by Joy Blood
“Yeah, figured we could use the room. You want to get all the poles together so we can just run ’em through?” I ask, knowing putting her to work will take her mind off whatever is bothering her.
We get the tent up, and Boyd starts bringing in the sleeping bags, along with the foam mats. “We really are roughing it, aren’t we?” Vera says, laying out the mat, then situating the bags over the top.
I get up close to her ear, letting my chest brush across her shoulder. “Well, I thought about getting one of those blow up mattresses, but I didn’t want the whole campground to know when I was fucking you. Those things are noisy as hell when you move on them.”
She pushes at my chest and shakes her head. “Always thinking of one thing.”
“When it comes to you, I can’t help myself.”
“Dad! Come check it out!” Boyd calls from outside the tent.
Chuckling, I look over my shoulder, then back to Vera. “Suppose that’s all part of the territory.” I plant a kiss on her cheek before leaving the tent to find out what has my son so excited. He’s standing in the back of the truck pointing out toward the buildings. I follow his finger, finding a large white trailer with a stenciled bike stretched across the side.
“What is it?” he asks, full of wonder, as if the circus just pulled into the campground.
“Trailer filled with bikes, I’m guessing. Looks like the Jokers maybe. Can’t say for sure.” Jokers won first place the last four years. Not this year, though. According to Wick, that is.
“Where are your bikes, Dad?”
“Wick has ’em by his tent.” I point two spots down to the small black trailer holding our club’s bikes. “They’re good looking bikes. We can go see them in a minute, all right?” Boyd nods his eager, toothless smile at me, then jumps down from the truck bed, and my heart skips a beat at his daredevil ways. Damn, I don’t know how Ari does it. Every bump and scrape, I would be running him to the ER. An unwanted memory comes at me, making me shiver, and I shake it away. Never again.
Vera grips my hand tight as we walk a few campsites down to where Wick has the trailer. The boys are already gathered around a campfire taking about how the Jokers’ bikes will look this year and how much they are going to beat their asses this time around. “Uncle Wick!” Boyd goes bounding right up to Wick, who is all too happy to scoop him up. The last kid to have been around the boys would have been Wick’s sister, Bell, who went off to college this past year. She was fifteen when she started hanging out at the clubhouse often.
“You come here to see the bikes, kid?” Boyd bobs his head up and down excitedly as Wick lets his feet hit the padded-down grass. They are off in a beat, going around the trailer to check out the choppers.
“Come have a seat, Pres. You want a drink, Vera?” O asks, and Vera nods her head, taking the soda he offers. “There’ll be fireworks tonight. You aren’t scared of loud noises, are you, V?” I can’t help but grow annoyed when O calls her V yet again. I tried to let it go before, but now it’s just grinding away at me. That’s my name for her.
Before she can answer, I snap. “Her name is Vera,” I growl, getting a raised brow then—because he knows what’s good for him—a nod.
“Vera then.”
“No. Loud noises don’t bother me. Gosh, I can’t even remember the last time I saw fireworks,” she admits, casting a side glance my way.
“Yeah. Last year they didn’t have the fireworks on account of the dry season. This year, with all the rain, we get to light up the sky.” O goes on about all the fireworks he bought, probably hundreds of dollars’ worth, but I’m sure the kids are going to love them.
Later, after it starts to get dark, the boys gather together to get the fireworks set up for the kids. Vera, Boyd, and I are in the back of the pickup truck ready to watch the show. Vera is snuggled up next to me, while Boyd leans against the tailgate on his knees, thinking it’s a better spot. “He’s adorable,” Vera says, watching my son. “Like a mini you.”
“Trying to tell me I’m adorable?” I chuckle, making her laugh too.
“Maybe.”
“He’s my second chance,” I admit to her. Until now, I haven’t told her a thing about the reason for my sobriety. Her body tenses up next to mine. Maybe it’s another gamble opening up to her, but I take the chance. “I had a son before Boyd. He was about the same age Boyd is now when he died.” Her sharp intake of breath catches inside my ear and she shifts away from me.
“Vera—”
She shakes her head and stands up to get out of the bed of the truck. Boyd doesn’t pay her much attention as she does, too caught up in the boom of the firework show.
“Hey, Boyd, I’m going to talk to Vera,” I tell him, getting close enough so he can hear over the noise. “You stay in the back here. Don’t get out. It’s dark and there are lots of people around who can’t see you.” I wait for his acknowledgement before going after Vera. She stands in front of the grill, looking up at the sky as the lights flash overhead. With each flash, the wetness covering her cheeks lights up her face.
“I’m so sorry, Nate—” she starts, but I hold up my hand to stop her.
“It was my fault, Vera. I killed my son because I was a drunk and didn’t give a shit about anything except my next drink.”
“No.” She shakes her head and steps closer, surprising me.
“Yeah. He counted on me, and I let him down. Fuck, I let everyone around me down.” I shake my head. “I would get sober every now and then after Marissa, his mom, and I would have a fight. I would promise to stop drinking. But I didn’t. I would get back to my regular routine after maybe one or two days of being sober. Then, one damn day after I had made it a whole week, I hopped in my truck and floored it out of the drive.” She knows what’s coming, as do I. Shit, I’ve relived this story in my head millions of times, only having said it out loud twice—once in a meeting, and once to Ari. This will be my third and last time I speak the words. “You see, it was his birthday the day before. He had gotten this huge ass bucket of chalk. The kid loved to color. Michael was his name. He was out on the cement coloring up a storm. I didn’t even check behind me, just took off. I will never forget the sound of my truck driving over my son.” I choke on my words, and Vera grabs my arms into her hands.
“Nate, I can’t hear this. Please.” She tries to get me to stop, but I shake my head, pushing past the dryness in my throat and the tears rolling down her face.
“I’ve got to tell you, V.” She shakes her head, but doesn’t run away from me.
“Okay.”
“That night I found you in that trailer house, I saw him. I saw him in you. All that blood…you unconscious on the floor...it’s how he was when I realized what I had done. I rushed him to the hospital only to be told he had died on impact. I killed him. I killed my son.” She shakes her head, tears streaming down her face, and pulls herself into my chest.
“So did I,” she tells me so softly, I barely hear it.
“Vera?”
She shakes her head into my chest. “I can’t say more. Please, not yet.” I cup the back of her head in my hand and pull her tight, trying to give her the strength to tell me one day so I might be able to help her get through her past like Berta had done for me.
We stand there in silence while the booms of the fireworks overhead start to fade out and then come to a stop. “Probably should get back to Boyd,” I tell her, breaking the quiet of the night.
She nods, then pulls away slightly before looking up at me. “Does the guilt go away?” I wish I could tell her one day she’ll feel whole again, like she isn’t the worst person in the world, but I can’t and won’t lie to her.
I shake my head. “Sorry, baby, it doesn’t. All you can do is try to live with it and be a better person.” She nods slightly, then reaches up on her tiptoes to kiss me. I meet her halfway, and soft, wet lips press against mine in an all to brief, but much needed kiss.
“Thank you,” she whispers, then hooks her hand through mine
to pull me toward the back of the truck where Boyd is already fast asleep on the cushions we were sitting on earlier.
Forty-One
After getting Boyd all tucked into his sleeping bag, Nate and I cuddle up in ours and spend most of the night talking about how he met Berta and how much she helped him. He also tells me the story about how he and Ari met and when she told him she was pregnant with Boyd. “We weren’t exclusive or anything, and I didn’t expect the feelings I started to develop for her. I can tell you now those feelings were more directed to the fact that she was having a baby who could have been mine. But with Rico in the picture, I knew damn well she would never pick me, even if the kid did turn out to be mine. Which he did, but she had left me long before.”
“That had to have been nerve-wracking, not knowing who the father was.”
“Yeah. I can only imagine how Ari felt about it. Women get a bad rep for something like that. Not fair by a damn sight. A man could go out and knock up a bunch of women, but the woman who doesn’t know who the father of her child is, is labeled. I didn’t judge her for a second. It wasn’t her fault as far as I was concerned.”
“She seems like a nice woman,” I admit, remembering the hug she gave me.
“Not saying you need to be best friends with her at all, just making sure you know the story and don’t hear it from someone and think I was desperately love with the woman,” he chuckles.
“That is kind of how I heard it from Doc. She was the one who got away,” I admit, and he groans.
“That asshole. Trust me. She wasn’t. Did I wish things would have turned out differently? Yeah, of course. That was only because of Boyd and how I grew up in the middle of a tug of war with my parents.”
“I can see that. My parents should have split up, but they stayed together for me. Either way, the kid suffers in those scenarios,” I say. It’s been on the tip of my tongue all night long to tell him about the incident at the gas station, but the memory of how angry the man was makes me decide against it, once again telling myself he was just startled by my sudden appearance.
We talk on through the night, and I find myself giving up more about myself to him. It’s almost freeing to feel like I can be myself with him. Even with his flaws, the man is someone I find myself wanting to confide in.
The sun beats down onto the tent, heating us up like an oven. Boyd is already awake telling us to get up so we can get breakfast before it’s all gone. I’m torn between letting the sun bake us to death for a few more minutes of sleep and giving in to the day and my grumbling stomach. In the end, my stomach wins out. I pull myself up off the ground to get dressed. Nate is still lying there in the combined sleeping bag, which is now rumpled at his feet. Last night, he stripped down to his shorts to sleep, giving me a very nice view of his lean, sculpted body and the tattoos swirling along his tan skin.
“Baby, don’t look at me like that with my boy around. I can’t do a damn thing about it.” I smirk at his playfulness and watch as he turns around, flexing his hips forward, giving me an eyeful of his hard length trapped in his black boxer briefs. I can’t help myself as my tongue darts out to swipe across my dry lips. “Quit it, V,” he groans, then pulls himself from the floor, only to swipe me into his arms. It’s been too long since we were together last, and I’m thinking that needs to be remedied.
“Dad! Hurry up!” Boyd calls out from outside the tent. Nate both laughs and groans at the same time.
“Yeah, little man, we’ll be out in a second.” He shakes his head and bends down to steal a quick kiss. “Tonight baby,” he promises against my lips, then pulls away to grab a pair of jeans while I do the same.
The pavilion-like building that houses the kitchen is filled with so many people. Mostly families having their breakfast together before heading home. We grab a plate and end up sitting with Ari and Rico, along with a couple named Vin and Ellie. They all seem to know each other and banter back and forth every now and then, with Nate adding something in. It isn’t long after that we are joined by more members from the Hell’s Riders MC and a few of the boys from the Siberian MC. I'm content in listening to everyone’s conversations around the table and the booming laughter created by jokes and past stories when someone comes up to our growing group and offers a snide, “Hello,” to Nate and Wick, who glares the man down. Tall with a short, clipped mustache and a small beer gut, he doesn’t seem all too friendly, even with the fake niceties.
“Haven’t brought out your bikes for everyone to see yet?” the man asks, shifting slightly, letting me catch the name stenciled on the patch of his vest. Hannibal. President. The patch on the other side says Jokers. The club Wick was complaining about winning every year.
“Keep on walking, Hannibal. Our families are here. You can talk all the shit you want later,” Nate growls before Wick can get a word out. Probably a good I idea too. Wick looks as if he might just bust the man’s head clean off his shoulders in one punch.
“Families, huh? You make sure to tell that sister of yours I said hi, Wick. You enjoy.” Hannibal gives Wick a wink, and he shoots to his feet, launching toward him, only to get held back by O, who whispers something in his ear. Wick doesn’t seem to be accepting whatever O says.
“Let it go, Wick. He can’t do a thing to her,” Nate ensures, getting Wick to sit back down.
“Prick. We are beating his ass this year,” Wick growls, getting a slap on the back from Nate.
“Yeah, brother, we will. Now, quit cussing around my boy.”
Forty-Two
The show comes with some stiff competition Wick’s bikes beat out. He is all too pleased with himself when the Jokers don’t even take second or third place. “They couldn’t buy off the judge this year. Fucking pricks,” he grumbles, taking a sip of his beer while wiping away the dust that accumulated on the tank of one of the choppers. Its damn dusty out here after so many people have pounded down the grass into the dirt with the gatherings of groups trying to see the bikes.
Boyd and his sister Abagail have since gone home with Vin, Ellie, and their kids, Anthony and Dawn. Most of the other families have gone home too, or sent the kids with their sitters for the next couple days so they can stay behind for a mini vacation. The only ones who didn’t end up staying are Jake and Kimi, who are expecting yet another little one. I doubt that man will ever let his woman not be knocked up.
As if he knows what I’m thinking about, Wick opens his mouth. “Can you believe all those kids? Shit, I could barely handle raising my baby sister.”
“She’s your sister, you’re not supposed to have to raise her. Shit will be different when you have your own,” I tell him, earning an almost vacant look, then a scowl.
“Fuck that. I wrap up double. Ain’t no way I would chance having a kid. No woman out there worth having one with. Not for me, anyway,” he adds, shaking his head, then taking another pull from his beer.
“Just you wait. That shit hits you when you least expect it.”
“Fuck, I knew it,” he laughs, shaking his head.
“The fuck did you know?” I narrow my eyes at him and stand from the wheel well I’ve been perched on.
“Vera. You went and fell for her.” I shake my head, but he carries on. “Don’t even try to deny it. I was there when you met Marissa, remember? You would have followed that woman into a burning fire while holding her purse as she led you by the balls.”
I scoff, remembering our teenage years. “If I recall, right around the same time, you swore up and down you’d found the woman you were going to marry.”
“Completely different fuckin’ circumstances,” he grimaces.
“I don’t think so. She had you by the balls. Me and Marissa were together ’cause she got pregnant. Not because—”
“I don’t want to talk about her anymore.” Reaching into his pocket, he taps out a cigarette and lights it. It’s been some time since we had a conversation involving the woman who took Wick’s heart right from his chest and left town without even looking back. The
man hasn’t been the same since.
“Anyway,” he takes in a long drag, expelling it before finishing his sentence, “I’m glad to see you happy again before shit went to…well, shit.”
“I—” I start to deny once again when the crunching of gravel catches my ears. Turning toward the sound, Vera comes into view, and I know damn well Wick is right. I went and fell for her. Fell fucking hard. And I still don’t know if she’s even mine to claim. The indent on her ring finger is still slightly visible, meaning she wore one for quite some time before it came off. The thought of her fiancé out there looking for her still hangs heavy in my mind. Is that why she was in the state she was when I found her? My gut tells me yes, that someone from her past was definitely part of her downfall. Her words last night ring in my ears.
So did I.
“There she is,” Wick calls out as she steps closer, taking the offered soda he pulls from the cooler.
“Congratulations on the win. They really are beautiful bikes.” She smiles and pops the top of the can.
“Thank you, Miss Vera. It’s nice to have someone appreciate all the work I put in.” Wick shoots a smile my way, and I roll my eyes.
“Fucking prick,” I shake my head at my long-time friend then reach out to grab Vera’s hand. “Let’s go for a walk. There’s a creek a short way from here,” I tell her, already leaving Wick’s campsite. The fucker calls out goodnight to us, but I only wave my hand back at him.
“It’s beautiful here. And cool. I was expecting it to be too hot out to stand, what with waking up in that oven of a tent this morning.”
“Yeah. The tent gets a bit hot. That’s why the cover comes off, so it can air out.”
She nods and bites at her lip. “Maybe we can leave it off tonight, look up at the stars when they come out.”
“Yeah,” I agree, pulling her closer to me. “I’d like that.” We walk a bit farther before the sound of the creek comes babbling through the breeze. She’s right about it being cool out. I almost wish I would have pulled on a sweatshirt.