Cheyenne’s eyes. My feet carry me across the room, and I find myself lurking over their table before I think about it too much. It doesn’t matter what it is, I hate it when women cry. I’d rather be stabbed than to listen to the sounds of a chick wailing.
“Daddy,” she says and stands instantly. She’s barely over five feet tall and a hundred pounds. Her arms normally feel light as they wrap around my waist when she pulls me into one of her hugs, but right now, every single touch feels so heavy. I lift an arm and wrap it around her shoulders as she rests her head on my torso. One quick sniffle and the tears are gone, b
ut the sadness isn’t. Chief was her godfather—the man who would have fulfilled my role in her life had he outlived me—a role he took seriously. Chief’s tribe is how Cheyenne got her name, a symbol of what I hope she will grow into—strong, fierce, resilient, and proud. I’ve always been proud of my girl, but standing here, holding her as she keeps her chin up high and puts on a stoic face, shows me how incredibly strong she really is.
“This sucks,” she whispers into my cut.
I tighten my grip around her shoulders and whisper back, “Yeah.”
Because it does.
“Where is the memory patch?” my mom asks. Her curiosity is natural, but the question still makes me flinch. I turn slowly and point to it quickly before turning back around.
“Who sewed that on?” she asks, a bit perplexed.
“I did,” I say. She’s seen me work a needle and thread before, though not often. She always offers to help, but that’s not how things are done.
“I could have done it for you,” she says, predictably.
“No,” I say. “He was my brother, and my patches are my responsibility.” I skip telling her that it’s in the club bylaws, and that there’s honor in sewing on a fallen brother’s patch. I don’t tell her it’s symbolic for the members to sew their own patches. She won’t get it anyway, so I save my breath.
Jim rounds up the entire room and gives direction for where we’re supposed to be. “Brothers, on your bikes, Old Ladies on the back of your Old Man’s bike, and extended family in the SUVs.”
Just as everybody starts to move, the front door creaks open and slams shut. All heads turn toward the door. Standing at nearly six feet tall, with broad shoulders and caramel-colored skin, is Elle Phillips, Chief’s eldest daughter. Even in her grief, Elle is fine as fuck and one hell of a woman. Though her normally hard-set features are somewhat soft now, and her dark brown eyes are rimmed with bags, she still carries herself with confidence and determination. I fight the urge to go to her and show her a side of myself that few people will ever see. But I don’t. As it is, my brothers wonder about us, and today is not the day to disrespect her father any further.
