by Ivy Black
“The point is to sleep with the enemy,” I said back, handing the article back to him.
Darrien returned the obituary to the box and instead pulled out a stack of white papers and waved them in my direction. “These are all of my medical bills that are still unpaid. I can’t bring myself to pull from your father’s settlement and I used mine to send you to school. After all of our sacrifices, are you still going to turn your back on us?”
“No.” Tears slid down my face. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
He returned the papers to the box and set it off to the side, then he rolled his chair up to me and took my hands in his. “I don’t mean to make you cry, Celia, but I had to remind you of what’s at stake here. You aren’t just doing this for me, you’re doing it for our entire family that was ruined that day. We’re going to be broken forever. You have to remain focused.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “I was losing myself. I’m sorry.”
“I want you to be happy. Of course I don’t want you to be miserable, but the sooner we destroy him, the sooner we can get on to bigger and better things,” Darrien said. “We’re so close.”
“I didn’t completely forget,” I said. “I convinced him to take a higher position at the club.”
Darrien’s head ticked uncomfortably to the side. “They offered him a higher position?”
“Vice President.”
“What happened to Tess?” he asked.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Who?”
There were a few minutes of silence between Darrien and me and then he shook his head and cleared his throat. “Nothing. So, they offered him that position? Things are going well for him.”
“The stakes are higher,” I replied. “Now when we ruin him, we can get him kicked out of the club for good. I just have to wait for a moment to strike. We’re getting closer. Eventually, he’ll trust me enough to let his guard down and then I’ll make my move. We just have to be patient.”
Darrien started nodding with a smile rising to his face. “There’s my smart girl. Now you’re thinking.”
“He wasn’t going to take the position, but I convinced him to take it.” I looked over at the picture of me and my dad that hung on the fridge. “The higher he is, the harder he’ll fall, right?”
“That’s right, Celia.” His hands clasped around mine and squeezed even harder. “I know that it feels terrible, but he deserves it for everything he cost us. Can you do this?”
“I can,” I said. “I will. For my dad. I’m going to make Harry pay for what he did. Guaranteed.”
Chapter Ten
Bullet
Waking up without Celia in my bed was much less enjoyable than waking up with her in it. She was a drug I could easily get addicted to if I wasn’t careful. For the fact that I still fully expected her to ghost me again, we’d spoken on the phone or texted every single day since our first rekindled date, sometimes both. She did simple things like ask about the cats, and I made sure she didn’t get in too much trouble at work for calling in sick because of me. We met up for coffee before work a couple of times and it truly felt like we were actually dating.
It was nice.
It was only now that Celia and I were finally behaving as if we were actually trying to make something out of our relationship that I realized I’d never really been in one before. I’d been with women and I’d even dated someone for an extended period of time, but it was always just the baseline, first stage stuff. The light dates a few times a month, sex on occasion, but I’d never even dated someone that I cared to keep in regular contact with. I wasn’t inhuman, and there were times where I would sit on the couch alone and wonder what it might be like to have someone else there, but thanks to my trust issues, getting to that point with a woman always seemed like more trouble than it was worth. With Celia in my life, I was suddenly thinking about it more, dreaming about it even.
Avery sputtered out a laugh so loud in my ears that I nearly punched him in the face. “Look at our little Bullet. You’re glowing or something.”
Seneca was sitting next to him at the table we were all seated around at Hoppa’s Taphouse and laughed down into her glass of water at him. It was still early afternoon, and the members and prospects were just hanging out on Thursday before the bar crowd started showing up.
I was also officially being voted in as Vice President.
“Don’t say stupid shit,” I griped.
“It must be going well,” Avery said, then he looked over at Seneca. “He wouldn’t be acting like this if it wasn’t going well.”
A brief period of eye contact between Avery and Seneca had them both blushing lightly and I furrowed my brow. A pettier person could deflect easily if they wanted, but I had no interest in involving myself in someone else’s romantic life. If there was something between them, good for them.
“So, you’ve never really dated women before?” Seneca asked.
“I have,” I replied. “Just not seriously or for an extended period of time.”
“There was this girl in college,” Avery started, and I rolled my eyes, knowing where the story was going. “She was crazy about him. Beautiful, smart, funny. He took her out on a handful of dates and then ended it with her. He told her, to her face, that it just wasn’t worth it.” He started laughing and slamming his hand on the table, but Seneca was looking at him like he was a swamp monster. Finally, she threw me a disgusted look, threw him one, and then got up and left the table. He watched her walk away, all the humor fading from his face. “What did I say?”
“I’m the one who doesn’t deal with women, how are you so clueless?” I asked.
“I’m not clueless, I just don’t know why that story made me look bad,” he replied.
“Maybe because you thought it was so damn funny.” I took a sip of my soda. “Which I’ve told you isn’t. Multiple times. You should stop telling it.”
He looked truly disappointed that he’d upset Seneca. “I guess so.”
“Gentlemen!” Nick announced as he entered the bar, then he looked at Seneca. “And lady, we’ve got a packed day ahead of us, so let’s not waste any time.”
“He says that like he isn’t the one who’s over an hour late,” Small Fry grumbled to Texas.
“First of all, I heard that,” Nick said, “second of all, yes, I’m late. I overslept because for the first time in months, I’m actually sleeping, so fucking sue me.”
“Nah, that’s great, Squared. You seem a little better,” Bucky said, slapping a hand on Nick’s shoulder.
Now that he mentioned it, Nick did look better. The sallow quality his face had taken on was thickening out, and he’d gone back to being cleanly shaven. A cut had his hair sitting shorter on his head, and his clothes were starting to fit well again. Not only was he getting more sleep, but he appeared to be eating normally again as well.
Almost as if he could read my thoughts, he looked over at me. “I have Bullet to thank for that.”
That took me aback. “Me? I didn’t do anything.”
“You did,” Nick said. “You accepted my offer and now when I can’t sleep at night, it’s from excitement of what we’re gonna turn this club into. I just know it, Bullet, we’re gonna take the Steel Knights to the next level. I can’t wait, but first things first, members, let’s head back. We’ve got some voting to do.”
The members gathered from their different spots across the bar, bidding the prospects adieu as they did, and then we made our way back to Nick’s rounded table in the back. There were more chairs around the table now, as a majority of the Steel Knights’ current members had been promoted to some officered position, but a few people still had to stand. Nick pulled out his gavel, and the new Secretary, Small Fry, called an official meeting to order.
“There’s only one matter on the agenda today, boys,” he said, looking across at me. “I’d like to formally nominate Harry “Bullet” Booth to the position of Vice President.”
Avery stuck h
is hand in the air immediately. “Seconded.”
Seth’s hand went in the air next. “Third.”
And one by one, all of the members of the club unanimously voted to promote me to Vice President. The bright look on Nick’s face was enough that I had to smile as he announced, “So moved. Bullet, you are hereby designated to the position of Vice President, effective immediately. Congratulations!”
The members all started to clap and somewhere between humility and discomfort, I nodded my head in thanks and remained quiet.
“I believe that’s all we had to cover today. We’ve got the prospect stuff this evening. Bucky, I’ll need you and Bullet’s help with that, but we can discuss that later. For now, I’d like some time alone with my new Vice President if we have nothing else?” No one else brought anything up, so Nick knocked his gavel on the table. “Great! Meeting adjourned then.”
The members took their time filing out, each of them shaking my hand, patting me on the back, or fist-bumping me as they exited, and eventually it was just Nick and me.
I looked across at Nick with a smile. “Thanks again, Nick. I’m gonna work hard, I promise.”
He let out a loud laugh. “For someone who resisted it for so long, I should be thanking you.”
“Why didn’t you just let it go?” I asked.
“I knew you were the one. Our visions for the club are aligned and I think we’re gonna take things to the next level. I was prepared to offer the position to Bucky if you didn’t shape up, but that was a worst-case scenario. Not that Bucky would be bad, but he’s a bit too much of a yes man. You’ll call me out on my shit, and I need that. Tess was like that, too. Speaking of which…”
He stood up from the table and started over to the lockers lined against the back wall of the warehouse. He moved until he was standing in front of the one that Tess had occupied back when she was there, then he looked back at me and motioned me over. Reluctantly, I stood up from my chair and walked over to where he was standing. He grabbed a pair of bolt cutters down from the top of the lockers and handed them out to me.
“What?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Well, I’m not asking you to solve for X here, Harry. I think it’s pretty obvious what I want.”
“I’m not breaking into her locker. Even if it wasn’t a huge invasion of privacy, I’m the very last person she’d want going through her stuff.”
“I know, but I can’t do it, I told you,” Nick said. “All I had was her notebook and even that was difficult for me to flip through. Just seeing her handwriting makes me miss her like crazy. I know wherever she and Colin are, they’re happy and…” He shoved the bolt cutters against my chest. “They ain’t comin’ back. If those plans in Tess’ notebook were even half of what she had going on in her head, there’s probably a lot in this locker we need to see. First order of business as VP, I need you to go through everything in the old VP’s locker.”
Nick stared at me with a stone serious expression for long enough that I finally took the bolt cutters, and when I did, he turned and started to walk away.
“Wait,” I said, grabbing his arm. “You’re not staying.”
“Bullet, you and I both know this is gonna make me cry and I’m not about to be reduced to a blubbering mess when we’ve got so much going on today. I’m gonna go and chat with the prospects, and you’re going to go through Tess’ locker.” He slapped a hand on my shoulder. “Please?”
I wanted to protest, but the look on Nick’s face told me it would be fruitless. Desperation and determination were a terrible mix, and I simply didn’t have the arsenal to battle against it. With a roll of my eyes, I nodded, and Nick pulled himself away and walked out of the warehouse, leaving me alone.
Setting the bolt cutters to the lock on Tess’ locker, I took a breath to steel myself, and then I busted the lock and removed it from the loop. I’d have to go and buy a new one for when I was storing stuff in there, but for the time being, I set the bolt cutters and broken lock on top of the lockers and then opened the locker door.
The inside of the locker was oddly simple. Tess had a flair for the dramatic, not unlike her father and brother, so though I didn’t know what I was expecting, it was a mostly empty locker with a jacket hanging inside, a few miscellaneous papers and journals, and a file box on the bottom. I pulled the jacket out and slung it over my arm, then pulled the file box out and carried them both over to the table. The jacket I wrapped around Nick’s regular chair, then I set the box down in front of my chair and returned to the locker. I pulled out what was left of the papers and journals and carried them back to my spot, then sat down to start going through it all.
First, I went through the journals. Nick had already given me the notebook he had of Tess’ back when I first agreed to take on VP, and the journals were more of the same. It was a detailed account of Tess’ work. She had research on some other motorcycle clubs that we considered allies like The Blazing Rebels and The Black Vipers, as well as our rival gang, the Unchained Dogs. All their hierarchical information led her to the final hierarchy she’d been planning on introducing for the Steel Knights.
It blew me away. It was meticulous and well thought out.
In her file box, she had a variety of things including quotes for several locations for the club to relocate to outside of Hoppa’s Taphouse. The bar had always been the home base of the Steel Knights, but with the club growing as it was, a bigger facility was definitely needed. Amongst these plans, were the detailed blueprints for a club to be built from the ground up. It included an office for each of the officers, a club room for the members and prospects, and even some secret rooms for when we were doing our less legal work. On top of all of this, there was a bar, not unlike Hoppa’s Taphouse, with pool tables, dartboards, a stage for live bands, and a circular bar that would sit in the middle. Next to this part of the blueprint, she had a Post-it Note stuck on that read “Regulars and Friendlies only” and I smiled. It was genius. Give non-members the feeling of membership by having an exclusive bar just for them. I could already imagine the hype when one of the Steel Knights invited someone from Hoppa’s Taphouse back to our exclusive bar.
She had plans for merch, plans to expand the underground business, and even a list of the pros and cons of each member for us to chart out the best way to use them all.
This went beyond Vice-President thinking; Tess was planning to be President one day.
The words of Seneca, Nick, and Avery filled my mind:
“Everyone followed your lead and you fucking ran her out of here.”
“I told Colin like three weeks in that I would never recommend her for President.”
“What do you want from us? Would you have listened?”
Yeah, I understood the role I played in Tess leaving. It wasn’t just me, but my part was larger than everyone else’s. I could sit there and say if I’d known what Tess had in her head, I might have been nicer to her, but the truth was, I never would have heard her out to begin with. Seeing everything she had up her sleeve was as enlightening as it was painful. Celia was changing me, not just because I liked her, but because she was my gateway to seeing that there had been women around me all along who weren’t as bad as the ones who ruined my life. Tess, Seneca. Even some of the older members were married and their wives had never been anything but respectful to me.
For the first time ever, I was realizing how badly I’d messed up.
“I’m sorry, Tess,” I said aloud. “I’m gonna do what you were not allowed to do.”
It was as good an apology as I could muster for the time being, until I hopefully got the chance to apologize to her face.
Chapter Eleven
Celia
It hadn’t occurred to me how much Harry’s sourpuss attitude changed the atmosphere around Hoppa’s Taphouse until I was walking in and it was totally gone. Everyone was laughing, people were dancing and exchanging loud stories over drinks, and the thing I most noticed:
There were many more women hanging
around.
A few of the members of Harry’s motorcycle club whose names I didn’t know, had women on their arm and were enjoying their time with them present, and a few more biker girls were flirting their way around the younger, more eligible members. Harry didn’t seem as bothered by their presence, and unlike the way he was standing in the corner brooding the first time I’d ever met him, he was playing a game of pool with the club’s President, Nick, and a couple of other members, and he seemed totally relaxed and happy.
At first, a smile found my face and I just stared at him happily, but then my godfather’s voice snuck into the back of mind, bringing with it images of my father’s obituary, pictures from the accident, and Darrien’s exorbitant medical bills and I physically smacked my own face to knock myself out of it. What I had with Harry wasn’t real, at least for me it wasn’t. I had to remain focused.
“Hey, VP!” A man I did recognize as Harry’s former college roommate and now fellow club member, Avery, called out. “Your girl is here!”
In any other situation, the possessive phrase might have irritated me, but the way Harry immediately stopped what he was doing and crossed the bar to greet me had my stomach flurrying again. Something about being his girl just sounded so good to me.
No. I couldn’t do this again, I couldn’t get caught up.
“Hey,” Harry said as he got to me. The arm that wasn’t gripping a pool stick laced around my waist and he pulled me toward him in a kiss. Several of the people standing around started to hoot, inspired by Avery who kicked it off, but Harry whipped around and glared at him, and he calmed down. “Sorry about him.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “How are you?”
“Much better now. I’m glad you came.”
“You told me you wanted to see me and that was enough for me.” This earned me another quick kiss.
He pointed over his shoulder at Nick standing at the pool table. “I’m just finishing up a game of pool with Squared and the guys. Wanna grab a drink and a table and I’ll join ya when I’m done?”