by A. J. Downey
“I love you,” she stated bluntly. I set the pot of ointment aside and wiped my hands on one of our discarded bath towels.
“But..?”
She bowed her head and shook it, trying to gather her thoughts. I sat patient on the outside while I tried like hell not to die on the inside, fearful of what she was going to say… Jesus, was this it? Was she going to quit on me? Her eyes locked on mine and her face crumbled a little.
“The MC, I just…” she looked at me, searched my face, which I tried like hell to keep neutral. She’d been through hell in a hand basket and yesterday was no exception to that rule. You come that close to dying and it did some fucked up things to your head. She didn’t need me putting pressure, making any demands, begging like a pussy… She knew what she needed and she was going to tell me or talk to me or whatever. I just had to man up and let her do her thing, even though what I wanted to do was make her stay. Do or say anything to keep her.
“Talk to me, Baby, just tell me what you got going on in there.” My voice was quiet, I was trying for soothing, no pressure here… Just please, just fucking talk to me Dani! on the inside, but nothing on the outside.
“I don’t know what to do, Thirteen. I love you, so much, but I don’t know what to do! If I should stay, if I should go… I don’t have anywhere to go! I just, I just don’t know if I can stay, though, be with someone in an MC after everything… I can’t go back to that! How do I know I’m safe? I mean, I thought I was safe and then he was here and I wasn’t and, and…” I pulled her lightly into my arms.
“Shhh, Dani it’s okay. Shhh.”
She was panicking, anxiety kicking her full in the teeth, and there wasn’t much I could do about that except let her go through it and be here for her. She didn’t cry, but her breath wasn’t even.
I rocked her gently and she finally said, miserably, “What do I do? I just don’t know what to do… What if the rest of them come? Gordy is still out there, and Pipes and Bandit, what if they come next? Is it ever going to stop?”
Fuck.
This was club business and shit she shouldn’t know about. Telling her those fucks were dead was way out of pocket. Put me and my brothers in danger if she ever turned on us. I stared into her wide, blue eyes, and had a decision to make. My girl, or breaching my club’s protocols.
“Dani, Baby, do you trust me?” I asked her. She hesitated, but I can’t say that was a bad thing. I mean, I wanted her to think about this. Really think about it, which I knew she always did, and there it was. The spark, the dawning of understanding in her true blue eyes; she nodded, sure, no questions asked.
“Yes,” she said aloud, for my benefit that we were being crystal clear.
“You don’t have to worry about any of them anymore. I swear to you. I promise you. If I’m lying may I be stripped of my fucking cut and put Out Bad. You. Are. Safe.”
She swallowed hard and nodded carefully.
“As for the rest, Babe, this club has been my life for a real long time, I really don’t want to be in a position where I have to choose because it ain’t no choice at –“
She pressed both of her small hands over my mouth abruptly and shook her head.
“I won’t do that to you. I couldn’t do that to you and I really don’t want to know. There’s been so much pain and so much guilt for so many things… No more. Please no more,” and now her eyes did begin to well.
“Can you give it two weeks?” I asked her, holding her lightly against me.
“Two weeks? What happens in two weeks?” she asked, and I was glad she held me back, her slender arms around me.
“We make the ride to Florida to get the other guy’s women. All of us. Just give me two weeks, make the ride with me. Just this one ride, meet the girls, soak up some sun, relearn how to breathe. No decisions until then. You decide after we get there that you can’t do it, I bring you home, help you get set up wherever doing whatever you want. One day at a time, two weeks, can I have that?” I asked.
She nodded against my chest, “I can do that,” she said and she sounded much better, less overwhelmed. Baby steps. One day, one week at a time. One event at a time. Not too much too fast. It was the best I could figure for my smart girl who would take on the world if I let her.
I wasn’t giving up my club or my woman. Dani didn’t know what I’d been about to say. It really wasn’t any choice at all. I would have both. I’d walk through hell in gasoline boots for her and for my club, and there had to be a version of the world where I could and would have both. There had to be.
I helped her dress, and dressed myself, and we went out to the kitchen to find ourselves something to eat, even though she looked like she’d rather hurl than put anything in her stomach. I coaxed her into eating anyways. I knew she was a bundle of nerves, but she was my bundle of nerves and I would take care of her. Be there for her. Give her some kind of happily ever after. She deserved it, she deserved the world, the moon, the stars… hell, everything. I just hoped I could be the man to deliver. I really did.
“What do you want to do, Baby?” I asked her when we’d finished eating. She looked at me and heaved a great sigh.
“I know it sounds bad, but I want to go back to bed… to sleep.”
I nodded, “Okay.”
After everything, and with everything crashing down seemingly all at once, a day in bed sounded like a pretty fine idea and so that’s what we did. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t spend that time, all of that time, staring at Dani’s sleeping, haggard face; trying to figure out how to keep her, and my club, but most importantly do it in such a way that she would be happy. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t feel a touch of loathing for myself, at what a selfish prick I sounded like inside my own head, but that… that was a problem for another day.
Chapter 30
Dani…
The days crept by. I spent a lot of time in my shop, working on things. I spent even more time around the guys and that, somehow, more than anything, made me feel like things really were going to be okay. Thirteen was patient, kind, but even he could tell I was out of joint and so, on the third or fourth day after Griz came after me, he finished putting the Aquaphor on my back for my tattoo and then shoved the pot into one of his saddlebags on the floor by the bedroom door.
“Are we going somewhere?” I asked softly.
“Figured we’d get you out of here for a day or so, go back up to my cabin,” he said gently.
“A ride?” I perked up at that. The sun and the wind and that sense of freedom was calling my name.
“You really like to ride, don’t you?” he asked, grinning.
“By, like, a lot,” I was smiling now, probably one of the first full smiles I’d cracked in days.
“You aren’t riding like that, better get something better than stretch pants on. I’ll be out front.” He lifted the saddlebags, which appeared to be packed and ready to go, and left me sitting on the edge of the bed, shirtless and staring after him before my brain caught up to the fact that I could leave… I was so used to having to have permission that it hadn’t even crossed my mind that I could have left the SHMC compound at any point.
“Jesus, Dani, for as smart as he tells you that you are, you can be dumber than a box of rocks, Girl,” I muttered to myself as I scrambled to comply, fetching jeans and a shirt and just all things suitable to ride in from my wardrobe. My wardrobe that Thirteen had cunningly spliced into his closet and drawers along with his things, while I’d worked away in my shop.
I went out into the common area. It felt strange to be wearing boots rather than my soft Converse, but for riding, boots were best. They always would be. The jeans were comfortable enough. A favorite pair of mine, the tops of the thighs lighter, discolored from age and wear as opposed to being some fancy designer pair you paid five hundred dollars for. Nope. I came by the threadbare holes that were starting in this pair honestly. Although they were designer, I’d found them brand new with the tags still on for twenty bucks at a discount sto
re.
“Ho! Look at you, Girl!” Dragon crowed from where he was slouched in a chair. He had work spread in front of him, like old fashioned ledgers and numbers kind of book keeping. I smiled and pulled my hair from the collar of my leather jacket. My back itched beneath the weight of the leather and my plain, figure hugging, black cotton tee, but I would have to get over it. There was nothing I could do for it.
I slipped my bug-eyed sunglasses out of my pocket and pulled a cleaning cloth out of the little pocket in the front of the leather meant to hold a cigarette lighter, polishing the plastic lenses as I came more fully into the common room.
“You look good, Rocket,” Thirteen said from the door. I smiled for him.
“Thanks,” I murmured. Dragon pushed to his booted feet and came towards us.
“I think this is a good idear, you getting away from here a day or two,” he said, and sucked his teeth. I had to smile at the way he said ‘idea.’ He added an ‘r’ in there without meaning to, so it came out ‘idear’ instead of ‘idea.’ It was such an old-school thing to say, and reminded me of Skid during the few good times. My smile diminished. In my heart of hearts I knew Skid was gone and I kept going back and forth on it; one minute being okay, the next, kind of missing him. I put my sunglasses on in a bid to hide the warring emotions in my eyes and Dragon raised an eyebrow.
“See those?” he asked, holding out a hand. I frowned but held them out. He promptly gripped them in his big hands and snapped them in two at the nose bridge, rendering them useless. I gaped and scoffed, incredulous. He smiled and pulled a case out of his inside pocket.
“Think these might suit you better, they were my wife’s.” He held out the hard eyeglass case and I blinked. I knew the story. Dray had told me about his woman, Everett, one night while we were all out back sitting around a fire in one of those outdoor copper fire pit basins. The guys drinking beer, relaxing on these wood lounge chairs that Nox had built with his brother, Rush.
I had been sitting between Thirteen’s thighs, back against his chest, his arms around me, cuddling me close, when Dray had just started talking about her, about how she understood him and how he missed her most at times like these. He’d said she got him more than anyone else because of their shared loss of a parent close to the same age. Then all of the guys had started reminiscing about Tilly, Dragon’s wife and Dray’s mom.
I stared dumbly at the eye glass case in my hands until Dragon grumbled, “Ain’t like I’m giving you the Holy Grail, Girl. Go on, open it.”
Blinking back tears at the gesture, I opened the case and found a pair of black-framed glasses, the lenses rectangular and a deep lavender, the frames thin and girly.
“Pretty face like yers, no need to be hiding that with big, bug-eyed lenses. Now go on and get out of here.” Dragon tapped me on the shoulder, one of those open handed claps to the upper arm, and I wiped at the moisture in my eyes and sniffed. Sometimes being a girl had its advantages. Like now. I hugged the big, older biker and he barked a bit of a laugh. I slipped the glasses on my face and put the case in my inside pocket.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“You bet, Dani,” Dragon said softly, and I reached for and took Thirteen’s outstretched hand and let him lead me outside.
The sky was cloudless and as blue as a summer sky could be, and Thirteen’s bike idled at the ready just outside the door. I cast a look over towards my tired old Mazda, which hadn’t moved since it’d been parked, and I felt a little rueful. Thirteen handed me my helmet and with a surge of joy I whipped my hair up into a messy knot and, helmet in place, got on behind him.
“You good?” he called. I couldn’t help but grin. Dragon’s small gesture had broken something loose, and the weight of sorrow that I had been carrying since I’d been coated in Griz’s blood and brains lifted. I snugged in close against Thirteen’s back and squeezed him with my thighs. He bit off a laugh.
“Babe you’re gonna make me hard as fuck, you keep that up!” he called.
“Good! I’ll take care of you at the cabin!” I called back and he barked a laugh.
“You have no idea what riding with a Thirteen-inch boner is like. If you did, you’d knock it off,” he said. I wrinkled my nose and snuggled a little closer. Thirteen shook his head, put it in gear, and took us down the driveway as the gate rumbled to the side. I held on tight as he took us onto the highway and let the wind strip the rest of the weight of my sorrow away.
Chapter 31
Red XIII…
The ride was great, but Dani had disappeared back inside of herself again. She’d been withdrawn the last few days. Quiet and reserved, thoughtful, and borderline secretive. And with every second that ticked by, I felt a distance growing between us. I couldn’t read her anymore and that scared me.
Now we were at the cabin, cleaned up and chillin’ on the one old, wood lounge chair that I’d drug out to the end of the dock. The sun was setting over the lake and I had some beers in a bucket off the side, cooling in the water. We each had one open, Dani peeling the label off her bottle as she stared thoughtfully out over the water. Her blue eyes bright enough to match the sky earlier were vacant. Almost lost.
“I feel like I’m losing you, Baby.” The confession was out of my mouth before I even realized I had intent to give it voice. Dani startled and rolled her head back against my shoulder to look up at me. I looked down at her, and I knew my expression was grim.
She frowned, “Why would you say that to me?” she asked and the hurt in her voice was unmistakable. It killed a part of me to hear it, knowing I put it there. I bowed my head, breaking eye contact.
“Used to be, I could look at you and see your wheels turning and I could just feel what you was thinking.” I swallowed hard and took a slug of my beer to wet my mouth, which was suddenly dry. I wasn’t used to talking about feelings and shit but this was important. I’d never felt anything like what I felt for Dani Broussard.
She shifted and laid her head against my shoulder, her arms going around me before she spoke.
“A lot has happened and I feel, I don’t know, like I’ve been flung out into space… Like I’m spinning wildly with nothing to grab on to, and it’s confusing.” She took a shuddering breath and let it out. “I’m afraid that I’m too needy, that you’re going to get bored or that you’re going to start hating being my white knight. I’m afraid if I don’t get my shit together, you’re going to resent me. I’m scared, Thirteen. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before.”
I set my beer down on the dock and I clutched her to my chest, smoothing my fingers through her long hair, gently combing through any tangles. I kissed her forehead, and her eyes drifted shut.
“First, I’m no white knight, Baby Girl. If anything, I’m just some asshole in aluminum foil.” She choked a bitter laugh and I tugged gently on her hair, forcing her to look at me.
“I don’t think you get it. I love you just so fucking much, and I don’t even know when it happened, Baby. I’m fuckin’ terrified that you’re slipping through my god damned fingers and it’s putting me into a dangerous frame of mind. I don’t want to have to let you go. It’d kill me. I’d be less of a man without you by my side, on the back of my bike. You fucking complete me.”
She stared up at me, eyes wide, and her mouth dropped open in a little ‘o’ of surprise. I don’t think anyone had ever told her just how much she was worth to them, which was a damned shame all by itself.
“And on another note. You just got out of one seriously fucked up situation. You’ve been through the wringer. Backwards, forwards, and sideways. Dani, this shit don’t heal overnight. Just because it’s over don’t mean that it ends there. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. You get what I’m saying?” Her mouth snapped shut and she swallowed, her blue eyes snapping fire. Her spark was back, that keen intelligence of hers working overtime, her gears whirring and clicking behind those gorgeous fucking eyes of hers.
“I’ve been really thinking about a lot of things,” she ad
mitted, then fell silent.
“Just talk to me, Baby, that’s all I’m asking.” I knew my tone was pleading, but I didn’t fucking care.
“We can’t live at the club.” Her tone was final but I was paying attention. I was paying attention so hard I stopped breathing.
“Okay… what are you saying?” My heart did a barrel roll in my chest.
“I’m saying I want a life with you Thirteen, that if I have to choose a life with you and the MC in it, that I would rather have that than have nothing at all.” She wouldn’t look at me, her head against my chest, ear resting over my heart.
“I’m not going to make you choose, that would be cruel and incredibly unfair,” she said when the silence stretched on for too long. It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say, it’s just that… Well fuck me! I didn’t have a fucking thing to say! Not in the face of her bravery or generosity, not… Oh to fucking hell with it!
I hauled her up my body and claimed her mouth with mine. Her beer dropped from her hand and clacked to the dock, rolling away, leaving a trail of foam in its wake. Her hands were cool against my face where she cupped it as our tongues mingled softly. She tasted bright and crisp and slightly salty, which I realized were her tears a moment later. I broke the kiss and looked at my beautiful girl.
“Dani you know you ain’t got to be afraid, right? You know that me, my brothers, that each and every one of us would protect you until our final dying breath. You get that, right?” I asked her. She stared at me blankly and I realized too fucking late what it was… Dani only had the Suicide Cunts to go by as a measuring stick. As smart as she was, she didn’t know how MC’s were really supposed to work. How each and every brother was supposed to have your back and, by default, those of the women and children belonging to you.
“Jesus Christ, I’ve failed…” I heard myself utter, even as the enormity of what I’d done, or really the lack thereof, hit home.
