A Brother At My Back

by A. J. Downey

  He’d parted the red sea of emotional pain for me, just like I’d asked, but as with all things, what goes up must come down and I crashed hard. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Like at all. He leaned over me, gathering me close as I dissolved into raging, wracking sobs.

  So what a man wants from a woman while he had yet to go soft inside her, I thought harshly.

  “It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he murmured and it was exactly what I needed from him when I needed it. I still didn’t understand how he did that so well.

  He moved from between my legs and lay beside me, pulling me into him, holding me tight while the storm of emotion swept over and through me. I held onto him, and, it was like I clung, not to a man of flesh and bone, but to my very last shred of sanity in the incredibly cruel and twisted drama that my life had become.

  I wept until I had absolutely nothing left and he was so patient and so kind, smoothing my hair out of my tears, kissing my forehead, my eyelids, and even the tip of my nose.

  “I know it’s bad, eh, but I’m not going anywhere,” he promised and I realized I was all cried out. I felt my body ease from its stiff posture and he smiled sadly at me and I could read from his expression that he was absolutely miserable for me. That he genuinely lived in my misery right along with me and it was both a comfort and the most distressing thing because I didn’t want him to hurt. Not because of me.

  “Never because of you,” he said and I realized I had said what I’d been thinking out loud. “You make me the happiest I’ve been in a long time, Wahine.”

  “I don’t understand that,” I said, honestly.

  “You don’t have to understand it, just believe it,” he told me and I sniffed. He thumbed some stray tears out from underneath my eyes and smiled saying, “Let’s get cleaned up.”

  “Okay,” I murmured. He got up and handed me one of his tees, pulling on a pair of loose shorts. He pulled a couple of towels from the top of the closet and his hair from its loose ponytail, tossing the hair tie on top of the dresser. I hugged myself and he held out a hand to me. I reached out and twined my fingers with his, and stopped for a moment, just staring at our hands.

  “What is it?” he asked and I looked up at him, just so overwhelmed by how much I felt for him but now, of all times, was so not the time to say it.

  “Nothing,” I lied, and he drew me to him.

  “Won’t make you tell me,” he said softly, “But you should know you don’t ever have to be afraid to tell me anything.”

  “I know that,” I said quickly, my pulse suddenly quickening in the side of my throat.

  “No judgments here,” he whispered and I swallowed hard.

  “I know that, too,” I murmured. He nodded and pressed lips to my forehead and led me across the hall to the bathroom.

  It was a locker room, sort of, in here. Tile floors with a bank of three showers, a urinal, and two toilet stalls. A bank of two sinks was right as you walked in, and there was a low bench just outside the shower bay.

  “Reminds me of this swimming pool I used to go to when I was a kid. The mom thought it was a good idea all of us kids learned to swim and the lessons were free for kids like me. I liked it there.” I closed my eyes and breathed deep, but the smell of chlorine was absent from the room, though the smell of clean was there. Of cleanser and disinfectant, also of new, like this place had barely been used and like it wasn’t that old. Not freshly built, the scent of new caulking and sealant was too faint for that.

  His hands lightly fell on my shoulders and I jumped, my eyes flicking open to his strong, tattooed face that was somber with an emotion I couldn’t readily define.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Just you,” he said back.

  “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “You’re so beautiful to me. Just so sad at the same time. Even before this.”

  “I’m happiest when I’m with you,” I said, and it was true. It was just hard to find any bit of light right now.

  “I see that too,” he said.

  I sniffed and he pulled me close and simply held me for a time.

  “Will you read to me before bed?” I asked.

  “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “You sure about that?” I asked and I meant it to sound teasing, but I don’t know that it came out that way. He went to his knees, carefully, hands slipping up the hem of his tee to rest along the top of my thighs, just under my ass.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Well, I figure if I were going to get you to look at me, I needed to come down here.”

  I blinked and frowned slightly. “I don’t understand.”

  “The floor, Girl. You’re always looking at the floor.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hadn’t realized,” I said and he got back to his feet. He smiled faintly, his fingertips traveling around my legs and up my hips, dragging the tee with it as he stood. I raised my arms and let him drag the soft material over my head. He dropped it, lying beside the towels on the bench.

  I was suddenly fascinated, completely mesmerized by his movements as he slipped out of his shorts and went into the shower, turning it on, getting the water warm before reaching out to me. I went to him and he drew me under the spray, tipping my head back and letting my hair soak, the water from the shower-head sluicing it back from my face.

  “You’re an extraordinary woman,” he whispered and I stepped closer to him and pressed my lips to his. I loved that he said these things to me, out of the blue, but at the same time, for reasons I couldn’t understand, they embarrassed me and so I kissed him to silence him and his compliments. The only way I knew how to tell him I loved them, but also, that I was uncomfortable hearing them.

  He washed me. Carefully, mindful that I might be, and actually was, sore. Of course, it was that delicious kind of soreness that only a really good fuck could provide.

  “Just lean against me,” he murmured as he washed my hair and I did. Holding him around his waist carefully.

  I felt so disconnected from everything. Wrung out and exhausted, but not tired. It was confusing. I couldn’t really hold onto a single thought in my head and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. So I let him take care of me. I let him do everything and stood in my zombie-like state and fell ever more hopelessly in love with him, which was terrifying to me now.

  I mean, what if Silas found out? He would hurt Nik, possibly even kill him, just to hurt me.

  I found myself fetched up hard against his chest and trembling, my lips pressed to his shoulder as he held me and soothed me. I hated this. I hated what I’d become, this trembling, anxiety-riddled thing.

  Things blurred and the next I knew he was drying me off, but I couldn’t remember him turning off the shower. Then we were cuddled in his bed, but I don’t remember walking back across the hall.

  “You’re exhausted,” he said. “Just sleep,” but I couldn’t, not really.

  He read to me and I don’t know what it was he read from one of his many books off one of his many shelves, but that didn’t matter so much. What mattered was I was safe, I felt loved, and I was carefully cradled against his chest as his rich, melodic, accented voice lulled me word by word, minute by minute until I saw, felt, and heard nothing, claimed by sleep.

  28

  Zeb…

  A soft knock at my door, but damn it, Tiff had just fallen asleep not long before. I didn’t want to move her so I called out, “Yeah!” and hoped that it wouldn’t wake her.

  Dragon opened the door and stepped in, swinging it shut behind him and putting his back up against a jutting corner of the wall. He pressed back into it, wincing, and I couldn’t tell if he was stretching or scratching his back like a bear against a tree.

  “I hate your bike,” he said, and I laughed a little, cutting it off and checking on my girl but she was out.

  “Keys to your cage are on the dresser, same with the spares for all the club rooms.”

  “Ah, s
hit, got locked out huh?”

  “Yeah, Data and Mali to the rescue.”

  Dragon nodded and swapped out the rings of keys.

  “Boys are out there, lookin’. I don’t reckon it’s going to take long to find one or the other of ‘em.”

  “Find one, you find ‘em both,” I agreed.

  “No women, no children,” he said softly, and his dark eyes roved over her still form draped over my chest. I felt a spike of jealousy. Knowing that he and she had… Well, it wasn’t easy for me, and despite understanding with your head, sometimes your feelings on the matter had other ideas.

  “Didn’t mean nothin’, you know?” he asked and I blinked. I guess my feelings, unlike my thoughts, were being broadcast on my face.

  “Ah, nah, yeah, I know that, Bro.”

  “You better, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen her half so peaceful as she looks right now.”

  “She’s had it rough,” I agreed.

  “Just keeps on truckin’ though, don’t she?”

  “Starting to realize you might be right, boss.”

  “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

  “Strength comes in a lot of different forms, power ain’t always about how many blokes you got doing what you say.”

  “So you were listening, then?” he said with a grin.

  I nodded. “May seem a bit thick, eh?” I looked down at the crown of her head, her tangled, glossy dark hair and sighed. “I may be a bit thick yet.”

  “Nah, I think you’re doing fine. Feelings are natural, but you do have to decide. It ain’t easy, and life don’t come with an instruction manual. The system is a lie, but figuring out your own way ain’t easy, either. I think she’s learning that just as much as you, huh?”

  “Yeah, too right.”

  “Get some sleep, keep your phone charged. We’ll call you with any developments,” he said and pushed up off the wall.

  I nodded and he went out, shutting the door behind him. I thought about a lot of things before I tried to join her in some good sleep.

  When I’d come here, it’d been in a bit of a state of disgrace, personally. It was kind of amazing that Dragon had even taken me on. He’d looked at me point blank and had told me that I couldn’t bullshit a bullshitter and to not even try. I’d just come from my granddad’s funeral; it was even a miracle my sister had even bargained that for me, my being able to go home to pay my respects.

  With Tiffany laying on me now, I didn’t even want to think about what my sister had traded up to make it possible.

  I don’t know what had made me do it, sitting across from Dragon then, but I had come clean. Told him everything about betraying my own gang in a bid to get ahead back in New Zealand. About how I’d come by the Sacred Hearts colors less than honest with my previous chapter and how I was as low as I could go and lookin’ for a change.

  He should have put me out bad with the club right then and there, but he hadn’t. He’d looked me over impassively and had told me every man deserved a second chance in life. That once upon a time he hadn’t believed that. That it had always been one and done, but then someone had given him one. One he hadn’t deserved, and that not only that but given him more chances after that.

  He’d told me he hadn’t deserved a one of them, that he’d taken them for granted until he was granted one last final chance but at a terrible cost.

  “I’m giving you a chance,” he’d said, leaning back in his chair. “A last chance, because Brother, I do believe you earned your colors with this club despite your having a past. Hell, we all got a past; and the way you’re spillin’ your guts now tells me one of two things – either you’re ready for a change, a real change or you’re fucking suicidal. Either one of which means you’re ready for something and this situation right here with the Suicide Kings is gonna give you exactly what you want. It just may be fate which decides for you.”

  It’d sounded good, it’d sounded really good, and I’d taken it. I didn’t think it was a mistake, him choosing me to relocate that woman Darlene with her sick kid across the country. Dragon was a firm believer in lessons but didn’t fancy himself a teacher. He didn’t have to, life was there to do it for him. It wasn’t a coincidence he chose me to help this betrayer and the circumstances of her betrayal had been heartbreaking, for sure.

  Maybe that was why I took Tiffany’s line of side work so well. I understood that every man and woman had a story to tell. I also understood that not everything was black and white. The world was full of living color for a reason. There was no sense in dulling it down just to make sense of it. Life was meant to be lived in a riot of sight and sound and feeling.

  I set aside the book I’d been reading on top of my mini-fridge and reached up, turning out the lamp I had sitting on top. The room was plunged into darkness and still Tiffany didn’t stir, even with all the moving around I did. I smoothed a hand up and down her nude back and closed my eyes, smiling when I felt Mad Max jump up onto the bed.

  * * *

  I woke when Tiffany finally stirred. She pushed up off of me and groaned, dragging her fingers, or trying to, through her tangled hair.

  “There’s no fixing this,” she griped. “I need to start over.”

  “You know where the bathroom is, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she said and sat up completely, stretching luxuriously. I watched her as Max padded across the covers at her.

  “Oh, hey, baby girl,” Tiff crooned at her and picked her up, snuggling her to her chest.

  “She came out last night after you fell asleep,” I said, pushing myself up and leaning back against the headboard behind me.

  “I still don’t understand all this,” she said, looking around.

  I smiled and shrugged a bit. It had made sense at the time for me but now it seemed silly. I stayed quiet but the truth of it was when you were running around up to all sorts of illegal things, stuck between law enforcement and a rival MC trying to kill you off, you wanted to be comfortable. While the club was on lockdown and all of us were here, I made my surroundings as comfortable as possible. Kept all my favorite things here, the things that reminded me of home.

  After, when Rush was looking for new projects to complete, I’d helped him with the bed frame, drawing from everything I missed most about home. I’d figured he could sell it or whatever, but he’d given it to me. Then, I’d felt isolated, homesick, and so I’d kept everything here safe, but had relocated myself closer to my work at the bar. Distancing myself from the memories this room contained.

  “Well,” she said when I didn’t offer up explanation straight away, “I’m going to go get in the shower.”

  “You hungry?” I asked.

  “Yes and no,” she said.

  “Now I know how that feels,” I said with a bit of a grin and though she didn’t laugh, she at least cracked a bit of a smile.

  “The thought of food is nauseating but my stomach is growling.”

  “Ah, fair enough.”

  “I guess I could eat,” she said, and it was in a relenting tone of voice.

  “I could get us some Makka’s,” I suggested and her eyes crossed.

  “Some what?”

  “Sorry, it’s what we call McDonald’s back home.”

  “I have no idea how you got that out of Micky D’s.”

  I smiled and Max struggled to get out of Tiff’s hold like, okay mom, enough of this, so Tiff let her go. She came over to me and got in my lap.

  “Yeah, you can stay there,” I told her. “But I’m not falling for it for one minute.” She looked up at me with golden-green eyes and blinked and I swear it was a trap.

  Tiff smiled and said, “I think she’s starting to like you.”

  “Yeah until she hooks teeth and claws into me.”

  “So melodramatic,” she scoffed but she was smiling again, her old smile that held nothing but sadness to it.

  I sighed on the inside. She’d come so far and I didn’t want to see her go back there. She petted Max one last time where s
he rested in my lap, dangerously close to my dick, and I hoped that the blankets and sheets between me and the cat would be enough to protect me from her claws if she decided to live up to her name and flip her shit.

  “I’ll be back,” Tiff said, rising and collecting the shirt I’d lent her from the floor.

  “Towels are in the top of the closet.”

  “Okay.”

  I looked down at Max who looked back at me and I twitched a bit saying, “Go on now, let me get up.”

  She dropped her chin onto her paws and closed her eyes and I swore softly. I nudged her with my hand and she got up and jumped down. I can’t tell you the sigh of relief. I got dressed while Tiff showered again. I didn’t really think about it. I just made the bed and laid out some of her warmer clothes that I knew she liked to wear.

  When she darted back in, it was with one of those towel turban’s on her head, wrapped in another one.

  “Oh, wow, thanks,” she said, taken aback.

  “Just trying to make things easier.”

  “It was very thoughtful of you,” she murmured.

  “Come sit,” I urged and she drifted over, sitting on the end of the bed. I tossed her head towel into the top of the laundry hamper in the closet and took up her hairbrush off the dresser top.

  I knelt up behind her and carefully started to brush her hair. She closed her eyes and bowed her head slightly and let me do it. I was taking a bit of a chance, I reckon. I mean, my granddad used to brush my grandmother’s hair. I never understood it, but I remembered it, and I figured it was worth a try.

  I took my time with it and she lost some of the rigidity to how she held herself, muscles relaxing the longer I did it. Her hair had started wet, and even though neither of us used a hair dryer on it, by the time I finished brushing her hair, it was barely damp and nearly dry. She sighed and held still for a full minute once I stopped and murmured a quiet thank you.