Deck grinned at me. “Yeah, you’re starting to get it. Merc was Prez. It was his job to keep his men in line. If Double-D wouldn’t do it as a parent, it should have fallen on his shoulders to do it as the Prez. She was club property, a princess, and he didn’t protect her. Not from you and your bullshit. Not from grown ass men who had their own reasons for what they were doing. Not a damn bit of it should have fallen on Ever’s shoulders, and yet all of it did. She carried the weight of our entire club with her for years. Our fa… Merc, did nothing to alleviate that.”
“They held the amends ceremony,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, how well did that turn out for her?”
“It was bullshit,” I admitted.
“Yeah, it was. That shit was done for the club to save face. It wasn’t done for her. So, that was the third straw for me. The one that broke me on how I see him. He was no longer the man I worshipped when I was growing up. Instead, he became this man who was broken, and in need of being fixed. Only, I don’t think he wants to be fixed. He could have just as easily been wearing that tattoo she gave you. Sure, he’s always been a protector, but his priorities on who needed that protection have always been skewed. I can’t get around that shit.”
“Why are you still in the club?”
“It’s been family from the beginning. It ain’t all bad. Besides, I figured there would come a time when you, T-Bone, and me would get to clean it up.”
The pain in my chest as he said that nearly crippled me on the spot. “That’s what T-Bone and I always had planned.”
“I know you did, Jay,” he told me as he slid and arm around my shoulder and pulled me to his side for a minute. “You two would have done a great job of it too, once you both pulled your heads out of your asses. You had fine examples of how to live, and some pretty good examples of what not to do too.”
We sat quietly taking in the darkening sky. The stars were already spattering across the sky, promising a glorious show later in the night as more of the city lights dimmed for the evening. I could have sat out there all night, just enjoying the view, and the peace of my brother’s front porch. He cleared his throat and ruined my moment instead.
“What are you waiting on, Jay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why the fuck are you sitting out here on my porch?”
“Well, if you didn’t want me here, that’s all you had to say,” I huffed like a fucking woman as I stood to leave.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. What are you hiding from?”
“I don’t know. Fuck!” Frustration oozed from my pores as I stood there, hands on his porch rails, contemplating what my next step should be. “I have nowhere else I want to be.”
“The club?” He asked.
I shook my head. “Can’t be there right now. After everything I heard today,” I started then I turned, parking my ass against the railing while I gave Deck my attention. “It stopped feeling like home to me,” I finally admitted to my brother, who only nodded like he already knew this. “Long before T-Bone was gone, it stopped feeling like a place I wanted to be. Don’t get me wrong. I love the club life, love to ride, but I think I ruined the Charleston Chapter.”
“You didn’t ruin shit, little brother. The chapter was rotting from the inside out, because Merc and Double-D had misplaced loyalties from long-standing rotten apples that were dragging it down. You took care of one of them tonight. T-Bone took care of the other one years ago. Whether you stick it out or not, you need to know that the two of you are going to be the reason that chapter of the club survives. You both did that. So, no matter what you choose to do with the rest of your life, rest easy knowing you and T-Bone managed to live your dream of making it better, even if you each did your part separately.”
Hot fucking tears stung my eyes and there was no holding them back. “He should have been here,” I managed to get out.
“I know it,” he said as Deck stood and came to offer his presence beside me. “I believe he was with you tonight. He knows.”
“That’s not good enough!” The words came out in a strangled mix of emotion as I thought about how I felt his presence earlier today, remembered wondering if he would be able to be at peace now. “We were supposed to do it together. He was supposed to be a dad, and I was going to be his kids’ uncle. We had a whole life planned out.”
“Which one of you was gonna wear the dress?” He teased, trying to bring some levity to the moment. I hauled off and punched him in the thick ass shoulder of his, coming away with stinging knuckles for my effort. Fucking beast! “Obviously, T-Bone would have. Remember that time he shaved his legs, said it would make him faster on his bike when he was wearing shorts?” I laughed with my brother about that.
“The dimwit watched a science show about aerodynamics and suddenly he shaved his body hair all off.”
“Except for his head, because he said he could stand to be just a tad slower, in order to look good for the chicks.”
“Fucker was 13,” Deck said as he laughed. “There weren’t any chicks after you guys back then.”
“If that’s what you want to tell yourself,” I commented as I swiped away the tears that had broken free while remembering my best friend.
“Jay, your place isn’t somewhere Toby’s ghost knows to haunt.” There was a question in his statement. He wanted to know why I couldn’t go home.
“I made a mistake,” I admitted, and then I told him all about the girl in the cemetery. I gave him her name, and explained who she was to Lindsay, and that when I closed my eyes, it was her. She was the thing that made me smile. Not Lindsay. Not the club. Some heartbroken girl I’d seen in a cemetery once upon a time who also felt drawn enough to me to paint pictures of me years later.
“Damn, dude. I’m not sure what to tell you here besides the obvious. You need to let Lindsay go, and soon. The longer you drag that out, the uglier it’s going to be.” I nodded, already knowing that much.
“What about Christina?”
He ran a hand down the side of his face, the scratch of stubble against his palm sounded abrasive enough to catch my attention in the dark. “I don’t know what to tell you there, Jay. You’re probably not wrong. If she’d date you, knowing her best friend was just living with you, she’s probably not the kind of woman you want to invest your time in. Then again, if she is the kind of woman, she won’t go near you out of respect for Lindsay.”
“Damned if I do, and don’t,” I muttered.
Deck nodded. “It’s a shit situation. The worst part is, you probably never would have run into her again had Lindsay not come into your life.” I hadn’t thought about that. He was right though. Had Lindsay not come into my life, I most likely would have stayed on the road with Phoenix a bit longer, maybe forever. “Maybe, it’s time to go face that part of your life head on. Get it done now so it’s off your chest. Then you can focus on what you want next. I’m thinking the club isn’t going to be what you want either.”
I tipped my head to acknowledge that last part. It was true. I hadn’t been feeling the club for a long time, and part of me knew that I was the one that had been responsible for destroying that love. It didn’t matter if Deck thought it wasn’t all my fault, or not, the fact remained that I tainted the whole experience with my actions. Maybe I would still want to be a part of it if they had called me on my childish response way back when I was still in high school. Shit, I was the one who should have been punished for speaking to Ever that way, especially in the middle of a school assembly. My punishment had only come in the wake of finding out none of it had been true. It still made me sick to my stomach to think about what I did to her, and the fact that she almost took her own damn life as a result. The last being the reason T-Bone hadn’t been able to forgive me. When he found that out, it shattered what remained of our already somewhat shaky friendship. Now, with all of that sitting in the back of mind day in and day out, the club held too many depressing memories for me.
“Thanks
, Deck,” I offered up as I stood. I couldn’t leave on the somber note that had been cast though. Instead, I turned back to my brother and gave him a cocky grin. “Nice rockin’ chairs, Pa!”
“Shut the fuck up,” he called out as I chuckled all the way to my bike. “These things are comfortable as fuck.”
“Sure, they are,” I argued back as I slung my leg over my Harley and got comfortable. “If things go the way I think they might, you may need to have a spare room ready for me later.”
Deck laughed. “Go on, smooth talker, I’ll make sure Ever knows to expect you.”
Pulling up to the place I shared with Lindsay drained away any of the lighthearted feeling I had won back by joking with my brother. Dread instantly filled my belly as I climbed the steps, unlocked the door, and moved inside. The curtain had flicked to the side as I pulled up and parked, so I knew she was home and waiting on me. “Where have you been? Jesus, I’ve been worried about you! Did you break your phone? Forget my number? Jay, really, what the hell? You go on a run for your club and I don’t hear from you for days on end, and then one of the sluts dating a guy from the club tells me that she saw you at the clubhouse earlier. You had time for…”
“Lindsay!” I yelled in order to stop her. “Shut the fuck up for a minute!” She took a step back, looking slightly shell-shocked at the fact I’d yelled, or maybe it was my word choice. I didn’t know, and frankly, I didn’t give a fuck either. I knew I should. Her feelings mattered, but after the day I’d had, I couldn’t muster anything else for a single soul.
I glanced up in time to see her pointing to the kitchen behind us. “It’s just that I made dinner. It’s cold and ruined now, but I had it all planned out when I heard you guys were back.”
I ran my hands through my hair and then moved to the chair that sat beside the couch, the only other place to sit in our living room. I took the chair on purpose. “Come sit down,” I demanded quietly. “We need to talk.”
She grabbed something off of the table and moved to do just that. Her worried expression didn’t escape my notice as she handed the bag to me. “What’s this?” I asked as the thing sat in my lap, light as a feather.
She smiled shyly, which was odd because Lindsay was not a shy girl. “I think the best way to do this would just be for you to open it up and take a look.”
The need to get through this shit and let her know I was done is the only reason I reached my hand in that bag. The minute I pulled out what was inside, I wished I’d never come home at all.
“What is this?” I asked as I held the baby onesie up in the air, hovering just over the bag that it should have stayed buried in. This could not be fucking happening right now. The goddamn thing said, ‘Daddy’s little biker’ on it.
“Surprise! I’m pregnant.”
This was not the news I needed to hear after what I’d just been through. How the fuck could I go from killing the man who took Toby’s chance of being a dad from him to hearing that the woman I wanted to break it off with was suddenly pregnant with my baby. For fuck sake, I didn’t even understand how that shit was possible. Supposedly, she’d been on the pill. Even knowing she was on the pill and covered, I still wrapped up every single time. Not one condom break in all the time we had been together to explain how this could have happened either. The only other explanation was maybe she was trying to pin me with some other guy’s problem. I glared up at her for a moment. “How exactly did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered and looked unsure, where moments ago her demeanor had moved from scared of what I might say to glowing and ecstatic as I opened the gift she’d handed me. Curse was more like it. There just was no way.
“You were on the pill and we always used condoms,” I reiterated to her.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, Jay. Maybe I forgot a pill or something. Condoms aren’t always foolproof. What do you want me to say? I don’t know how this happened. Maybe it was that one time we were drunk on the band bus,” she suggested.
“That was months ago,” I told her. “Are you telling me you’ve been pregnant all this time and never said a word?”
“I’m telling you that I just found out, but I haven’t been to the doctor yet to confirm the dates.”
“When was your last period? Seems I remember you were on it last month,” I recalled seeing her period mess in the bathroom where she had dropped one of the wrappers proclaiming some shit about wings and leak guards.
“I spotted last month, but that was it,” she replied quickly.
“You didn’t think to mention something might be wrong then?” I asked, feeling a bit more on edge.
“Something might be wrong? Are you saying this pregnancy is something to be feared? Hated? Dreaded? What is going on with you, Jay? I thought you’d be happy.”
“What the hell gave you the idea that a baby would make me happy? Was it how careful I was to always wrap up first?” I stood pacing the room for a minute before eyeballing the door that was no longer enough of an escape. “I need to go get some air,” I stated.
“You just got back,” she pouted.
“Yeah, and it’s been a rough couple of days. Hell, that’s a fucking understatement, and now you hit me with this, not even two minutes after I walked through the door, and after you try 20-questions about where I’ve been.”
“I’m sorry. I was excited.”
“Well, that makes one of us then,” I told her as I turned to leave.
“Jay, please, don’t do this,” she begged.
“Linds, I need some fucking air. I’ll be back when I get my head on straight.” Not that I had a single clue of how that shit was going to be managed considering everything that had been thrown at me over the past couple of days. I climbed back on my bike and headed to the only other place that might bring me an ounce of comfort. My childhood home.
I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to ask for my father’s advice, especially after what Deck had explained to me earlier. Maybe, a part of me wanted him to be a callous bastard and tell me it was okay to walk away from Lindsay still. I laughed at myself as I sat in my parent’s living room waiting for just that. A pass. A get out of jail free card. Something. Anything. I couldn’t stand the thought of being tied to this town, the club, the girl all because she somehow ended up pregnant.
“I know you don’t feel like you can be with her anymore. You have a lot going on in your head right now with everything, but Lindsay is still your friend, right?”
Was she? I didn’t even know how to answer that. “I care about what happens to her, but I don’t know that our friendship could survive me being trapped into it.”
“You think she did this on purpose?”
“She’s supposedly on the pill, and we always use condoms. What the hell else am I supposed to think?” My father stared dubiously at me for a long moment.
“Accidents do happen,” he finally managed to get out. “Jason, be glad the woman is your friend. That’s a better start than your mom and I had.”
It glared up at him them. “From what I hear, you aren’t exactly the example to go by.”
“That’s true,” he said as he blew out a breath. “I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger. Maybe you should think of me as the example to move up from. Don’t repeat my mistakes, Jay.”
“Why would you even tell me to stick it out with her when you felt trapped with mom for all those years?”
“Look at your mom and I now, we’re happy.”
“At what cost?” I asked. “Your oldest son won’t even call you anything other than your road name. Your wife worries about what you’re up to every time you leave the house without her.” He seemed taken aback by my response.
“What?”
I could see the wheels turning and hoped I hadn’t just fucked things up further between my family members. Honestly, part of the problem with me feeling comfortable in the family and the club was that there were too many fucking secrets floating around. I turned to see wha
t my father had been staring at over my shoulder and realized my mother had been standing nearby for some time. She swiped at her face before turning and walking away. It seemed her anxiety attacks whenever my dad left home was something she wanted to keep buried and hidden far away from him. I shook my head, disappointed in myself all over again. It seemed no matter what I did, I was determined to bring strife into people’s lives.
“Jay,” Merc growled out before clearing his throat and trying again. “I didn’t realize any of that was going on. I see that look on your face and know what you’re thinking. Stop. I’m telling you, right now, you just did me a favor. I can’t fix what I don’t realize is broken. Sometimes, realizing a thing like that takes someone else opening the shutters for you.”
I nodded my head at him. “It’s not unheard of these days to just be a part time dad. I could get the kid on weekends, or one full week while she takes him the other.”
“How do you think that would have felt for you when you were growing up? Constantly being shuffled between two houses, never feeling settled, and parents most likely at each other’s throats because one is jealous of what’s going on in the other’s life?”
“My kid won’t ever see that shit,” I said of the last, ignoring the first bit.
“Kids see far more than you would like for them to. I’m pretty sure you just pointed that out to me,” he reminded me. Well shit, he had me there. Considering Deck’s admission, he really had me there. “I’m just saying think about it, Jay. You don’t have to decide anything right now. Give it a try. If things don’t work out, then they don’t. For now though, you can try it on for size and really work at it before throwing in the towel.” I nodded again, lost in thought about how that was going to work. Fuck! I had been about to tell Lindsay that we were over, now I had to try to find some common ground with her all over again. My head was spinning with yet another piece of the puzzle that was my life. The problem was, none of the fucking pieces fit together.
The Killing Ride Page 12