by A. J. Downey
Of course, I had been just as blind in my own way. Buying into the bullshit, going from bad to worse myself.
It wasn’t until Narcos and the Indigo Knights that I realized that a club could really operate the way they were initially intended to, and that when they did, it was beautiful. The members were each happy and healthy, the women bonded to them glowing with pride, healthy, loved… There was such love among the Indigo Knights and it was so beautiful it made me ache with sadness that it had taken me so long to see what could be, what should be…
We wound through a neighborhood of newer, cookie-cutter houses, down closer to the water where the houses became older craftsman cottages and bungalows. I perked up when the houses became different, older, cuter. The yards were maintained and well-tended, fenced neatly.
I spotted Narcos’ bike parked against the curb in front of an adorable little cottage and the realtor, Georgia, standing beside her champagne-colored Lexus in the driveway in front of the little added garage.
Narcos gave a wave as Driller guided his bike smoothly up to the curb and I jumped off into my beloved’s arms first thing, my heart swelling with love to so full I thought it would burst.
“Hey, babe. How was your day?” he whispered into my ear, his warm breath stirring my hair, tickling my neck.
I smiled and just held onto him for an extended moment before answering, “Fine.”
“Yeah? That’s good to hear.”
“Looks good,” Driller called, the bike’s chugging ceasing. Georgia picked her way down the sloping drive in her heels and came towards us, smiling.
“I like that it needs work,” I whispered.
“Yeah, me, too,” Narcos murmured as we looked at the dilapidated paint job on the outside of the house.
“It just came on the market. We didn’t have time to pretty it up at all, but it’s exactly what you’ve said you’re looking for,” Georgia said.
“Let’s have a look,” Narcos declared, and tucking me between himself and Driller, we all followed Georgia up the drive and onto the little front porch.
She unlocked the door and shoved it in, and I think I immediately fell a little in love.
“Oh, my god… the floors are original wood,” I breathed. They had all of the character a century or more could bring to them.
We went through the whole house, room by room, and talked about what could be rather than what was. There was a lot of work that would need to be done before we could even move in, but I wanted it. I wanted it so badly.
“Could you give us a minute?” Driller asked and Georgia smiled her perfectly-painted lips, patted her perfectly-coifed brunette hair and with a nod, turned and clipped sharply to the front door across the hardwood, in her heels that matched her Lexus outside.
“She already knows she’s sold it,” I said softly.
“Yeeeah,” Narcos drew out the word, and Driller finished his thought.
“She just doesn’t know for how much, yet.”
I snorted and fought not to laugh.
“It’s so beautiful, you guys, and I grew up in a house like this, although in much worse shape.”
“Yeah? I didn’t know that,” Driller said.
“Mm, mine had a spiral metal staircase and the attic was converted into a whole other room,” I said.
“That’s an idea,” Narcos said.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Driller asked.
“Our office up there, keep work out of sight out of mind?”
“It would let us keep the third bedroom down here as a guest room,” I said.
They looked at each other and nodded.
“Did you see the shed out back?” Narcos asked, and we drifted to the back door. The deck would need to be replaced, but I wasn’t really a fan of decks. I preferred paved patios that were more one with the garden, but sure enough, there was a newer shed out there on the edge of the back yard.
“Could make it into one of those she-shed things for you, Bright Eyes. Only fair if we take over the attic,” Driller said.
“I could keep my own hive back here,” I said softly. “There’s room and there are gardens all through the neighborhood.”
“I think we’re all agreed,” Narcos said, beaming and I bit my bottom lip and grinned.
“Think we can get it all done by the time my lease is up?” Driller asked.
Narcos and I both nodded and laughed.
“With the rest of the club as backup, hell, yeah,” Narcos said.
“Fuck, man, we’re totally buying a house,” Driller said, and rubbed a hand over his hair.
“Well, we are,” Narcos said and Driller gave him a flat look. I left them to argue while I looked around on my own, drifting out the door and into the fenced back yard that was desperately in need of a new fence, but that would come along with everything else.
“I could put down roots here,” I said and turned back to the guys, and Narcos smiled at me, love and pride radiating off of him like heat shimmering off the sidewalk out front.
“Baby, you already have.”
He was right. I could already feel a growing attachment to the place, and I looked up into the summer’s blue sky and sighed.
“We all agreed, then?” Driller asked.
“Let’s do it,” Narcos said, and I don’t think I could smile any bigger.
“Let’s hope our offer is the one that’s accepted,” I said and we went back into the house hand in hand, and out to deal with Georgia.
30
Narcos…
It was raining outside. The disciplinary hearing room had windows, sitting on the ninth floor of city hall. I stood in front of the panel with my union rep at my side and waited to hear them out, see what I would be facing. I was nervous, but not too bad. I think Everleigh was dealing with enough anxiety for the both of us. She was sitting behind us in the gallery with Driller, wringing her hands, her bottom lip worried between her teeth.
“It is our decision that you be moved out of Narcotics to the Robbery division,” the spokesman said. “A disciplinary letter regarding this matter will be placed in your permanent jacket. Your suspension has already been served.”
I was okay with that, all of it, but my union rep went to work, did his job and got at least half of my pay from that suspension returned. All in all, it wasn’t much of a punishment. I expected the letter in my jacket, and I’d wanted to go to Robbery, so I was chalking this up as a win.
Out in the hall, Everleigh burrowed into the front of my body and hid her face. I knew her tears were tears of relief, but when one of the panel members came out into the hall and saw us, sympathy crushed his expression and I couldn’t resist playing it for what it was worth.
“It’s not your fault, babe,” I murmured, and hugged her tight.
“Young lady, I assure you, as bad as it sounds, Detective Rutledge was let off comparatively light, considering what could have happened.”
Everleigh nodded against my dress blues and I said, “He’s right, and thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure. Try not to think about it,” he said and trailed up the hall away from us.
Driller grinned and shook his head saying under his breath, “He bought that hook, line, and sinker.”
“Yeah, well, hopefully he’ll remember it when it’s your turn,” I muttered.
“True that,” Driller commented. He was in deeper shit, technically being my superior officer and being willfully insubordinate. We’d see sometime next week, or the week after, what was going to happen to him. His union rep was still duking it out for him.
“Let’s go home,” Everleigh moaned and pulled back to wipe at her face. Driller shook out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Which one?” he asked.
“Home,” Everleigh repeated with emphasis.
“Gotta change first,” Driller said.
“Yep, let’s go.”
We went back to Driller’s apartment first and changed into comfortable clothes w
e didn’t care about. We’d been making mad progress on the house with the club’s help, and if we were lucky, it would be ready to move into by midsummer.
The bedrooms were finished except for paint, and the bathrooms were under construction, along with the kitchen, but right now, our focus was dry walling the attic and laying a floor up there.
“You ready?” she asked quietly and I could tell she had a renewed vigor where getting the house worked on was concerned.
I captured her gaze with mine and smiled teasing her gently when I asked, “What’s your hurry?”
Her expression, to my surprise, sobered and she went very still. She cocked her head and said, “I feel like we just cleared yet another hurdle and the finish line feels like its right there, you know?”
Driller paused behind her and straightened up, pulling on his jeans the rest of the way. He cocked his head and said, “Talk to us, Bright Eyes…”
“I guess I’m excited,” she said. “I just never realized how much excitement and anxiety had in common.”
I chuckled and went to her, drawing her into my arms and said, “Are you telling me you just can’t wait to start our lives together?” I asked.
She nodded and said emphatically, “Yes.”
Driller laughed outright and said, “Baby, the house being done or not, you’re here. Your life together has already started.”
She stopped and it was like she was having some difficulty processing that. She said reluctantly, “I know…” but I could tell she wasn’t quite convinced. Like the front of her brain, logically, knew that it was true, but the back of her brain, her emotions, hadn’t quite caught up to the notion.
“We’ll get there,” I promised, and she smiled up at me.
“I know, I just guess that being there, working on it with you guys, it’s my favorite place to be, you know?”
I nodded slowly and said, “Yeah, it’s ours, not his, or mine, or yours.”
“Exactly.”
Driller nodded slowly and came up behind her and pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and trembled and he murmured low in her ear, “I can’t wait until we can do this in your house… for real, you know?”
“Our house,” she whispered, and turned in my arms to face my best friend. She kissed him gently and I went rock hard.
He drew back and searched her face and said, “You start us down that road, we won’t make it to the house today.”
“Fair enough,” she declared, but she had a hard time keeping her hands to herself despite it and I could tell, she was in the mood and wanted us both. I couldn’t wait until we could get moved in either, and every day we spent there working on it, got me closer to my goal, too. The one where I made Everleigh my wife.
With the rain, we piled into the truck I’d bought off a local guy for the purpose of making the renovations on our place easier. That, and when those renovations were done, Everleigh was going to need a vehicle to commute with, one capable of hauling materials for her beehives and whatever else she got into.
It wasn’t a very big truck, and she was snug between us for the trip across the bridge, not that she ever complained about that. She left her hand on top of my thigh as I drove and curled her other in Driller’s.
We arrived safely, the house just as we left it, and went inside. The majority of it was plastic and drywall dust, drop cloths and emptiness. Right now, it was just a house, but hopefully, soon it would be a home.
The bedrooms were done and carpeted in case we needed to move in before everything was totally completed. One of the bathrooms was close to finished, the sink and the toilet functional.
The kitchen had a sink, and the floors and tile backsplash and the walls were done, but it was still waiting for appliances, counters, and cabinetry.
We still had decisions to make before we put in the spiral staircase to get up to the attic. Namely, whether we were going to open up the floor and make it run from basement to attic. We were definitely putting the washer and dryer down in the basement, maybe an extra freezer and pantry space, too. Like I said, decisions. The biggest job for now was finishing the drywall and the flooring up in the attic, and for now, a simple A-frame ladder took care of getting up into and out of the space.
I went up first, and Driller stabilized the ladder for Everleigh. I reached down and helped her through the hatch, even though I didn’t really need to. She had it on her own, it was just nice to have any excuse to put my hands on her. Driller grinned and raised his eyebrows behind her back and I gave him a knowing smirk.
We got to work; the sheetrock was pretty much up, and the joints between the sheets mudded or whatever. We were in the land of never-ending sanding. The plywood sheets laid down for temporary flooring were covered in fine dust.
We put on our masks and eye protection and each grabbed our sandpaper tools and got to work. We were almost finished with this part, and while Driller and I sanded, Everleigh ran the shop-vac to mitigate the dust falling.
We had the windows open up here to help, too, while we worked and I was hoping we’d finish up the sanding today and be ready to prime next time. It was just another hurdle, albeit much smaller, for us to clear in building our new home.
I threw chin at Driller when the vacuum quit, and he pulled off his mask and said, “Hey, Bright Eyes.”
When Everleigh turned to him, I dropped to one knee behind her, slipping my fingers into my jeans pocket and plucking out the classy engagement ring Driller had helped me scour antique shops for, over the last couple of weeks.
When he was sure I was set, my best friend asked her, “Can you hand me that pack of sandpaper?” He pointed behind her and she turned, freezing, her hand falling on her breast as if to put her heart back in her chest when she saw me.
Her cat-green eyes widened and her face went slack with surprise as I held up the ring and said, “Everleigh Tate, would you please do me the honor of becoming Everleigh Rutledge, and make this house a home with me?”
The question hung between us, her voice frozen in her throat, tears springing to her eyes and making them luminous, even as they spilled in muddy tracks down her cheeks.
“Are you serious?” she asked, in barely a whisper, her voice filled to the brim with disbelief, which broke my heart just a little. I mean, how could she not know how much I wanted her?
“I’ve never been more serious in my life, babe. I want it to be you and me forever. I love you, and I want to show it to the whole damn world.”
She pressed her hands to her chest and crumbled. Dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around my neck, she said “Yes!” with such a desperate wanting I felt like my own heart was about to explode.
“Fuck, yes!” Driller cried and cheered as I held my woman tight in my arms, her lips finding mine, the kiss between us sealing our fate, our stars crossing in the sky, and they could have become their own constellation.
“I love you, babe,” I whispered, smoothing a hand through her dust coated hair.
“I love you forever,” she whispered back, and I held her tight and looked up at my best friend, whose own eyes were glassy and starting to brim.
“This counts as one of the best moments of my life, and I ain’t even in this,” he declared and I felt such a wholeness, such a completeness in that moment, you just don’t even know.
Epilogue
Everleigh…
We’d made it through the winter, the house was finished and ready to move in, and today? Well, today was the day for at least Narcos’ and my things to arrive.
I waited at the house eagerly for them to arrive with the rest of the club. They’d taken my little truck, which I was still scared and hesitant to drive anywhere but between here and work, leaving their bikes parked in the garage. Youngblood was supposed to meet them at the storage place with his truck, and the rest of the club and their women were dividing and conquering.
I was expecting them here any minute. By myself. For the first time. Without one of either of
the guys. I was nervous and overwhelmed already, and they hadn’t even gotten here yet! I bounced lightly on the balls of my feet when I spotted a car coming down the lane. It was a dark SUV, Chrissy behind the wheel, Lillian, Backdraft’s girl, in the passenger seat, Pasquale and Aly shoving each other in the back seat to look out the windshield, waving at me exuberantly from between Chrissy and Lil.
I smiled, despite my fizzing nerves, but I had nothing to worry about. Still, the flurry of activity, conversation, and unpacking that ensued as soon as the guys arrived with the trucks was almost more than I could take! I hadn’t realized just how introverted I was, even among people that cared, that treated each other and myself very well, and when the crowd thinned and people began to go home, I was relieved.
Narcos and Driller remained, the ruins of pizza boxes and beer cans littering our kitchen. It was stocked with the things from Narcos’ kitchen, which was a damn site more than what Driller had in his. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was a terrible cook. One of the first nights he’d fixed something at his apartment for us, it’d been some ungodly concoction of boxed mac-and-cheese along with canned chili. I’d asked what it was and he’d answered me, “I don’t know, but it’s hot, it’s brown, and there’s a lot of it.”
Narcos and I made sure to cook as often as possible after that, which I fear was somewhat enabling, and I had to admit, when Driller ‘cooked’, he rarely did – rather he spared us by ordering out, like now.
“You doin’ okay, babe?” Narcos asked me, and I smiled, spinning my engagement ring gently on my ring finger with my thumb, a nervous habit or tic that I’d developed.
“A little overwhelmed,” I admitted.
“Then that’s my cue I should probably go,” Driller said, wiping his mouth with a stray napkin and tossing it down.
“I think we’ll head out with you,” Golden declared.
Lys smiled warmly, and before I could open my mouth to protest, she said, “We still have to pick up Manolo from his grandmother’s, so please, don’t feel like you’re chasing us out. You’re not. I’ll check for those bulbs when I get home and make sure to get them to you if I still have them. I swear I do, though.”