All Your Reasons

by Nina Levine

  Her lips pursed together. I knew this was going to be a battle. Maree was the kind of person who always needed to be surrounded by people whereas I didn’t. I craved time to myself and felt like I would go crazy when I didn’t get enough of it. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Evie. I don’t mind hanging out with you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  My weariness intensified. I just wanted her to go so I could have a shower and then curl up in my bed and wallow in my grief. She wasn’t making it easy for me, though, and even the thought of having to argue with her over it heightened my exhaustion. “No, that’s not what I’m worried about. You know me, and you know I like time to myself. That’s all this is about. I know that you think you know better about what I need, but just because it’s what you would want if you were me doesn’t mean it’s what I want. Can you understand that?”

  Hurt flickered across her face but she covered it well and nodded. “Okay,” she whispered and pushed her chair back to stand. Looking down at me, she said, “But if you need me, all you have to do is call.”

  As relief filled me that she’d listened, I reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you. You’re a good friend.”

  She slung her bag over her shoulder and gave me one last smile. “I’m always here for you, Evie. I just wish I could take away all the bad shit for you.”

  I gave her a weak smile and nodded. “I know, babe. I know.”

  When the front door closed shut a couple of moments later, I took a deep breath and then pushed it back out. My heart sat heavy in my chest. Over the years, so many people had stomped on it, but this felt the worst.

  Maybe it had finally taken one too many beatings.

  Maybe the patches I’d given it were no longer enough to hold it together.

  Maybe it needed more than bandages to put it back together.

  And if that was the case, I was screwed.

  Love had packed up and walked out of my life a long time ago.

  Chapter Two

  Kick

  “You ready to fuck some assholes up?” King asked me as he passed me a beer.

  I took the drink and drank some before asking him, “Who?”

  He shifted forward in his seat to speak which was a good thing. Even though it was only eleven in the morning, it was busy in the clubhouse bar and the noise, combined with the deafness in my left ear, made it hard for me to hear what he was saying.

  “Someone who fucked with someone I love. And whoever is with him when we get to him.” He took a swig of his beer and sat patiently waiting for my answer.

  I didn’t ask him any further questions. I never did. When King had a job for me, I did it without hesitation. Looking at my President now, I thought back to the first day I’d met him. Thirteen years ago. I’d been twenty-two and he’d only been a couple of years older, but, even back then, he’d been a law unto himself. He wasn’t our President at the time, but all the boys knew he’d be the next one.

  “You in on this or do you want me to go alone?” I asked.

  He grinned his wicked fucking grin that told me he wouldn’t miss this for the world. King was a bloodthirsty motherfucker and liked to be hands-on whenever he could. “I’m in and we do this tonight. Meet me at the clubhouse at midnight.”

  I nodded and silently drank more of my beer. Drinking with King was easy. He was a man of few words – one of his best traits as far as I was concerned. I’d never had a problem or disagreement with him, unlike a lot of the club members. He was a hard man and expected a lot, but if you kept your head down and got the shit done he needed you to, then you were all good. King and I were good.

  After a couple of silent moments, he said, “Heard you were heading out to a funeral today. Were you close to him?”

  Regret punched me in the gut.

  Was I close to him?

  I should have been fucking closer and that shit was on me, not Jeremy.

  It was my fault that, when he’d died, he hadn’t known how fucking sorry I was that we’d spent the last five years not having each other’s backs. “Yeah, brother. We grew up together and he helped me through a lot of shit. But we kinda lost track of each other for a while there. Only just got back in touch three months ago.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered. The emotion that momentarily crossed his face was more than I’d seen on it in months. That surprised the hell out of me; the only emotions King tended to exhibit were anger or a manic-like excitement. King wasn’t full of deep emotions. Well, not that I’d ever seen.

  “He died in a car accident. Drunk driver took him out.”

  “Motherfucker,” he snarled as he abruptly stood up. Looking down at me with a feral look, he said, “You find the cunt that did it, bring that name to me, and I will make fucking sure he never does it again.”

  I stared up at him, unsure where his sudden outburst had come from, and simply nodded.

  He leant his hand on the table and dipped his head towards mine. “We clear, Kick? I want that fucking name.”

  “We’re clear.”

  Straightening, he gave me one last hard nod before stalking out of the room. He ran into our

  Vice President, Hyde, on the way, and after they had a quick conversation, Hyde made his way to me. I eyed him, uncertain about his mood today, and waited for him to speak so I could gauge where he was at.

  With a jerk of his chin, he said, “King says you’re at a funeral for the rest of the day.”

  “Yeah. Why? Have you got something you need me to take care of?”

  “See, that’s why I fuckin’ like you, Kick. And it’s why you’re mine and King’s go-to-guy when shit needs to be done. Can’t fuckin’ count on anyone the way we can on you.”

  “What time do you need me back here?” I asked him.

  “Four. That work for you?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Good.” And with that, he turned and left.

  I watched him as he barked something at one of the other guys. Jekyll and Hyde. That was our VP. Never could be sure if he would rip your head off or buy you a drink. I’d had a few run-ins with him, but the thing about Hyde was unless you really screwed him over, he didn’t tend to hold onto shit. Unlike King who remembered every little fucking thing done to him and always made sure payback was delivered at some point.

  As Hyde exited the room, I emptied my glass and stood. It was time to visit old ghosts.

  And old flames.

  ***

  “Evie,” I called out as I jogged to catch up to her, the heat of the day causing my shirt to stick to me.

  She stopped and turned to face me, her body language clear. She didn’t want to talk to me. Sighing, she murmured, “What do you want, Kick?”

  Fuck.

  Beauty like I’d seen on no other woman lit her face, even today when I knew she would be struggling with what we’d just sat through. The tiredness I saw on her face was a dead giveaway to her grief, as were her unruly hair and lack of makeup. I’d spent most of the funeral watching her, taking in the changes to her body since I’d last seen her just over a year ago. The curves I’d grown up loving had almost disappeared. The black dress she wore today hung limply off her whereas in the past, it would have hugged the shit out of her. Evie had always had hang-ups about her body but I’d always fucking loved it. The more curves the better as far as I was concerned.

  I let my eyes wander over her. Even in her curve-less and exhausted state, she turned me on. I was sure she always would. “Are you okay?” I asked, silently willing her to speak to me rather than pushing me away like I knew she probably wanted to do.

  Her mask slipped for a moment and then she quickly put it back in place before saying, “I’ll be fine.”

  I took a step closer to her and as she tried to move away from me, I quickly flicked my hand out and caught her wrist, halting her movement. “Don’t do that,” I said, annoyed we were back here, back to a place where she tried to hide herself from me.

  “Do what?
”

  “That thing you do where you shut down and sweep your feelings away as if they don’t matter.” She’d been doing it for as long as I’d known her. Twenty-seven years. “You lost a friend, Evie . . . we lost a friend, and I’m sure as fuck not coping with it so I know you’ve gotta be struggling too.”

  She pulled free of my hold. “He’s gone, and we’ve gotta keep going. Simple as that.”

  What the fuck?

  “You’re fuckin’ kidding me, right?” I asked, my voice hard. Forceful. Demanding. Her words made no sense. Jeremy had been like family to us growing up, and there was no way we just moved on from this. No way she would just move on from this.

  “No, I’m not. Funerals are to say goodbye, and I’ve just said goodbye.” Her brown eyes betrayed her, though. She was struggling with this, too.

  “That’s bullshit. It’s gonna take us a long time to say goodbye. That shit isn’t covered in a fuckin’ funeral, Evie.”

  Those brown eyes of hers flared with what I figured was anger. “How would you know how long it’ll take me? You haven’t seen me in a year, Kick, so you have no idea what’s going on with me anymore. Don’t come back here today thinking you know me, ‘cause you don’t. The day you walked out on me three years ago was the day I changed.” She was angry, and yet her voice held none of the angry passion it had when we were together.

  I stepped into her space again and bent my face to hers. “I do know you. I know how you like to handle shit you don’t want to deal with. I know you prefer to shut down and not let your feelings out. And I fuckin’ know you feel every-fuckin’-thing deep, babe. Losing Jeremy would have cut you deep and you can try and hide it from everyone, but you can’t hide shit from me.” I moved my face even closer to hers before I whispered, “I see you, Evie. I’ve always seen you, and I know you’re struggling. Let me in.”

  She froze and stared at me in silence for a beat. Then her breathing picked up as the words fell out of her mouth. “Why now, Kick? Why couldn’t you have just come back for the funeral and left me alone?”

  The desperate plea in her voice did not go unheard. It was the same fucking question I was asking myself even as I was asking her to let me in.

  Why the fuck now?

  I didn’t answer her, and she demanded again, “Why?”

  The anger in her tone fired me up. “You weren’t the only one disappointed we ended things three years ago. Did you ever stop to think about that?” I threw my words at her, instantly regretting the harshness of them and wishing like fuck I could scrub them away and start again.

  “No, because you were the one who ended it!”

  And there was the passion that had been missing before. I fucking loved her passion so even though she was mad at me now, I was on cloud-fucking-nine.

  She still loves me.

  I couldn’t hide it, I grinned. And that pissed her off even more. Story of my fucking life.

  “What the fuck, Kick?” she snapped. We were still in each other’s faces and that fact didn’t elude me. She hadn’t moved away from me.

  We can still make this work.

  “I didn’t end it, baby. You ended it. Did you forget that?” I said softly.

  Confusion flashed across her face and she frowned. I knew her so well it was like I could see her brain flicking through the memories. “I remember we fought and you said you didn’t want me in your world.”

  “Yeah, and then you said you were done and we were done. You ended it.”

  “No! You did. You didn’t want me!”

  Fuck, I’d missed this. Evie arguing with me turned me way the fuck on. Any other woman yelling at me like this would piss me right off, but not Evie. “I didn’t want to bring you into my world. You knew that.”

  “Jesus, I was already in your world. I fucking grew up in your world.”

  I shook my head. “You know that’s not the world I’m talking about - ”

  She cut me off. “I don’t even know why we’re arguing over this! It’s in the past, and it’s done.” Her wild eyes stared at me and her shoulders tensed up. Hell, her whole body was tense, and that made my day.

  Evie wasn’t done with this.

  If she were, she wouldn’t be lashing out like this.

  I raised my brows. “You sure about that?”

  She hesitated, and although she tried to act like she hadn’t, I caught it. “Yes,” she said with determination, but I knew it was more to convince herself than me. Half the time, I knew Evie’s next thought and move before her. After being the one she’d confided all her fears, worries and happiness in while growing up, I fucking knew how her mind worked.

  Again, I shook my head. “No, you’re not, and I’m going to show you just how fuckin’ unsure of it you really are.”

  Her eyes widened and she finally moved away from me. I’d expected her to put distance between us from the beginning of the conversation. The fact she hadn’t was just another sign she wasn’t done with this. When she spoke, it was like all the passion of a minute ago had been drained from her. Exhaustion had stepped back in. “Just leave it, Kick. We tried twice and we couldn’t make it work. And we’ve both changed. We’re not those kids who loved each other anymore.”

  She didn’t give me time to say anything else before turning and walking away from me. My mouth opened to call out to her again but I quickly snapped it shut. I’d catch up with her later. I had no intention of letting her walk away from me permanently again, and perhaps I needed to take this slowly. Fuck, I wasn’t known for slow, but for Evie I would do anything.

  And she was wrong.

  We’d always be those kids who loved each other.

  Underneath all the shit that was me today, I still loved her.

  It was fucked up, though, that it had taken Jeremy’s death for me to admit that.

  ***

  Darkness blanketed the clubhouse when I arrived back there at midnight to meet up with King. It was one of the club member’s birthdays, so most of the boys were out celebrating with him.

  King stood leaning against his bike waiting for me, a grin stretched across his face. I pulled up next to him and waited for his instructions.

  “Did you and Hyde get that job done this afternoon?” he asked.

  “Yeah, the debt was settled. And it was clean.” We’d collected off one of our junkie customers who hadn’t paid in over a month. Surprisingly, no blood had been shed.

  He nodded. “Good. Now, you ready for some fun?” he asked, a dangerous tone to his voice. I knew what ‘fun’ meant to King.

  With a nod of my head, I said, “You lead the way.”

  No other words were exchanged and his bike roared to life.

  Our destination was fairly close, only about a fifteen-minute ride. When we pulled up outside the run down house with two bikes outside, my gut seized with a mixture of anticipation and concern. King was known for pulling some crazy shit in his time, but to fuck with fellow bikers was a little past crazy.

  “What’s going on, King?” I asked as I walked towards him.

  “One of these fuckers stole off my sister. Payback’s gonna be a bitch.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “I’m sensing there’s some other shit going on here. Don’t fuck with me, brother, tell me the full story so I know what the fuck I’m walking into.”

  He lit a smoke and took a long drag. When his gaze hit mine, the grin from earlier was gone from his eyes and a hard look had replaced it. “You’ve got a sister, right?” He waited for my nod and once I gave it, he continued. “My sister is a lot younger than me, twenty-three, and one of these cunts was dating her and thought he’d share her around with his mates at a party when she was drunk. Lucky for her, a friend of mine was there and stepped in. The cunt fucked off and she didn’t hear from him again until three days later when he showed up at her house and beat her up and stole the money she’d been saving.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered, understanding his rea
son for being here now. I’d be here, too, if it was my sister.

  “Yeah, fuck. Skylar didn’t fucking tell me she was dating him because if she had, I would have put a fucking stop to it. The fucker is a Silver Hell member. I only found all this shit out when my friend called me to ask how she was.”

  Fuck.

  If what I figured was about to go down did actually go down, we were about to declare war with the Silver Hell MC.

  King finished his smoke and stubbed it out. Slapping me on the back, he asked, “You with me, brother?”

  I never hesitated when it came to my President. “Yeah, I’ve always got your back.”

  His eyes lit with that dangerous gleam again. “Let’s go party then.”

  He strode to the front door and banged it hard with the palm of his hand and yelled out, “Open up, motherfucker!”

  We waited for less than a minute before the door was yanked open. A pissed-off Silver Hell member glared at us, but only for a second, because King stepped inside the house and sucker punched him. The guy dropped to the ground, knocked out cold, and King stepped over his body to walk down the hallway.

  I entered the house and the stench of cigarette smoke, booze and sex hit me. Fuck, I hoped the women had left already. King was unpredictable, yes, but my guess was he wouldn’t leave any witnesses alive to tell the tale.

  The hallway led into a filthy kitchen full of dirty dishes and rubbish strewn across the counters. It was empty so we continued into the living room. Still empty in there, but a bloodcurdling scream from an adjoining room alerted us where to go next. King picked up the pace and kicked the door in without even attempting to open it. Jacked up on adrenaline and a desire for revenge, nothing would stop him now.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” King thundered as he came to a halt the minute he entered the room.

  I followed him in and stopped, too, sickened at the sight in front of us. A Silver Hell’s biker had a naked girl strapped to the bed, spreadeagled. He sat atop her but I could see her face, and she didn’t look to be any older than about sixteen. And it wasn’t consent written across her stricken face.