She needs me.
“Because I told you, if I don’t have his money, Skinny is going to kill me.” She pulls her dark hoodie from her head and turns the flashlight upwards until her face is illuminated in the yellow glow. I gasp. Dark purple bruises are smattered across her obviously broken nose, both of her eyes are swollen, and one has a halo of yellow around it. The whites of her eyes are bloodshot. The corners of her cracked lips are dried with blood. Her jaw is off-center.
She hadn’t been lying. Or maybe she had been but someone had obviously beaten her pretty badly. I am about to change my mind and open my mouth to tell her that she can have the money when she holds up her hand. “Never mind, Ray. It was nice knowing ya.” She turns off the flashlight and starts making her way down the tree, temporarily disappearing into the black backyard until her shadow emerges under the streetlight on the front walk. She turns and waves. “Bye, Ray,” I hear her say quietly, cutting through the silence of the night. There is a finality in her good-bye that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. She turns to leave but stops again and turns around. “And Ray? Whatever you do, don’t trust the tyrant.”
Then I watch as my best friend turns back around again and walks away.
Maybe for the very last time.
I whisper back to her and can only hope that she can still hear me.
“Bye, Nikki.”
King
“What exactly did the fucking thing say again?” Bear asked.
“Here,” I said, flinging the envelope across the room. It landed on the floor. Bear reached down and unfolded the paper I wish I’d never received. He muttered as he read through the lengthy letter from the state, informing me that since I didn’t qualify for guardianship of Max, that they would like to put her up for adoption. They’d already had an interested family reach out to her caseworker.
They’d already taken her from me physically, and now they wanted me to give them permission to give her to another family and strip the King name from her.
It was the last fucking thing I needed.
Bear and I were delirious and running on only a few hours of sleep in a week. We’d spent a shit load of time running offense, actively searching for Eli. We’d been everywhere from Miami to Atlanta, but the guy was like a ghost. Every bit of information we received brought us somewhere he’d just left.
Sometimes we’d missed him by just minutes.
“Says here they can’t do shit without you signing off,” Bear concluded, flicking the letter with his index finger, tossing it haphazardly onto the coffee table.
“Yeah, but it’s also basically saying that if I don’t sign off she’ll be in fucking foster care until she’s eighteen.” I twisted the last piece of my tattoo gun in place. “Don’t know if I can do that to her, man. When I was a kid, I would’ve given anything for my mom to actually be a mom. Fuck, I would have given anything just to know who my father was.”
“But your mom was a fucking cunt,” Bear stated, “and now she’s a dead fucking cunt.”
“Her being a dead fucking cunt is the reason I don’t have my kid,” I reminded him, “and maybe she’s better off living with normal people who don’t have to worry about all this bullshit of killin’ or being killed.”
Bear rolled his eyes. “Bullshit. Killing motherfuckers is business. Ain’t got shit to do with family. What the fuck do they know, anyway? We’re lawless, my friend. Civilians can’t wrap their little fucking brains around what that means without getting their frilly panties in a fucking twist.”
“You do know that in the eyes of the MC I’m a civilian,” I countered.
Bear waved me off. “Just to my old man, and what the fuck does he know?”
I paused for a minute, before I shared something with Bear I’d never told anyone else. Even Preppy. “If I ever get the chance to be a real dad to Max…I’m going full civilian.”
“Like you had to tell me. I fucking knew that shit. Let me know how your application to fucking DeVry pans out, you fucking pussy,” Ghost-Preppy taunted.
“You ain’t thinking clearly right now. We’ll get Eli all nice and dead first, and then you can think about what a dumb fuck you just sounded like when you informed me that The King of the Causeway is going fucking legit,” Bear scoffed.
I’d expected that response from Bear. I knew he wouldn’t understand what lengths a person would go to for their kid, for their family. “You know how you would do anything for your brothers in the MC?”
Bear nodded. “For the MC. For you. Yeah, man. Anything. Steal, fight, maim, kill. Shit, I’d take a fucking bullet. I’d go back and take Preppy’s fucking bullet right now if I could.” I believed him, because Bear’s loyalties ran deep.
“Well,” I started, “those things are jack shit compared to what you would be willing to do for your own kid.”
It was Bear’s turn to shake his head. I knew he would never really understand what I’d meant unless he up and had a kid of his own someday, and that thought was laughable at best.
I rubbed my hand across the stubble on my jaw, which over the past week, had turned more beard than stubble. All I really wanted was to drag Pup into my bed and settle my face in between her legs for the foreseeable future.
But I couldn’t do that until we ended Eli.
The guy was smart. He liked his revenge slow, sweet, and tortuous.
Torture is the word I would use to describe not being able to reach out to Pup. But it was too dangerous. The last guy Eli set his sights on lost his entire family, right down to his second cousins, before Eli finally put an end to the guy’s misery of watching everyone he loved die off one by one.
“We’ll start back up in the morning,” I said. “Put more feelers out there. See if we can get info from someone closer to him or his inner circle. Someone who will know where he is in present tense, not past.”
I rubbed my eyes. I was tired, but also restless. My skin was literally itching to move the fuck on past all the fucking problems and move on to the solutions.
Like putting a fucking bullet in Eli.
Ideally I’d like to do it without even stopping the fucking car, and then hightail it back to Pup. Then, we can figure the Max thing out.
Together.
“You got any space left?” I called over to Bear, who was lying face down on the couch. We were in the apartment he’d built for himself in my garage. With no windows and only a single door in and out, it made us feel less like sitting ducks than the main house.
Bear spoke into the cushion, listing the parts of his body that weren’t already covered with ink. “Some on my neck, the inside of my right arm, couple of fingers I think…and my dick, but you ain’t my type, fucker, so hands off.”
“He can’t tattoo your dick, Bear. He doesn’t do micro portraits.”
I laughed at the sound of Preppy’s voice in my head and took another hit of the joint Bear and I’d been passing back and forth. “What’s so fucking funny?” he asked, lifting his head from the cushion. His eyes rimmed in red.
“Prep,” I said, holding the smoke in my lungs as long as I could, letting it burn in my chest until I had no choice but to blow it out. “This is fucked up, but…I still hear him sometimes.”
Bear sat up and took the joint, taking three hits before leaning back on the couch with his arms spread across the back of the cushions. “I know what you mean. Me too. He’s always been there to break up all the heavy shit we’re all stewing in. Now that he ain’t here, it’s just all heavy shit…and no Prep.”
The plan had been to take a night and get some rest before going back to it. I’d tossed and turned for hours, knowing that until Pup was back in my bed, I’d never have a good night sleep again.
I’d heard Bear grunting, doing his own tossing and turning.
So finally, we’d just quit trying.
For three hours we’d been getting high, and for a while it was almost like old times when me, Bear, and Preppy, had spent many nights the exact same wa
y. Except without Preppy. And just like those times, I’d broken out my tattoo gun.
“You ready to do this?” I asked, holding up the gun, using the foot pedal to make it buzz in the air.
“Fuck, yeah. Ink me, bitch.” Bear came over and sat on a stack of tires he used as a makeshift coffee table with his back to me. With his chin on his chest, he reached behind his head, moving aside his hair. He touched his fingers to one of the few unmarked spots of skin on his body. “Right there man.”
I went in freehand and forty minutes later Bear had a new tattoo in big bold lettering.
PREP
He didn’t even ask to see it before he fell back on the couch. He lit a cigarette and poured out some white powder from a little bag onto the table, cutting it into lines with a razor blade, using a rolled up dollar bill he snorted two lines. Pinching his nostrils together, Bear chuckled. “Remember that time I jumped off the roof of the garage into the bay? Man, that shit was epic”
“I remember,” I said, shaking my head when Bear tried handing me the rolled up bill. “Preppy about had a coronary when you threw him in the water. Had his white suspenders dry-cleaned three times that week.”
Bear looked as tired as I did but there was more to it than just a lack of sleep. I’d never seen him look so worn out. “What’s got you all inside out? You haven’t been right for a while. Even before shit went down with Preppy. What the fuck is up with you?” I asked.
Bear sighed, resting his hand that was holding his cigarette against his temple. “Pops wants to pass me the gavel.”
“Hasn’t that always been the plan?”
Bear shrugged. “Yeah, when he died or was like ninety. Even then, part of me thought he would be buried with that fucking gavel in his stiff hands. But he wants to pass it to me…now.”
“I still don’t understand. What’s the fucking problem?”
Bear stood up and started to pace back and forth in front of the couch. “To be honest man? I’m just not sure I want it anymore. What made sense when I patched in don’t make much sense anymore. Shit’s changing. In the club. Out of the club. Things just ain’t how I thought they’d be,” Bear said, looking absently at the ceiling. He shook his head as if he were clearing the fog away. “Maybe I just need some pussy,” he said. “Maybe when all this shit’s over, I’ll text that British chick Jodi. She fucks like a champ and prefers it in the ass.”
“Some random chick ain’t gonna fix shit,” I said.
“I know, but my cock in her ass will at least make me forget for a while.” Bear plopped back down on the couch. He scratched at his arm. I guess I wasn’t the only one restless and itching to get this shit over with.
“Mind if I ask you something?” Bear leaned forward, grabbing his smokes from the table. He didn’t wait for my answer. “Why is Doe the one that’s got your fucking guts all torn in pieces, when you used to go through a bitch or two a day? Sometimes at the same fucking time,” Bear lamented.
I raised my eyebrows. “We gonna sit around and talk about our fucking feelings now?”
“I mean, she’s fucking beautiful, man. And I’ve called girls hot, sexy, trashy, but in an I’d-still-fuck-your-trailer-park-ass type of way. She’s different. A girl like her should be far far away from anyone who even resembles Florida white trash like us.”
I unholstered my gun and set it on the table. “You about to say something I’m gonna need this for?” I asked.
But it was what he wasn’t saying, which was written all over his blond bearded face, that was really pissing me off.
He wanted to protect Pup.
Because he loved her.
I wanted to empty the chamber of my gun into his fucking chest, but I didn’t. Because I understood. ’Cause Pup was everything in one beautiful fucking package, and it wasn’t her fault that more than just me saw that. And it wasn’t Bear’s fault that he’d felt it too. But it would be his fault if he ever acted on it.
If he ever touched her, I could be standing over his dead body, holding the smoking gun, and I still wouldn’t feel the least bit guilty, because it would be that motherfucker’s own fault if I had to put him down.
Bear knew this.
“Fuck you and your gun,” Bear scoffed. “You already know I liked her from the beginning.” He ashed his cigarette into an empty beer bottle. “I regret sending her up the stairs to you that night. Not keeping her for myself.” There was a lingering sadness in his voice. “And then when you fucked it all up by almost getting your cock wet, I’d never been more fucking pissed than when you showed back up at the dock.” Bear took another drag of his cigarette. “Way I see it, you owe me motherfucker.”
Bear sending her up to my room that night being the reason I ever set eyes on Pup, was the only reason why my fist hadn’t yet connected with his nose.
We needed a change in conversation before I did something we’d both regret. Me, because he was my friend. Him, ’cause he’d be full of fucking bullets.
“You still haven’t answered the question, motherfucker.” Bear leaned forward. “Why her?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “It’s just another fact. Just like the sky is blue. The grass is green.” I shrugged. “She’s mine. Just is. Just know it.”
“You ever think she deserves better than this shit?” Bear waved his hand around the room. “Than you?” I flashed him a questioning look. If I was on edge before this conversation, I was teetering off of it now.
“Not me, motherfucker. Just…better. Than this. Than this life.”
“’Course.” I lit a cigarette and inhaled, tossing the lighter onto the table. And then I looked up at Bear and smiled.
“But she doesn’t have better…she has me.”
I’d barely gotten the words out of my mouth when concrete and steel came crashing down around us, flying into the apartment like a tornado was ripping through.
I ducked. Crawling on my stomach, I sought cover behind the coffee table. I coughed as I inhaled one lungful of dust after another. I squinted, looking past the settling debris toward where the crash had sounded.
There was a gaping hole where the wall had stood only seconds before.
The remnants of that wall, a huge pile of toppled concrete block, covered the living room.
And the couch that had been against that wall.
And the person that had been lying on the couch.
Bear.
Doe
It was too early. Or too late.
Or too, something.
I’d finally had a memory of someone pre-memory loss and it was of someone I knew post memory loss.
Nikki.
My best friend since I was in diapers. Who was also the hooker who’d acted like she was doing me a favor by letting me tag along while we both tried to survive on the streets.
There was no doubt in my mind that it was the connection of my past and present that helped me to remember. It was the only thing that was clear to me. Everything else was like driving a car, with a muddied windshield, trying to look through the smears to see the road.
Why would Nikki, knowing who I was, knowing that we’d been practically sisters, suggest that I sell myself to a biker at King’s party in exchange for a warm bed and protection?
Unable to sleep and with way too many questions running through my mind, I’d come out to the front porch and had been sitting there staring at the framed picture of Nikki ever since.
King hadn’t been the only one lying to me all that time. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were? Who I was?” I asked her picture, running my fingers over the silver frame.
“Hey Ray, long time! What’s crack-a-lacking? How’s it going? How was your trip? How’s the tyrant doing these days?” I looked down to where a postman stood on the bottom step. It was light out, but I didn’t even remember the sun rising. He wore dark blue shorts with matching knee sox. His smile was one of those ginormous ones that said he was either one of those truly happy people, highly medicated
, or completely insane.
“Hey…” I sat up from the porch swing, squinting in an effort to read his name tag, “…Barry? He’s fine…I guess?” I was a horrible liar, but at the same time, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that not only did I not remember him but that I hadn’t seen my father since he dumped me off the previous day with no word on when he’d be coming back.
I didn’t want to offend his smile.
Barry didn’t say another word, but he didn’t need to. His furrowed brows and wrinkled nose spoke volumes for him. He set the mail on the ledge and without another word, he slinked backward, before turning around and walking away as if he’d just fed an angry pit bull and was trying not to get bitten.
But I was angry. Confusion is a bitch. It leads to questions, which only lead to more questions, which leads to being frustrated, which leads to being pissed off.
“He wants to see you in his office,” Nadine said. “Your mother is there, too. They’re waiting for you.”
“Really?” I stood from the swing, automatically smoothing down my hair and adjusting my shorts, pulling on them so they would appear longer.
Which was odd, because I didn’t care what they thought of me, but the motion to make sure I was presentable was automatic. I’d seen the same Town Car that had taken me from King’s pull up that morning, but I didn’t have any sort of urge to rush up to the senator and welcome him home either. He may not have been the one who had ordered for King to be killed, but there was something way too coincidental about the entire situation that was keeping me on edge with my guard up and locked firmly in place.
“Is my mother feeling any better?” I asked as I followed Nadine to the study. The house wasn’t large by any means. The glass doors of my father’s study could be seen from any point in the great room and kitchen and it was a straight shot from the front door. There was no need for her to show me where it was. But then I realized that Nadine was just trying to be mindful of my memory loss.
“Thank you,” I said. Nadine nodded and with a tight smile, before going back to her work in the kitchen.
A Kiss For You Page 75
