I pay for the tests, ignoring the knowing look of the clerk, and return to my car, heart thumping in my chest, thumping so hard I feel as though it is going to thump up my throat and choke me. I swallow, and I get the strange sensation that I am swallowing my heartbeat. “You’re just being dramatic,” I mutter to myself as I put the car in gear and drive toward my apartment. “You’re just being a drama queen.”
I park my car and almost run up to my apartment, stopping only to lean down and clutch my belly. My body is acting weirdly today. First there was that business mistaking stomach sickness for an emotional pang in my chest, and now nervousness is making me feel physically incapable of running. I shake my head, my vision hazy. Everything is happening too fast, without any warning. Everything feels like it’s spinning out of control. I tell myself to calm down, I haven’t even taken the test yet. But my heart keeps thumping and my belly keeps tightening.
Finally, I pace into my apartment, dropping my handbag on the floor and kicking the door closed behind me. I take the bag of pregnancy tests into the bathroom and almost trip over myself trying to pull my skirt and my tights down, shifting from side to side, propping one hand on the wall and kicking off one shoe by accident so that it lands in the shower. Then I sit down on the toilet too quickly, my ass cheeks aching. I curse, ripping the test from its packaging as though I am a child and it is Christmas morning. Yes, I reflect grimly, this is my present. What a present! I kick off my other shoe. It hits the wall with a loud bang.
I hold the stick in the bowl, my belly still tight, which in an unexpected way is quite helpful: it squeezes my bladder. I pee on the stick, and then set it on the tank behind me. I still need to pee, so why not; I do the second test, too. Why not just have a little more safety. They’ll both be negative, and then I’ll know, and I can stop worrying, and get back to my life. Then I clean myself and stand up and walk to the bathroom door, my back to the sticks. I know that turning around will make this real. As long as I stand here, looking at my living room, a few romance novels and notes piled up on the coffee table, my clothes from yesterday strewn across the floor from where I haven’t yet put them in the washing basket, the sunlight resting against my television, as long as I just stand here, I can pretend that none of this is real. The moment I turn around, I will not have that choice.
But I can’t avoid reality forever. I return to the toilet, but I don’t stare down, not yet. I look at myself in the mirror which hangs just above and to the side of the toilet. Twenty-five years old, but I look younger. At least, I think I do. Twenty-five years old. Is that too young, or too old? And how old is Red? Thirty, perhaps a couple years older or younger? People have kids and families at that age, don’t they, but I don’t think me and Red are people in the abstract.
I’m delaying the inevitable, I know, so I force myself to look down.
For a moment, time seems to pause as my mind tries to turn what I’m seeing into some tangible reality. During the next few minutes, I just stand here, staring, trying to turn the three sticks into something real. I’m rooted to the spot. I can’t move. I can only stare. Just stare at these sticks which, if I am to believe them, are going to change my life forever. Slowly, the sticks become real, and I face what they tell me: I am pregnant, they agree. I am pregnant with Red’s child.
Gasping, I go into the living room and throw myself on the couch, burying my head in the cushions, my life spinning around and around in my head: my future life, in which my hard-won job at the library is going to be in danger, in which I am going to have to explain to everyone that the father is an enforcer I no longer know; a life as a single mother, and all the struggles that entails. Of course, there is the other option. The other option …something about that makes me queasy, but surely it would be for the best? Surely it would make more sense for a woman like me?
Dammit, why didn’t we use a condom? Why did I think “not having a boyfriend” was a good enough reason to let my prescription for the pill lapse?
I can’t stay on the couch for long. I feel too restless. I go into the kitchen and start chopping bananas and apples, listening to the thud-thud of the knife against the chopping board and focusing on the piling up of the fruit chunks; and then I focus on the noise of the blender, of the banana and apple and yogurt and milk all mixing together. But after the smoothie’s done and the dishes are washed and set to dry on the draining board, I’m still pregnant. Nothing has changed.
I return to the living room and drop onto the couch, stretching my legs out before me and staring at my feet. The other choice …I am not opposed to it, in principle, but there is just something that makes me unsure about the idea in the physical. And Red …I throw my head back and let out a groan. I have to tell Red before I do anything, don’t I? I’ve read about women who’ve gone ahead and had abortions and later the men have found out and—I don’t think I could do that to Red, even if Red is just supposed to be my taste of an alpha, even if I have spent the last month avoiding him.
I try and picture the scene in my mind, how he will react, but the truth is, though I think there is something more there than just the sex—a little something, a whisper of something—I don’t know him well enough to imagine precisely what he’ll say or do. He’ll be surprised, of course, but will that surprise turn to anger? Will he simply ignore me? Will he tell me to go away and do whatever I want about it?
I swallow, somewhat shocked by the way that thought makes me feel, as though already I am forming a connection with this fledgling life inside of me, as though already I am starting to become attached.
“I have to tell him.” I murmur, going through into the bedroom and lying on the bed: the bed in which I have woken countless times imagining that he is beside me, naked, horny, ready to fuck like animals again just as we did in my office.
I think about where to find him; I don’t know where the club is and, anyway, the idea of rocking up to a motorcycle club on my own without knowing if he’ll be there makes me nervous. Perhaps that bar? What was it called…yes, the Englishman. Maybe I’ll ask the barman for Red’s number.
I think back to how he offered me his number and how I brusquely refused him, wondering if he’s going to forgive me. Wondering if he’s already moved on.
Chapter Fourteen
Red
Bron and I, Chains, and a few of his lieutenants sit in the bar as the doctor operates on one of the pledges in the dormitory wing. Even from here, we can hear his screams: high-pitched, full of disbelieving pain. Bron winces each time the pledge screams; the kid’s a pledge Bron brought on himself. Chains gets a bottle of whisky and places it on the table, and one of the lieutenants collects some glasses and begins handing them out, all to the soundtrack of a screeching pledge.
When we’re all sipping our whiskies, Bron mutters: “Fucking unpatched.”
Everybody nods in agreement.
“Fucking unpatched,” Chains agrees. “Jordy was supposed to be a fuckin’ tick we could just flick away, no problem. But I’ve been hearing some troubling shit. First of all that Jordy is gathering more and more unpatched to join him; and second of all that they’re getting into hard shit, like heroin.” He scratches his jagged scar, his mouth set into a grim line.
I know how he feels. Say what you want about The Faithless, but we’ve never been into hard shit like that. We’re into weed, bootlegged booze, cigarettes, protection, counterfeit electronics, but never hard shit like heroin, shit which ruins lives. Looking around the table, I can see that the men feel just as I do: this Jordy fuck has gone too far. The pledge lets out another scream, this one louder, penetrating the walls of the bar.
“Can’t the doctor give him something?” Bron murmurs.
“Probably has,” I grunt. “Gunshot hurts like a sonofabitch.”
“The fuck would you know?” Bron says.
“He was shot, before you joined,” Chains says quietly. “Back when Tiny was in charge.” A small smile touches Chains’ lips, despite the screaming. “Tried to t
ake on three guys yourself, you crazy bastard.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Young and stupid. It was just a grazing shot to the thigh, Bron, but it still hurt like fuck. That kid in there has got a—what is it? A flesh wound to the torso?”
Chains corrects me, telling me he’s got a slug clean through his bicep muscle.
“Fuck,” Bron says. “Yeah, I bet that hurts a damn lot.”
We drink our whisky, and then one of the lieutenants asks who did the shooting.
Chains shakes his head. “No clue who it was exactly, but it was unpatched, that’s for sure. The kid told me when the doctor was bringing him in that the guy who shot him shouted: ‘Jordy says hello.’” Chains growls, his face twisted with rage. “This unpatched fuck thinks he can blow a hole in a Faithless—a pledge, but still a fuckin’ Faithless—and get away with it …he’s a fool.”
“He’s got a lot of support,” Bron points out. “More than he did a month ago. Me and Red have been doin’ what we can, but it’s difficult. I think we’ve failed.”
I offer a sideways smile. “Yeah, tell the boss we’ve failed, Bron, great fuckin’ idea.”
Everybody laughs darkly.
“It isn’t your fault,” Chains says, speaking a little louder over the sound of the pledge’s screaming. “It’s my fault. I should’ve sent the whole club after this fuck the moment he started bothering us. I just never thought he’d have the balls to really go after one of ours. Red, when you told me about how you chased off him and his, I thought the bastard was green; I thought he’d stay green. How long’s it been—a month, two? And he’s gone from a scared leader of a bunch of rodents to having the balls to slug a Faithless.”
“He’s insane,” one of the lieutenants says. “’Cause when we find him, he’s dead. He must know that.”
“Maybe he thinks he’s got enough gun power to take us on.” Bron shrugs when the lieutenant shoots him an angry look. “I’m just speaking about what could be,” he goes on. “If he’s dealing heroin, he’s got a supplier, and if he’s got a supplier, maybe he’s got enough pull to form a proper club. We all know that once you put a patch on a group of men, pretty soon they start thinkin’ more of themselves. And that can be used for good, like we do. Or it can be used for bad, like so many other clubs do.”
I think about Jordy running a club and clench my fists under the table. I think about the way he leaned over Christina, the first time I ever met her; I wonder why I didn’t just end it then and there. But back then, he was just a creep bothering a beautiful woman. Back then, he was just a weirdo, a nuisance. Now, everything’s changed. The kid screaming from the other side of the building is proof enough of that. Christina …I almost shiver at the thought of her. I need to keep her out of my mind. I need to kill that part of me. She rejected me. It’s over. Done, over, done. I need to remember that.
“Red?”
Shit, Chains is talking.
“Yeah?”
“I said, what do you think their chances are in a straight-up war?”
I shrug. “No idea. Before, I would’ve said it’d be like stepping on an ant-hill, but now, who the fuck knows?”
“Think you’d have a little more faith than that,” a lieutenant mutters.
“We’re the Faithless, don’t forget,” I reply, to a round of throaty laughs. “I don’t know, Chains. I’d need to know more about them: their numbers, their bases, their operation.”
“Then that’s what we’ll need to do.” Chains nods. “I’m tired of these fucking insects moving in on us. I’m tired of their fucking arrogance and I’m tired of that kid’s screaming.” He points at his scar. “It was a fuckin’ gang that did this to me, boys, five of the fucks. Do you know what I did to those bastards when I got my hands on them?”
We all grow quiet, because we all know. None of them are alive today.
Chains stands up and walks to the bar, where he leans and lights up a cigarettes. Some of his lieutenants light up too. Bron and I remain sitting, sipping whiskey. For ten or so minutes, we wait in silence: a silence punctuated by the screams of the kid in the next room. The screams rise and fall as the doctor picks pieces of bullet out of the wound. I look around at the men, all of them seeming grim and focused, and wonder what they’re thinking about, if their thoughts are honed on Jordy and the unpatched and nothing more. Or if they stray.
This thought occurs to me ’cause my thoughts keep straying. Here I am, sitting with my club, one of my brothers screaming and bleeding, the leader of the club smoking a cigarette and staring off into space, and Christina keeps resurfacing in my mind. Goddamn Christina, like some kind of magical woman, with the ability to captivate my thoughts when she should have absolute no place in my mind. During this past month, I have banished her. I have accepted that I’m never going to see her again.
A voice calls out in my mind: “Liar! Liar!”
I swallow, lean back, on the surface looking nonchalant as ever, but inside an invisible hand squeezing my chest. I’ve wanted to banish her, is the truth, but banishing her isn’t so simple when I’ve been visiting Ryan. It’s too difficult to visit the kid without asking him how she’s doing, if she’s okay, if she’s seeing somebody else…that last one is important to me even when I know it shouldn’t be. I haven’t touched another woman since Christina, which is about the strangest thing I’ve done in a long, long time. Me, Red, enforcer, lady’s man—that’s how the men know me—hasn’t touched another woman just ’cause I fucked some chestnut-haired deer-eyed woman in her office. Was the sex that good? Was I really that captivated by it?
I lean my head back, hardly hearing the glugging of the whisky now, the occasional muttered word of one of the other men, the crisping of the cigarettes. All I hear is Christina. In my mind, she is leaning over me, those perfect pert breasts pushed together, wearing only her panties and waiting for me to snap them away with my teeth. In my head, she whispers, and here in the bar I feel the whisper on my neck: “Why don’t you come and visit me, baby? I know I told you I didn’t want it, but I lied. I lied, baby.”
I pour a whisky, sip it, willing it to not only burn down my throat but burn away the thoughts, too. Christina pushed me away. She doesn’t want me. Christina made her choice. We fucked and now we’re done; that’s all. I don’t need to worry about her anymore. It makes me angry that I can’t just shrug and forget her. How many women have I been with who, afterward, I’ve never thought about again? How many times have I even forgotten the name of a woman after we’re done? And here I am…I want to growl, but I’m surrounded by the men so I make sure to keep myself calm. But I need something to help me get rid of some of this tension. I’m fuckin’ furious with myself. She pushed me away, and yet I still want her. Goddamn it!
I almost gasp when I realize that I’m not just furious with myself. I’m furious with her, too. I’ve never felt furious at any woman except Mom, back when she looked me directly in the face and told me to get out of her house because she was starting a new family. After that, I’ve made sure to be indifferent toward women. But Christina…under the table, I clench my fist. She did the same thing to me; she reeled me in and then told me to go fuck myself. She completely rejected me. She might as well have slapped me in the face. I wish I could go back and scream at her, and then I’m ashamed by the wish; all it would accomplish is showing her the effect she’s having on me.
I’m glad when the doctor walks into the bar, his worn scrubs flecked here and there with blood, wiping his hands on a towel.
All the men turn to him, and Chains stubs his cigarette out on the bar and approaches him. The two men talk quietly for a few moments before the doctor turns around and walks back into the dormitory section.
“He’ll live,” Chains says, and I see Bron breathe a sigh of relief. “But it was closer than it ever should’ve been.” Chains begins pacing up and down before us like a general pacing before his assembled men, hands behind his back. “It’s time we found out where Jordy is and put an end to him. These unpat
ched men want to assemble around Jordy. They think Jordy is their savior. They think Jordy is going to make them something. Let’s show them how wrong they are. I want all of you out there—lieutenants, tell your men—in groups of two, looking for Jordy, or the unpatched men who might know where he is.” He nods shortly. “Dismissed.”
Bron turns to me. “The bartender at the Englishman has been having some trouble with unpatched,” Bron says. “I told him to keep an eye out. Let’s go stake the place out. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
I shrug, stranding. “Alright. Let’s go.”
Bron tilts his head at me, looking closely. “Are you okay, man?”
Fine,” I reply gruffly…unless you count the social worker constantly bouncing into my mind. “Fine,” I repeat, as much to convince myself as him.
Chapter Fifteen
Red
We take the pickup truck, ’cause nobody wants to sit on a bike for hours on end for a stakeout. Bron drives, and I sit in the passenger seat, window open, hand out the window. I open my fingers and let the wind move through them, letting it caresses the calluses and the old scars and the new cuts. I watch the passing scenery, the tight-packed buildings, the graffiti-covered walls, moving swiftly by. I see men and women hunched over in doorways, passing around brown paper bags; and all through this I cannot help but think of Christina, wondering if today she’s helping men and women like these. I grind my teeth, feeling an ache in my jaw, wishing the ache would travel into my skull and blot out my thoughts. I feel that anger resurfacing: anger aimed directly at Christina. I don’t want to be angry at her; I don’t want to be anything at her.
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