by Levine, Nina
Dustin ignored my question. “Do you know what Tatum’s favourite meal is?”
I leant against the pantry. “Can’t say I do.” Jesus, I needed to shake this shitty mood; otherwise, I’d piss everyone off.
Dustin smiled triumphantly, as if he had the secrets of the world locked away in his head. “It’s nachos, steak, mashed potato and porridge.”
I just about spat my beer out. Shooting my attention to Tatum, I found her trying to hold back a laugh. My lips twitched and my mood shifted. “You don’t say?” I said, not letting her eyes go.
She hopped off the stool and walked to where I stood. Sliding her hands around my waist, she planted a kiss on my lips. “Did you have a bad day, grumpy?”
I hooked my arm around her and dropped my hand to her ass. “Nothing that your favourite dinner can’t fix,” I murmured.
Laughter escaped her lips. “Good.”
Dustin eyed us as he wiped his hands on a tea towel. “I’ve just gotta go grab my phone. Can you guys watch the potatoes?”
I nodded. “Yeah, buddy.”
After he had left us, Tatum whispered, “Dustin asked me what my favourite things to eat were. He didn’t tell me what he was planning so I just rattled off the things I like the most. Now he thinks that I eat them all together for dinner.”
I chuckled, feeling some of the tension in my shoulders easing. “He has a soft spot for you so I’d expect to be eating that dinner often. I’ve gotta say, I’ve never seen him cook before. Is there an occasion?”
“If you’re asking me why I’m here for dinner, the answer is because Dustin wanted to thank me for helping him ace his interview today.”
The moment sat between us. Things were shifting fast in our relationship, and I had feelings rushing at me that were so foreign I didn’t know what to do with them. I decided at that moment just to give her my honesty. My truth. And she could do with it whatever she chose.
I took a swig of my beer. “I like that you’re here for dinner.”
Her arms tightened around me. “I like it, too,” she said softly and fuck if that didn’t hit me right in the gut.
“We’re here!” Renee’s voice filtered into the kitchen, and I jerked my head up to see her and Marilyn join us.
“The whole fucking family, huh?” I said.
Tatum laughed and moved out of my embrace. “Yeah, Dustin said he wanted to cook for everyone.”
“Hi Tatum,” Renee said, hitting her with a smile. “This is my mum, Marilyn.”
I watched my sister. She and Renee had moved back home just over two weeks ago, against my wishes, but we’d been arguing about it for weeks so I’d given in. She’d been seeing her shrink and doing the work, but she’d retreated. She hadn’t returned to work after time off while she’d been in hospital receiving treatment, and I was concerned that the longer she stayed away, the harder it would be to go back.
She smiled at Tatum. “Hi,” she said hesitantly.
Tatum returned her smile, magnified. I knew she was trying hard here because she didn’t usually smile that brightly. “Hi, Marilyn. It’s lovely to meet you.”
Dustin returned to the kitchen and resumed cooking. Renee and Tatum discussed an assignment Renee was having hell with—a legal studies essay, which was right up Tatum’s alley. Marilyn’s shyness kicked in, but she joined in every now and then. And I watched my family begin to get to know the woman I’d let into my life. It was the oddest fucking night of my life and yet one of the best.
* * *
“Marilyn is so reserved,” Tatum said later that night as she lay next to me, her fingers drawing patterns on my chest. “I couldn’t work out whether she liked me or not.”
I tightened my arm around her. “She liked you.”
She pushed up so she was resting on her elbow. “Really? How could you tell?”
I took in Tatum’s questions, her tone and the expression on her face. Smoothing her hair, I said, “You really want her to like you, don’t you?”
She hesitated for a brief moment before nodding. “Yeah, I do.”
“Why?”
Her eyes darted away from mine, and I saw the vulnerability in her that she didn’t often show the world.
I tilted her chin so she looked at me again. “Don’t hide from me, Vegas.”
She watched me silently. Always thinking. Always trying to figure out if she could trust me with shit. I didn’t blame her, though. Trust was one of the most sacred things you could give another person. “I like your family. Like, a lot. They’re funny and kind, and they make me feel welcome. I always wanted a home filled with laughter and fun, but we never had that. Even when Chris and I were older, the two of us never had that. I was always running around after him, making sure he was still alive and okay. And he was looking out for me, too, but there wasn’t a lot of fun times.”
“What did you have growing up?” She’d not mentioned her parents much, so I wondered how bad it was.
She settled back against me, curled in close, arm draped over my chest. “My mum was an unhappy woman. She was bored and unfulfilled in her life and never really did fun stuff with us as kids. When she was nine, we came home from school one day and she was gone. No note, no nothing. She’d just packed a bag and disappeared. My father was devastated because she was the love of his life and he’d always gone above and beyond to try and make her happy. Nothing he did was ever good enough, though.”
Jesus, even my early childhood had been better than hers. “But she came back?” I recalled that Tatum had mentioned her mother so I figured she’d been in her life later on.
“Yeah, a year after she left, she returned. It was one of the happiest days of my childhood, but I quickly realised happiness doesn’t always last. Our home only grew quieter and sadder as we all tiptoed around trying to keep Mum happy so she never left us again.”
“Your parents stayed together?”
“Yep, until the day Dad died. And Mum was just as unhappy without him, so I hope she figured out it was her all along who’d failed, not him.” She sounded so harsh towards her mother, but I couldn’t blame her.
“You two weren’t close?”
“I tried, I really did. But when someone doesn’t want to do anything to help their own happiness, it’s hard to be around them. That dark place they’re in will eventually crush your joy. I was already running low on that so I decided I had to stay away as much as I could. I probably saw more of her last year while she was dying than I did for years.” She twisted her head to look up at me. “Guilt makes you do shit like that.”
“It doesn’t sound like you had much to feel guilty over.”
“Guilt is a woman’s cross to bear, Nitro. We’re suckers when it comes to feeling guilty over every damn thing. Hell, we’ll even take everyone else’s shit and feel guilty for that, too.”
She laid her head back on my chest and we fell silent. And then I remembered her earlier question about how I knew that Marilyn liked her. “I know Lynny liked you because she asked you how we met. She never asks people stuff if she doesn’t like them. She can’t be bothered to engage if she doesn’t see a point to it. And when she was leaving, she made a point to say goodbye to you. Again, if she wasn’t interested in getting to know you, my sister wouldn’t say goodbye. She doesn’t use manners like most people do.”
“What happened to her, Nitro?”
“As in just recently or are you asking why she’s so withdrawn in general?”
She moved so she sat cross-legged next to me. “Both.”
I sat up with my back to the headboard of the bed. Talking about Marilyn wasn’t something I did, except with Renee, Dustin, and Marilyn’s doctor. And as much as we annoyed the fuck out of each other sometimes, I’d go to my grave to protect her. But I’d come to the realisation that Marilyn needed more people in her corner, in her life, and if Tatum wanted to get to know her better, she’d need help to do that because Marilyn wouldn’t open up easily.
“Lynny was the kid who didn�
��t make friends easily. She was withdrawn and sad a lot. Possibly depressed as a teen, but there was never a diagnosis, so I can’t be sure. Our parents died in a car crash when I was twelve. Lynny was six and Dustin was nine. We went to live with our Uncle Joseph in Melbourne. He’s not a good man and living with him was not good for her. Joseph didn’t allow us to leave the house except to go to school. He treated us like slaves around his house.” I took a breath. Dragging this shit up was something I hated to do. Hated to remember what he put us through. “Joseph was involved deeply in organised crime and is now one of the top dogs in Australia. He deals in guns, drugs, and prostitutes. Back then, though, he was building his business up. The day I turned thirteen, he started teaching me how to shoot a gun. By the time I turned fifteen, I knew how to shoot any gun given to me, kill with a knife, and torture someone to get information. Dustin was slow developmentally so Joseph had no interest in him. And Lynny was a girl so she was only good for stuff around the house. Even when she was young, like seven, he put her to work. Most of the time, though, she spent in her bedroom by herself.”
Tatum stared at me in shock. “Oh my God, Nitro, that’s awful.”
“Yeah, and it fucked us all up. Joseph trained me as a soldier. It was regimented and brutal. Some of the shit he put me through…. It’s deeply ingrained in me, Tatum. I’m violent because of him and no matter how hard I might want to change that, I can’t. You need to know this about me because sometimes I can’t switch it off.”
Fuck, she needed to take this in. I didn’t want to hurt her, but fuck knew what was down the track. I couldn’t predict the future and I sure as hell couldn’t always predict my own behaviour. The wiring in my brain had been screwed with, and my reactions to situations and people weren't always what I thought they would be. Sometimes the rage blinded me and I was helpless to react in any way but with violence.
Tatum pushed up so she was kneeling and then she straddled me. Bringing her hands to my face, she cupped my cheeks and kissed me. It was unlike any of our other kisses. There was no wild energy to it, just an intimacy that was new. When she ended the kiss, she said, “I know you have that violence and darkness in you, Nitro, but I’ve seen so much more than that. You saved my life when you could have easily chosen a different path. Even when I begged you to end my life, you didn’t. And yes, I’ve seen your inner struggle with your actions, but I feel safe with you. I know you get pissed off with me, but you always protect me. And that’s more than I can say for most of the people who have been in my life.”
I ran my hands over the bare skin of her back. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Vegas. You hardly know me.”
“I’ve seen you when your club was at war. When you killed a man, when a bomb almost killed us, and when you came back from an ambush where you had to fight for your life and those of your fellow club members. War shows us who we are. It drags us to our deepest depths and reveals just what we would do to survive. Good and bad.” She gripped my face harder. “You showed me that you’re a fighter, and you’re loyal and that you put others before yourself. I might not know all the little ins and outs that make you, you, like what your favourite colour is or what your dreams are in life or what your favourite dinner is, but I know your character, and that’s something a lot of people don’t ever truly find out about the people in their lives.”
I stared at her. Fuck, she’d surprised me again. And shown me just how fucking deep and intelligent she was. Leaning forward, I held her close and moved us so she lay on the bed with me on top of her. Pressing my mouth to hers, I kissed her hard. Rough. I tore a moan from her lips. And when I finished, I rasped, “You’re something fucking else, you know that?”
She smiled up at me, her lips swollen from our kiss. “Only because you told me.”
That right there pissed me off. That no man had ever shown her how fucking amazing she was or made her believe in herself. I would make that shit my mission. I’d show Tatum what I saw when I looked at her, and I’d make her understand the truth in it.
Tatum
“Arms” by Christina Perri
Nitro moved behind me as I brushed my teeth after our shower together the next morning. Well, if you could call using my finger to spread toothpaste over my teeth. It was the first time I’d stayed at his house after we started sleeping together and it hadn’t been planned, so I had no clothes or toiletries. He’d offered me his toothbrush, but I was funny about germs. He’d then made fun of me for doing all sorts of things with my mouth, yet not wanting to share a toothbrush. I’d told him that if he wanted to keep making fun of me, I’d happily stop doing those things with my mouth, at which point he immediately stopped making fun of me.
Sliding his arm around me and slipping his hand inside the towel I wore to find skin, he said, “You want a clean shirt to wear home?” While he waited for my reply, he dropped his mouth to my shoulder and kissed me.
I watched him in the mirror, my belly fluttering with sensations that were unfamiliar to me. Everything in that moment sparked a surge of happiness in me. The way he held me, touched me, spoke to me, and the question he asked. Such a simple question, but one that showed me where his mind was at in our relationship. This feeling of closeness was something I didn’t want to admit to needing, because my failed attempt at it in the past made me unwilling to try for it again.
His eyes met mine in the mirror, and I smiled. “I want that black one with the skull on it.”
The skin around his eyes creased as a smile hit them. “Of course you do.”
I frowned, not sure what he meant.
His hand inside my towel grazed my breast as it swept across my stomach. “You love your skulls. Most of your clothes have one on them.”
The flutters in my belly whooshed deep in my core. He paid attention to my clothes? I turned to face him. “You’re a damn contradiction, Nitro. I swear I am constantly surprised by the things you say and do.”
“That makes two of us,” he said, his voice all husky.
We held each other. No talking, no caressing, just taking the other in, thinking. And then Dustin broke the moment.
“Nitro, we need milk! I thought you usually had some long life stuff in the cupboard, but I can’t find it,” he called out from the kitchen.
Nitro’s chest shook with a chuckle and he briefly dropped his forehead to mine. “Fucking hell.” Looking back at me, he muttered, “That would be because your favourite dinner includes porridge and he used it all. Fucking porridge with steak and nachos and shit.”
I smacked him lightly on the arm. “Don’t knock porridge for dinner, dude.”
His eyes twinkled with amusement and heat all at once. “Vegas, I have a new appreciation for porridge.”
“Nitro! Did you hear me?” Dustin yelled out.
Nitro let me go. With regret clear in his eyes. “You want a coffee?”
I nodded and tracked his movements as he left the bathroom. This was a good morning. And not just because I’d had hot sex with him. No, it had more to do with a feeling swirling around everything in this house and the people in it. A feeling I knew I could no longer deny loving.
* * *
I put my knife and fork down and looked at Duvall. He sat across from me in the new café I’d chosen for our lunch. I’d decided we needed a fresh start, and new surroundings felt fitting.
“I’ve started seeing Nitro,” I said, waiting for him to lose his shit at me.
He put his cutlery down, too. Leaning his elbows on the table, he said, “Okay.”
I frowned. “That’s it? No lecture?” I’d expected an argument over it. Especially since Nitro still hadn’t worked out how Duvall had seen that footage, which meant I hadn’t talked to him about it in order to clear up the fact it hadn’t been Nitro who beat me up that night.
Sighing, he said, “Tatum, you’ve always been a woman who does what she wants. You’re independent and don’t like being told what others think of your choices. I’ve told you what I think. That’s al
l I can do.”
Duvall was one of my closest friends. Well, he used to be. But he didn’t know me very well, and that was my fault. He’d tried to get to know me, but I’d always held pieces of myself back. The pieces I was ashamed of. I wasn’t sure I wanted one of my closest friends to not know me anymore. “I never told you the full truth about why my marriage ended.”
Surprise flared on his face and he leant back in his seat. “So it wasn’t just because your dickhead ex cheated on you?”
“No.” Sucking in a long breath, I laid my heart out for him. “Randall had a lot of debt and just kept clocking up more. And he fought with me all the time over that and everything else in our life. In my wisdom, I decided the way to fix our marriage would be to help him solve his debt problem.”
“So you took bribes off Billy,” he said slowly, piecing it together.
“Yes, that’s why I took those bribes.”
“Fuck, Tatum,” he swore. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You say that as if the reason why I did it makes it more understandable when it doesn’t.”
“It does.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said with force. “It doesn’t. The fact is I gave up on everything I believed in to do what I did. I told myself at first that it would just be that once, but it quickly grew too easy to make good cash. As my marriage disintegrated, I became more desperate to fix it. Billy just had to look at me back then, and I was panting to help him.”
He fell silent for a beat. “I understand it because he gave me what I needed, too. So don’t think you’re the only one who threw something away.”
My heart cracked for what Duvall did for his family. The deal he signed with the devil was done from a much better place than the one I signed. “You did what you did for your sister, Duvall. You had no other choice.” She had ALS and desperately needed money for care. I knew he’d gone to hell making the decision to allow Billy to pay for her medical bills, but I would have made the exact same choice.
