Page 38

Kael

T arynn called me, Lark texted, Ella emailed me along with a massive list of all her favorite books that she’d compiled, and Willa stopped by the house. They all wanted the same thing, but it wasn’t until Dravin asked me to come to the clubhouse with him that I considered going.

It’s been over a week since we fucked on the living room floor, and then did filthy things to each other in the shower.

He’s come over a few times, but he’s been polite and distant, always keeping a professional sort of barrier up that didn’t even exist before.

I know it’s not for his sake. It’s for mine.

He’s treating me like glass because he doesn’t want to break me.

Dravin’s smart. Sometimes I swear he knows more about me than I know about myself, but the one thing I know to be true right now is that the sorrow that has hounded my steps and cast a shadow over every single breath I’ve taken since my brother died, feels less all-encompassing than it ever has.

I wish there was something I could say to make him believe that we’d work out, but I can’t know that. The truth is, people usually don’t. Relationships are generally all bullshit, and happiness is the rare exception. Just because I haven’t experienced that for myself doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes.

I was raised by a single mother after our father abandoned us.

Her mom was a single mom who basically worked herself to death and died in her early forties of a heart attack before I was born.

I’ve had a ton of friends who almost seemed to pick the wrong men because the toxic relationships and the ensuing heartbreak fed into the misery that helped them produce their greatest works of art.

Even the healthy relationships I’ve known people to be in haven’t survived for more than a few years.

But you know what? Fuck. That.

I don’t have to be that person. I can decide my future.

I can whisper lies to myself, drown in my regrets, let my grief soak into me until I’m an oversaturated sponge.

I’ve had a year to heal, and I haven’t done much about it.

I’ve waited to feel like me again like it was just going to sneak up on me as a shadow and wash over me and bam!

Suddenly everything would be okay again.

But life isn’t like that. I have to fight for me, I have to choose me, I have to find me.

I’ve realized that there’s no one that can do that for me.

I know Dravin sees that too, but I think that he might still feel like he needs to be my savior.

He promised my brother he would be. It’s a big weight hanging over him, pressing him down.

I don’t know how I can help him see things differently.

Maybe it will just take time.

Looking around the clubhouse lounge right now, it’s easy to believe in happiness, hope, and healing.

I’m well aware that this place with the blaring rock music and a thick screen of cigarette and marijuana smoke, big burly men milling about, beers and empty glasses scattered all over the place, with wild things going on in the not so fully dark corners and even right on the couches where anyone can see, should be high up on the list of places I really don’t want to be at.

I hated hard on this life before we got here and talked a big game, but I realize how prejudiced that was.

Is there a bunch of hardcore debauchery going on?

I mean, maybe. There’s a guy getting a blowjob on the couch in the corner from a woman wearing skintight clothes while she’s also sitting on another guy’s lap.

She’s clearly into it though, and so are they.

There aren’t any hard drugs here. Dravin already told me that the club has few rules, but the ones they do have are ironclad.

Basically, it’s the drugs and the women thing and the same rule applies for both: don’t do anything nasty.

Respect yourself and respect other people, men and women alike.

I’ve been here for all of two minutes and my hope in humanity is restored not because of any physical or tangible thing about this clubhouse. It’s the aura the place has. It’s the people in it.

Women who are kindness itself. They’re beautiful on the inside and outside, and even though they’re busy, as soon as I walk in beside Dravin, they stop what they’re doing to come over and make me feel like this is a place I can call home as well.

This place is a family.

Dravin tried to explain that to me.

I wanted him to know that if he fit in here, I’d make every effort to stay, but that’s what I thought it would be. An effort. Me forcing myself.

I was so wrong, even when I had an open mind.

I didn’t understand just how magical the people here truly are.

Not just these women that I’m so lucky to call my friends, but the men that they love too.

Some of them are the kinds of men that the world wrote off.

Men who wouldn’t have survived anywhere else.

They found hope here, a purpose, and love .

My eyes are open. My mind is open. My heart is starting to come alive.

I just don’t know how to do that for Dravin when it comes to us and the life we could build.

Yes, it might all crumble, but it will never have the chance if it never starts.

The one thing I know about love is that it’s always there.

Maybe not romantic love, but to have that, you need to start from that place that realizes that love is all around us in the world.

It’s in ourselves. We just have to reach for it.

I want to. I’m starting to extend my hand again.

Dravin doesn’t have to be a fixer. He doesn’t have to do or be it all. I need him to see that. I can think of only one way to change his mind, and that’s through shock, and then fighting hard for him.

Ella’s here, making out with Raiden on the far side of the room. When I walked in and spotted her, I didn’t think she was aware of anything going on around her, but she surprises me by swiveling around, jumping off Raiden’s lap, and making her way straight for me.

Tarynn comes out of the kitchen at just about the same moment, her hand on Lark’s arm, and Willa leaves Atlas over by the massive bar on the far end and cuts a clear path to me.

I’ve learned from every minute I’ve spent with Willa over the past few weeks that she doesn’t have a filter. She shoves Ella aside, laughing as she does it, and launches herself at me.

“Babe! You came!” She releases me from the chokehold to give Dravin two thumbs up. “You convinced her. Good job.”

He’s been tracing this room with a worried frown on his face that deepens every time his eyes come back to me ever since he picked me up, drove us here, and gave me a thirty second tour of the place from the backdoor, past all the closed rooms, to the lounge.

“You can go get a drink or whatever you’d like to do,” I tell him, talking loudly to be heard over the pounding music. “Or if you have work you need to help out with, I’ll be okay.”

He clearly doesn’t want to leave me here alone, but I’m not alone.

I have a group of the best women around me.

To be fair, they’re quite progressive in their thinking and they’d love to see me come out of my shell and find myself.

Dravin’s studying them like they’re going to unleash something in me that he can already sense is gearing up to make a bad decision.

Bad is a subjective term. I should probably say that he can sense my musings on shock factor, those seismic waves rippling in the underground of my being, before they hit.

If I had a few drinks and started dropping little Easter eggs to blow our cover, would he take me back to his place and punish me for being naughty?

How many, exactly , would it take? Or would he just drive me back home, give me a boring lecture about needing more unnecessary distance, and tell me he’s going to drive by the place every few hours to make sure I’m okay?

If I kissed him right now, what would he do?

His brows crash inwards over his deepest frown yet. He leans in and whispers in my ear. “Behave, please. If you need me, ask where the security room is.”

“I could just wave my arms up and down and do frantic jumping jacks. Wouldn’t you see that too?” He sighs again. “Or you mean don’t have any fun .”

“You’re still supposed to be my sister,” he hisses under his breath while smiling at the women that are observing us closely, waiting for him to leave me in their more than capable hands.

I can tell they’re more than eager, so I give him my most innocent smile and wave him off. “I’ll behave.”

“Only one drink.”

“Yes daddy.” He looks like he’s going to stroke out. I shouldn’t do it, but I laugh and capitulate. “Okay. Two drinks. I’m more than capable of handling that. And I won’t venture out of this room.” I draw a dramatic line over my heart. “Cross it.”

He steps to the side, ready to leave, but I grasp his arm. Anyone watching us would think he’s my overprotective brother and I’m throwing a bit of a tantrum over his ground rules. Willa taps her foot impatiently, but everyone gives us space to talk.

“You know what my biggest fear is, Dravin? It’s not even about those men who may or may not remember that they’re supposed to put a bullet in my head.

It’s not even grief, because I’ve been through the worst of that already.

It’s getting trapped. Stuck. It’s the thought that I might never paint again.

Never live again. Never love again. I’m far more afraid of that than I am of trying and failing. ”

His face hardens and his lips thin out. His jaw ticks because he’s clenching it so tight. Other than that, he doesn’t give me any reaction. “That’s not…” He sighs. “Just ask for me if you need me. I’ll be back in a while.”

“Well…” I turn to Willa hopefully. “Are the drinks good here?”

***