Oh shit. My brother’s head snapped around, Kane no longer his focus, as it now was entirely on Deck. I wasn’t completely sure what was going on, and I definitely didn’t like where this altercation appeared to be going. I stepped out of Kane’s shadow for the first time during this whole oddball situation. “Okay, well, now that we know how old everyone is, maybe one of you can tell me why you’re actually here, because I know you don’t care if I’m tattooing or not.”
All three of the men standing before me turned hurt eyes my way and suddenly I felt that same red-faced shame welling up that had happened earlier when Kane called me out for ignoring my texts.
“We really did stop by to check in on you, and whether your apprenticeship was heading into actual tattooing yet or if you were still just selling your art for others to put on people,” Trunk responded. “Besides, ever since I found out you were the genius behind this asshole’s tattoo, I’ve wanted to come see you about getting something to represent my old lady. Our anniversary is coming up and she’s been riding my ass for years about getting her inked on me so she can have her permanent claim or whatever.” I smiled about that, because knowing his woman, he wasn’t lying. “Been telling her it couldn’t be just some old generic shit property tag like the other guys get and then have inked over when they move on to the next willing body along with a cover-up tat.”
I wrinkled my nose at the thought, because I knew a few of the men in the club had definitely done just that over the years. I always had found it tacky, but I never showed any of them judgment for it. Now, I didn’t have to hide my disdain.
“So, you came to see if I could draw you something?” I asked Trunk with a little apprehension leaking through my voice.
“Jesus,” he hissed out and then ran his hands through his hair, tugging quickly in a show of frustration. “Until the other night when you showed up to the barbecue, I never knew how bad things had gotten for you while I was put away.” He glared at my brother for a moment before refocusing his attention on me. “I also hate that you seem fuckin’ hesitant and almost frightened to talk to us – to me. I’ve never wished you ill in all the time I’ve known you, honey.”
“I know you haven’t, Trunk. You’ve been one of the few people who have unfailingly treated me well over the years, and I appreciate that. You have to understand, I simply have a hard time trusting people.” I noticed my brother’s physical reaction to my statement. It was damn near a full-body cringe.
“I get that, honey.” He glanced around, taking note of the men of Permanent Marks who had come out to the lobby to see what the commotion was about. “Seems like you found different folks to trust though,” he added.
“No, she really didn’t,” my boss, Zeke managed to get out as he stepped forward, standing on my other side with arms crossed and feet spread shoulder-width apart in a defensive stance. “Ever doesn’t trust a damn one of us with anything personal. It’s a shame too, because she’s a great girl who is constantly stuck holding herself back. Just before you came in, she did her first on the books tattoo, and I know how it feels when you get that first paid job done. You feel like fuckin’ flying, and you know what she did? Grinned to herself, because she doesn’t think she has anyone to share her happiness with. I don’t know what the fuck you idiots over at Aces have done to damage this girl, but if that’s what you’re here for, you can see your way right back out those doors. She may not trust us yet, but she’s ours just the same, and I’ll be damned if I allow any more hurt to weigh those shoulders of hers down.”
“Fuck!” My brother hissed out and then he did something I’ve never seen him do in all of the time we’d spent together. He lifted his hand to his face and wiped away the rogue tears that spilled from his eyes. “Jesus, Ever… I didn’t… I can’t… Fuck!” He turned his back, completely unable to get out whatever he was attempting to say. Instead, when Trunk put a comforting hand on his shoulder Toby shook him off. “I don’t deserve that,” he mumbled to Trunk, and then he walked right back out of the shop.
“It makes my heart ache to see that boy, who was your fiercest protector when you guys were little, unable to even speak to you now,” Trunk stated quietly before walking about behind Toby.
“Listen, from what I know, the things that went down were zero fault of Ever’s. I’ll be damned if you and your boys are going to walk in here and try to guilt trip her into thinking she’s the problem…” Kane started in on Deck, who was the last man standing from the Aces crew that had walked into Permanent Marks.
“I promise you, they didn’t come here for that. T-Bone’s been trying to get a hold of Ever, and when she wouldn’t answer he figured he could come apologize to her – again – in person while Trunk asked about getting work done by her. I swear no one came here with bad intentions.”
“And what did you come here for then?”
“I told you, I plan on making shit right since I wasn’t around before.”
“Seems to me her problems with that club started long before the shit with your boy J-Bird went down. My sister is her best friend, asshole. I know all about how shitty they’ve all treated her over the years. You were there for a lot of that.”
“I was a kid for a lot of that,” Deck returned. “For the rest I was a teenage, selfish fuck doing my own thing before I left for the military. I’m not saying I’m blameless, because I saw a few things and did nothing, but I also didn’t have the right to say shit. The MC has rules,” he continued trying to explain.
“Yeah,” Kane laughed humorlessly. “Rules that make it easy for big bad bikers to bully little girls and no one can call them out on their bullshit. I gathered that much all by myself, dude. Now, if you’re done here, your brothers already left, and I’m thinking you should join them.”
I honestly didn’t know what to say at this point. I didn’t feel like Deck deserved the things Kane was saying to him, but then again, I was so fucking done feeling the guilt and sadness everyone made me feel all the time. It’s as if it didn’t matter to my family or their extended biker family that they nearly ruined me for good. I was supposed to have just gotten the fuck over it since they all thought of it as being in the past. I couldn’t trust them any longer, and they were affronted by that fact instead of asking why or trying to prove any of them had changed.
Deck turned his full attention on me then. Before he could speak I held up a hand to stop him. “I was having such a great day with so much to celebrate for once, and I had already promised Lucy I would call Toby later. I didn’t plan on letting her down, but this is how it always is. I’m put in a position where someone tries to make me feel bad, and when I try to explain myself, someone else gets upset, and then I’m to blame all over again even when I did nothing, but show my emotions. I can’t help how I feel. You don’t understand, because you weren’t here for everything, Deck. You weren’t there when I had exactly one friend left. You weren’t there to read the new bullshit written on my locker ever day. You weren’t there when people were physically hurting me – people who were my friends before. You weren’t there when I didn’t even have anyone I could confide in about it at home, because there was only really one person there who would listen, and every time I burdened her with it she ended up in major fights with my father so I stopped telling her in order to spare her the hurt and the drama that no one spared me.
“You weren’t there when the only way out was a fuckin’ bottle of pills that I couldn’t even manage to get myself to swallow when not even family would show up to celebrate my sixteenth birthday. None of them were there! None of them gave a shit, not even my brother, not for a long time. None of them cared until the truth came out, and even after that… you see how it goes. Just like today. I’m still in the wrong for feeling the way I do about people who made me want to end my life. I promised Lucy, my fuckin’ therapist, and myself that I would never allow people to take me back to that point again. So, I’m sorry if I don’t want to jump right back in and set myself up for that particular fa
ilure, okay? I was happy today for the first time in a very long time, and now it’s gone again because the Aces High MC came walking through that door and stole it from me, even if that wasn’t their intention this time.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Zeke took me gently by my shoulders and guided me out of the room and back to the stairwell that would take me up to my apartment. “You gonna be okay up there alone for a minute?”
I nodded my head.
“Need you to say the words, Ever.”
“I’ll be fine, thanks.”
“Okay, go on up then. I’ll be up to check on you in a bit, so be expecting that.”
I sighed, knowing I let too much of my pain slip free once again. I imagined the guys at Permanent Marks weren’t going to want my kind of emo-drama hanging around much longer so I started packing my shit. I wasn’t sure where I would go, but damn it… I was actually too embarrassed to stick around here now that everyone knew I tried to kill myself.
Chapter 7
~ Declan ~
My gut twisted hearing her lash out the way she had, but to hear that Ever – one of the strongest, most vibrant women I know – had tried to kill herself, or even thought about doing it… That didn’t just twist me up it gutted me. As soon as she was out of sight I took a damn knee, right there in the middle of the lobby of Permanent Marks. I didn’t give a good goddamn who saw me do it either. There were very few things that had rocked me to my core over the years, but finding out just how low things had gotten for Ever was something I don’t think I will ever be able to fully process. The fact that my brother caused it, in part, and my MC family perpetuated enough of that hurt to cause that kind of reaction… I was sick.
“You really didn’t know?” It was a question, but I think Kane meant it as more of statement judging by the look on his face.
“No, I didn’t fucking know. Hell, if I had known things were that bad I would have come the fuck back home whether the military let me or not. I sure as fuck had no clue she would… even the thought of… fuck!”
“Your own family didn’t bother telling you?”
“My brother sure as fuck wasn’t going to tell me his part in this, because he would have known about the ass whopping he had coming. My dad, fuck, I don’t know what his excuse was other than to try to hide an embarrassing fuckup from trusting his youngest son. My mom never talked to me about Ever. She had hopes of marrying Jason off to the girl so she could have the daughter she always wanted. She never associated me with Ever like that, so I don’t think it would have occurred to her to tell me anything.”
“Well, shit. Sorry I jumped your ass then. I just heard so much of that shitty story from my sister over the years, that I was ready to go do battle for the girl. Hell, when she came begging Zeke to take her on as an apprentice before she was of age he was going to send her packing. I took him aside and gave him the short version of her story, not that I knew it all, apparently. I don’t even think my sister knew about the pills man, that’s… fucked. It’s completely fucked. I convinced Zeke to give her a shot so she’d have something. Hell, my parents talked about maybe taking Ever in, but my dad was always worried about blow back from the MC if he even suggested one of theirs wasn’t handling their kid right, you know?”
“I know a lot of people failed that girl,” I told him. “I know that when I came back and found out how bad things were I promised myself and my mom that I would make shit right again.”
“Why?” Kane asked, and I wasn’t sure what exactly he was asking until he clarified. “Why is it your problem all of a sudden to make things right for her?”
“She’s family. My family failed her so it’s only right that one of us tries to put her back together.”
“I think there’s more to it than that,” Kane explained wearily.
“If there’s more to it than that, it’s mine to know.” I gave him a look that said I wasn’t willing to delve any further into my personal reasons. Hell, I wasn’t sure I was ready to dive in that deep as to why I felt as strongly about this as I did. “I need to get out there and go try to make those two men understand some hard truths. I think it starts there.”
“Yeah, I imagine you’re right about that. Just do me a favor.” It hadn’t been a request, really, judging by Kane’s tone.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t bring them back until they’re willing to fall on their fucking sword for her. I mean it. If I see any of them around, blaming her in any way for how they made her feel, and I will start a war with the MC. Don’t matter if I can win it or not.”
“Seems like there’s more to that statement,” I parroted his earlier sentiment.
“Nah, there’s really not. I owe her and my sister as much for not doing it sooner, when it could have mattered. I thought since Ever wasn’t my friend directly that she wasn’t my problem. I was wrong. Should have done something about her shit well before she marched her talented ass in here looking for a mentor.” Kane huffed out a frustrated sigh and turned to head towards the back where Zeke had taken Ever. Before he got to the hallway that would lead him left or right he looked back over his shoulder at me. “If you’re going to step into the fray, you make sure you fight for the girl, and don’t ever fuckin’ stop fighting. I think she’s had enough people half-assing it in her life already.”
I nodded and then turned to leave the studio in order to go hunt down my brothers. We had a lot of work ahead of us, but as I caught sight of the tattoo Ever had drawn for me on my forearm an inkling of an idea began to form. There was something she had in common with all the bikers who had failed her. She loved art and ink. They did too. The bikers had their ceremony of forgiveness, but it only benefited them. It was time for them to put up or shut up and get behind a new kind of family therapy that I had in mind.
I caught up to Trunk and T-Bone as they were mounting their bikes. “I heard her,” T-Bone said to me, voice full and gravely with emotion. My spine straightened as I waited for him to explain what exactly he heard. He shook his head as his shoulders noticeably shook. “She tried to…” His hands flew to his face, no doubt to hide another onslaught of tears before the general public could see them. “I knew shit was bad, but I never in a million years thought…” He shook his head. “Why didn’t my mom ever say anything?”
I scoffed at that question. “You think Ever was going to let Lucy tell everyone how low she had gotten? Not only would that be another hit to her pride, but she would have been letting people she considered her enemies know just how deep they’d stuck that knife in her back.” I almost regretted how harsh those words were, but then I thought of Ever and how she faced down a bottle of pills thinking it was the only way out, and suddenly I didn’t care if I hurt any of their feelings anymore.
“Hey now,” Trunk started to come to T-Bone’s defense.
“No, it’s fine. He’s right. She wouldn’t have wanted any of us to know, and she was right not to want that. At the time, they would have used it as a sign that she had a guilty conscious or something, and would have made it worse.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “I can’t believe I let my little sis slide so far. It didn’t even occur to me that I missed her birthday that year. I think it was two weeks later when I realized, and only because I heard Anna ask if she was going to have to cancel her party like Ever did. I don’t know how I could possibly ever make any of that up to her, and honestly, I don’t think she’ll ever talk to me long enough for me to try. I love her; she’s been a part of me since we were little. We bonded over being the hidden children, you know? I’m so fucking afraid I blew my entire life-long relationship with my own sister based on what Jay had to say back then.
“I should have known. Hell, that’s a cop-out, because I did know. I knew in my gut that it didn’t sound like anything Ever would say or do. Even if it had been, I didn’t think she’d be wrong for finally snapping. Jay knew how she felt and he still paraded his girls around her. I knew it must have hurt her, but I never made him stop either. I
just let my need to be one of the brothers take precedence, because I was too stupid to see they weren’t as important as my sister.”
I clapped T-Bone on the back and then moved to my machine. “I have a plan, T. You’re going to have to help me convince the others, starting with our dads.”
“I’ll do anything, man.”
“Good, because what I’m going to ask you to do is going to leave a permanent mark.” I winked at him and then glanced back over my shoulder at the name of the tattoo shop. I wasn’t sure he put two and two together yet, but Trunk seemed to understand as he nodded his head in agreement.
Chapter 8
~ Ever ~
Two days after Declan, Trunk, and my brother stopped by Permanent Marks I was still worried about everything, and what the fallout would be. I couldn’t believe I’d kept my secret – Lucy had kept my secret – all this time, and I just blurted it out like that. Zeke tried to talk to me about it, and told me that sometimes verbal vomit was a sign that you need to get shit off your chest or go crazy. I guess, in a way, he was probably right. Even so, it didn’t stop me from feeling mortified about the rest of our interaction when he found me packing up the shit in my apartment again.
“What exactly are you running from, because if it’s the asses, I will personally see to it that you never have to lay eyes on those fuckers again.” He was angry, but more than that, he was apparently trying to protect me. I was so confused.
“I thought…” I worried my bottom lip with my teeth as I tried to put into words exactly what I had thought would happen. “I don’t know what I thought. I guess I just assumed you guys would hate me or be disgusted with me over what you heard.”
Zeke had a puzzled expression on his face before his shoulders slumped forward. “Have I ever given you reason to think I’m judging you in any way?”
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