Page 11

Kael

T he sky is bleached out, fading to a dusky blue peppered with the vague outline of stars. It reminds me more of wintery mornings in Chicago than it does a mid-July summer evening, but the air is thick and wet with humidity.

I might have put up a fuss about coming here, but I have to admit that Hart truly is peaceful.

The quiet in this small residential neighborhood is only ever broken by children laughing and shouting or dogs barking.

The streets are lined with the little wartime houses bracketed by tall trees and manicured lawns.

Splashes of color pop out in well placed pots or hanging baskets of flowers.

The whole area is meticulous and has a small town, cheerful innocence about it.

I heard that all it does is rain in Seattle, but so far, that hasn’t proved true.

Then again, I guess we’re an hour north.

The days have been warm, but nothing like the heat of Orlando that I’ve grown used to this past year.

The air smells so fresh that while sitting in the backyard, I’ve imagined the soft breezes whipping straight off the mountains, though they’re a few hours from here.

The quiet calm of the street is punctured by a throaty growl of a motorcycle.

I’m standing out on the tiny porch, watering the hanging baskets of flowers that tend to dry out so quickly because they’re overflowing with blooms. Like the flowers in the backyard lining the fence, they were here when I arrived.

It felt wrong to let them die, so I’ve been caring for them meticulously.

As soon as I hear that thunder, I step back inside, shutting the door firmly.

I hope fervently that it will stay in the distance, or keep on going past, but life has a way of kicking me in the face lately, and as that roar escalates until it’s practically shaking the laminate flooring in the little house, I know that Dravin made good on his promise.

I was ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent sure that he would, so I spent the better part of today cleaning.

My morning started at four, when I gave up on patching together restless bits of sleep and got up to guzzle some water and head out into the backyard to put myself through the rigorous paces of training like I used to.

It was cool in the blue dark of the morning, and although my routine has been substantially altered without a gym to attend, at least I got to see a spectacular sunrise.

After that, I showered, chugged back a few shots of espresso and got down to trying to make the place look more like a home and less like an angry artists’ convention.

The day I moved in, Dravin made sure he detailed for me just how much care went into putting this house together. It was something that his future club ‘brothers’ and their old ladies. If any of them dropped by and saw what I’d turned it into, I’d never live down the shame.

I’m not sure I’ll live this down, period.

I peek through the cheap white plastic blinds at the surprisingly large living room window in time to see an absolute bombshell of a babe slide off the bike that she’s just parked in line with the sidewalk in front of the house.

She removes her helmet and shakes out a full head of dazzling blonde hair.

She’s tall, all long legs in tight jeans and leather boots that go past her knees, and she sure as hell fills out the black leather jacket with the lacings on either side.

I can just make out a large patch on the back, so she’s no doubt connected to the club.

Her red lipstick, sharp cheekbones, and dazzling eyes are a siren’s call straight to my artist’s soul.

A bright pink station wagon and a dark blue car pull up behind the bike, and as the women start spilling out, my heart rockets into overdrive. They all drove here like a pack.

A pack of wolves .

None of the other women arrive clad in leather and no other bikes appear, so I guess this is it. They stand at the curb together, all astoundingly beautiful in their own right.

I’m probably not the only one gaping out of my windows right now.

There’s quite a mix. A petite bohemian beauty in a floral dress, another who looks like she was literally torn from the fifties with her pinup inspired black and white polka dot dress and matching bobbed hair with the blunt bangs, another with wild pink hair done up so elaborately that it looks like a cosplay wig, and two who are either best friends or sisters by the way they wrap their arms around each other’s waists and walk like that.

They’re not overly similar looking, so maybe just good friends.

Despite the pack mentality, they’re all bright beaming smiles and friendly laughter. They don’t really look like a hungry pack, eager to chew me up and spit me out.

The tension that’s turned my muscles to stone bleeds out of me as a slow exhale hisses from my lungs.

I don’t wait for them to knock. I step away from the window, rake my hands through my hair to finger comb out the windblown tangles, since I spent the better part of this afternoon weeding, deadheading flowers, and giving the backyard a proper mowing that involved actually moving all the furniture out of the way.

I worked until I was a sweaty mess and had to have a second shower.

Unlike these women who all look like they’ve dressed for the occasion, I’m in old jeans and a vintage music t-shirt and feel hideously underdressed.

It’s too late to race up the stairs to get changed, do my hair, and put on a whole face of makeup, so as I am, in all my natural glory, it is.

I open the door to find the bohemian princess leading the group up the sidewalk, bearing a massive tray that she wasn’t holding when I looked out the window.

The biker babe has a big paper bag in her arms, the shapes of wine bottles quite obvious.

The pink haired woman also has two brown bags balanced in her arms, the unmistakable buttery, herby scent of focaccia bread wafting ahead of the group.

The ones who might be sisters are carrying cloth bags that appear to be decently heavy, and the pinup inspired beauty swings a large plastic domed container that has to boast some kind of dessert.

I’m honestly surprised all over again at how young they are. Up close, they’re even more striking. In my rumpled state, I wish even harder that I could fade into the house’s dark blue siding and disappear.

“Hey!” The bohemian princess says in her soft, musical voice before her foot even hits the first stair tread. “I hope it’s okay that we’re inviting ourselves over.”

“Technically, your brother told us we could come,” the biker bombshell corrects.

Pain lances through me so swiftly that I falter backward, my bare feet rubbing over the gray porch boards.

Old wounds are torn open with that word, and I reel internally before the rational part of me recalls what my cover story is.

I’m not a woman on the run, hiding out here to escape a bunch of murderous Russian mob members.

A woman who was once a daughter and a sister.

Now that my mother and brother are dead, what does that make me?

The whole group of six women freeze as one.

“If this is a bad time…” The pink haired woman whispers, voice trailing off to leave that open for the tallest of the two sisters.

She’s stately and statuesque in a white blouse and black slacks, dressed like she’s going into work and not a lowkey get together with friends. “We could come back another time,” she finishes.

“Or not,” her sister or friend, who is much shorter and more voluptuous, tacks on. “We know that we’re kind of ambushing you.”

“It’s probably intimidating, meeting us all like this, but we thought it would be less stressful than if you came to Patterson’s, or the clubhouse,” the fifties pinup says.

She clears her throat and steps out from the middle of the group, thrusting her hand out at me.

“I’m Haley. I teach school here.” She makes quick work of introducing the rest of the women.

The bohemian princess is Lark. The biker babe is Ella. The two women—who turn out to be sisters after all—are Willa and Lynette, and the pink haired beauty is Tarynn.

“You don’t have to hang out with us for long,” Lark assures me with a soft smile and a wink. “But you should at least take advantage of all our offerings.”

“We brought cupcakes.” Haley motions to her plastic carrier.

“And a meat and cheese tray, olives, pickles, oil and vinegar, the bread and the whole works,” Tarynn adds.

“Your brother is notoriously quiet, but we managed to get it out of him that you’re shy and the move’s been hard for you.

It’s a big adjustment, and we weren’t sure if you’d been out around Hart at all, but I brought you some books,” Ella says, but it’s the sisters who hold up their bags.

“We’ve been dying to meet you and we’re so excited to try and make you feel like you’re part of the family. ”

There’s zero accusation in her voice or on her face.

No one gives me harsh stares or asks why I haven’t shown my face.

No one exchanges glances with anyone else, loaded with hostility.

No one sneers or sends me sidelong looks like I’m a curiosity.

There’s nothing mean or cutting about these women.

They’re all so different from one another, but they really do seem like a sisterhood gathered on my doorstep.

They’re not here because they have to be, or because they think they should be, but because they want to be.

For me.

Despite my reluctance to come here, the past weeks which have thrown me straight back into restless nights and days filled with inner turmoil, and the whole hellish year before that, the smallest bit of warmth heats up the center of my chest.