by J. C. Allen
“Fine. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”
I walked over to the door and opened it, suggesting for him to leave. He smirked at me on his way out, as if he had gotten away with some shit I couldn’t possibly be smart enough to know.
That was fine. I wanted him to think he was right. But I sure as hell didn’t.
Right now, though, I wasn’t sure I could trust myself on my own judgment of what was right and wrong. I had dumped Isabelle; that sure seemed wrong. I had just authorized us to do a drug run; that sure seemed wrong. Now I was bullshitting through my teeth to my brothers; that, also, seemed wrong.
Maybe… maybe, if everything went perfect on this run, I could get Isabelle back.
No. Don’t even think like that. You left because this run is a lifestyle, not just a one-off. Maybe not to the degree of the drug deal, but don’t you dare go back.
I walked out of the office feeling as defeated as I ever had. Now, the club was emptier than it was before, with most of the patrons gone. Only Zeke was at the bar. Walker was setting the chairs down and putting the tables in order.
Otherwise, though, it was empty as my soul.
“Hey,” Zeke said. He seemed a little warmer than when I had left for my one-on-one meeting, but I knew he was still going to—justifiably—give me shit.
“I just talked to Jack,” I grumbled as I sat at a stool.
“Why don’t you let me come with you? No one can ride as fast as me, you know that.”
And now here comes the part where my brothers get jealous I won’t let them get in the line of fire.
“It’s not about that, it’s about being careful. And if we get caught, I don’t want any of you caught in the cross fire with me.”
I didn’t think they’d handle the news with grace and gratitude, but I didn’t expect such sadness and disappointment from Zeke.
“You shouldn’t put all this on yourself. You shouldn’t have to.”
I shouldn’t, but I have. So, deal with it.
“What kind of president would I be if I let everyone else fight my battles for me?”
He wiggled his brows and looked away, chewing on his inner cheek, before he looked back at me. I had never seen Zeke look so certain as when he spoke his next words.
“You should talk to Isabelle. I’m telling you man, you don’t want to lose her. I know about the ones who get away, it’s no fun.”
He dropped his shoulder and hardened his eyes at me. I knew he was right. I knew…
But, fuck it. Pride was still getting in the way. And for that matter…
“You gonna tell me what’s going on with you and Matthew? See how it feels if I get caught up in your business?”
To my surprise, though, Zeke just grinned, albeit a grin that suggested he wasn’t innocent.
“Yeah we uh… had a disagreement? See, if I rat him out, he won’t tell me anyone’s secrets anymore.”
He laughed uneasily. I shook my head at him. I didn’t know what the fuck to think about anything anymore.
“It’s not ratting him out, we’re brothers.”
“Same difference. But, if you must, you should ask him, you know, benefit of the doubt and all?”
I just kept staring at him until he broke. Eventually, Zeke relented—and it didn’t make me happy.
“Basically, he started the shit with city hall, pissed the mayor off and dared him to get rid of us instead of talking smack.”
God. Fucking. Damnit.
“Fuck.”
I stepped back and rubbed my hands down my face, feeling the cold and hot go away as I did. My own goddamn brother put us in this spot…
Mother. Fucker.
“What’s done is done, right?” he said, clasping my shoulder with a hint of arrogance.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Don’t even worry about it man, we have bigger fish to fry now. Better start getting ready for your drug run.”
Now, it feels like I should have been worrying about other things, like what the club has been doing, and what my own brother has been doing.
But, as Zeke said, it was in the past now, another thing buried that I couldn’t dig up. Like Isabelle.
For right now, though, I had to save my goddamn club.
16
Isabelle
The numbness of my skin didn’t alert me to the touch of Riley, pulling me off the ground.
I know she was asking me something but I coulnd’t find it in myself to pay attention to her. I was just so crushed, so devastated by what had transpired… what could I feel? What was I supposed to feel?
If I could stay frozen here, on this sidewalk, then maybe I can stay in the place where Jaxson was when he was still mine. Maybe, in some universe, we could still be together.
But my numb lips and frozen fingers forced me to get up and follow Riley back inside. I dropped onto the couch as she returned with a blanket and hot tea. I held it in my hands even though it burned. As I get warm, I started to hear what she was saying, though it wasn’t like I had good answers for her questions.
“What the hell happened?”
I couldn’t look at her, but I knew she was staring at me. I stared down into the yellow green color of the tea. What the hell had happened, indeed. No amount of MFAs and PhDs in the world could figure that one up.
“He broke up with me.”
My voice was sad and dejected. It hadn’t been that way for years. I didn’t think I could sound like that anymore. Not after overcoming what I did so many years ago. I never even got to tell Jaxson, never got to tell him the harsh truth and ask him to love me anyway. I loved him despite his background, but he didn’t see that or he didn’t care.
What was perhaps most frustrating was that even after he hurt me, I still wanted him because I knew he dumped me out of love. I knew how hard it was for him.
If that made me weak, well, fine, I didn’t mind being weak.
“Why?” Riley said, a hint of frustration in her voice. “He was coming to have dinner with us and then—he just breaks up with you? I don’t get it.”
She rubbed my back, which helped me warm up more.
“He did it to protect me, and he said that he loves me.”
She didn’t say anything about how contradictory that was. Thank God for that—I didn’t think I had it in me to explain to her what the crazy mind of Jaxson was.
It would only hurt me more to keep reminding myself as to whether or not he loved me too much or wanted to love me but couldn’t. To go down that path was to go down a path of self-flagellation.
“He’s trying to save his club. And he might have to do something… that he could go to jail for.”
It sounded so dramatic, but I didn’t even know what that thing was. Murder? Theft? Drugs? Threats? There were so many possibilities, and yet so few answers.
“Holy shit…” Riley said, trailing off.
I didn’t bother to ask if she trailed off because she couldn’t believe Jaxson was getting in that world, or because she couldn’t believe I had fallen for a guy like him.
“I wish I could help him. So I could help him, his family. I know I sound stupid.”
“You don’t,” Riley said.
Even if she didn’t believe her own words, it was the most reassuring thing I could have heard.
“You love him. But how could you save a motorcycle club? That place is ancient, and if the city wants them gone, they have to go. It’s not a museum. Unfortunately, there just isn’t much you can do.”
Somewhere in my found sorrow, I listened to what she was saying, and the part of me that did random research for years just to write my plays realistically resurfaced. I was reminded of how to save a part in the city, everyone came together and made the place a historical landmark, so no one could touch it.
“The club has been in their family for years,” I whispered.
My mind was racing at a thousand miles per hour, and I knew what I was considering was quite possibly beyond insane. I was possibly putting mysel
f out there to help someone who had left me in the cold, and there was little chance this could work.
But…
“Yeah?”
“But how long? How long has it been in the family?”
I dashed up from the couch and to my computer in my bedroom. I wiped my tears and tried to focus. Jaxson had never told me the exact year his father came here, or even how old he was. I had to look for the less obvious stuff, like when the building was built and by whom. It was like looking for the most minute of clues, but if it could answer my theory…
Riley sat with me as I turned in circles, trying to find what I needed. I wished I could have asked one of his brothers, or even anyone at the club, but I was more than willing to do this on my own.
“Look at the City Hall Charter.”
And that’s where I found it.
The building itself has stood for eighty-two years. I checked the minimum amount of time before it could be made a historical landmark and protected by federal law.
Eighty years.
“Time to go to city hall.”
When morning came, all the emotion of the previous day came flooding back to me. I lay there and let fresh tears fall before I remembered I had a limited amount of time. I couldn’t let anything stop me, most especially since if this didn’t work, I had to find alternatives as fast as I could.
I called in to my professor to let him know I wouldn’t make it to class, telling him that I had an emergency meeting at city hall for personal business. I never would have guessed that, of all places, school would help me.
“Oh,” my professor says. “My brother works in city hall here, I can give him a call for you?”
“Really?”
Finally. Some good news!
“That would be fantastic. I need to talk to someone in building regulations.”
“That’s his department, he might speed things up for you. Look for Bryan.”
I couldn’t say my thanks quickly enough before hanging up, hoping that I could get there and make a difference before it was too late. Not just for the sake of making the building a historic landmark, but also for the sake of letting Jaxson avoid a drug run, avoid jail time, avoid possible death.
All of that was on my mind when I met Bryan Casper, one of the city planners.
He advised that he could rush the paperwork and make it so the city couldn’t tax them anymore and would be able to forgive what they are already owed. It was only possible because the building had been there before the club was, considerably longer, and that it could be classified as sanctuary. I did my best to act as a student activist and not a broken lover, but it took the presence of Riley to ensure that I didn’t blurt everything out.
Still, he advised that there were no guarantees. I would have to wait a couple of days to get official word, and even then, things could change. I knew that what I was hoping for could fall apart on me at any moment.
But all I could think about was Jaxson and how much I loved him. So quickly, he started to matter so much to me. He was kind and sweet, handsome, and even funny. He loved his family and was loyal to his club. He had all the qualities in a man that I never knew I needed or wanted until him.
And, for some reason, he loved me back. So much that he left me behind.
But I didn’t want that to be our story.
Maybe it was how the story was going to end. Maybe he was going to wind up in prison for drugs, and my efforts would have fallen through at the wrong time.
But all I could do was what I had control over, and I had to let the chips fall where they would.
The rest, it seemed, was up to fate.
I spent that night unable to sleep, constantly running my finger over Jaxson’s contact, constantly trying to decide if I should tell him what I was doing, constantly having to restrain myself from saying anything. I just felt that until I found out about the place becoming a historic building, I couldn’t ask him for anything. If I failed at this, I didn’t deserve to win him back.
Still, I read through our entire text conversation multiple times and replayed his calls in my head. I remembered all the times that he got me aroused, the great sex that we had had, and the future that lay before us—if we got back together. It all was so worth fighting for, and it all was the kind of thing I could never forget. Jaxson had done something to me that no man, not even my ex, ever had.
And if that wasn’t worth fighting for, then nothing was.
When the sun did finally rise, I gave up trying to sleep. I put my phone on the loudest volume possible so that if Bryan called back, I’d hear him even if I was dozing off. Ironically, the decision to give up on sleep suddenly let me feel so tired that I wanted to pass out.
I was just about to do so shortly after eight when my phone rang, blaring in my ear. It wasn’t Jaxson’s ring tone, so I knew it wasn’t him.
But it was, for once since I had moved here, someone I wanted to hear from more.
“Miss Isabelle, I hoped to reach you.”
It was Bryan from the city council.
“I just wanted to let you know that everything worked out, and you can come get the paperwork tomorrow.”
I jumped out of bed, letting out a silent fist pump. I had to hold the phone away from my ear as I began sobbing with joy. I did it. I did it. They’re saved. They’re really, truly saved.
“You’ll need to keep a copy along with the other insurance statements, but the city has their own copies here for records in paper and electronic.”
It was unreal. Unbelievable. I still… it had actually fucking happened!
“Wow… thank you.”
“Of course. The occupants of that club don’t have to worry about that anymore. I will need to see you tomorrow to finalize some things, so can you make it?”
I had to fight from laughing.
“Of course!”
“Perfect, then I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
I hung up and had to check to make sure I was not dreaming.
Nope. It was real.
Jaxson will be okay. I itched to call him…
But I still had to sign the paperwork. I couldn’t give him false hope until I had those papers in my hands and I could see him in person to prove it. I wished I had thought of it before, that I had tried harder to help him—if I had done that, then perhaps this beak up never would have happened..
Now, though? I knew there was another real chance for us to be together.
Sure enough, Bryan was waiting with the papers as promised. It looked so official, but I made sure to examine them with the thoroughness of a lawyer, looking for any potential loopholes. But, fortunately, I didn’t find any—maybe a lawyer could, but it looked like there was nothing that anyone in the government, for or against the Kinsmen, could do to the building.
“This is real,” I said.
The front door suddenly busted open.
Four guys walked in—including Jaxson. My eyes focused on him. He froze when he saw me.
“Isabelle…”
He stopped so close to me I could smell his pine and cologne scent, and I was reacquainted with the intensity of his gaze and the way it set my body on fire.
“What are you doing here?”
What am I doing here, indeed.
“It’s a long story, Jaxson,” I said. “Do you promise to let me tell you everything?”
He nodded slowly.
I explained everything, only halfway through realizing how much it sounded too good to be true. Still, for everything that I said, it was only when I showed him the papers that he believed me. He took them and surveyed them the way he would look at me sometimes—in awe.
When his eyes came back to me, everything came flooding back. The way he said he loves me, and how I would say that I loved him too.
“Cancel the run,” he said, his voice shaky. “Tell the other guys to go home.”
The other men gasped in surprise.
“President’s orders.”
The room fell
completely silent, and in that moment, it felt like I was all alone with him.
And when Jaxson turned back to me and and kissed me harder than he ever had before, it felt just as if the world was only us.
It felt perfect.
Epilogue
When November would roll around, the club would be at its best. This particular November, it was no different.
And it was all because of Isabelle—literally.
I had tried to let her go, but she was what saved us. Somehow, she discovered something none of us ever thought to examine. It left me in awe every fucking day since. Thank God I fell for a smart girl. She literally might have saved my life if I had gone on that run.
At first, it was hard to get her back, as it damn well should have been. I had hurt her, and she would have been justified in keeping me away. Thankfully, she found it in herself to forgive me. And now that that had happened, let’s just say I wasn’t going to fuck it up twice.
Isabelle was the best thing that could have happened to me, and I refused to mess that up again. I swore to be true to her for the rest of my life. I never would have to be alone again so long as I had Isabelle.
I had a few conditions, of course—but, fortunately, I think she was in favor of them too.
I took her out on real dates, treated her how she deserved to be treated, and promised that I would love her every day, no matter what.
I still fell in shock to hear that she loved me too. This beautiful, smart, loving woman was mine. I felt like I had won the lottery.
I might as well have.
When I took her home to my Mom… I knew that she was truly the one. They were like best friends within an hour. Mom was sharing secrets about me, and, admittedly, I was mortified, but Isabelle loved every minute of it. It was the same thing with my brothers, as they treated her like the little sister they never had.
Truth be told, we still had our hard times. She confessed to me that she grew up without her dad, got in trouble at school, and was sent away by her mom as a result. I knew it was hard for her to be honest with me. But nothing could stop me from loving her, nothing.
