by Hazel Parker
Or maybe it would just make the probable silence that much more disappointing.
As soon as I opened the door to the coffee shop, I saw Kyle already sitting in a booth. His eyes looked forlorn, and he, too, looked like he hadn’t slept much the night before. Seeing him in this state, though, didn’t elicit a lot of sympathy. Heaven knew that if he tried to comfort me for looking the same way, he’d probably think that I’d owe him another night out or something.
I pretended not to see him at first, making a beeline for the line so I could put an order in for my coffee. I had never been so rude as to outright ignore someone; even when I was in an extraordinarily foul mood or wronged by someone, I tried my best to not be a bitch. But damn, was it tempting to just grab my coffee and walk out. I was as short-tempered as I had ever felt.
Alas, a quick turn of my head showed that Kyle was looking at me, and I could not escape eye contact.
“Hey,” he said.
His voice sounded heavy, almost like he had also lost someone. This tempered my anger a bit, but I couldn’t exactly say that it made me feel sympathetic toward him. For the most part, I was still annoyed at having to deal with whatever bullshit was bound to come my way for being here.
“Hi,” I said. “Just to be clear, I can talk for about fifteen minutes, and then I have to work.”
“No, I understand,” he said, but there was something very dreary in his voice that suggested he was just saying it to get me to agree. “I understand.”
Feeling more than a little unsettled, I just remained by the coffee bar, waiting for my drink to come out. It could not come quickly enough.
Eventually, the barista brought me my black coffee, and with some regret for having responded to that text, I sat across the table from Kyle, who looked even worse up close than he did when I’d entered. I had said that he looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep, but now it looked like he was carrying the burden of something heavy.
“You know, I had a wonderful time with you on Saturday,” he said, unable to look me in the eye suddenly. “I know that I came across as demanding and expecting, but—”
“Kyle, look, I appreciate the apology, but I need to put it into place right now that I am not going on another date with you, OK?”
I hated to be so straightforward. I knew it would crush him, and Kyle, of all people, was the last person I wanted to crush. But it seemed like every other approach was not working, and if Kyle was going to be so dense, then I needed to use a hammer to break through said density.
“Why not?” he asked as if this was a problem he could argue logically against. “You and I, we’re two single people. We share a common interest.”
“We’re not two single people.”
No, Jack and I weren’t official. We weren’t anything that could be described as exclusive. We hadn’t even had the talk yet, let alone gone on enough dates to even be in a position to have such a talk.
But as far as I was concerned, as far as saying whatever I needed to say to get Kyle away from me, I was in a relationship now.
“You’re…not?”
I had seen him crying from being bullied. I had seen him say that he was never going to come back to the school. I had seen him not even try on tests because he had become so nihilist.
But I had never seen Kyle seemingly so depressed and upset as he was right now.
“No, I’m not,” I said firmly. “I’m seeing someone, Kyle. And you need to accept that. You can be a friend of mine, but you can’t be my boyfriend.”
I hated even saying that. I guess I wasn’t quite ready to be that much of a bitch to him.
“Who?” Kyle said. “I know you weren’t seeing anyone before early last week. I know—”
“How?” I said, becoming unnerved at how much I worried Kyle had been watching and stalking me. “How did you know these things?”
“I mean, I just…did,” he said.
Bullshit. He’s hiding how much he’s followed me or watched me. What the fuck is this guy’s problem?
“Kyle, you can’t be doing this. You can’t—”
“Who is this guy that you’re seeing?” Kyle said. “I need to know.”
“No, you really don’t. Your fifteen minutes are running out, Kyle.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, seemingly flipping a switch from being aggressive to suddenly being deferential. I wasn’t buying it, though. I knew that he was just trying to play a part to make me feel bad and open up to him. “I’m sorry. But can you just tell me the name of the person you’re seeing? And I promise I’ll leave you as soon as you tell me.”
I rolled my eyes. I still didn’t believe he would leave me alone. But pushing back on him would certainly mean that he wouldn’t leave me.
“Jack.”
Kyle nodded, but then something in him seemed to click. His eyes got incredibly disturbing, almost like a rage in him was boiling from within and threatening to spill to the surface.
“Jack Stone?”
“I’m sorry?” I said. I never did find out Jack’s last name.
“Big dude. Bald. Beefy. Laughs like a fucking clown.”
“Kyle!”
“I fucking knew it!” he snapped, slamming his hands on the table. People in the coffee shop had turned to look at us, but Kyle was either oblivious or just did not give two shits if people noticed. “You’re fucking dating my brother.”
That’s why Jack looked so familiar.
Kyle’s brother…
The one who bullied him as a kid…
“It’s like life wants to laugh in my face and see how much it can fuck me over,” Kyle said, laughing in such a way that I wondered if he would suddenly start crying. “First, I’m born the runt of the family. Then my brothers get all this good luck. And now I’m to find out that the one girl that actually cared about me is now dating my brother? My fucking brother? Jack?”
I was about to defend myself before I thought better of it. There wasn’t anything I could say that could make this situation better, and frankly, I didn’t owe Kyle an explanation or an apology. I might have said I was sorry for the situation if he hadn’t been such a creep, but that ship had sailed so long ago that there was no chance of bringing it back.
“Why?” he said. “Why?”
“Because we connected, that’s why,” I said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Kyle, I have work to do—”
“You fucking betrayed me.”
Oh, God almighty, what the fuck? Why did I ever give this weirdo the time of day?
“I don’t owe you shit, Kyle,” I said. My anger was rapidly getting out of control. I only had so much bullshit I could tolerate before I lost my mind. “I am an independent woman who can make her own choices. I helped you when you were bullied. I did that because I don’t like to see people getting hurt. But that was years ago. I don’t owe you shit. You don’t owe me shit. There’s no fucking betrayal here. Understood?”
“You’re dating the worst part about my life,” Kyle said, laughing at his own words. “I can’t fucking believe this. Bad enough Marcel gets out of jail and lands on his own two feet like it’s nothing. Now I have to fucking find out that my other brother is dating you?”
“Your brother is a gentleman who has a sense of humor, unlike you.”
I immediately regretted the words. I was putting myself on Kyle’s shit list. I wouldn’t have cared except for his standing as a politician; I wasn’t about to believe in some nutty conspiracy theory about what he could do to me, but he certainly had a lot more levers to pull that could make my life hell in his spot.
“Well, the truth comes out, huh?” he snarled. “Even the angels are bitches. Even the so-called good girls are nothing but a bunch of lying whores.”
I didn’t need to stand for this anymore. I opened my laptop and my story files, even knowing full well that I was in no emotional state to write. Anger was overtaking me far too much—so much so that I could barely see the words on my Word document.
“Fuck, th
is makes so much sense, doesn’t it? You play the long con, bitch. You defend me to make me like you, only to then turn around and fuck my brother. Why don’t you just tell me he was good in bed while you’re at it, Lilly? Why don’t you just crush my soul?”
I slammed the laptop closed. So much for getting any work done here.
“You think I was thinking about what I was going to be like now when we were kids, Kyle?” I said, seething with anger. “You think that I am that cruel? Maybe you need to look at yourself in the mirror. Maybe you’re the one that needs to realize what kind of change you need to make if you don’t want to have women walking away from you.”
“Whatever,” Kyle said. “It won’t matter in a few days anyway.”
That sounded fucking ominous.
And then I remembered that Jack’s uncle, obviously, would have been Kyle’s uncle. The connection was obvious and self-evident, but I’d been blinded by rage and hadn’t made the connection until just now.
“My hope, Kyle, is that you’re just stressed about your uncle’s death. I’m going to allow that you’re having a stressful time—”
“I’m fucking glad he’s gone.”
He’s gone?
Did you fucking order a hit on him?
“And anyway, how do you know about that?”
“We’re done here,” I said, stuffing my laptop into my bag and walking away. Kyle tried to stop me by grabbing my arm, but I moved past him, and as creepy and disturbing as he was being, even he didn’t seem willing to create a scene in a restaurant like this.
“Lilly!” he shouted, following me out the door.
But I was already hailing a cab, so he couldn’t follow me.
“Get away from me!” I said. “Don’t contact me again, Kyle. You’ve got problems. I hope you get the help that you need, but you’ve got some major issues, and I don’t want to be the one to fix them.”
“You’re making the worst fucking mistake of your life!” he shouted as I got in the car door. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll break up with my brother before it’s too late!”
His last few words were muffled by the car door being shut, but I understood full well what he was saying.
By this point, as far as I was concerned, I fully believed that Kyle had either killed his uncle or had ordered the hit somehow. I fully believed that Jack and Jack’s brother were the next in line. And I fully believed that there was a half-decent chance that I would fall somewhere on that list.
I began to feel the onset of a panic attack. I took a few deep breaths to try and control myself, but I was genuinely scared that Kyle was going to kill me. He was going to find a way to hunt me down.
“Ma’am?”
I hadn’t even given the fucking cab driver an address.
“Just, drive forward,” I said. “Get me away from that man.”
The cab driver nodded, at least having the courtesy to go three blocks without charging me before he asked me where I wanted to go. Slowly collecting myself, I gave him the address to my home. It took a lot more effort than I cared to admit to calm myself enough to share the address.
I pulled out my phone to try and text Jack about what had happened, but my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t type out a message of any kind. Eventually, I just fucking gave up and stared out the window at downtown Brooklyn.
When the cab driver dropped me off, I basically just threw money at him. I think the trip was less than fifteen bucks, but I just tossed a twenty at him and hurried out of the car. I ran up to my apartment, locked it, and examined the room to make sure there were no assassins.
Crazy? Not after dealing with Kyle Stone this morning.
Still in a rushed state of alert, I went through all my social media accounts and blocked Kyle on all of them. I blocked his email address and phone number from reaching out to me, even as Kyle continued to text me warnings. I screamed and threw my phone onto the couch when I finally confirmed that I had his number blocked.
And then, finally feeling safe and free from him, I began to cry.
I didn’t know how the hell I had gotten in this spot. I didn’t know why I had ever been so stupid as to let myself get sucked into Kyle’s world like this. But now, nothing could be spared in attempting to extricate myself from it.
And, unfortunately, right now, it sure seemed like what I had with Jack was in some serious danger as a result.
Chapter 13: Biggie
Brooklyn Repairs never opened on Monday, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t without a lot of the Savage Saints.
We treated the day as essentially one long, heavy mourning period. By this point, the police had come and taken Uncle’s body, and though there would be headaches with that, Niner apparently had enough contacts still in his good graces that we didn’t have to worry too much about the police hanging over our heads right now.
With his body gone, people felt a lot more comfortable coming and going in the office. Different members came by to pass on their condolences or just to talk, but for the most part, it was just Marcel and me sitting in there, trying to numb the pain of losing Uncle. I can’t even say that we did a good job of that, either; in a weird way, both of us were in too much of a funk to have any alcohol.
We’d announced around five that we would be having a club-wide meeting where Marcel would deliver a few words. I was quite glad that he was the one doing the talking, because if I had to get up there, there was no way that I would be able to hold it together. Tears would be inevitable.
Throughout it all, I knew that I owed Lilly a text of some kind. But every time I pulled out my phone to send her a message, it felt like the right words just eluded me. If I said something that was sincere, I worried it would overwhelm her. If I said something that was too plain, then it wouldn’t feel honest. I just couldn’t get the words out of me.
The result was that when the clock struck five o’clock, I hadn’t said a single word. I knew I wasn’t doing her any favors. I certainly wasn’t doing myself any favors.
But I mean, for fuck’s sake, my uncle was dead, killed either by Kyle himself or by orders of Kyle. How the hell was I supposed to focus and be on top of what I needed to be on top of?
Usually, such meetings at least had a few people cracking a stray joke here and there. Guys like Niner and Fitz were always bound to keep to themselves, but almost everyone else in the club usually had a guy that they traded jokes with, shared a sarcastic remark on, or generally just kept up with. But today, it felt like a funeral.
“Good afternoon,” Marcel said.
He didn’t need to raise his voice. Even the vehicles passing by outside had quieted, almost like the world needed to go silent to listen to what he had to say.
“By now, you all know why we have gathered,” he said. “Uncle, whose real name was Reggie Stone, was murdered late last night. I don’t need a detective to tell me that Kyle, Biggie’s and my brother, had a hand in the murder. It’s bad enough that he killed an officer of the club. But that he murdered his actual uncle as he did…Kyle is a sick motherfucker who needs to be stopped at all costs.”
He took a deep breath. This was not a rah-rah speech. This was not even an encouraging speech. This, I knew, was just a speech to keep heads held as high as possible. No one was going to pretend that there was going to be any silver lining today, and no one was going to say that this was anything other than a loss and a defeat. But we didn’t have to wallow and cry on each other’s shoulders any more than we already had.
We didn’t need to give Kyle any further help than he already had.
“I want you all to know something,” Marcel said. “There is a temptation to go out and lash out at the world because of this. There is a temptation to be the hero, to find Kyle in the streets, and to shoot him. While that would be mighty satisfying and rewarding, I am here to ask all of you not to do that. Trust me, we will respond aggressively, and justice will be swift. My brother will not survive as a result of his decision. But we cannot fal
l apart as a club like this, and if we commit a sloppy hit in public, we are going to pay the price for it.”
Now this was a little unexpected.
“We are all going through a hard time, a trying time. Emotions are high. Revenge is high on the mind. You all should be feeling that way. I know Uncle could be annoying as hell, but he also cared for everyone in this building as if they were his own brother or son. You can say many things about the man, but you cannot say that he didn’t care about this club.”
The underlining feeling that pervaded the club was still absolutely one of grief. It could not be said that Marcel’s speech was going to do anything other than give some kind words to Uncle.
But slowly, the looks on the men’s faces shifted from despair and hopelessness to inspiration. No one was ready to go out into the streets and fight back, but no longer were people looking as if the club would end because of what had happened.
“And the best way that we can honor his memory is to be there for each other and to care for each other,” he said. “You care for each other right now not by going out and being a vigilante, but by staying by each other’s side and making sure no one gets hurt. One funeral for violence is a funeral too many; I do not need to bury any more of you because of a brash and poorly thought out decision.”
He cleared his throat. Marcel never seemed on the verge of tears, but what he had just said had seemed to get him the closest. Nevertheless, with clearing his throat, he returned to his stoic self.
“There will be no party this weekend. We are currently trying to schedule Uncle’s funeral for later in the week. We will not strike until we have laid him to rest, though we will defend ourselves as necessary. We will open the shop as normal tomorrow and have normal operating hours. The officers and I are going to retreat to the office to share drinks and commemorate Uncle. Anyone is welcome to join.”
