by A. J. Downey
Chapter Eight
Fenris…
“The fuck you been?” my dad asked as I killed the motor on my bike.
“Out. Why the fuck you care?”
He shook his head and flicked the butt of his joint he’d been toking off of into the grass and said, “Believe it or not, no matter what you do and no matter where you go, you’re still my kid and I’m always going to care. No matter how much of a hard-ass you are.”
I smirked and bowed my head, laughing slightly, but then the reality of exactly where I’d been crept back in and curb stomped my smile back into a frown.
“Remember the chick I brought home from Mitch’s place a few weeks back?”
“Blond, pretty, got hysterical really damn quick?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah she did,” I said slowly and sighed at the memory. “She’s got her reasons and I hate to say, they’re good ones.”
“Coffee?” my old man asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded and got up off my bike, body groaning in protest for a lot of reasons – the damp, the chill, a piss poor night’s sleep in an unfamiliar bed, mind racing over her words falling from her lips with the weight of utter despair…
“I just don’t think I want to be alive anymore and I’m scared.”
Scared me, too, for a variety of reasons. None of which I could quite put my finger on. I mean, why did I care? She wasn’t anyone to me.
“Alright, so what’s eating you, boy?” my dad demanded, sliding a full mug of black coffee across the kitchen counter to me. I motioned for the milk and he turned to open the fridge. I waited until he’d handed me the half and half carton and told him the truth.
“I kind of haven’t been able to get her off my mind since she was here,” I said.
“Seems to me the feeling’s mutual.” He nodded toward the mug in my hands and I frowned in thought, taking a drink.
“She called me last night, upset. I went to check things out.” I shook my head, feeling a little guilty for telling her secrets.
“And?”
“She’s suicidal,” I answered simply. “Doesn’t have anyone to lean on. She’s been through more shit than I can talk about in the last couple of months, man.” I shook my head and stared into my coffee, finally deciding I’d might as well go for broke. “Her mom died of a long illness, a month later – like a month to the day, her brother dies in an accident and the very next day after that she catches her husband cheating on her with other dudes. Now he’s turned into a real wank-puffin and is trying to take half her business that she built from the ground up all by herself. She’s done. Just run out of gas, and I can’t say I blame her.”
“Sounds like the husband’s a problem,” my dad said sucking his teeth and leaning on his hands against the counter across from me.
“She asked me not to do anything,” I said.
“You gonna listen?” he countered with a raised eyebrow and I gave him a look.
“For now, I’m going to try a different tactic first.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Gonna get a shower, head down to the club, and see if Mav can’t put me in touch with the club’s lawyers.”
“They’re criminal law, Son, not divorce attorneys.”
“I know that Pops, but lawyers are their own weird little community. Bet they know somebody who is.”
“Got a point there.”
“Borrowing the truck tonight,” I said.
“Oh, you are now?” He looked amused.
“Yup.”
“Fine, you go get my honey.”
“Shit, fuck. I forgot about that,” I said.
“Oh, I know you did.”
“Fine,” I grated. “I’ll get my shower, get your honey, bring it back here, then go to the club.”
“Then you can borrow my truck,” he said.
“Rat bastard,” I muttered, getting up.
“What’s that make you?” he asked as I was leaving, making for the stairs up to my room and the bathroom.
“Makes me a rodent of unusual size,” I said flexing and took the stairs to a track of my dad’s laughter.
It’d been my sister’s favorite movie when we were kids – The Princess Bride.
I stayed under the hot shower’s spray for a while and thought furiously, questioning myself, trying to decide if that was why I was doing the things I was doing where Aspen was concerned.
Did she remind me of my sister?
No, not really. I mean, maybe in some ways but definitely not looks or anything. That’d be creepy as fuck and incestuous and that was not my bag.
What was my bag were those green eyes of hers; luminous, like pale green kunzite crystal set in her round face. Her pale cheeks dusted with her blushing, those Hollywood lips of hers so full and beautiful, I couldn’t help but imagine all the ways I would like to defile them.
I closed my eyes and fisted my cock, imagining what it would look like, her on her knees, pressing the head of my dick to that pouting bottom lip of hers, begging for entry. Her hot, wet, little pink tongue flashing out to taste the tip.
I groaned, letting my imagination run away from me, stroking my cock with my hand as it throbbed with desire.
Did I think I would ever get the opportunity to receive a blowjob from Miss Aspen Lawson? No, not really, but a guy could dream.
I took my time, let my imagination run wild, and finished to a rather unsatisfactory conclusion. That conclusion being there wouldn’t be anything like the real thing but I was also pretty keenly aware that I was cruising toward the friend zone.
While the notion was disappointing, I was okay with that. I wanted to be her friend and see her heal. I guess I’d been taking people apart for so long, I wanted to know what it felt like to put one back together.
Huh.
That piece of self-analysis and introspection went way deeper than I thought it would.
I shut off the water and sighed out. I had pretty much all day to kill before meeting up with Aspen. The errand I had to run for my dad wouldn’t take much time, just a run out to the Bee Queen farm in Puyallup for the couple of five-gallon buckets of wildflower honey they had set aside for me and my pops. We were supposed to get our homebrew on this weekend.
We were a couple of Viking types for sure – very into our heritage, cooking meat over fire, homebrewing mead, taking an axe to a few motherfuckers that deserved it.
I stopped drying myself as memories flooded in that were best left locked in their vault. I really didn’t want to think about some of the shit I’d done. While I didn’t regret doing it for the bastards that I’d killed, I did regret some things. Sleeping at night was entirely too easy after some of the shit I’d gotten away with.
Still, nothing I’d done was going to bring my sister back. I’d turned myself into one grade-A fucking monster and though it wasn’t for nothing in the face of her loss, it sure felt like it.
Disconcerted by my introspections, I gritted my teeth, got my ass fixed up and dressed and took myself back downstairs.
“Honey,” my dad reminded me, and I scowled at him.
“I ain’t old like you,” I said, lifting his truck keys off their hook and putting mine up. “I ain’t got memory problems.”
“Har, har, fuck you, boy! You’re gonna be me sooner rather than later.”
“Odin’s beard I hope I’m fuckin’ not,” I said.
“Need money?” he asked without looking up from where he was unloading the dishwasher.
“I got it,” I said.
“Good, then get you gone.”
“Love you, too, you old bastard.”
“Yeah, yeah, love you, Son, but fuck you.”
I laughed as I went out through the mud room and out the back door. We were always up each other’s ass. We didn’t even know why. It drove my mom nuts when she was around and had the occasion to see it.
I stuck the key in the ignition of the truck and pulled down on the gearshift to get it into drive.
Maybe
I should call Mom and get her advice on this one… then again, maybe not. I didn’t know when it came to Mom what was going to be a good day versus a bad one. She missed Lacy the hardest of all of us and she absolutely fucking hated that I’d joined the club and had taken the road less traveled like I’d done.
I’d disappointed her, but I couldn’t say I shared her disappointment. Did I have regrets? Sure, sometimes, like now… I was a monster, and there were no regrets about that. Never really had been, until now. Now, I had only one regret. That I hadn’t let myself stay human enough to know exactly what to do to help Aspen through her situation that didn’t involve blood and violence.
I hadn’t had a lot of practice being human, being normal by citizen standards, but then again, I’d never had the occasion to be those things.
I took 18 to 167 and headed south, swinging around onto 410 when I got there to get on out to the honey farm.
I picked up three buckets and headed back to the goat farm, dropping them off with my pops who hauled them out to our homebrew shed on his own, telling me to fuck off when I asked if he needed a hand.
“You need your truck?” I called after him.
“No, now I said fuck off with you!”
I shook my head. “Crazy old bastard,” I muttered and decided fuck it. It was getting on toward noon and if I rode, I would only have to ride back and pick up the truck before heading to Aspen’s place and I didn’t feel much like taking the extra steps.
I headed for the club’s old Ironhorse Boneyard and to cross the whole lawyer thing off my list. Did I think hooking her up with a better lawyer was the way to go? Meh, only partially. What she needed was someone to whoop her ex’s ass, but she wasn’t there. I didn’t know if she was ever the type to get there, either, and that was honestly okay. She didn’t need to be there. She wasn’t one of us, and I honestly kind of liked that, I guess.
Not sure why it made a difference, it just did. Not that big of one, but it was there.
“What is your fuckin’ deal, bro?” I asked myself softly as I steered the truck back onto Highway 18.
I didn’t have the answer to that one.
I pulled into the end of the Eagle’s lot next to the boneyard and shut off the truck something like forty minutes later. I sat for a second, gathered my cut off the seat next to me and keyring looped around my index finger, gave them a casual spin and caught them in my palm, holding tight, the metal nubs of the key cuts digging into my palm. I got out, shut the door behind me, and shrugged into my cut as I stepped over the curb and walked through the patch of grass to the gravel of the drive.
Rat City was a bad place to be, but the locals knew it could get a whole lot worse if they fucked with our shit, so I didn’t have to lock the truck’s door.
“What’re you doin’ here?” Dump Truck grunted as I passed by the yard’s open gate and started past his open garage bay door.
“Seein’ if Mav was around,” I said, changing tract and stopping by the dude that honestly passed for my closest friend.
“He’s around, how’d things go last night?”
I let out a pent-up breath and a bit of a nervous laugh. “It’s kind of a shitshow.”
“Oh, yeah?” He looked up at me, squinting at the light coming in through the bay door. It wasn’t too bright out, overcast as it was, but it was a fuckton brighter than in here.
“She was still a hot mess when I got there, looked me right in the eyes and told me she didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
Dump Truck looked up sharply at that and scowled, rolling back on his stool and giving me a hard look.
“What’d you do?” he asked.
“Stayed with her, made sure she was solid this morning, made plans with her for tonight and let her go to work.”
“What brought that on? Do you know?”
I nodded. “That’s what I want to talk to Mav about.”
“We going to dish out a lesson in how to treat a lady?” he asked, and I took a deep breath, blew out my cheeks and shook my head.
“She asked me not to.”
He leaned back and eyed me critically. “And you’re gonna listen?”
“For now,” I said.
“Then what’s Mav got to do with anything?” he asked, dark brows knitting together.
“Was hoping that he could put me in touch with the club’s lawyers. See if they knew a good divorce one for Aspen. Hers, apparently, isn’t doing a whole lot.”
“You really like this girl,” he stated, and he wasn’t asking so I didn’t answer. Beside that, I didn’t think there was any denying it at this point. I knew myself – enough to know that I hadn’t and wouldn’t do this for just anyone.
He stared at me until I finally had to relent, roll my eyes, and nod some kind of affirmation.
“So, you seen Mav?” I asked and Dump Truck, still looking at me as if he were mystified, jerked his head toward the dividing wall and the counter beyond.
I followed the gesture with my gaze and noted Little Bird on the phone with a customer and the office door behind her which usually stood open, shut tight.
“Thanks, bro.”
“No problem, let me know how things turn out.”
“I surely will,” I promised.
I went to see what the boss man had to say, see if he maybe had any insight.
Chapter Nine
Aspen…
I missed Fenris when he came to the shop to check on me, but Amber sure hadn’t. I’d stepped out to grab myself something to eat and to bring Amber something to drink from the nearby Starbucks on Michigan Street, and boy when I got back, she looked like she was fit to burst with her excitement.
She quickly walked over to me, her blue eyes sparkling under her fringe of auburn bangs and practically squealed with excitement. I had no idea what was going on until she opened her mouth and said, “You weren’t kidding when you said your biker was hot! Does he have any friends my age?”
“Oh, Lord!” I cried, and laughed slightly. “I guess I missed him?”
“Only just,” she said. “Couldn’t have been even two minutes. He left you a note.” She held out a folded piece of paper to me that was off one of our scratch pads. I traded her the drink she’d ordered for it and opened it, eagerly.
Hey, sorry I missed you. I got some things to tell you. I’ll see you at your place at eight, pizza and beers riding shotgun. Try to have a good rest of your day. – Fen.
I nodded and creased the note along it’s already folded line and tucked it in my purse.
“I’m going to grab this bite in the office,” I said and Amber grinned at me around her green straw.
“Have fun,” she said, and I smiled.
“You’re insufferable,” I said.
“I’m also closing tonight so you can leave early if you want,” she called over her shoulder. I turned back before slipping through the curtain to the storeroom and kiln room and gave her a curious look.
“See what a good employee I am?” she asked.
“What happened between you and Ian?” I asked and arched a brow.
“He cheated, I dumped him.” She shrugged. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
I smiled in spite of the seriousness of what she’d said. Her parting shot such a funny and old-fashioned thing for her to say at her age.
“Indeed,” I said. “I’m sorry he did that to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “We’re teenagers, it’s expected. It’s nothing,” she declared and the all too familiar lines of worry pinched her equally too young face as she looked at me.
I glanced away and said, “I’ll take the phone if it rings.”
“’Kay,” she said, and I slipped through the office door, which was honestly more of a closet with a desk and a lone filing cabinet. I sat down to snarf the salad and afternoon iced coffee I’d bought for my late lunch and let my eyes roam invoices and schedules, calendars and a myriad of other business-related things, though none of it seemed to really stick. I had nothing for
an attention span anymore and the memory of a goldfish.
I slogged through the rest of my day and finally, finally, I could let myself go home. Fenris was already parked and waiting in front of my house when I got there. He looked up from his phone as I pulled past his truck and into my usual spot in front of my mom’s house.
The way the houses in the majority of Tacoma were built, the driveways weren’t on the street. Rather, they were behind the house – alleyways leading through to each person’s parking in what was either the side of their house or their backyard.
My mom’s car was still out back, and I still didn’t feel right parking mine there. I mean, I never did. I was a visitor, a guest. I still didn’t feel like I belonged here. I didn’t belong here.
I guess… I guess, I didn’t really belong anywhere anymore.
An abrupt knock on my driver’s side window made me jump and shriek. Shaking, I looked up at Fenris who wore an expression of compassion mixed with empathy. I shut off the ignition, and he reached for my door handle and tried it. My car was locked. It automatically locked when I started driving. I unlatched the door from the inside and the locks popped on all of my doors and my back hatch.
“Hi,” he said gently, a saran-wrapped take-and-bake pizza balanced on one arm. I stared up at him and blinked stupidly, tired from the long day and echoed the greeting back at him, “Hi.”
“You okay?” he asked, and I started to nod and then decided I just didn’t have the energy to lie about it and shook my head.
“No,” I said, taking in a slow deep breath.
“What can I do to help?” he asked gently, and I swallowed the threatening tears.
“You’re already doing it just by being here,” I said truthfully. I didn’t want to be alone.
“Got anything you need to bring in?” he asked.
“Just my purse and briefcase,” I said, twisting in my seat to grab them from the passenger side.
“Gimme the briefcase, I’ll carry it for you.”
“It’s okay, I’ve got it.” I appreciated the fact that he didn’t argue with me, that he simply lifted a shoulder slightly in a shrug and instead held my car door open for me, shielding me in a way from the open road as I stepped out onto the asphalt, shouldering both my purse and my briefcase with my laptop, etc.
