He crept around the corner for a look. Travis made the exaggerated hand motions of a hysterical story the pack had heard a thousand times and always asked to hear one more. Probably Kerri had asked this time, since she stood nearby with the smug the new person had to hear this one smirk on her face. Shane spared her an amused glance before he focused on Erin again.
Tension he hadn’t realized she carried had evaporated from her face in the warmth of her humor. She leaned against the granite counter with one hand while the gales of laughter took her. For that moment, she had no cares, no worries, no memories to haunt her. Another layer of her complicated personality emerged, and Shane found himself as mesmerized by this unencumbered, joyful Erin as much as by the pensive one he’d spoken to outside the hospital.
Soft footfalls announced Rigo’s arrival just before the scout himself appeared at Shane’s side. “She fits right in with the pack,” Rigo said.
Shane smiled. “That she does. I like her. Anita found herself a hidden treasure, I think.”
“If I were honest, I would admit that I was worried we would have another one like Lou.” Rigo took a drink, as if trying to wash the taste out of his mouth.
Shane had tried the same. It didn’t work. “She was pretty careful not to. There were at least three others she wouldn’t even make offers to after she spoke to their coworkers. That said… I had the same twitch. Lou left us all worse for the wear.”
“We won’t be forgetting him anytime soon. That would take many margaritas and maybe a good blow to the head. Not this.” Rigo held up his soda.
“Maybe we should have made margaritas. Proper Arizona welcome and all.”
“We thought about it. But we’re out of tequila.”
Shane frowned. “Now I know the situation is damn near apocalyptic.”
“Sí.” Rigo glanced over at Shane. “It’s more than the shortage of tequila.”
“Trust me, I’m aware.”
“I know. But I’m the one who must tell you anyway. I didn’t come to find you to tell you that, though.” He nodded towards the kitchen. “I’ll speak to my family about giving her the spare room until she can find her own place. My mother will probably yell at me to ask why I didn’t bring her home tonight.”
“Then yell at me for not making you. If she withholds tamales, I’m blaming you.” Shane smirked.
Rigo groaned. “I see how you treat me. I’m just a means to my mother’s tamales.”
“None of us wanted to tell you that to your face. Except Holly. You know Holly.”
“Holly is mean and I don’t know why I put up with her shit,” Rigo said, deadpan.
The scouts were practically siblings, and everyone knew it. They said this all the time. “Uh-huh. You like it, Rigo.”
“I’m personally attacked right now, jefe.” Another drink, then Rigo said, “Maybe after Erin has found her own place, I’ll ask her to dinner. It would be awkward to ask while she is staying at my house.”
Shane didn’t expect the hairs on the back of his neck to prickle as they did. He ignored them. “I couldn’t blame you. There’s a lot to like, there.”
“There is, though I’ve only spent a little time with her. It might be fun to see what we have in common besides my bike in her shop.” Rigo chuckled.
“You should.” Shane didn’t care for how the words sounded.
“Maybe I will. If someone else has not beaten me to it.” Rigo finished his drink. “I’ll wash my glass before I round up the pack to go out for the night.”
“Just drop it in the dishwasher, Rigo. I’ll run it after everyone’s done.”
“Gracias,” the scout said, then headed into the kitchen proper. He left Shane with more to think about than the impending dirty dishes.
The night ended too soon for anyone’s taste. An end to the party signaled a start to the night’s patrols, or leaving the safety of the pack to try to rest before whatever the next day brought. Erin accompanied Shane out to the front yard as he walked everyone out, so she could dispense hugs and gratitude to everyone for coming. As Shane watched her pass warm, heartfelt embraces around, he couldn’t help but remember the one time Nicole had attempted to do the same.
“Awkward” had described it best. Perhaps “stilted”. Shane had the idea no one came away with a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Travis snagged Erin’s sad burner phone with a raised brow. “If they get the cell reception fixed, E, we have got to get you a better phone. I’ve got a friend at one of the phone shops who can hook you up. Here’s my number. And my landline. You call if you need anything, you hear me?”
“I hear you,” Erin said, and patted his arm. “Thanks, Travis.”
“No sweat. When you get a place of your own, you let me know. I’ll bring the truck to help you haul furniture.” He handed her phone back.
“That means a lot. Real friends help you move house.”
“And I am a real friend.” He grinned, white teeth brighter against his dark skin and the twilight, and squeezed her around the shoulders one last time. “Anyone gives you shit, you let me know. We’re glad to have you here. We take care of our own.”
“Here, here,” Chance said, and squeezed Erin’s other shoulder. “You get lonely in that shop, you call. We can hit a movie or binge a TV show. No ‘chill’ implied in that, by the way. Just friends.”
“You guys are the best.” Erin smiled wide enough to show she meant every word. “Be safe tonight, anyone’s who’s out there on their bikes. And bring your rides by the shop if you’re worried about them.”
“I’ll try not to run over any cactus tonight,” Travis said. “That shit’s worse than the Ferals.”
“At least as bad,” Erin agreed with a little wave. “You all take care. Shane, I’ll get the rest of the dishes in the dishwasher while you finish up.”
“No way. It was your party.”
“It’s my party, and I’ll do dishes if I want to.” Erin stuck her tongue out at him and disappeared inside.
Travis snorted. “She sure told you, Shane.”
“That she did. I’m learning not to argue with Erin. It might be she could out-stubborn a mule.” Shane folded his arms across his chest. “You should all learn the same. Everyone be safe tonight. There’s shit happening we don’t understand. The Ferals are nabbing semi drivers and stealing truck parts. Cell phones aren’t working worth a damn, either.”
“I have news on that,” Travis said. “Talked to my friend at the phone shop. She couldn’t tell me much, but she told me enough. There’s a bunch of towers out. ‘The provider is aware and is looking into the best way to repair the towers to restore service.’”
“Usual customer service bullshit.”
“Pretty much. What she did tell me that’s different was, the service loss is pretty recent. Towers started dropping a couple weeks ago, but carefully. One over here. One over there. Not enough to disrupt much.” Travis rested his backside on the seat of his bike and folded his arms. “Then, all of a sudden, boom. A bunch go out across the southwest. Mostly Arizona and Nevada, and more specifically, our neck of the wasteland.”
Shane frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Neither do they. Strangest, though, is that some signals are getting through. There’s a couple corridors where service is more regular than other places. Road out to Vegas is one, of course.” Travis’s lips flattened into a tight line.
“Of course. Their little oasis of denial and defiance has to have four bars. What about our area?”
“One or two towers that reach us. They’re pretty congested, but shit gets through eventually. For now. That won’t last long. She said there’s rumors of trying to get armed groups to escort repair techs, or maybe use satellites, but…” Travis unfolded his arms so he could shrug. “It’s a big, fat ball of ‘we got no damn idea either’.”
“Like it always is. Thanks, Trav.” Shane looked around that those gathered. “You heard the man. No guarantee calls will get through, so don’t d
epend on your phones for help. Landlines still seem solid. Use those when you can. I’ll be here all night if you need to reach me.”
Holly sketched a mock-salute. “As you command, oh noble leader.”
“Go home, Holly. You’re drunk.”
“But I haven’t had any alcohol!”
“That never matters with you.” Shane shook his head.
Amid laughter and jests, the pack mounted up. Shane stood in the yard to watch them ride away. All of you come back home healthy when the sun comes up tomorrow. We’ve lost too many as it is.
A stillness lingered in the house when he went inside. No clink of dishes or muted churn of the dishwasher. He padded in on quiet feet, both wary and respectful of the hush. While his instincts remained as silent as his house, he still decided he ought to investigate with care. Maybe Erin sat down and fell asleep. Or went to the bathroom, and I’m accidentally going to startle her when she comes out.
He found her in the living room, in front of the mantel with one of the framed pictures in her hands. That picture, the one he left turned down on its face but couldn’t bring himself to remove. Anger flashed through him – why was she looking at that, holding it, intruding on that still-bleeding wound – chased so quickly by remorse that he knew the anger was part of the armor his heart built to guard itself from more pain. He wasn’t angry. Not at her.
She’d crept into a vulnerable place within the walls of his soul, and he had no one to blame but himself. Worse, he found the words on his lips, waiting for him to speak them and tell her what she’d found. All my regrets. All my shame. You found where I keep the best and worst of me, held in a cheap frame from a craft store.
“That’s Greg and Nicole,” he said into the hush.
Erin jumped. Her hands flexed on the edges of the frame. “Shane! Holy shit, you scared me. I was just—”
“Looking at pictures. That’s what they’re for.” But not that one. Except when I can’t stop staring at it.
“It was knocked over. I came in here to see if I’d missed any dirty dishes, and saw it laying down. I thought maybe someone had knocked it over, so I was going to straighten it up for you.” The statement turned contrite as it rambled on. She’d realized she might have intruded.
“It’s all right, Erin. That one, I keep face down. I should just take it off the mantel.” He stepped out of the entryway and crossed the space between them.
Questions turned behind her eyes. He wondered which she would ask first, and which answers he would give before he avoided them by suggesting he should take her home. What happened. Who is Nicole. Why is that picture face down on the mantel. Why don’t you take it down if you don’t want to look at it.
Instead, she glanced away from the picture in her hands towards one of the others. One of Shane’s favorites, the one where he and Greg had posed in front of both their bikes and the Grand Canyon. “Greg’s your brother? Older brother?”
“Yeah. Two years and change. Though sometimes, it felt like more than that.”
Erin chuckled softly. “I understand how that is. Funny how just a couple of years makes a huge difference. Looks like you two were having fun.”
“We were. That was kind of a victory ride for us.” Shane set his hand on the wood in front of the picture frame. “I was a real asshole of a teenager. Got into trouble, almost failed out of school. Probably would have gotten into drugs if my metabolism didn’t shrug them off. Once I graduated high school, I did my level fucking best to tank my life. Greg was the one who kicked my ass until I got my shit together.”
“Sounds like a good brother.”
“He was. Once he’d gotten in my face enough that I’d started to listen, he made me a deal. If I kept my nose clean for a year, found myself some better friends and a job, showed I would make good on my life, he’d take me on a ride to the canyon. Just us.”
“And you did it.”
“I did it. It wasn’t what Greg said that did it for me. It was how he said it. He’d tried being nice before, or giving me ‘real talk’, but this? It was raw. Disgusted and disappointed. And I felt like a total shitheel. Because I was.”
Bruises on his knuckles ached when he moved his hand, but they would fade within hours. So would the bruises on his face. He could steal a new jacket to replace the one ripped in the fight, maybe one made of real leather this time. The other guy wouldn’t get out of the hospital for a month at least, and he’d spend the stay drinking through a straw.
Greg glared at him like he’d lost the fight instead of won it. Like he was the lowest form of life on the planet. “Just fucking look at you. Another fight. Covered in bruises. You’re lucky they aren’t arresting you.”
“He fucking started it.”
“Really. And you were just an innocent victim, Shane? Helping little old ladies across the street when he took a swing out of nowhere?”
“Who gives a shit? He started a fight. I finished it.” Shane tongued one of his teeth. Loose. It would firm up as his jaw healed. “It doesn’t even matter. The bruises will be gone tomorrow.”
“Jesus Tapdancing Christ, that makes it worse. You want to know why?” Greg crouched down to stare eye-to-eye with his brother. “You have something most other people don’t. Something I wish I had, but genetics are assholes and I didn’t get it. That wolf you use to push people around? That’s a gift. And you’re throwing it away. You’re running around, pissing on trees and fighting for the hell of it when you could be doing something with yourself.”
Shane didn’t have anything to say in the wake of Greg’s words. He’d never heard his brother, his genial, laughing brother, talk about anyone like they were worthless and repulsive. Especially not his own kin.
Greg leaned forward. Tears glistened in his eyes and threatened to spill over. “You’re my little brother. When Mom told me she was having you, I was so goddamned excited. She said, ‘Now you’ll always have a best friend.’ And she was right, for a while. Now? I miss my best friend. Because that’s not who I’m looking at right now. Get your head out of your ass. I want my best friend back, Shane.”
Erin glanced up at him. “That bad, huh.”
“That bad. Looking into his eyes as he talked to me that day, I saw what he saw. And I didn’t much like it. I realized that if I couldn’t scrape my shit into a pile and make something with it, he was done. Giving up. That broke me. None of my stupid defiance mattered as much as keeping my brother in my life.” Shane let his hand drop.
Erin’s took its place. She touched the bottom of the frame. “Sounds like your brother probably saved your life. Then gave you a really amazing memory to take with you.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Greg saved me. I was headed for the worst kinds of trouble I could find. That trip to the canyon? It was the best time of my life.” He pointed to the pictures next to the one she’d noted, and one on the wall across the room. “From the same ride. We took a whole week and came home closer than ever. Everything changed after that trip, but it could never take that time away from us.”
Her fingertip shifted up to touch the glass over Greg’s motorcycle. “You ride his bike. I recognize it.”
“I do. Greg was bigger than I was. I had to get stronger to handle it.” The statement had more layers than he had realized until he heard the words aloud.
A tiny smile quirked up the corners of her lips. “Even your brother’s bike made you a stronger man than you were before.”
His throat felt tight. “Yeah. It did. Just like Greg.”
She lifted her hand away from the picture to put it on his arm instead. “What changed after the trip?”
His skin warmed under her fingertips. The touch pulled him back into an awareness of his own form, one he hadn’t realized he’d retreated from. “Little things, at first. I got a job. Joined a pack. The Bully Boys, in fact.”
“That’s such a strange name.”
“Even stranger when you find out it was a sailing term. The original alpha of the pack, and th
e bike gang, used it because of songs his grandfather used to sing. ‘Bully boys’ were strong sailors. Strong, like bulls. Sea chanties used the term a lot. He liked it, so he kept it.”
Erin snorted a laugh. “So you have a pack of werewolf bikers in the desert named after sailors. That— That’s the best thing I’ve heard all month.”
Shane couldn’t help but smile. “Cracked me the hell up the first time I heard it. I can’t say it wasn’t part of why I looked at the pack to start with. They impressed me. I joined up. Greg finished college. He was always the smart one. The one with the bright future. He came out of school with a good degree and a beautiful girlfriend.”
She glanced down at the picture in her hand. “Nicole?”
“Nicole. Gorgeous. Troubled. Greg used to say she just needed someone to love her until she learned how to love herself. He thought, if she had the support she needed, she’d learn how to stand on her own two feet.”
“That’s not how that works.”
Shane took a deep breath. “No. It’s not. But Greg always had a soft spot for people who needed a fixing up.” Like me.
Erin took her hand off his arm so she could hold the picture closer to her face with both hands. She studied it, eyes narrow and intent, for a long moment. “She looks— Complicated. Like she’d rather bite first, because she expects everyone to hurt her eventually and she’d might as well get the first strike herself. Then she’d know for sure when the pain would happen instead of having to guess.”
“That’s a good assessment. Greg brought out the best in her.” Maybe if he’d lived, she would have gone on being that good person. I wonder what we both would have been, if he hadn’t died.
Carefully, Erin set the picture back on the mantel, face down. “You didn’t like her?”
“Not at first. We were wary of each other, but we got over it because of my brother. For a while, I thought I loved her, but that was a delusion. I just wanted it enough to lie to myself about what I felt.”
He didn’t mean to say it. The explanation tumbled out of his lips and into the air before he realized he’d continued to speak. Nothing it could mean sounded right, especially not to a listener without the context in which he meant them. I sound like a liar. A man who’d try to steal a girlfriend away from the brother who saved his life.
Brave the Night: A Bully Boys Novel Page 7