A small drop of blood bubbled to the surface where the needle had been stuck in her skin, and I wiped it away with the sleeve of my dirty gray hoody.
Her skin felt cold—too cold for my mom, because Mommy was always warm and soft. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, wondering what to do. I made my way to the living room and got the blanket from across the back of our brown sofa, and then I dragged it back to her in the kitchen, carefully avoiding the vomit, and I laid it over her, hoping it would warm her enough.
I sat and watched her, not wanting to move in case she needed me. I still had the needle in my hand, so I put it on the table, out of her reach, and I prayed that Butch would come home soon, because he would know what to do.
Her body got even colder, and I curled up against her side and put my arm around her to help keep her warm. I needed to pee but didn’t want to leave her alone, and at some point I must have fallen asleep and peed myself, because when I woke up, Butch was picking me up and I was wet and cold.
The fading sunlight shone in through the kitchen window, glinting off the wedding band she still wore. It had a green stone in it that matched her eyes. She used to tell us that that was why Daddy had given it to her.
Butch carried me across the kitchen.
I cried for her then, for my mom.
I reached out with my small hands and clawed at Butch as he continued walking, ignoring my tears and screams.
But Butch continued on, whispering in my ear that we would be okay together, that he wouldn’t ever leave me. And that he would always be there for me, no matter what.
We passed my daddy on the way out. He was standing in the doorway with his arms folded over his huge chest, his gaze on Mommy.
I knew he was my daddy because Mommy kept a picture of him by her bed. She told me he was the love of her life. She told me that they were like the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde and that they were meant to be together forever.
But Daddy rarely came to visit, and when he did, he didn’t look at Mommy like he did in that picture, even though she still looked at him like that. And he never, never, ever looked at me with anything like that. I was scared of Daddy, even though Mommy said not to be.
Daddy turned away from the kitchen, and put the house phone to his ear, the long green curly cord dangling like spaghetti. He sounded angry-sad, a mixture of the two things. And I could understand that, because I felt the same way. I was angry-sad. Angry because I didn’t want to leave. Angry because I wanted my mommy to stop hurting herself like this, and sad because I already missed her.
All three of us left the house—me, my big brother Butch (who was carrying me), and my daddy, and we climbed in daddy’s truck. And then we left, and I never saw my mommy or my home again.
Butch said it was going to be okay, and not to cry because it would make Daddy angry. He said Mommy was in a better place now anyway. But I didn’t understand.
Because how could my Mommy be in a better place when I wasn’t with her?
Chapter One:
1982
Jesse
“Goddamn it, Jesse, will you stay out of my stuff!” Butch stormed as he came towards me!
I dove off my bed with Butch following me quickly, my hand still clutching the magazine I’d found under his mattress. I threw open our bedroom door and ran down the short hallway to the main part of the clubhouse, taking a good look at the breasts of one of the club skanks as I raced past her.
“Looking good, Bernice!” I called, laughing my ass off. She blew me a kiss and kept on walking, her pert ass swaying hypnotically.
Butch was already tiring, and there was no way he would catch up to me. He may have been big, but I was fast. And he was still hungover from the night before. I slowed down and turned around, finally dropping the magazine and flipping him the bird with both hands while laughing.
And then I was flying through the air and landing on my ass.
I looked up at the ceiling, the wind completely knocked out of me, wondering what the hell had just happened, when Dom’s face came into view, his wolf-grey eyes staring down at me. He grinned and then moved out of the way for Butch to grab me.
“Shit!” I swore as he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me up to my feet. He was taller than me, but not by much considering our five-year age gap. He was much stronger, though; it would be years before I could catch up to him. That much I was certain of.
Butch was almost six foot already, and built like a machine. So much so that I’d worried for a while that he was using steroids or some shit. But no, it was all just good, honest, home-grown Hardy DNA. His skin was, so far, bare of tattoos and piercings, though I’d seen him flipping through magazines for weeks picking out what he wanted.
Butch slammed me against the wall of the clubhouse and glared at me, and I waited for his fist to hit me. But it never came. Instead he shook his head and started to laugh and dropped me back on my feet. He scrubbed the top of my head and tapped the side of my face with the back of his hand.
“Thought you were gonna piss yourself then for sure, little brother,” he laughed and started to walk away. Dom, another member of the club and Butch’s best friend, was laughing and followed Butch.
I looked around the clubhouse, noting some of the other members were watching us with annoyance. This wasn’t a school house and it sure as shit wasn’t a playground, yet I treated it as such because this place was all I had. The bikers grumbled and cursed when I ran around the place causing havoc. The women, though, they loved this shit.
“Ladies,” I said, taking a quick bow, and a couple of the skanks gave me a wink.
I jogged to catch up to Butch, and started following him outside, matching my stride with his. He was my big brother, and despite how annoying I could be—his words, not mine—he didn’t mind me hanging around him all the time. He was seventeen, almost eighteen, and prospect for the Devil’s Highwaymen, our dad’s MC club, and I was proud as shit to be able to call him my big brother.
He’d been looking after me since I was a baby, and had never made me feel like anything I did was any trouble to him—more of a father than my own had ever tried to be. We pretty much lived at the clubhouse, which was normally unheard of, but Dad spent almost all of his time there, so it had made sense to convert one of the wings of the old motel into a home for me and Butch to live in. At first we thought it meant we’d see our dad more, but that wasn’t the case at all. We probably saw him less, though neither of us really cared. Hardy, our dad, was not father material. He was a brutal dictator to both of us, though he had a particular dislike for me, for some reason.
Outside the day was hot, and Butch straddled his bike and slipped on his shades and a helmet. Dom did the same and they both started their bikes. Butch rode a custom Harley Davidson Road King, and he smoothed his hand over the dark green body as if it were a woman’s body. My brother loved that bike.
He saw me watching him and smiled. “You still saving up?”
I nodded.
“Good, because me and you, little brother, we’re going to build you the best damn bike there’s ever been.”
I smiled broadly. “It’ll be ours,” I said.
He reached over and scrubbed at my hair, and I darted out from under his grip self-consciously even as he and Dom laughed.
“Where you going?” I asked, wishing I was going with him.
“Club business, little brother,” he said with a smile. “Just waiting on Gauge turning up.”
“When will you be back?”
“Soon enough,” he replied, not even the slightest bit irritated by me.
“I want to come with you,” I said. I hated it when he left.
“You’ll be prospecting soon enough, little brother, then we’ll both get patched in and the real fun will start.” He smiled again.
Despite my father being the president of the club, I wasn’t really a member of the club. I was too young right then and if I was honest I wasn’t even sure if my dad would let me join.
The man always seemed to have beef with everything I did. So I got told two things about club business: jack and shit. It pissed me off, but Butch assured me that he was saving a spot on his right-hand side, just for me—no matter what our father said. I just needed to grow up some more was all.
The sound of a bike—and not Dom or Butch’s—drew our attention and we all looked over to the main gates of the clubhouse, where one of the prospects was pulling them open. Gauge, the Devil’s Highwaymen’s sergeant at arms, pulled through the gates and parked his bike, duck-walking it back into position alongside all the others that were lined up. A skinny pair of arms were wrapped around his waist, and Butch pulled his glasses off to get a good look at who it was. Whoever it was, was female, I decided.
Gauge never had a woman with him.
Never.
Club whores were more his thing.
Not only that, but Hardy, didn’t let just anyone roll up in there. The Devil’s Highwaymen were responsible for almost half of the drugs moving in and out of the state of Georgia, and despite most of the cops in the county being on our payroll, precautions still had to be adhered too.
I looked over at Butch and he shrugged at me without looking away from Gauge, already sensing the question I hadn’t voiced yet.
“This should be interesting,” Dom said, lighting a cigarette and settling in for the show.
I turned to look back at Gauge as he cut the engine of his bike and pulled off his helmet. He eyeballed Butch and Dom, barely noticing me standing there, and then he climbed off his bike with a grunt. Gauge was around twenty-eight or thirty, with dark hair and a long beard. Most days he wore a little black beanie hat that we all ridiculed him for, because come rain or shine, he always wore that damn hat. He was quiet, never talking when talking wasn’t called for, but he was a mean motherfucker underneath his quietness.
Gauge started walking toward us, and then I saw her.
I swallowed hard and tried not to stare, despite the fact all I could do was fucking stare.
Even at fourteen years old I knew she was fucking special. My kind of special.
Long, straight, dark hair that hung down her back and warm olive skin just begging for me to touch it. She was wearing some little black ankle boots and a pair of cutoff denim shorts and a T-shirt so thin I could practically see her bra underneath. And when she lifted her leg off of Gauge’s bike, I swear her legs led the way to heaven.
She paid none of us any mind as she followed Gauge into the clubhouse, her hands clutching onto the straps of the backpack on her back and a hard scowl on her face as she glared at Gauge’s back. I followed her with my eyes until she was out of sight.
“Looks like little Jesse is in love,” Dom laughed with Butch, and I turned to glower at them both, feeling my cheeks heat up.
“Shut up! She’s just a nice piece of ass is all,” I said, scratching at my chin and wishing I had a badass beard like Gauge’s.
“Wouldn’t let Gauge hear you saying that about her,” Pops said, cracking open a bottle of beer as he came outside.
Pops wasn’t actually our pops, but he was the pops of the clubhouse. He’d been a member since almost the beginning, and though he didn’t really get too involved with club business anymore, his vote still counted, and so did his advice. His wife had passed a few years back, and he spent practically all day and every day down at the clubhouse now, drinking and fucking anything he could get his hands on. “Nothing much better to do till I die,” he always said. And I couldn’t disagree with him.
“She’s a little on the young side to be his old lady,” Butch said, lighting a cigarette and making the comment that I had been thinking. I reached for his pack of cigarettes and he slapped my hand away. “No fuckin’ chance.”
I didn’t bother to argue with him on it, knowing he never backed down and I had some inside anyway. Pops came closer, downing half his beer in one gulp. Despite his constant heavy drinking, he was still one of the wisest men I knew.
“That’s Gauge’s daughter,” he said.
“Gauge has a daughter?” Dom laughed. “Get the fuck outta here, old man!”
Pops spat on the floor and took Butch’s cigarette from his hand. “Sure is. She’s about thirteen or so. Her mom was some hooker down in Florida that he used to hook up with some years back. Social services got in touch with Gauge last week after her mom found out she had HIV and wanted him to take care of the kid now that she had one foot in the grave. He didn’t even know he had a kid.”
“How’d he know she’s really his? I mean, if she was hooking the kid could be anyone’s,” Butch replied.
“Got the DNA test done to prove it. So she’s coming to stay with Gauge until he can think of somewhere better for her to be.” Pops turned and started walking back inside.
“Why can’t she just stay with him?” I said, following Pops and ignoring the wolf whistles from Butch and Dom. We headed back inside and I looked around for her, but couldn’t locate her anywhere. The door to Hardy’s office was closed and the blinds were drawn, so I guessed that they were in there.
“He don’t know how to take care of some kid—’specially not some girly!” Pops laughed. “’Sides, this ain’t the life for a kid.”
“I’m doing all right and I’m a kid. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with my life,” I protested, already panicking about her leaving before I’ve even managed to get to know her.
Shit, before I’d even managed to speak to her.
Pops patted me on the shoulder. “You ain’t just some kid, Jesse.”
“Sure fuckin’ feels like it sometimes,” I replied, meaning every word of it.
Hardy had no time for me whatsoever. Never had and never would. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve such hatred from him, but I’d given up asking long ago. Now I just accepted it and got on with my life. Between Butch, the other club members and the women that came around to cook, clean, and fuck, everyone had a hand in my raising somehow.
Everyone but Hardy.
“Not you, Jesse. There’s great things in your future, that’s for certain,” Pops replied.
He winked at me and walked away before I could say anything else. He walked over to the small bar area that we’d had made for him the year before. One of the club bitches, Rose—a stunning redhead on the right side of thirty and way too fucking young for him—was behind the counter, her long red hair tied tightly at the top of her head, and when she popped open a bottle of beer for him her breasts swayed like Jell-O shots in her top. She handed the beer to Pops as he slid into a seat across from her and patted his knee for her to come and sit on it. It was kinda gross to watch, but I couldn’t deny that the man still had it. I mean, Rose was barely thirty and Pops, well, he was as old as shit.
I left them to it, not wanting to watch the live sex show, and headed back to mine and Butch’s room, not sure what to do with my day now. I hadn’t known Butch was going out of town for the day on business and I’d thought that we’d probably just hang out. But he’d been doing that more and more—club business or hanging with Dom and not me. I got it, and I understood it; I was just a kid and he was practically a man. Didn’t mean I had to like it, though.
I shoved my hand down my jeans and scratched at my nutsack as I pushed open my bedroom door, my gaze skipping over to my bed to find a girl sitting on it, one leg curled up underneath her ass, her eyes glued to my small television screen.
Not just any girl, but her.
I stopped scratching, my hand frozen in place halfway down my jeans, and I blinked. She started to look up so I quickly took several steps backwards, letting the door shut, and then I stared at the closed door, wondering what the fuck she was doing in my room, sitting on my bed.
“There’s a girl…in my room,” I mumbled to myself, checking both sides of me to make sure Gauge or Hardy wasn’t around. I caught a whiff of my own armpits and grimaced at the smell. “Shit,” I muttered.
I took another step away from my bedroom and quickly headed to the bathr
oom, where I knew the deodorant was, and I lathered myself in that shit so that I didn’t stink like the prepubescent teenage boy I actually was. I rolled my shoulders and puffed out my chest and headed back to my room, taking a big breath before I pushed the door open.
But she wasn’t there anymore.
I blinked and let out my breath and walked inside, spinning around in a circle and wondering if I’d imagined her sitting there at all. I sat down on the edge of my bed and continued scratching my nuts, my gaze straying to the television, which was still turned on. The news was on about some miracle cure for the common cold that some doctor down in Canada had made. I turned the volume up to listen.
“A simple reprogramming of the DNA to reject the cold virus is all it takes,” he said, and I almost laughed. The guy looked like Doc from Back to the Future. I flicked the TV off and looked over to my pillow, ready to grab Butch’s porno mag from where I’d hidden it that morning. But then I noticed that it wasn’t under my pillow anymore; it was open on my bed.
The woman in the picture had huge breasts, with dark round nipples that looked like saucers on them. And someone had drawn lines around them to make them look like glasses. Not just any someone, but her.
I smirked and looked up, wishing she’d come back so I could talk to her, but she didn’t.
At least not that day.
In fact, it was two years later before I saw Laney again.
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Sketch: The Devil's Highwaymen Nomads #2 Page 16