Page 10
Bullet
T he house waiting for Lynette and Willa in Hart comes together with a team effort. It belongs to Crow and his old lady. They were kind enough to let us use the house, since it’s a rental and it was empty. It wasn’t furnished, so between last night and now, there’s been a mad scramble and a call to action that involved just about the whole club and all the old ladies, as well as the kids who aren’t in school yet.
By the time we arrived, with Lynette and Willa’s cars packed full, the house had been transformed. Beds, couches, curtains, table and chairs all appeared as if by magic. Someone even managed to lug a grill over here and a set of patio furniture.
Though Lynette’s been up since six, and Willa since eight, both of them have been full of energy since we arrived. Lynette was greeted by a few of the old ladies, Ella and Lark she knew, but some she didn’t, while Willa pretty much made immediate friends with everyone. Lynette was more reserved, but her shy smiles cut straight through me, lodging in the meaty part of my chest where I guess emotions burrow in and hunker down. One genuine smile from her was like a thousand words of praise and hearty laughter from anyone else.
I guess there’s a whole lot more locked away inside me than just her secret smiles and laughter, but she clearly wanted to pretend that last night didn’t happen.
I’m trying to help inside, but the guys have the heavy lifting handled and the old ladies are more than capable of setting up with Lynette and Willa. I’m more in the way than helpful, so I step outside onto the deck to see if there’s anything out here I might actually be needed for.
I’m immediately sorry.
The yard isn’t exactly sprawling, but it is large. All the lots are bigger here than they are in Seattle, unless you’re a millionaire or bought your house sixty years ago. There are a few shady trees that no doubt dump all their leaves as soon as the first frosts hit, making an ungodly mess, but right now, they’re still green and sun dappled, musical in the gentle late afternoon breeze.
Tucked up in the corner, along the far side of the tall white fence, under one of those massive trees, are Jodie and Atlas, and if I don’t miss my mark, the conversation they’re having isn’t a happy one.
I’m two seconds away from slipping back into the house before they notice me, begging Wizard to let me help him install those extra security cameras on the inside and outside of the house, but Jodie raises her voice, stopping me before I can turn.
“I’m just done, Atlas.”
I’m definitely not supposed to be here, but part of me immediately digs in, getting defensive, wanting to go to the aid of my club brother. Jodie and Atlas are young, but they’ve been together for a few years now. He met her in Seattle at a club. She was a dancer, and he fell immediately in love, stealing her away, putting her on the back of his bike, and entrenching her in this life.
Atlas is a good kid. I mean, he’s twenty-something, so I guess not a kid at all, but he’s got that innocent aura about him. He’s Hollywood gorgeous, born and raised in Hart, so he’s more of a smalltown, hometown boy.
“If you can’t have kids, then you’re not a real man.”
I can’t see either of their faces well because they’re angled close together, but the harsh tone of Jodie’s voice raises the hair on the back of my neck. I sure as fuck don’t approve of her treating our boy this way.
I step over to the swing someone brought over, with the flowered awning on the top, and sink down into it. It’s right in the corner of the deck, by two large cedar trees that I wanted to chop down immediately on seeing them because they offer a good hiding place for someone to creep back there and hide.
I’m still there a few minutes later when Jodie storms right past me into the house, slamming the glass sliding door.
Also not a feature I’m impressed with. Every horror movie has a scene featuring one of those damn doors.
I get to my feet and walk slowly across the deck. The boards are worn and sun faded, but not sagging or unsafe. It supports my weight without creaking, and the stairs are just as solid.
Atlas hasn’t moved from the corner. He’s turned away from me, but even still, there’s no mistaking the way he swipes a hand across his eyes repeatedly.
I clear my throat to give him some warning, but when he spins around, he doesn’t even bother to wipe his wet cheeks.
He figured he was in love with Jodie from the first second he saw her. He has the purest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. Something almost fatherly stirs to life in me, though I’ve never treated any of the guys in the club that way. I’m not cut out to be a parent. An older brother, maybe.
Seeing those wet, silvery streaks glistening on that beautiful face of a man who looks like a sun god from any myth, with his golden skin and mane of blond hair, undoes me. I’m the last person that should be offering comfort.
“I heard some of that,” I admit awkwardly.
Atlas just nods, then his head goes limp, falling forward in shame. The impulse to have one of the old ladies drag Jodie out here to apologize is strong.
“I was born with the wrong parts. I mean, shit, not like the wrong parts. I have the parts. I just don’t have a vas deferens.”
“A what now?”
He motions to his groin. “The tube thing that lets the swimmers mix with the jizz.”
For the love of all things anatomy, we are the last people who would ever be able to teach a medical class to anyone.
“She wanted kids right away,” Atlas explains, swiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. “We’ve been trying. We both went for an exam a few days ago, when it wasn’t working. It’s been a year, and doctors get involved when it’s not happening. We got the call right before we came here. I’m the problem. They had to ultrasound my junk. It’s basically like I was born with a vasectomy.”
I dig the toe of my boot into the lush grass, creating a divot since it rained last night and it’s still soggy, refusing to be embarrassed. “There are ways around that, aren’t there?”
Atlas sniffles, then swallows it all back like he’s going to spit it out, but he doesn’t. “IVF. She doesn’t want to do it, even though I obviously have the money.”
Tyrant has this thing he does where he claps one meaty fist onto a man’s shoulder and squeezes, or forms a fist and knocks it into the meaty of the arm. He saves his bro hugs for Raiden, because they’re like real brothers and have been doing the best friend shit since kindergarten, but that shoulder stuff is like a man hug.
I reach out, trying to do that, but my hand stops, hanging in the air. Atlas stares at my face, so fucking guileless it’s tragic. Guys who look like him, who grew up popular, jocks, so damn beautiful he could have been a model, aren’t supposed to be this sweet. They’re supposed to be pricks. The kind of guys who don’t know how to treat a woman and won’t ever have to learn because they don’t have to actually be nice or kind or genuine in order to get them into bed.
Somehow, Atlas never turned out that way.
I let my hand land at last, resting it lightly on his leather-clad shoulder.
“I know it’s not my place, but I feel like that’s a little bit unfair. You’re my brother through the club and she hurt you. That doesn’t sit well with me.”
“She’s just young.” A person’s age has nothing to do with their life experience, and Atlas just aged years in the past few minutes. “She wants things I can’t give her. It’s not really even about kids.”
“Like freedom.”
He shakes his head, but then he nods fiercely, streaky blond hair flying around his face. He always wears it loose. It’s shoulder length, and it’s always a wind-tossed mess that manages to still look styled.
“Yeah. I feel like maybe we wanted kids because it was the thing that would tie us together when all the other strings were coming undone.”
He’s being incredibly mature about this. Why am I the one who wants to kick a hole through the fence and then apologize about it and go get the shit to fix it immediately?
“Are you gonna be okay?” Okay is the shittiest word, but he gets me.
“I don’t know. Fuck.” He digs his fingers into his eyes. “I don’t want to think about it now.”
At least he’s honest, but his bleak tone is still alarming. “That’s fair enough, but you’re not gonna let that hurt tell your brain something that isn’t true, right?
He drops his hand, his lips curling into a wry, sorrow-soaked smile. “You’re like a big brother, Bullet. You’re a good man. I’m not gonna do anything other than get wasted and make sure I’m shit faced at every opportunity I have over the next while. Sometimes, things just aren’t right, and you have to move on.”
I still have my hand on his shoulder, and he takes his and claps it on mine. We stand there for a second, doing the whole arms’ length, bro hug deal, before he breaks free. He tears out the side gate and a few minutes later, a bike roars to life and goes ripping down the street.
I don’t feel like it’s right to share the intimate details of this conversation, but I do find Tyrant inside, helping Lark and Raiden put together a bookcase. They’ve already done two and they’re starting on a third. I’m not sure how many books they expected Lynette to have brought. It’s not like she’s moving in here for good. This is temporary.
She hasn’t said whether she’s taking the job with the club or not, but after this experience, I don’t know how likely she’ll be to consider it. I still don’t know what the decision was from the meeting late last night.
There’s a lot I don’t fucking know.
But I do know that I need to take Tyrant aside. We find a corner in the hallway where no one is standing or within hearing distance. The house is old, a character home with two stories, three small bedrooms, and the most closed off floorplan I’ve ever seen.
The hallway is just as closed off, lending to an aura of secrecy.
“The place looks good,” I say, starting off with something positive. “Incredible, actually. It’s amazing how everything came together so fast.”
“Just like we did for Lark and Raiden’s parents when her mom was sick.” A shadow passes over his face, his emotions still strong about having the woman he loved come back to Hart to care for her terminally ill mother, and finding out he had a daughter.
Penny’s at school right now, so she’s not helping this time, but that first day at the Gardiner household, it was obvious she was his daughter. As she’s grown, her eyes and a few of her features are even more like her dad’s.
“I think Jodie and Atlas just broke up.” I meant to soften it, but there it is. I’m no good at stuff like this, and my voice is a little extra rough around the edges because I’m thinking about the hours I sat in palliative care with my own mom at the end.
That’s something I’d never want to have in common with anyone, because I’d never wish for a single person to experience that pain. I haven’t asked Lynette, but I don’t think she knows who her father is. We have that in common as well. We’re basically both orphans.
“I’ll admit that I’ve known they’ve been having some problems for a while. Not that Atlas has ever said anything, but I’ve seen them arguing a few times.”
“Ella and Raiden argue all the time.”
“Not like that. And they don’t argue. They spar. There’s a difference.’
I wish I was emotionally intelligent enough to know what that looked like. I suppose, now that I think about it, the way Raiden and Ella sometimes go at it, all heated and words flying, but always respectful, is indeed different from the arguments I’ve ever seen couples have.
I run my hand through my hair, my brain suddenly sluggish from the lack of sleep. It must be the adrenaline wearing thin. “I just wanted to tell you. I checked in with Atlas, but he took off before I came up here. He said he’s not gonna do anything stupid other than get wasted and try to forget. I think he just wants to be alone and not talk about it, but I thought we should still keep an eye on him.”
“Absolutely.” Tyrant’s lips thin into a flat line. “When one of us hurts, we all hurt.”
The way it’s said and how it hits, dipping into my chest like a meat hook and pulling up skin, is the feeling I wish I could describe to Lynette. This is the reason we’re a club. People think it’s the road or the lawlessness, the rockstar lifestyle of sex and drugs that appeals to men like us, and maybe for some it is, but for me, it’s family . It’s finding that something that was always missing, the part that fills the empty holes inside me.
“There’s a lot going on here and I know you don’t want to leave, but I also know you’ll want to take first watch tonight. Why don’t you go back to the club and get a few hours of sleep while you can?”
My first instinct is to say no, but keeping Lynette and Willa safe here is vital. Even with the extra security Wizard installed and the guys from the club driving by every fifteen minutes during the night, I want to be alert, and I can’t do that if I’m dead on my feet.
“We have this, brother. Trust me?”
This time, I respond without hesitation. “Always.”
That earns me one of Tyrant’s famous manly shoulder slaps and that look of respect and trust. When he treats a man to one of those, it feels a little like getting knighted, or at least holding some vital position of honor and respect that makes a person feel truly worthy.
Before I go, I search the house for Lynette and Willa, but both of them are flying around, unpacking boxes, answering questions, thanking my club brothers and their women who have taken time to enfold them into our family. They’re busy, and I can see that Tyrant is right.
We might not have answers to all that’s going wrong yet, but the club has this. The best thing I can do right now is to make the next few hours count, so that I can come back here and offer my protection when I’m refreshed and sharp.
I would have said before that getting attached to anyone or anything other than my bike and the guys from the club was out of the question, but as soon as I’m outside, kicking my bike to life and slapping my brain bucket in place, I cast a longing look at the pale-yellow house with the cookie cutter white trim and shutters, the rounded arch door.
This house was far too nice to be a rental.
It’s far too nice for the likes of me to be anywhere near it.
Yet, I can’t deny the strong pull I have to it, or to the woman inside. I’ve never wanted a partner, a mate, a girlfriend, an old lady. I’ve always seen myself as solitary. I never saw myself as being able to have a connection with another person on that level. But last night, in Lynette’s kitchen, I felt that position waver. I liked talking with her. I liked drinking tea because it was with her. There’s a pull there I can’t deny, a sudden gossamer thin thread that I just can’t snap. It’s sticky and as unexpectedly strong as spider’s silk. It shouldn’t be a problem. Even if I’m confused and my desire to keep those dividing professional lines in place is wavering, there should be Lynette, but I think that even her ice is starting to thaw.
She said she can’t do this. Us. Not that she won’t, or that she doesn’t want to.
I don’t know what that means for either of us.