Page 14

The tight knot in my guts unwinds and I busy myself with biting an edge off the focaccia bread. I don’t know where they got it, but it’s the best bread I’ve ever had. Period. “Like what?” I ask after I’m done chewing.

Ella sets her plate down and holds up her fingers, ticking off the names as she goes. “Big Dick, Animal, Cyclops—because we already have an Odin, Blade, Maverick, Albatross, Alien, Acid…”

“Oh my god, did someone get out a biker dictionary and just start with A’s?” That earns me a laugh. “Cyclops?” I ask, puzzled.

The easy camaraderie crashes to a standstill.

I get a few strange looks. What the actual fuck?

No. There’s no way that’s true and I didn’t know.

It makes sense. Horrible sense. The scars on that side of Dravin’s face, how I once thought it was a mercy that he escaped that kind of injury with his eyesight intact.

“Right. I was just surprised that anyone would want a club name that points out something most people would consider a handicap.”

“There’s power in your flaws,” Lark explains without being preachy.

“Owning what’s happened to you in your past. We all have one.

Whether it’s been a hard road or not so bumpy, we try and own it.

No one’s perfect at the club, but those men are brothers because they’ve embraced that.

They’re into more than just bikes. The club is a place where you can go to be accepted no matter what you’ve done and who you are.

Yes, some criminal stuff still happens, but Gray and Raiden are working with Lynette on alternate business plans.

A lot of the stuff the club did was legacy related.

There’s always a chance to be something more. ”

“I had another brother.” I’m apparently chronically unable to stop blurting out the things I shouldn’t be telling anyone under any circumstances.

Silence steals over the small kitchen again.

“He was… He died. That’s why we left, and that’s why it’s been hard.

Dravin didn’t want to stay and live with all the reminders.

He sees ghosts. We both do. The ghosts of our pasts and what we’ve done and what our brother did.

It wasn’t on the right side of the law. That is, I’m not trying to stand here and judge anyone. ”

That’s not strictly true, but I find that I want it to be.

There’s also a good chance that this will be my last chance to say so and my last meal because Dravin is going to kill me for letting a pretty massive secret just drop like that.

Ella brushes away tears. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“My brother was in jail for years.” Lark walks over and gives me zero warning before her arms encircle my waist and she rams herself against me in a tight hug.

My lungs close up and simultaneously feel like they’ve been punched full of holes.

For a year, there’s been a fire burning inside of me.

A roaring, burning inferno that I was helpless to put out.

I was bleeding into that fire, watering it with tears, stifling it with the heavy stone weight that constantly crushed me.

The endless bitterness, regret, confusion, and hopeless looking over my shoulder towards a past that I could never get, only fed those flames.

My lips part in shock. The physical contact, a simple hug with an almost stranger, does more to douse those flames than anything I’ve tried in the past year.

“If you’re ever feeling alone, we’re here. That’s a promise I can make you,” Lark whispers right near my ear.

“You should come to Patterson’s. Maybe not this weekend, if you’re not up for it, but sometime,” Ella says, and the others nod.

Tarynn pops an olive into her mouth and chews. “It doesn’t get crazy there at all. It’s just a fun place. I used to work there. It’s a diner by day and kind of the unofficial club hangout at night on Fridays and Saturdays, but it’s mostly just good fun.”

“The real debauchery is saved for the club,” Willa explains, her face pinching.

“I just got my real initiation into a club party a few weeks ago. But don’t worry.

The club has rules about treating all their women well.

It’s nothing like other clubs. It can just be a bit shocking to see people doing things- erm- out in the open.

And it’s a little bit smoky and sometimes people drink a little bit too much, but there’s no hard drugs and no violence.

There are hard and fast rules about that too. ”

Lark pulls back, studying my face. She must see the question burning there.

“Some clubs call their women biker bitches or whores, but that’s not what passes here.

The club hang arounds might be a bit wild but they’re not bitchy and they’re not whores.

They’re just women who like to have a good time and they do that with men who are looking for an equally good time.

Single men who are completely unattached. ”

Single men.

Completely unattached.

Men like my ‘ brother .’

Jealously curdles at the dark pit of me. It burns hotter than those flames, but it’s like a grease fire, hot and scary and quickly smothered. It leaves me shaken.

Lark blinks at me. “No one expects you to come to the clubhouse until you’re ready. If you never are, that’s okay. The families don’t really do a lot of stuff there. We save that for Patterson’s, or the club cookouts or for outings to the cabin.”

“Cabin?”

“It’s in the mountains. It’s gorgeous.” Haley picks up a cupcake and offers it to me. I don’t have one yet and take it from her, licking off some of the chocolate icing.

I don’t know what she put in there, but it’s straight up delicious goodness like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. I barely suppress a moan.

“Wow. Okay. This is incredible.”

“I know, right?” Willa says, laughing. “I think you’re going to find that Hart is okay. We’re all okay.”

The women all give me such hopeful, wide eyed looks that I have to nod or feel like I’ve just kicked a whole group of incredibly sweet, eager puppies.

Tarynn watches me carefully, seeing more than I should probably let her, or anyone else. “If you want to come to Patterson’s with us, we could pick you up.”

“I could give you a ride on my bike,” Ella offers.

“Or I could come for you in my pink station wagon. The best car on earth,” Willa adds excitedly.

To them, this is already a done deal, or at least they’re hoping it is.

They’ve seen me floundering, but they’re not trying to save me or force me to assimilate as one of them.

They’re just a good group of human beings who want to make sure that I’m not all alone here, brooding, sad, angry, and lost.

I wonder absently, if those biker hang-around women are going to be at Patterson’s, or if that’s for later.

That spark of irrational jealousy heats up again.

I swallow hard, putting it out immediately.

I was already basically obligated to go because of my agreement with Dravin.

Which I should immediately drop because it’s insane .

I don’t understand why I can’t just call it off.

There’s no way he should be here with me, modeling in any sort of way.

I don’t need him to pull the art out from the depths of me.

I don’t need him to be here to fix me. What I asked him to do was far too intimate .

“Okay,” I agree. “But maybe in the car…”

My last words are drowned out by a chorus of cheers so loud that even I can’t hear them.

There’s no room for doubt now. If I’ve started something, it’s too late to stop it.

I practically vowed that I wouldn’t be a part of anything in Hart and now escape feels further away than ever. A vague, shadowy concept.

This is the first time that it hasn’t felt threatening.

I don’t know if that’s a bigger problem or not. All I know is that it’s happening, this family of sorts, and it’s happening to me , whether I can admit that I want it and that I need it, or not.