by Ivy Black
“How about Saturday?” he asked, and I felt stupid.
“Okay, no, sorry. I have a date on Saturday.”
“Oh, that’s okay, son. No, really. That’s fine. I’ll just die an old lonely man. I’ll starve with no spouse to cook for me.”
“You’re a chef,” I said. “Also, I know you’re still seeing her, she’s probably there right now.”
“Noooo,” a woman’s voice called from the background.
“Exactly,” I said. “Also, I swear that wasn’t my intention. Can we do it Sunday? Let’s do it Sunday.”
“Sunday, really?” Cameron responded. “Like this Sunday? Not next Christmas?”
“No, Dad, not next Christmas. This upcoming Sunday. The next one on your calendar.”
“Okay. Really, you’ll come?”
Cooking wasn’t the most exciting idea to me in the world, so I popped some toast in the toaster. “Yeah, I’ll come.”
“Okay,” Cameron replied in a soft voice that made me even sadder, because quiet though it was, it was filled to the brim with excitement. “I’m looking forward to it. Marisha is, too.”
“Me, too. Really. I’m sorry that it took this long.”
“It’s fine.” His tone was completely back to normal. “I had a bet going with Marisha that it wouldn’t be until December, so you owe me the dinner I now have to buy her.”
“Please don’t bet on my character flaws with your girlfriend,” I said, and Cameron fell out laughing. “I’m going to go tend to my hangover now. I love you.”
“I love you, too, kid. See ya Sunday.”
“Yep.”
The call ended, and even though I was relieved that I’d finally made the arrangements, I was also nervous. I’d never met a partner of Cameron’s before and I didn’t know his type. He was intentional about not dating, or at least not bringing women home, when I was still there, so I had no idea what his type was. He’d shown me a picture of her, but that was all I had to base it off of. It was less about the fact that she was a woman and more about the fact that she was dating someone who was so important to me. She had a hard, uphill climb to earn my acceptance. As far as I was concerned, Cameron was no different from my actual father, and my father deserved the best.
With that behind me, I decided that I should probably get dressed and head to the bar for the day. Even though being around liquor made my stomach twist, there was still work to be done, and even if there wasn’t, I didn’t have much else to do for the day. I ate my toast, downed a whole cup of coffee before pouring an additional one in a travel mug to bring with me, gave the cats a little bit of love and then left.
As expected, Nick and Seth were already at the club when I arrived, but Avery was also there again for another early morning. Nick and Seth were just heading to the back for a conversation about the expansion when I arrived, so I let them go in the interest of talking to Avery about this unique change in behavior.
“Hey,” he said as I walked in.
“Hi.” Unlike the other day when he was there early, just not doing much of anything and waiting for Seneca to show up, he had a few papers in front of him and was reading them over and making notes. One of the pages was a map with some highlighted routes, so I guessed he was expanding the drug runs. “So, are you just an early riser now, or…?”
He chuckled, looking back down at his paper. “Something like that.”
“Is it Seneca?” I asked.
He looked up at me. “Can’t a man just want to start actually putting in some real effort at work?”
“Sure, but you were doing that just fine in the afternoon hours. This is the second time in a week that I’ve seen you here as the sun’s still coming up. I was your college roommate, remember? I used to have to leash and drag you to any classes that took place before noon. So, if it isn’t Seneca, what is it?”
“I don’t know, I think your hard-working attitude is rubbing off on me. You’re running around, working on the expansion, fraternizing with the prospects, and still somehow dating. Call me jealous,” he replied.
“Dating?” I said. “I am, but what does that have to do with this? Unless this is a little bit about Seneca?” He didn’t respond, but just shrugged and went back to working. “I guess I’m a little offended. I thought I was your best friend. Expected you’d want to talk to me about her if you were into her.”
Avery set his pen down and looked up at me like he was about to conduct a job interview. “Okay, Harry,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“I’m not asking for intimate details or anything. I just want to know if you like her.”
“Yes, okay? Yes, I like her.” His tone was dull and even, as if he was annoyed by that fact.
“Why do you say it like that? She’s pretty cool, at least I think so. She killed the bike race, and yesterday after you left, I pissed some guy off bumping into him and she kicked his ass and made sure I got home. She’s obviously beautiful, but she also seems really nice and smart, plus she’s a biker chick. I mean, you being into her isn’t a big shock nor a bad idea.”
“She is cool. I think she’ll become a member for sure down the road, so she’ll be hanging around, I just don’t necessarily know that it’s a good idea to date her, that’s all. I’ve talked to her a little bit, flirted, but I get the sense that it would be a bad idea, that’s it.”
I didn’t exactly know what his hesitation was. Sure, Seneca had mentioned to me that getting into relationships wasn’t really her thing, but it also just felt like she hadn’t found someone of substance yet. Seneca and Avery seemed like they would be a perfect match to me, plus they clearly liked each other, so I couldn’t quite put my finger on why they wouldn’t just go for it.
“All right, I won’t bug you about it anymore. Just let the record show, I’m Team Seneca,” I said.
Avery nodded with a snicker as he returned to his work. “Noted. If I’m done being grilled now, you seem like you’re in a better mood than last night.”
“Yeah. I talked to Celia, and we worked it out, at least as much as things can be worked out with her, so I’m seeing her on Saturday.”
“Good luck with that.” Again, his tone was jaded.
I couldn’t blame him though. Things with Celia and I had been very back and forth. Internally, I made a decision to discuss Celia less around the bar until things were a little more stable for us. Avery at the very least, but probably also Seneca at this point, had invested some interest in my happiness and well-being and didn’t need to hear about all the push and pull. They’d still see us hanging around whenever Celia came to spend time with me here, but I could practice being a little more aloof until I was more confident about where we were going.
“Bullet.” I looked over and Seth was standing in the doorway behind the bar. “Can you come here for a sec?”
“Sure.” I stood up, tapping Avery’s back as I went, and made my way back to the warehouse. Nick was sitting at the table and there were papers spread out everywhere. I walked over and took my usual seat as Seth sat down as well. “Hey, Nicky.”
“What’s up?” he replied. “I hope I didn’t interrupt.”
“Nah, just shooting the shit with Avery. It’s weird seeing him when the sun’s up,” I said.
“I know what you mean. He’s getting us more money though, so I’m fucking glad to see him doing it. Anyway, I wanted to run something by you that Seth found.” He shifted one of the reconciliation books toward me. It used to be my daily work, but I hadn’t actually looked at it in about a week with Seth working like he was. “I know we were trying to shift funds around and not get a check cut for another couple of weeks still to start the project, but I’m itching. He thinks we can shift some things around by paying some expenditures in bulk, six months or a year at a time, and it would free up some money to cut the check in the next few days. What do you think?”
I looked over Seth’s work and was impressed with the ways he was identifying to flow money in and out that didn’t
leave the club in such a tough spot each month. It was the take-the-big-hit-all-at-once versus smaller hits throughout the year and was actually a much better method. There were notes with quotes and his communications with our vendors already, and it seemed like he had it all worked out.
“Yeah,” I said. “This seems like it’ll work just fine.”
Nick slapped Seth’s arm. “There ya go, buddy. You’re killing it. This is working out even better than I thought it would.”
A smile crossed my face as I looked across at Seth. “This is good work.”
“Thanks, Bullet.”
Nick, Seth, and I discussed a few more money-related things, then we split up to do our own work for the next few hours. Eventually, the rest of the members and prospects showed up, and then the bar was already starting to fill up as early as late afternoon. It was a typical bar night, and there was nothing too exciting to stick around for, so once Nick had settled into a game of pool for the night, I snuck over to Avery and invited him to grab dinner somewhere quieter. He was talking to Seneca at the time, who we invited along as well, and Seth seemed bored by the crowd, so I grabbed him, too.
We left the bar and went to one of Hoppa’s hole-in-the-wall diners and ordered the best of their greasy food.
“Man,” Avery said. “It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve done this. It’s the club or home for me lately.”
“Same here,” Seth said. “I love my new job, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a little tired. It’s nice to just come get some food and the fact that my ears aren’t ringing from the constant murmur of the bar is nice.”
“This is where a clubhouse will come in really handy,” I said. “There will be tons of places where we can go to escape the music and chatter. I’m with you guys, I’m not a people person, so getting away for a little bit is nice.”
“You’re not a people person?” Seneca said in a high-pitched, overly dramatic voice. “I never would have guessed.”
“Ha ha,” I responded.
“So, wait, all you guys do is hang around the bar?” Seneca asked. “No rival-gang trips? No heated battles in the desert?”
For myself, and for Seth and Avery as well, that probably brought our most recent run-in with the Unchained Dogs screaming back to us. “Well, we don’t seek that stuff out, but it has a way of finding us,” I said.
“Listen,” Avery told Seneca, “you don’t wish for interactions with the Unchained Dogs. Their president is loony toons. If we didn’t have CJ when he showed up last time, whoo, that might have not gone so well.”
“CJ?” Seneca asked.
“Colin Jones. He was running with the Unchained Dogs but went on the run from them and came here because he and Tess were friends as kids. They fell in love and ran off to God knows where,” Seth explained. “He was tough though, and fucking terrifying.”
“You got your ass kicked by him, right?” Avery asked.
Seth frowned. “That’s an understatement. You all weren’t there, but we collapsed on him and he turned into a Goddamn tornado. You think I’m dynamite, that guy went from zero to sixty. The crazy thing was, it didn’t take him long, and he didn’t even break a sweat. That was when I was first like, ‘All right. I’m not fucking with that guy anymore’.”
“So, Tess ran off with him? That’s kind of sweet, bad news for Nick though,” Seneca remarked.
“Well, I’m to blame for that mostly,” I said. “Thanks to my oppressive behavior, the club followed suit, even Nicky. When it came down to going with CJ or staying with us, she picked him because there was nowhere left to go here.”
“It’s unfortunate. Tess was actually a good person,” Avery said.
“I’ve been working from her notes from when she was VP, she’s damn smart.” I bit the inside of my cheek, feeling bad. “I wish things hadn’t happened the way they did. She should have had a chance here. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
“Hey, don’t take it so hard,” Avery told me. “Yeah, if she came back, I’d be stoked, but I’m also happy for her that she no longer has to deal with Taylor’s insane ass or live in her father’s shadow. I’d be willing to bet, wherever they went, they’re really happy.”
“I hope so. I really hope they reach out to Nick again one day, too,” I said. “He doesn’t deserve to lose both his kids.”
For the rest of dinner, we took turns filling Seneca in on the insanity of the months prior to her showing up, and it gave us renewed appreciation for just being able to sit and enjoy a meal with no stress. Once we were full, we said our goodbyes and parted ways for the night, promising to hang out again soon, and I went home to rest up, looking even more forward to my date with Celia.
Chapter Eighteen
Celia
Laura and I moved back and forth across my old room, arranging things in a way that made it look nice and neat, but also like it had been lived in. There weren’t many clothes in the closet, so we hung some of hers up inside. We swapped out the bedsheets and scattered some shoes across the floor in the corner, anything to make it look like it was someone’s current bedroom.
“So, he doesn’t know that you don’t currently live here,” Laura said, “and you’ve mentioned that you take care of your godfather, but you haven’t mentioned who he is or where you actually live at all?”
“Right,” I replied, pulling some of the things out of my purse out and setting them on the dresser.
“Why? What’s the point of that? Why aren’t you just honest with him?”
“Because my godfather is weird, and I don’t need to mix those two up just yet, and besides, there’s nothing really all that sexy about bringing a man back to the same place where you change a different man’s diapers.”
It was partially true. Laura didn’t know anything about the lies I was feeding Harry or why, and I knew I couldn’t bring Harry back to Darrien’s place, because he’d recognize him and begin to figure out something was up. This plan only worked if Harry believed I was falling in love with him, the same way he was falling for me, and a woman who is falling in love brings their guy around their friends’ and back to their place. Harry wasn’t striking totally off mark when he called me out for downplaying our relationship. I was keeping him at a distance on purpose. I was still trying to tread a line between something casual enough that I didn’t feel bad, and serious enough to trick him.
But I needed to go all in.
If I was going to carry out my plan with Harry, I needed to turn up the heat, mainly because if I continued to see him, the feelings I was already developing that I knew I shouldn’t have were only going to get worse and everything was going to get more complicated. So as gross as it felt, I was pulling a wild card to truly convince Harry that I was in this for the long haul, so that when I suddenly pulled a switcheroo it would crush him. I had to do it hard and I had to do it fast.
I was running out of time.
“I suppose that makes sense,” Laura said. “You’ll tell him eventually though, right? Or better yet, just move back in with me, then it’s not a lie.”
She flashed me a toothy grin and I laughed. “Do you have any idea how much I would love to live with you again? I miss you so much. Even though I was having a really good time with Harry at the theme park, when I saw you guys, I was a little jealous that you were all together and I didn’t even know you were going.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I probably should have mentioned something, but you’d already told me you were going out with Harry, so I didn’t,” Laura explained.
“It’s okay. It’s my fault for never being around.”
“Well, you’re taking care of Darrien and you’re working really hard, plus now you’re seeing Harry, too. You’re juggling a lot. It just made me happy to see you out and laughing. I feel like you do that so rarely. I’m glad he brings that out in you. Kind of like he’s taking care of you after you’re done taking care of everyone else.”
That sent a wave of chills through me. Harry had said that to me
once, that he would take care of me that way. It felt good to hear and even better to experience. Once things were all said and done with him, I hoped I could find someone else like him who would be willing to take care of me in that way. In a way I needed.
“He’s kind of good at that,” I told her. “It feels nice and I feel like I take it for granted sometimes. Hopefully, this dinner will be a nice way of saying thank you.”
“Speaking of which,” Laura said, “I need to go check on the chicken. I’ll be back.”
“Okay.”
Laura walked out and I dropped down to sit on the bed. I glanced around the room, looking like I’d never left, and I had a twinge of frustration. It was such a simple room in a simple apartment, nothing like Darrien’s four-bedroom, three-bathroom house that I now had almost total reign of now that he couldn’t get to most places in his wheelchair, but even I had to admit that things were cold there. I distinctly remembered living with Laura during college and it was so much fun to have a friend nearby and not be pressured by this need for vengeance. Part of me wished I’d never agreed to do it in the first place, but I wanted my dad to rest easy knowing that his killer wasn’t going to just walk around unchecked for his behavior.
So even though it was hard, and even though I was developing feelings for Harry, I had to stay committed to the plan. I’d come too far to let it all fall by the wayside now.
I stood up off of the bed and walked out into the living room. “Okay. I’m gonna go get Harry.”
“Okay,” Laura called from the kitchen. “Dinner will just be getting done when you get back!”
Harry’s house was only about fifteen minutes from Laura’s and unlike our regular trips on his bike, I was picking him up in my old Altima. I smiled as he walked out his front door and made his way down the path toward me, and my stomach was already fluttering. He was wearing a very simple jeans-and-t-shirt look with black boots, but it all went together perfectly and looked amazing on him.