by Voss, Deja
Heat reaches over and puts his arm around my shoulder. I feel like this is what an intervention would look like if I ever actually had one. I’ve been clean for three years now, though.
“We love you, Goob. We love the man you’ve become. You know this club is going in a totally different direction than it was before, and we want you to be a part of that.” He slides a patch across the table to me and I smile back at him.
“Are you going to be our sergeant at arms, little brother?” Gavin asks.
Esther pulls out a needle and thread from her purse and grins.
I’m overwhelmed. I’ve always felt like the outsider, but for once in my life, everything is coming together. I’m right where I belong. So much responsibility dumped on my lap the last year, and this is just one more thing. And I want it all. I want to do right by everyone I love. I’m finally the kind of person who can do that.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Of course.”
Esther stitches the new patch onto my cut, and as I walk across the room to take it, to take on my new responsibility, my brothers pat me on the back, cheering.
I take my new seat at the table and smile at my brothers. “Order,” I shout. “We’re in the middle of a fucking meeting.”
Brooks laughs, shaking his head at me. “ Y’all heard the sergeant. Let’s get this shit back on track so we can get home.”
***
“Well would you look at that?” she giggles with her cute little southern drawl. “My man is moving on up in the world.”
She’s sitting on the front porch swing, her long blonde hair wild and curly, her tight little denim skirt just barely covering the tops of her curvy thighs. I can’t deny the fact that she gets more beautiful to me every day. I can’t even be in the same room as her without wanting to rip her clothes off. I don’t know if it’s because she’s officially my wife now, and I know that she’ll be mine forever, or if it’s the fact that she really was meant to be a blonde, but I can’t keep my hands off of her. I kiss her hard and pick her up and toss her over my shoulder as she starts to laugh, my hand sneaking up the back of her skirt.
“Is the little man sleeping?” I ask.
“He’s been out cold for a few hours. I don’t know what the hell you two got into today, but he could barely keep his eyes open for dinner.”
I set her up on the kitchen counter and grab a few beers out of the fridge. “How about we celebrate?” I suggest. I crack open the beers and hand her one, holding mine up to toast her. She proceeds to dump hers down the sink next to her as I watch, perplexed. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
She doesn’t say anything, just turns her head. I can see she’s blushing, her face bright red.
“What?” I ask.
“I gotta dry out for a little bit,” she shrugs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She grabs my hand and puts it on her stomach, her green eyes staring into mine with a loving smile on her face. My heart stops for an instant, the instant I realize that she’s going to carry my child inside of her for the next nine months. The more I stare at her beautiful face, I can tell she’s glowing.
I scoop her up in my arms and set her to the ground. “It’s probably not safe for you up there.”
“On the counter? I think I’ll be alright,” she laughs.
“I’m gonna wrap you in Bubble Wrap and keep you in a room full of pillows.” I press my lips to hers, running my fingers over her soft skin, lifting up her shirt just a little bit, tracing circles over her stomach.
“Oh you are?” she teases. “Then how are we going to celebrate?” She reaches for her panties, sliding them down her leg.
“Fine.” I roll my eyes at her jokingly. “I guess the Bubble Wrap can wait.”
“I’m so excited,” she whispers. “For our life, for our family. I love you so much.” Tears roll down her face.
For the first time in my life, I’m excited about my future too. For the first time, it’s not some dark sad place where I don’t care if I live or die. She’s given me hope. She’s given me a chance at a life I never thought I deserved.
I take her by the hand and guide her to the bedroom, laying her down so I can just take in her beauty. My wife, the woman who taught me what it meant to be able to love and trust. The woman who tackled my past right along my side.
I don’t want to move. I don’t want this moment to ever end. I want to hold on to this feeling forever. She smiles up at me, biting her lip, as if she can read my mind.
“You fixed me,” I say. She’s better than any drug in the world. She’s the only addiction I’ll ever need again. “I love you, Azalea.”
THE END
Prologue
Micah:
15 years ago
“I gotta go,” she says. “Moses is probably sobered up enough by now to notice me missing.” Ava is sitting on the edge of my bed, wearing nothing but an oversized hoodie, her feet dangling off the edge. I hope she gets all the fidgeting out of her system before she goes back to him. The way she’s nervously chomping on her gum and tapping her foot off the floor is enough to put me on high alert. She won’t even look at me right now. She never does when it comes down to talking about my father.
“Thirteen more days.” I rest my head on her shoulder, taking in the sweet smell of her curly black hair. “Shouldn’t be too hard to keep him fucked-up for that long.”
“He’s gonna notice, Micah,” she says. “Last night I turned down a line of blow and you would’ve thought I shot his dog. He’s relentless. I swear he knows something’s up.”
I don’t know how to comfort her. I can’t just tell her everything is going to be ok, because until we get out of this fucking place, it’s a straight-up lie. We’re not safe here anymore. Now that she’s starting to show, there’s nothing left for us to do but run away and start all over again. A clean slate for my love, myself, and my child.
I run my hand up her shirt, pressing my fingers to her belly, envisioning our future. I’m just as scared as she is, but I’m doing my best to hold my shit together. At twenty-five, the only life I know is the Mountain Misfits MC way of life. I don’t know how to be a father. I don’t even know how to be a husband. Right now, I’m just the guy who stole my father’s old lady right out from under his nose.
But in thirteen days, that’s all going to change. I’ve got loose ends to tie up, and then we’re out of here. We’re going to go stay with her mother in the city until we can afford a place of our own. The only way anyone will ever see me again on this mountain is if my father is six feet under.
She slips on her sweatpants and kisses me on the forehead. She looks out the peephole of my door, out into the hallway that leads to the clubhouse. If anyone sees her coming out of my room, there’s going to be a bloodbath. I don’t even like bringing her down here, but when she showed up in the middle of the night, crying and shaking, going on about my father being all fucked-up on bath salts and going to strangle her to death, I know she’s not talking out her ass. It’s not just about keeping her safe anymore. It’s about our baby, too.
Ava came crashing into my life like a runaway train, and I knew the day I met her this was the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with, no matter what. No matter the fact that she was my dad’s flavor of the week. She’s one part sex on legs and another part Mother Earth. Being near her is the only thing that I crave in this world, being inside her is like knowing the meaning of life. Maybe that’s why my father hasn’t got bored with her yet, throwing her out like a used rubber like he does with all the rest of them. Maybe he loves her as much as I do, even though he has a completely fucked-up way of showing it.
“Hang in there. I love you,” I say as she pulls open the door.
“Shit,” she mutters. I jump up from my bed and sprint to the doorway. My father is towering over her, and as hard as I’m trying to wrack my brain for any of the excuses we’ve come up with over the last few months for why we’d be hanging out together, I feel l
ike my mind is full of cement. The way he’s sneering so hard you can damn near see his wisdom teeth, his black and bloodshot eyes staring right through me, makes my blood turn to ice. He’s got her by the arm, her feet barely touching the floor. “Moses!” she says. “What are you doing here?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking the same question there, Ava?” he roars. “And what do you have to say for yourself, son?”
“You scared her, Dad. She needed a safe place to stay till you sobered up. What the fuck was she supposed to do? Just let your high ass beat her to death?”
“Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “It’s what she signed up for. You want to be an old lady and live rent-free in my mansion, I own this ass.”
“Please,” she screams. “Put me down. You’re going to rip my shoulder out of the socket.”
“Get in there. Both of you.” He shoves her in my room, slamming the door behind the three of us. There’s no escaping now. This place is just four walls of solid concrete. My dad said he built these prison cells of apartments to keep us safe from the outside world, but I know well enough from growing up here that the real danger is what lurks inside. “It’s time that we had a little talk.”
“Calm down, Moe,” she pleads. “I have to tell you something. I have some news for you.” I know she’s as afraid as I am because she’s resorting to plan Z. The biggest fattest lie the two of us could conjure up. The one we didn’t ever want to have to use. The one that would keep us trapped in this hellhole until the day he dies. “I’m pregnant,” she says, wrapping her arms around him and staring into his eyes with a tenderness that she hasn’t even shown me. She’s definitely a pretty fucking good actress.
“Oh I know,” he laughs.
“You and I, we’re going to have a baby! Isn’t that amazing!”
“It is amazing,” he says. “Damn near fucking miraculous if we’re being honest here. But I think everyone in this room knows that you aren’t being honest, you dumb cunt. You really think I didn’t get my shit snipped years ago? I got more kids than I know what to do with.”
She puts her hands in the air and begins to back away slowly.
“Maybe it grew back,” she says. “I’ve heard of that happening before.”
“Yeah, maybe it did.” He pulls his pistol from the waist of his jeans.
“Knock it off, old man,” I growl, jumping in between them. I know we’re probably both dead, but I’m not going to go down without a fight. I will do whatever I can to protect Ava, even if it means taking a bullet to the head.
“Get the fuck out of the way, Micah,” he growls. “I just want to talk. I just want to have an honest conversation. She’s not that great of an actress when she has a gun to her head. Ask me how I know!”
“Dad, you’re drunk. Why don’t you just go sleep it off and we can do this later. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for all this.”
“I thought I gave you the talk a long time ago, son. There’s only one explanation for this. Someone other than myself put their dick in my woman and now she’s knocked up. And that someone better get the fuck out of the way before he’s full of bullet holes.” He presses his pistol to my forehead, but I’m not backing down. If he kills me, he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do to the rest of the gang, and I know for a fact that my father wouldn’t risk his status as president just to shut me up. He’s way too proud.
“Dad, I love her. I love her the way that you can’t. She’s not just some slam piece to me. She’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. She loves me too, Dad. We’re soulmates.”
“You’re a silly fucking child,” he says, hitting me across the jaw with his pistol. I fall to the ground, stunned. My mouth tastes like blood as I try and push myself off the floor. “This dumb bitch, she doesn’t love you. She’s using you. Just like she uses me. She’s just another club slut. Don’t you think if she really loved you, she wouldn’t be sucking on my cock with the same lips she kisses you with?”
“Stop it!” she cries. “Micah, I would never use you. You know the situation. You know how he is.”
He grabs her by the throat and pushes her down on the bed. “How am I, Ava? You were sucking dick by a dumpster for pocket change when I found you and took you in. You’ve wanted for nothing since the day you got here. You were free to fucking go at any time you wanted, but instead, you stuck around. You got power hungry. You couldn’t keep your slutty hands off of my kid. I don’t know what you think you’re trying to pull coming between a father and his son, but that shit doesn’t fly around here.”
“Dad, get off her,” I scream, winding back to punch him. He drops her to the bed and she gasps for air.
“You love my boy?” he asks.
She stares up at him, tears running down her face. She’s holding her hands over her stomach, reaching to feel the life inside her, making sure it’s still there.
“Tell me now, Ava. Do you love my son?”
She’s weeping, her whole body shaking. Before I can even take another breath, the gun goes off. Everything goes red, my white comforter turning into a sea of blood.
“Too slow,” he whispers. I fall to the bed next to her, clutching her stomach, holding her lifeless body as her blue eyes stare up at the ceiling, unblinking. I begin to sob, pressing my head to her chest, hoping that maybe this is all a dream and I’ll wake up with her in my arms.
“Knock it off, Micah,” he says, spitting a wad of tobacco onto my floor. “There’s not a bitch in the world worth crying over.”
“Fuck you, Dad,” I scream. “I hate you.”
I kiss her on the lips, as I hug her to my body, her warm sticky blood coating my hands, covering my face.
“You better go dig a hole, son,” he says as he turns his back to me and walks to the door. “Might as well dig two so you don’t forget what’s going to happen the next time you stick your dick where it doesn’t belong.”
He slams the door behind him, leaving me all alone with the carnage. I know she loved me. She didn’t have to justify it to him. I let her down. I let down my son or daughter, too. I should’ve busted her out of here the day I found out she was pregnant. I shouldn’t have been so fucking selfish. The more I stare at her, the angrier I get.
Not at my father, I could’ve seen this coming from a mile away.
I’m mad at myself. As long as I live here under his rule, I’ll never be a real man, just a soldier, just a pawn. I could never take care of her. I can’t even take care of myself.
I storm down the hallway and up into the clubhouse, my leather cut in my hand.
I toss it down on the table where my dad is sitting with Heat, our chaplain.
“What the fuck?” Heat mutters. I don’t care anymore. This will be the last time any of these dumb fuckers see my face again. I keep walking, out into the snow, out into the garage, and get on my bike.
You’re being stupid, I think, as I pull out of the garage into the thirty-degree weather and start riding down the side of the mountain, but I don’t feel cold at all. I’m on fire, even, burning with rage. I keep my eyes wide open and focused on the road because every time I blink, all I can see is that hole in her head and my future going down the drain just like her blood flowing all over my bed.
Chapter 1
Current day:
Amber:
I sit in my rusty old Lincoln in the parking lot of the nursing home, the heat turned up as high as it can go, and I’m still shivering in my puffy down coat and mittens. I know I should probably go inside now, but this is my least favorite part of the day. It requires a little warming up on my behalf.
I pull out my flask of Jameson and take a little sip, cringing as it burns the inside of my mouth. If anyone at the yoga studio knew I was doing this, they’d probably send me off to the mountains for some sort of spiritual rehabilitation. Spiritual rehabilitation isn’t going to change the fact that I’m only twenty years old and about to lose my mother to early onset Alzheimer’s disease. I need spiritua
l intervention in the form of a miracle. Tonight I’m going to have to settle for the closest thing. Spiritual numbness thanks to some whiskey I lifted from my aunt Jane.
I close my eyes and try to get in the headspace I need to face this night.
You just need to be there for her, everyone tells me, but she doesn’t even know who I am anymore. She doesn’t even know how to swallow food without aspirating. I feel guilty that this stop is always my least favorite part of the day, but this is not the way I want to remember my mama.
The air is cold, and I stumble through the parking lot, wishing I knew how to handle my liquor better. I hate the way this place smells. I hate the way this place looks. Everything is gray. Everyone is gray. I know they don’t send people here to get better, but damn, between the creepy clown paintings on the wall and the way all the nurses just stare at you like you’re inconveniencing them by existing, I can see why anyone’s condition would rapidly decline once they’ve checked into the Hotel Geriatric.
“Where have you been?” my aunt Jane whispers loudly as I peek my head around the corner of my mother’s room. She’s got her knitting needles going full speed and barely looks up at me. I can tell by the way her roots are growing in all gray and patchy that these last few months have done a number on her, too. She never had wrinkles before, but everything on her face looks like it’s shifted into a permanent frown. I hate seeing her like this. Almost more than I hate seeing my mother like this. “You said you were going to be here an hour ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, ducking into the room, trying extra hard to keep my eyes focused. “Class ran a little late.”