by Lara Swann
I bite my lip as he echoes another concern of mine.
“That’s the thing…there hasn’t been anything, I think. They’ve said my work is high quality - they’ve even implied that I’ve got the technique and ability that I could do well - but…they’ve never pointed to any particular work. A couple of other artists - they’ve exclaimed over a certain piece or two, told them to follow that thread because it’s what they should be doing. None of my work…ahh, I don’t know. I just think nothing so far has stood out - none of it has had that edge.”
Nathan nods, and I know that he understands exactly what I’m saying. It’s something he probably deals with as well - trying to find that difficult, unique quality in a piece that makes someone take a second look.
“How much longer do you have to settle on an idea?”
I frown, trying to work it through. “A couple of weeks for the idea, I think, and then a while to refine it and play with different options.”
“That’s enough time to develop a few more options…maybe you just need inspiration?” He suggests. “I find other works influence what I do all the time…maybe you should have another look around the Baltimore Museum of Art? They’ve got a new exhibition—”
“I’ve already seen it.” I say. I went there almost the first day it opened. “I must have been around that place a hundred times already…but it’s a good idea. Maybe I do just need to see more.”
We continue talking about it - Nathan is always the best person to bounce this stuff around with - and I relax back into the warm, content feeling that’s been growing within me over the last few weeks. Maybe there are still some things to work out, but right now, I meant what I said to Nathan - I’m happy. Happier than I can ever remember being.
It’s just so easy when I’m getting to actively express and develop my art, I’m pregnant with my miracle of a child and it feels like things are finally starting to happen in my life. I’ve got so much more than I ever would have guessed was possible - and I feel grateful for it every day. Particularly when the days are filled with talking shop with Nathan and talking about our child’s future with Ash.
I’ll work everything else out. I know I will. Ash reassures me about that all the time.
So right now, I just want to focus on how good and exciting everything is at the moment.
The weekend is just around the corner - and I’ve been looking forward to this one for ages. It’s my first Saturday off in what feels like forever, and I can’t wait to spend all that extra time with Ash.
I don’t exactly tell Nathan that as we talk about exhibitions and artwork and how his sculpting is coming along - not after all those questions about how much time we’re spending together - but I can feel the excitement building anyway.
He’s the father of my child. Of course I’m going to see him as much as possible.
Even if his existence is still a secret.
Chapter Thirteen
Ash
I’m stood with a clipboard in front of the various boxes of parts and supplies I have, trying to work out how many I need to order, when the door to the shop opens behind me.
I glance around - and then lower the clipboard as I get a glimpse of the two guys who just walked in, turning fully to face them. This is a motorcycle shop and I’m used to getting a wide range of people walking in, with all kinds of looks and attitudes. Usually, I don’t think anything of it - but these two are conspicuous even for me.
Big guys with unpleasant expressions - one with a puckered scar all the way down his face, and the other whose nose has clearly been broken a dozen times. I don’t look, but I’d guess they have scars on their knuckles too. They strike me as the kind of guys to get into a lot of fights. Then I spot the tags and my heart sinks.
Iron Dogs MC. Please let that be a coincidence.
“Can I help you?” I ask, keeping my tone even and bland as I walk forward, catching their attention.
One of them looks over at me and grins - and it’s not a nice expression - while the other surveys the shop, both of them walking down the side, along the couple of bikes out that I’m working on.
“Nice shop.” The second guy with the broken nose says.
“Thanks.” I stop at the end of the second bike, watching them approach. “Is there anything you’re looking for in particular?”
That has the second guy matching his friends’ grin, but it’s the first that responds.
“Actually, there is.” He says, with an amusement that I don’t think is for my benefit. I’m not liking the feel of this situation at all. “You’re Ash Clayton, aren’t you? Started up this shop for the Eastern Slayers, right?”
My lingering discomfort becomes full-blown wariness at that, and I can feel the tension run through my body as it readies itself for trouble.
“I’m Ash, yeah. This place has nothing to do with the Slayers, though - left them shortly before I bought it. What’s it to you?”
“That’s not what we heard.” He says, his gaze narrowing at me as my mind skips over just what this could be about.
The Slayers have been competing with the Iron Dogs for years now - only the Dogs are bigger and more established, and they haven’t taken well to the way the Slayers have been eating into their territory ever since Jared started widening their less…legitimate…business. That decision - and the direction the club seemed to be heading - was part of the reason I left.
I shrug, folding my arms and not moving. I’m not going to engage in any of this - or let them think they can intimidate me. “Well, I guess you heard wrong.”
“Noo…” The second guys clicks his tongue, stretching his arms out above his head and making me wonder whether I should be preparing for a fight. “I don’t think so.”
The first guy nods, scar-face, nods. “Word is, you’ve got something that belongs to us - and we want it back.”
I don’t react - don’t move or let my face betray anything I’m thinking - but my gut clenches tight at that. He’s wrong about that. He has to be.
I shake my head. “Sorry, bro, I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I do here is run a shop - I left all that behind me.”
“I’m not your bro.” His face twists, becoming even uglier.
The second guy picks up a wrench from a toolbox left out beside one of the bikes, holding it up as if inspecting it carefully, and it takes everything in me not to move - to feel like I need some sort of tool here, too. That’s not what I want, though - I don’t want to get into any of that again.
I shrug. “Alright. Doesn’t change what I said. I’m not looking for any trouble with the Dogs.”
He shakes his head. “Then you shouldn’t have gotten involved with the Slayers.”
“I’m not involved with them. Not anymore.”
“So you say.”
The guy with the wrench starts walking along the aisle next to the bikes, toward the end of the garage space, running the wrench lightly along the bikes as he does. Not enough to do any damage. Not yet. The intention is clear, though.
“Yes. So I say.” I repeat, refusing to let any of the tension seep into my voice. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
My voice is hard, but I’m all too aware that I have no way of actually making them leave. Not two guys that look as rough as they do. The second guy pivots at the end of his walk, coming back towards me with the wrench still trailing along the bikes. This time, it makes a scraping noise and I give an internal curse. So much for no damage - but hopefully it’ll just be paintwork.
He doesn’t stop in the same place he started, though, coming further and walking straight up to me - stepping far too close. I refuse to acknowledge him, holding scar-face’s gaze instead, which has been locked onto me the whole time.
Just the proximity of this guy - and the stale beer odor coming off him - has my body tensed and primed for a fight, anticipating what might be coming. Out-matched or not, I won’t be intimidated.
He doesn’t do anything else,
though, just stands there, and I can feel the intensity of his stare even though I’m not looking.
“Sure…” Scar-face says, surprising me with the concession, before smiling dangerously. “We’ll leave…but next time we come back, we’ll be taking our property with us.”
“There’s nothing here.” I say again, despite the obvious intimidation attempt. “Whatever you’re looking for, you’re in the wrong place.”
“Next time. Have it ready for us.” He repeats, ignoring me. “Give it up without any trouble…and maybe the Iron Dogs will overlook your little shop operating in our city.”
I don’t tell him I don’t even know what it is - I can guess readily enough anyway - or point out that claiming the whole of Baltimore as theirs is a little ambitious even for the Dogs.
The second guy twists where he stands, pulling his hand back and throwing the wrench toward my own bikes up against the opposite wall, with a force that I’m at close enough range to feel. It hits the Kawi with a loud clang, bouncing off and skimming along the floor, while thug number two saunters casually back to his partner. I don’t look at it, or take my eyes from the two men as the first gives me a little wave and they walk out of the door.
My heart is pounding hard in my chest, I can feel the sweat making my t-shirt stick to my back, and there’s an adrenaline-fueled haze around the edge of my vision. I keep myself motionless and hope that none of that is obvious or visible - and it’s not until several minutes after they leave that I walk, very slowly, over to the front door.
I turn the ‘open’ sign around and lock it - and it’s not until I’ve done that, that I let some of the coiled tension within me rise to the surface. I reach inside my jacket and pull out my phone, my thumb punching the screen hard until I navigate to the number I want.
Blake.
That better have been some weird fucking mistake.
He picks up on the third ring - and from the background noise, I figure he’s outside.
“Ash?” He asks, sounding a little distracted.
We haven’t talked since that night I told him I’d gotten Chloe pregnant. There might be exceptions for emergencies, but I still meant everything I said before about staying out of touch until the Slayers’ deal was done. Unfortunately, that lack of contact makes what just happened even worse.
“Blake.” I say, my voice hard. “Two thugs from the Iron Dogs just came by, threatening me and talking about how I’ve got something of theirs. Know anything about that?”
The accusation is pretty steady in my tone, but I don’t try to hold back. If this is what I think it is…
There’s a silence from him on the other end - and then the background noise disappears, as if he’s moved somewhere else - and when he finally does respond, it’s not what I want to hear.
“No…” He says slowly. “I don’t know anything about that.”
The deliberate pause there tells me far more than what he actually says. Yeah, he doesn’t know anything about it. Purposefully.
The unease in my stomach solidifies, becoming a pit full of tension. My mind flashes back over the conversations I had with Blake weeks ago now, and combined with what the Iron Dogs said today…fuck. This can’t be happening.
“What the fuck, Blake?!” I say, my voice low and angry. “How many times did I tell you that I don’t want anything to do with this? What have you gone and done? Don’t you dare fucking say that after I told you ‘no’ you went ahead and used my shop anyway—my fucking shop—for your fucking—”
“Ash.” The warning in his tone is obvious. “Is that really something you want me to answer - right now? Like this?”
I get the message. There’s a reason we don’t say these things out loud - especially not over the phone.
“Fuck.” I bite off instead, kicking the cabinet I’m stood by. “Fuck.”
“I don’t know what’s going on.” He says, and this time it sounds at least a little more genuine. “Why those guys—that was never meant—”
“Oh yeah, not meant to happen?” I finish for him. “Screw that. Screw you all—”
“Ash.” His voice is strained now. “I’ll look into it, okay? I’ll get back to you. We can’t talk about this now—”
There’s a sudden knocking at the door and I jerk my head up, immediate adrenaline shooting through me again as my mind jumps to the two guys just here.
Don’t fucking say that ‘next time’ is supposed to be twenty minutes later.
Or maybe they just weren’t sure they got the message across properly the first time.
“There’s someone at the door.” I say, interrupting Blake as I walk cautiously across the room, suddenly focused on more pressing matters.
The knock comes again, sounding a little more insistent - and it’s not until I see the silhouette of a woman behind the frosted glass that I relax—and then freeze, all at once. Oh, shit. I’d forgotten she was coming around here tonight.
“Chloe’s here.” I say, almost barking it at Blake with the hurried tension I suddenly feel. “I’ve got to go. Fix this, Blake. I mean it.”
I hang up before he gets a chance to respond, unlocking the door and pulling it open to see a slightly confused looking Chloe standing there.
“You closed early.” She says, her voice light and totally out of place with the tension still running through my blood.
I gesture her to come through before stepping up to the doorway and glancing around outside. I hope to hell that no one saw her come in - that no one stuck around to watch the shop—
“Ash?” She asks, the frown obvious in her voice, and I glance back at her before closing the door and locking it again.
“You’re okay?” I ask, unable to help myself. “You…didn’t have any trouble out there?”
The frown deepens. “No…should I have?”
“No…no, of course not. It’s just…you know these streets.”
“Are you okay?” She asks instead, coming closer toward me, obviously confused about my greeting. “You seem…”
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath, shaking my head and trying to shake off the obvious distress with it. “Sorry, I just…had a bit of trouble with a customer. It was…unpleasant. That’s why I closed early.”
I feel immediately guilty for the small lie - but it is almost true. I did have trouble. And they could have been customers.
Besides, when it comes to this, the less Chloe knows, the better. The less anyone - including me - knows, the better.
“Ohh, I’m sorry.” She says, her expression immediately shifting into sympathy.
She steps forward and wraps her arms around me, and I hug her the way I usually would the moment I see her. Some part of me relaxes as I feel her soft body against me, and I breathe in the sweet scent that’s uniquely her.
“Don’t worry about it.” I eventually say, the tension slipping out of my voice. “Let’s just forget about it.”
That’s the last thing I want to be thinking about while she’s here - for so many reasons. There are far better ways to make the most of the time we get together, of course, but more than that…I can’t bring myself to imagine what it would be like if she got caught up in any of this.
“Sounds good by me.” She smiles up at me. “D’you want to go out somewhere or get takeout tonight? Unless of course you’ve magically learned to cook sometime in the last five days.”
I laugh, taking her hand and tugging her toward the upstairs living space. “Takeout, I think. Definitely takeout.”
I try not to think about the risk someone will come back here tonight - I know that’s unlikely. We should be fine. Better than if we go out and the wrong person sees us together…gets the wrong idea. It makes my blood chill just thinking about it.
Until an hour ago, I would have been willing to start a fight with anyone who might dare question how good I am for Chloe and this baby - but now, with things that should be dead and buried coming back to bite me…I’m not so sure. And that’s going to tear me up in
side if I think about it too much.
It’s a good thing she is…who she is.
I find myself suddenly thankful that Chloe has her own life, that she’s not part of this crowd and doesn’t come to meet me here often. I might wish I could see her more…pretty much all the time…but right now, it’s a good thing.
“You’re going to have to learn before this baby arrives, you know.” Chloe tells me casually.
“Yeah? Babies drink milk - I think that’s your job.”
She rolls her eyes at me as we start flicking through takeout menus.
“And then they pretty much eat mush. I can do mush.” I say confidently, succeeding in making her laugh. “I’ve got years.”
“If I’m gonna wait years for a home-cooked meal, it had better be good.” She mutters.
“I’m not sure that’s how learning something works.” I point out, as we settle on Chinese and I pick up the phone to order.
My adrenaline has faded, and despite everything hanging over me, the tension is easing too. Something about being around Chloe does that to me - just makes it easy.
It gets easier as we sit and chat, too, the conversation and great food providing enough distraction that my mind doesn’t drift back to those two thugs too often. She tells me a couple of stories from the customers at her parents’ shop and her recent dinner with her friend Nathan. I want to actually meet him at some point, but we’re still being cautious about how openly we see each other - which was chafing at me earlier, and now feels like a relief.
I ask about her art classes, partly to avoid her moving the conversation onto me and how business is going. Before today, I would have been thrilled to tell her about how well the new deal I’m offering is attracting interest, but right now I just feel concerned about it all.
The moment she starts talking about them, though, I forget all about that and I just enjoy the way she speaks about it. I don’t really understand much of what she’s talking about - but I love seeing the way her face lights up every time she mentions the latest drawing that she’s working on, or a piece of art that’s inspired her. It makes her already beautiful face glow, and it’s so easy to get lost in the spark that lights up her eyes, getting all sorts of reactions out of me.