by Joy Blood
“I was on it before, but it made me gain weight. So, h—I got off it,” she timidly explains, and my teeth grind together. Running my hand along her side, I try to reign in the anger swelling up in my chest.
“Baby, whoever the fuck told you you gained too much weight is full of horse shit. You are fucking gorgeous, and so is your body. Hundred pounds or two hundred pounds, you’d still be a knockout, and I would still want to fuck you,” I add, knowing it will make her smile. When I feel her body shake with silent laughter, I know it did the trick. “Look at me, V.” I tip her chin up, willing her to bring the blue pools of her eyes up to me. Only, I find them welling up with unleashed tears. Shit. “Damn it. Don’t cry, baby. That wasn’t my intention.” She sniffs and nods, forcing herself to give me a smile. When I see one of those tears fall from her eyes, I lean in and capture it with my lips. The salty sorrow bursts on my tongue, making me search out for more. She shivers as I scrape my short beard along her face, around her cheeks, then her chin, kissing her skin along the way, until I get to her throat, then I drag my tongue up the column, coaxing a soft moan from her lips. I pull back at her hesitation to the kiss. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can, baby, and you are going to have to if you want me to help. Shit, I want to help so fucking bad, it hurts my chest every time I take a breath. I want to save you from everything. I don’t know how it happened, but you dug yourself so deep under my skin, you are a part of me, baby,” I say, pouring out the confession I don’t even want to admit to myself.
“It hurts too much to talk about still. I just—” she chokes on the last word, sucking in a sharp breath. “I can’t, Nate.” God, my heart breaks for this beautiful woman I don’t deserve.
“Shhh, baby. When you can. Can I just say something before we get back to the fire?” She nods, eagerly looking up at me, awaiting what I have to say. “Whatever it is, know I will do everything in my power to protect you from it. I will take anything you tell me, good or bad. A part of you is a part of me, Vera.” Damn if those tears don’t fall faster. Shit, I keep hitting them out of the park. “Baby—”
“You are such a good man, Nate. Thank you.”
“No thanks needed. You landed in my lap for a reason. Be it fate or divine fucking intervention, you came to me, and I intend on making things right for you.” She nods and backs away, swiping at her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt.
“Let’s get back to the fire?”
I nod, and once again take her tiny hand in mine. Even with her slim fingers and my large palm, we are a perfect fit. In every fucking way.
“What’s all this?” Vera’s soft voice comes up from behind me while I’m loading up the truck with the camping supplies. I left her in my bunk when I woke up this morning. She just looked too damn sweet to wake.
“Packing for the rally. Can’t fit all this shit on the back of my bike.” I toss in another sleeping bag.
“Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that. How long will you be gone?” I catch the trepidation in her tone. She thinks she isn’t coming with me. Being an ass, I decide to play along.
“‘Bout four days,” I say, but then O butts in.
“First day is the family day. All the kids come. There’s always some fun shit planned for them. The next day is the show. Bikes from all over are brought, and there are a few judges who will place ’em. Then we party,” he pauses to shoot her a grin, “for a couple more days.”
“Yeah. We got two bikes we are taking. Better place this year. Fuckers had it rigged last year. Bunch of bitches,” Wick complains, coming up behind Vera, who’s still standing with her arms crossed under the awning on the clubhouse. I catch the small jump she tries to hide when Wick appears from behind her. She has gotten better about being around the members, but still has moments where she’s spooked for only a split-second. It pricks a pin-sized hole through me each and every time, making me want to track down the asshole who made her jump at everything. Even her own shadow. Maybe that’s why I told Wick to forget the search for her family. Whoever they are, or whoever he is, they don’t deserve her. Something made her leave her life behind and turn to drugs. Now, with her recovering, I will do everything in my power to keep her from having a setback—that includes letting the people from her past forget she even existed. Something tells me she wants to do the same.
“What do you win?” she asks Wick, bringing me back to the here and now.
“Bragging rights,” O answers for Wick with his damn panty melting smile. I want to smack it off his face for using it on my woman. My woman.
“For some, that’s everything. Especially when trying to get a custom-built business up and running,” Wick clarifies when she scrunches her face in confusion. He has been trying to get a little side business going for himself. He loves building bikes, but has only gotten two orders in the last three years. Bragging rights would help him get his name out there.
“Is Doc going to babysit me while you’re gone?”
The boys pause and look over to me, both smirking. Pricks. “O, let’s get the bikes loaded up. Don’t want to have to mess with it in the morning,” Wick says, smacking me on the shoulder before walking toward the shop.
“Good luck, Pres,” O says as he follows behind.
“You think you need a sitter still, V?” I walk toward her, one step at a time. She shifts uncomfortably, moving her arms from crossed to uncrossed, then back again.
“Well, no, but with you gone—” I keep stepping until I’m right in front of her.
“You’ll be too.”
“What?”
“I’m taking you with me. No fucking way I’d leave you home alone. Besides…” I reach out and pull her to me, “I want to fuck you under the stars.” Tipping her chin up, I softly place my lips on hers, lingering just a moment before pulling away.
“You are quite the romantic,” she chuckles.
“Yes, I am, baby.” I decide to leave out the part where Ari and Boyd will be there. Maybe I should tell her, but right now isn’t the moment, not when she’s relaxing into my touch. After her slight panic with me bare inside her, I haven’t initiated sex. Neither has she. Giving her the space she needs until she is ready again is something my dick is just going to have to get used to. “We’ll go back to the apartment tonight and you can pack a bag. Jeans and t-shirts. Make sure to toss in a few sweatshirts. It gets cold at night.”
“Okay.”
“That word again,” I chuckle, then take her lips one more time before pulling away quickly. “Need to get the rest of this packed up. You want breakfast at all, I’m sure there’s still some left. If you get in there quick.”
“I’m okay.” I look back at her, my eyebrow raised in challenge. She smiles.
“Get in there and eat, baby.” She looks at the clubhouse, then back to me, as if trying to decide whether she’ll listen to me. “Go on,” I encourage further, getting her to take a step forward. “See you in a bit,” I call out as she walks inside, disappearing from view.
Sending her inside by herself might be just a little bit of a test. She has been doing good around the club and the members, has even made friends with a couple of the old ladies, but I know the sweet butts are in there now and I’m curious to see how she handles herself with them. I wait a few minutes before following her inside.
Thirty-Six
The thought of going inside the clubhouse by myself makes me sick to my stomach, but I dug deep for the confidence to put one foot in front of the other. For the past few days, we have been staying here on the compound. Most days, I spend inside Nate’s bunk, as he calls it, reading his Stephen King novels. I swear the man has every one ever written. I had seen a few at the apartment, but never read any of them. After he read me a couple chapters one night, I decided to. Just the memory of him lying in the bed reading that book, his reading glasses perched on his nose, the silver at his temples, gives me flutters in the only place he seems to awaken in me.
Female voices and laughter fill my e
ars the closer I get to the large industrial kitchen inside the clubhouse. It’s like a giant lunchroom complete with folding tables. “You remember how he was with that Rider bitch? He’ll get bored and come back,” someone says, making me pause my steps.
“Please, girl, you were twice a week at best, and even then, he only let you suck him off in the bar. If you were lucky.” I recognize that voice as Brandy, and it makes my stomach flop. “Like he would request anything else.” There’s a pause and a few giggles. “We just need to bide our time, then we’ll be back on his rotation.” Rotation? What does that even mean? Not wanting to hear another word, and my appetite suddenly gone, I bypass the door to the kitchen and head toward the back instead of going out front in case I pass Nate. I don’t think I could face him at the moment. Not that I feel as though I have some claim on the man, but I just can’t listen to women talk about sleeping with him so flippantly, then come face to face with him. It just isn’t going to happen.
I don’t get my wish, though. Only minutes after I step inside Nate’s bunk, he follows me in. His bulk takes up the whole room, along with the air around him. Since being around the club members, I have also seen more of Berta. When I declined Premo’s offer to take me to a meeting with him, he brought me to Berta one night when I was particularly agitated. It helped, but I haven’t been back since.
“Not hungry?”
“No.” I shrug, but already know he doesn’t buy it. The man can see right through me.
“I was no saint before I met you. All those girls in there…” he nods toward the clubhouse, “I have been with them in one way or another.”
I shake my head, not wanting to hear any more of it. “I don’t need to hear—”
“Maybe not. I know I wouldn’t like to hear your list. Not going to tell you mine either. Just going to say it’s all behind me. The moment we happened, all that shit stopped. You’re mine, Vera. You’re all I want or need in this life.”
Oh, how I want to give in to those butterflies swarming around in my chest. “Can you take me to see Berta?” I ask, bypassing his declaration. He pauses before giving a nod, then heading for the door, holding it open for me to leave the bunk.
When we reach Berta’s house, Nate declines coming inside with me, saying something about errands to run before the rally. I try not to let the fact that he isn’t coming in bother me, but at the same time, I’m glad to have a short reprieve from him.
“So, tell me, Vera, how are things?” Berta starts, sitting down across from me at her kitchen table. We both cup our coffees in hand.
“Things—well, I’m not sure.”
“You aren’t alone in that thinking. Even the most put-together people in the world have moments of doubt. Navigating through that doubt isn’t something a person can do on their own.” I nod, unsure of what to say. Much like last time, I sit and listen to her talk. How she got through facing her demons, how she started new after hitting rock bottom in her life. “I know I told you some of my story, but you didn’t hear what happen after he died,” she admits.
Last time I was here, she told me about the love of her life. How they grew up together and became high school sweethearts. Then how they found drugs together. They fell into a black hole, until the black hole spit her out, but kept him inside. “When I woke up to find him lying next to me, I lost it,” she says. “I pounded on his chest for hours, trying to start his heart again, but he had been dead for hours—hours I spent passed out next to him. I stopped after that. Got myself checked into rehab and tried to pull myself together. Only…life wasn’t done with me yet,” she says, staring off into blank space. “We had tried for years to get pregnant, but it wasn’t in the cards for us. Maybe one of the reasons we started using. After a person goes through something like that, they tend to lash out at each other or find something to help them cope. With us, it was the finding something to cope. We could have gotten a dog. Instead, we got high.”
Feeling where this in headed, I’m not sure I want her to continue. Still, I remain quiet, my hands clutched around the coffee mug that has since turned cold along with the blood flowing through my veins.
“I was clean and sober for two months before I found out I was with child. Of course, I was over the moon, but at the same time, devastated. Life just wasn’t fair. I was so angry, I let out my rage on everyone around me, thinking Gregg would still be alive if the pregnancy would have just happened when we were trying for it. Finally, though, I accepted it as a gift and kept on living, for my Gregg and my baby.” She takes in a long breath, then lets it out slowly, preparing herself for the next part of the story. “I was close to my due date, so damn close, I was getting those contractions, the false ones. I had a good job that let me make my own hours, and with the baby coming, I was doing just that. One night while coming home from work, I stopped at a stop light. There were no cars around, and I remember being so annoyed the lights were even running at that time of night. I was half tempted to just go through since it seemed I was the only person on the road. It was when the light flicked to green I felt it. The biggest, loudest slam to the back of my tiny red car. My face smacked on the steering wheel with so much force, it knocked out my two front teeth.” She points at her white teeth I noticed the first time we met. “My overly huge stomach was impeded by the same steering wheel. It didn’t even matter that I was wearing my seatbelt. With no airbag in my old car, my body was flung into the dash of the car. I sat there in the same position, folded over the steering wheel, praying for someone to come help for two hours. It took that long for someone to drive by and see when had happened. I woke up the next day to a scar and a doctor telling me my baby boy was lost on impact. All because someone decided to drive home after having a few drinks at the bar.”
I’m shaking now. I can feel it, and I know she can see it. Berta reaches out her hand to clasp mine. “I have been told over and over God only gives us what we can handle, but I’m here to tell you that isn’t true.” We lock eyes, the pain of her story reflects mine, making my hand tighten in hers. “What is true is God gives us people who help us through things we can’t handle on our own. You have those people. Remember that, Vera. You have those people here.” I nod and let the tears I had been trying to hold back fall.
“Thank you,” I tell her, standing the same time she does. Our arms wrap around one another in a tight hug, promising the bond of friendship that will become unbreakable in the future.
“Premo is a good man. I see it in his eyes. He will fight for you. All you have to do is let him, dear.” I nod again into her shoulder, silently thanking her.
Thirty-Seven
“Pres?” Wick sulks into the chapel where I sit at the table going over the numbers starting to generate from the club’s latest purchase, killing time before I need to pick Vera up from Berta’s. As much as I wanted to stay behind with them, I knew Vera needed a little one on one time with B.
“Yeah?”
“You remember when you had me find out who Vera was?”
I nod in response, gritting my teeth. “Thought I said to leave it be,” I snap.
He answers by slapping down a folder on the table in front one me, making the papers scatter around the table. I pay them no mind as I reach out for the dark green folder, pausing for just a moment to shoot Wick a glare before I open it up.
“Know what you said, but the more her name kept rolling around in my head, the more I knew I had heard it before—or seen it.”
It takes seconds to realize what he means.
Alavera Santiago. Age 21. Daughter to Vernon and Emilia Santiago, went missing from the home she shared with fiancé, Judge Rodrik Stevens, on February twenty-second. Police have exhausted their efforts to find Ms. Santiago, but have so far come up with no concrete leads. The family fears Ms. Santiago has fallen victim to one of the many criminals Judge Stevens has put behind bars in retaliation.
The article reads on to talk about how the parents have offered up a reward, as well as the fiancée. The fuck
ing fiancé. Vera’s image stares back at me as I flip through the folder. Alavera Santiago. My Vera with another man’s arms around her as she smiles for the camera, a complete genuine smile I have had the pleasure of receiving myself. The more photos I flip through, the sicker and angrier I grow, until I reach the last few. I nearly drop them from my shaking hands as I take in the rounded belly of my woman carrying another man’s baby, that smile once again on her face as she looks up to her fiancé. Forcing myself through the rest, I get to the last and realize it’s a newspaper clipping.
Early Tuesday morning, Judge Stevens and his fiancée, Alavera Santiago, mourned the loss of their child.
I don’t read anymore. I can’t. If she wanted me to know about this, she would have told me. I slap the folder shut and quickly stand to my feet, my chair sliding across the wood floor with a cringing scrape.
“Sorry, Pres—”
“Get rid of that,” I snap. “Have one of the prospects pick Vera up from Berta’s and bring her to my place,” I instruct, heading from the table and the mess of papers scattered across the thick wooden surface. I need a ride to clear my head before seeing Vera.
The sun starts to hang low in the sky by the time I decide I can head to my apartment and confront Vera about her missing person report. But when I walk through the door and the heavenly smell of grilled meat and vegetables fill my senses, my thundering heart speeds up for a whole other reason. Vera is bouncing around the kitchen wearing a shirt of mine that barely covers that delectable ass of hers. It pulls up to expose the globes of her panty-covered cheeks. Her bare feet slap on the tile, and she bobs her head with the beat of the music I hadn’t noticed was playing. As I watch her sway with the almost muted beat, all thoughts of what I learned about her today vanish.
“Oh! I didn’t even hear you come in.” She startles, turning to face me with that smile on her face. “How was your day?” she asks, the question becoming second nature since she has taken up residence in my home. My life. My heart. Shit.