Set apart from the rest of the pages were the things she’d done to document Alex’s life, too. And that was something she’d intentionally decided to not think about, why she felt the need to keep tabs on him and his friends.
Two whole pages were taken up by the six front page photos of his club escorting bullied kids to school. Another two pages had been dedicated to the club itself, everything she could find out about it. History, original members, their occasional brushes with the law balanced against the many donations from them to animal shelters and veterans’ memorials, even the colorfully-painted benches now scattered along the local nursing home sidewalks were a donation from his club.
She’d drawn the line at including anything specific to Alex, but that hadn’t stopped her from stalking his social media, scouring every picture for a glimpse of his elusive significant other, that status of Married never changing.
With a deep breath, she pushed open the car door and stepped out, arms filled with the items for her vigil. Head down, she trudged up the rise to where Martin’s grave was, each step harder than the one before. She’d never felt like this before, as if coming to see him on the anniversary of his death was a chore, something to get through. It was never pleasant, but she’d always believed it her duty. He was gone, and she was here, so she mourned him the only way she knew how. With tears and grief, and devotion.
She’d never know what caused her to look up.
One moment she was lost inside her own head, wallowing in grief for the death of someone she’d loved, and for the loss of so much of herself, and the next she was staring at Alex as he finished pouring something on the dirt beside Martin’s headstone. He lifted the flask and took a long drink, staring at the nearby flagpole where the American flag proudly flew. His bike sat where it had the first time he’d come here, and she stood where she’d been the first time she’d seen him here, and he was about where he’d been then, too. It was like a surreal overlay of the then and now, and she was dizzy for a moment with the idea that maybe she’d imagined these past two years.
Then he turned and faced her, and she saw the differences he bore. His beard was thicker, darker and filled out along the jawline. There were lines on his face that hadn’t been there before, and when he smiled at her, she knew where they’d come from because the creases exactly matched the expression of pleasure he showed her.
Alex had filled out in other ways, his shoulders even broader than before, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d had to get a new jacket just to fit all of him. She adjusted the blanket, too conscious of the fact she’d filled out, too, and not in ways she liked to think about. After Martin had died, she’d lost all the remnants of baby fat she’d carried through school. She hadn’t thought about the fact that process had reversed until she’d recently had to retire her favorite pair of jeans when they’d gotten too tight everywhere.
“Hey,” he called, voice low and rasping, as if he’d been here a while without speaking.
She nodded, not sure her mouth would work right now. Why is this so awkward?
He gestured towards the grass where they’d sat last time. “Here okay?” Another nod was her only response, and he looked at her intently, head cocked to one side. “Amanda, if you’d rather be alone, I can go. I…” He trailed off and then laughed softly. “Honestly, I’m not real sure why I’m here.”
“Please, stay.” He smiled at her again and her breath caught in her throat. “I’m glad you’re here.” She dipped her gaze to his boots, then back up to his face in time to see a satisfied smirk cross his face. “You look good, Alex.”
“You do, too.” He made a show of inspecting her as he reached for the blanket. They juggled things for a moment. Then he had the material spread smoothly on the grass. “I’m glad you accepted my request.”
Amanda paused in mid-crouch, one hand and knee on the blanket, and looked up at him. “I’m sorry I took so long.” Is he flirting with me?
“All good things take time.” He made himself comfortable on one corner, feet stretched out to the side, arm locked behind him as he leaned back. He held out the flask. “Want a drink?”
She shook her head. “It was you, last year, too, wasn’t it?” He didn’t respond, just looked at her. “It was still wet when I got here. I couldn’t have missed you by much.” She gestured towards the dark spot on the dirt where he’d dampened it with the whiskey from the flask. “What does that mean?”
“Libations for the fallen.” He lifted the closed flask. “Drinks for those who can no longer imbibe, those gone ahead to Valhalla. It’s an old tradition and for some reason felt right when I was here. We might not have served together, but together we served, if that makes any sense.” He shrugged. “A brothers in arms thing, I guess.”
“I think it’s touching, and very fitting.” She reached out and laid her hand over his for a moment. “Thank you.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, the sun growing hotter overhead and baking through her thin shirt. She could only imagine how hot he had to be in the jacket, but he didn’t move, didn’t give any indication of discomfort.
“It’s weird, you know?” She didn’t look at him. “There’s a grasshopper, right there on your toe, and it didn’t exist last year when I was here. That bird”—she gestured towards a starling hopping along two rows over—“probably didn’t either. Not last year, much less the last time Martin was breathing and home.” She sighed. “I lost the house he bought. Did I tell you that?” He made a sound and she nodded. “He loved it a lot, had all these plans in his head. It was okay, not my dream home, but it sure was his. He would have been so mad at me.”
“Why would he have been pissed?” She glanced at him to see his head back, closed eyes aimed towards the sky. “Gonna be blunt here, Amanda. He’s the one dead, not you. You had to make decisions that were right for you. Keeping a house that you didn’t want in the first place would have been stupid.” His head rolled to the side and he cracked open one eye, his gaze cutting. “You don’t strike me as a stupid woman.”
She stared at him as he resumed his sunbathing. “Aren’t you hot?”
“Yeah, but I ain’t got no shirt on under the jacket. Figured it was the least of bad choices to just keep it on.” The same head roll, same cracked eye, and he was staring at her again. “If it won’t bother you, then I’ll lose the jacket for now.”
“It won’t bother me.” She laughed softly. “I appreciate your consideration, but I’d rather know you were comfortable.”
“Alrighty then.” He sat up and shrugged, the worn leather falling down his arms, and she stared and stared. He was covered in tattoos. Front, back, arms, neck, everything she could see had ink either on or adjacent. The one on the side of his neck she’d seen before, a glimpse that first day at the gas station, a moment in time so far in the past it seemed surreal that had brought them here. He had a winged eagle that spanned his shoulders, talons reaching far down his spine, the head wrapping cunningly around one scapula. His arms were a mixed canvas of tiny tattoos and larger pieces, all intertwined with vines and words and colors that probably meant something to him but looked like beautiful chaos to her. One pec held a replica of the emblem from the back of the jacket, and she noted how it was reverently separate from other tattoos. Set apart somehow by being isolated, and she liked that he gave it a place of honor. His abs flexed, and she tried to read the words arching over his bellybutton in between his breaths, finally giving up as she realized he was laughing. “Woman, you get your fill of lookin’ yet?”
She stared at his face because his smile was blindingly bright, eyes twinkling at her as he gently poked fun at her scrutiny of his body.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry.” She turned to face the headstone as he got to his feet, then cast a glance over her shoulder at a sound, afraid it was him leaving, but he’d just draped the jacket across the seat. Folded so the symbol for his club was hidden from view, he took a moment to ensure it was stable and wouldn’t fall on the gr
ound. “Is it like the flag?” He glanced back at her with a question in his eyes. “The jacket. It’s your club insignia, right? Are you not supposed to put it on the ground?”
He smiled, but it was somehow cautious, as if she were treading along the edges of something that wasn’t her business. “Yeah, something like that. What do you know about a motorcycle club?”
She shook her head with a laugh. “Just what I’ve watched on TV.”
“So, not much,” he teased with a grin as he sat back down, closer. She watched the muscles in his arms and back play under the skin, mesmerized at the movement underneath the colorful pictures. “You ever ridden?”
“What?” She blinked and shook her head. “Uh, no. No.”
“Lemme know if you wanna change that status.” For a moment, she fixated on the social media status she’d impulsively changed a couple of days ago. He narrowed his eyes and clarified. “From nonrider to rider.”
Of course, he didn’t mean relationship, you idiot. He’s married.
She whipped her head to the side and stared at Martin’s name etched in stone. It was engraved in the wedding band she no longer wore, too.
That had been the first change, about a year and a half ago. She’d gotten out of the shower and picked it up to slip onto her finger, where it had ridden since Martin had placed it there standing in front of his friends and family. She’d hesitated, and then set it back down in the little tray she kept in the bathroom for that purpose. After it remained there a month, she’d moved it to her nightstand, and after a month there, to her jewelry box, tucked back into the foam and velvet alongside her impractical engagement ring.
She’d done it without much thought, just accepting it as a change, and moving on. Now she wondered if it meant more. If it had been her first unconscious decision to begin moving forwards and out of the stasis she’d been caught in since his death.
“Amanda?” Alex’s voice was cautious, careful. “Did I say something wrong?” She shook her head. “Are you sure?” That one she simply didn’t answer, keeping her blurry gaze on the stone, no longer able to pick out his name. “Oh, honey.” If she hadn’t been weeping before, the sweet pain in his voice would have caused it. “Come here.” Then he gathered her up in his arms, like he’d done before, and arranged her in his lap. This time it wasn’t leather under her cheek, but warm muscles covered by silken skin. She closed her eyes to block it out. Block everything out. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She couldn’t have answered him if she’d tried, throat closed tight with tears and regret. If she could have, she would have told him it wasn’t Martin’s death that caused her to weep, but the impossibility of building anything with him. So stupid.
“Lost one of my soldiers to an IED. Years ago. There wasn’t enough to put in a box to send home to his folks. Hands down, that was the hardest call I had to make, first notification I had to do. I got home in time to go to his funeral, a memorial service, and they had pictures of him everywhere. Helped me to see what he was, before.” The sound of his heart steadied her, a regular bump, bump, bump in her ear. “Caught up to his girlfriend a couple of months ago. She’s married now, two kids, a good life, you know?” The thudding sped up slightly. “She looked at me, and I could see it all crashing back down on her. My fault, for being in the grocery store. My fault, for being someone who’d known him. Her face went white, and I swear she was just a minute from passin’ out.” The thudding was faster yet, and then his hand settled on her back. She sighed and nestled closer, and his heartbeat evened back out, slowing to the same steady thump, thump from before. “I told her how good it felt to see her honoring him by living her life. Not sure she believed me right away, but I said it again, and again. How it isn’t right to lock up the sweetness that’s still here and hold tight to that bitterness. That’s something you need to hear, too.” He adjusted his hold on her, the underside of his forearm banding across the side of her breast, and just that innocent touch was enough to make her stomach swoop and dip. “It’s okay to live, Amanda. It’s okay to want things that you didn’t have together. It’s not going to change anything if you stay stuck. Well, it will. It’ll change you, but not for the better. So if you want to try new things like ridin’ on a bike, you just let me know and I’ll tell you it’s okay, and normal, and makes me happy. That’s you bein’ strong, and that’s a good thing to see.”
“You’re married.” Traitor mouth, blurting things she had no intention of saying.
“What? No. No, I’m not.” His arms tightened around her, wrapped tight as he could without crushing her. “Not for years now.” She didn’t argue, let him have this denial and felt the change in his body when he realized what she meant. “Oh, fuck. Honey, no. She divorced me long before I left the military. Hated being left alone, and I wasn’t enough for what she needed. Then I got out and, hell, I’m so different, there ain’t no way I’d put up with her shit now. Plus, she’s married again. I just never changed it because…fuck, I don’t know. It would make a statement, you know? Put a pin in it, and everyone would know. I mean, they already know, but I just didn’t…” He shifted under her, and she went with the jostling, letting him roll to one hip and then back.
From the corner of her eye, she watched him shuffle his phone hand to hand, then wrap the empty one around her again as he worked on the device with the other. “There,” he said with finality, bringing the screen closer. She blinked. Status: Single.
“Alex,” she started to say something, not sure what, but certain her traitor mouth would come up with what she needed.
He shook his head. “Nuh uh. You hush, now. That’s not for you, that’s for me. Swear.” A repeat of the movement as he put the phone away, then he had both arms around her again. “For me.”
His heart beat steadily underneath her cheek, reassuring her that this hadn’t been traumatizing, that he wasn’t conflicted, that it didn’t matter to him, except how it mattered to her.
***
Monk
The sun was edging towards the west and still, they sat. The skin tightened on his shoulders with a burn he knew he’d feel later, but since he worked outside most days and did some of that shirtless, it shouldn’t be bad.
The sense of relief he’d felt at figuring out what was bothering Amanda still swirled through him, part exhilaration and part fear, because he didn’t want to fuck this up. At some point over the past two years, this woman who was nearly a stranger had become important to him. The third time they’d spoken was today, but each of the conversations had been so weighty, so filled with important topics that it was as if he’d known her forever. Like he knew her inside and out, and she him.
It had been a long time coming, but today felt like a beginning, and he wanted to hold onto that as long as he could.
Chapter Four
Monk
It had been a rough day at work, but Alex enjoyed how his crew pulled together to overcome obstacles. Made him feel good about being bumped up to supervisor, and he was pleased to be assigned such good men. Beer in hand, he checked his messages and smiled to see one from Amanda. After months of occasional exchanges via social media, which had gradually grown more frequent, and then edged into flirting territory, she’d asked for his phone number. It’s just easier, she’d messaged, following it with a tongue sticking out emoji.
And he’d acquiesced. Sending her the number only a fraction of a second after her explanation message, desperately fast if she’d noticed.
The first message in their string was from her, of course, because he stupidly hadn’t asked for hers, just handed his out like candy. But she hadn’t messaged right away. Which meant the resulting interval of two days had been killer. He’d been too stubborn to go back to the messenger and prompt her, stuck in a merciless kind of limbo where it felt like his future hung in the balance.
Then she’d texted, and he’d spent long minutes trying to read subtle messages into her questions, because she’d gone straight for deep and personal. He’
d balked for a moment, planning to hold back until he reconsidered, took a deep, deep breath and answered, giving her everything she wanted to know.
Why did your wife divorce you? Just the time apart doesn’t seem like enough of a reason, so it feels like a copout to me. Was she unfaithful? Were you? I know this probably is something like date fifteen territory, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve ever not known you, and I want to know. I want to know before I take any steps with you. Do you still love her? Is that why you didn’t change your status for years? Years, Alex. That’s not something you put off by a week or two. My counselor says not making a decision is making a decision by default, even if it’s a decision to deny whatever it is you’re avoiding. And by you, I mean me. Anyway, this is long, super long, like a book already, but I wanted to know. If you want to tell me, that is. Oh yeah, this is Amanda, in case you haven’t figured it out by now. Serious face emoji, slight smile emoji, question mark emoji.
He’d started with the easiest response.
I knew it was you right away.
She didn’t text back, and he didn’t blame her, because he hadn’t addressed the questions she’d already said were important to her.
She sent me an email to announce I’d be getting papers. I tried to call her, but it went to voice mail. I wasn’t unfaithful. I’d never do that to someone I loved. If I love someone, I’m all in. No backing out from me. Do not pass Go. Do not collect anyfuckingthing.
Twisted Tales of Mayhem Page 17
