I took a deep breath and let it out slow and reached for the door handle. I got out of the car, pulling my cut from the passenger seat with me and I stared down at the singed patches on its back for a moment before shrugging it on. I locked the car and took the steps to the second floor two at a time. About four doors down from Aaron’s I heard it and it slowed my pace. Music, but not just any kind of music, the mournful tones of a Cello drifted down the open aired corridor to reach me.
I’d never gotten the chance to hear him play, at least not until now. It made me feel incredibly sad to realize that this was how it was, the first time I got to hear it and in a matter of moments it could be the very last time I ever got to. I stepped carefully up the hall and rested my forehead against his front door and listened for a time. The way he played was flawless. Perfect and deliberate and just so rich and beautiful, like the man himself. The piece was incredibly sad and I felt a little guilty that I didn’t have a freaking clue what it was. I mean, music was so much a part of Aaron’s life. The kind of man he was with should be interested in what his boyfriend played shouldn’t he?
I vowed right then and there that if we somehow made it through the next few minutes into something resembling a relationship that I would learn the difference between classical composers. I mean I loved music and musicals but was a little lost on the difference between Beethoven and Chopin and the lot.
I took a deep breath to steady myself and still my racing thoughts and raised my hand to knock. The sound my knuckles made against the door was sharp and loud and immediately the beautiful music stopped. I took a step and a half back so Aaron could see me through the peep hole. It darkened, then lightened and I could hear him throwing back the bolt and chain and then suddenly he was there, beautiful and lean, the deep dark wells of his eyes blinking beneath that dyed shock of fiery hair and I ached to reach out and pull him to me. To kiss him, to touch and hold him but I did none of those things, instead I thrust my hands into my jeans pockets and pursed my lips and waited to see what he would do.
I didn’t want to open myself up to anymore hurt than I was already feeling, but that was a lot harder than it sounded with him standing there in his worn white tee and comfortable butter soft jeans. He was barefoot and scrumptious and the pain in my chest was worsening by the second as I fought my feelings down and tried valiantly to thrust them into a box, lock it up and toss the key. It’d only been three days and I fucking missed him like it’d been months.
“Hi,” he said softly and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose.
“Hi,” I grunted back. He held the door wider and stretched, his shirt lifting to give me a peek at the flat expanse of his stomach and I closed my eyes and dropped my head, fixing my gaze resolutely onto the carpet. I brushed past him and his hand shot out and closed around the arm of my jacket. I froze.
“Andy, I’m so sorry,” he said and I nodded, mutely. I was sorry too. Sorry that I couldn’t just change. That good, bad or indifferent I was committed to the club and my brothers in it and sometimes that came with some real ugly and heavy shit… Like The Suicide Kings.
“Please talk to me?” he asked softly and closed the door behind us.
“I’m a little torn in two I guess,” I said, throat tightening. He drew me along with him and we sat on the end of his bed, which really was the only place to sit.
“Talk to me,” he implored.
“I like you Aaron. As impossible and scary and just so damned fast as it is, I might even love you a little, but at the same time, I’m committed and love every single person in my club and I won’t leave. I can’t leave.” I forced my eyes to his which were full of compassion and something else I couldn’t quite define. He picked up my hands in his.
I pressed on, “I don’t want anything to happen to you Aaron. I want so much to be with you but I can’t and won’t leave them to do it, and if letting you be is what it takes to keep you safe then I will but I really, really don’t want to.” Damn it. I was going to cry. I felt the tears well up hot and immediate and just didn’t have it in me to be the strong one this time because I really wanted this. I really wanted a shot at having a partner in crime, someone to share laughs and love and just everything that my boss and friend Trigger had with Ashton and my mentor Reaver had with his wife Hayden. At the same time I had no right to drag him in to such a potentially volatile and violent situation.
Aaron pulled me into him and held me, making soothing noises. He pulled back to search my face and pressed his lips to mine and my misery was complete because to me, the kiss tasted like good-bye. I rested my forehead against his, savoring the moment if it were to be my last when he surprised me.
“I don’t want that either. I want to try. What happened scared the piss out of me; I thought you were dead, I thought I was going to get there and that you were going to be gone before I ever really had the chance…” he choked up, took a deep breath, held it and let it out and said, “I’m willing to risk it if you are.”
Our mouths crashed together, I couldn’t be sure if it was me that kissed him or him that kissed me and it suddenly wasn’t at all important. What was important was that finally, someone was willing to take a chance on me. The real me. The unmasked and vulnerable me, the whole package and not just the parts that suited them. First my club and now this man, this beautiful, beautiful man.
We made love, and with every kiss and touch and lick I silently vowed to Aaron that I would do everything in my power to keep him safe from the mess the club was in. To keep everyone safe that I could. Since the Lake, it had sort of become the unspoken rule that I was the defender of the women, the last line of defense should shit get real and I was okay with that. I was more than okay with that because the girls mattered to me. Aaron mattered to me and for all intents and purposes he was considered one of the girls by club standards.
We stayed in and woke to the shrill ring of my phone the next morning. I answered it on the fourth ring.
“Yeah?” I groused into the phone.
“Hey Puddin’ you work things out with yer man?” Rev asked and I smiled as Aaron’s dark eyes met mine, an answering smile sparkling in their depths.
“Yeah,” I answered, “I think we’re straight.” Aaron kissed my chest and I felt a contented sigh escape me.
“Good, then can you bring back my fucking car!?” I barked a laugh and Aaron laughed too, having heard Rev loud and clear.
“Can I get some breakfast?” I asked.
“No,” was the short answer and he hung up. Okay, he had a right to be irritated I guess. That didn’t stop me from spending long minutes kissing Aaron or from taking an extra-long shower with him though.
Epilogue
Ghost…
“You’re sure man?” I fixed my eyes on the boxy cartoon rendition of Satan, complete with ram’s horns and back dropped with cartoon flames on the side of Disney’s neck.
“I’m sure,” I affirmed. This was my first tattoo and a pretty big step. I hadn’t been patched in more than a few months but I’d been a part of this club for almost a year and a half. It was time to ink the devotion I felt towards these guys under my skin and I wanted Disney to be the one to do it.
“You sure you don’t want Trig to do this?” he asked, working the latex gloves between his long fingers, finding a comfortable fit.
“I’m sure man,” I said and smiled. While it was true Trig was and always would be my brother in arms, the guy who took a bullet for me and who saved my ass countless times over there… I wanted Disney to know that I knew he had my back. Rev wasn’t half so insecure and when the topic of club ink had come up I’d known right away I’d wanted it to be Disney that did mine.
“I don’t get it,” the kid frowned and I smiled.
“Just stop being a pussy and get to it already!” I teased which just made him frown harder.
“We’ll see who the pussy is in a minute,” he griped and smeared some Vaseline onto the swell of the outside of my left shoulder.
“Ha, ha,” I said and took a pull off my beer. We were at Trigger and Ashton’s in Triggers small ‘studio’ just off the living room. The room was really just big enough for his tool box of ink and needles, a massage chair, his little rolling doctor’s stool and the little metal table where he laid out all of his stuff. He had an autoclave low to the ground on a squat little table wedged up under where the ceiling sloped because of the stairs.
We could hear Trigger, Ashton and Disney’s boyfriend Aaron all talking in the living room. It was still taking some getting used to, Disney being out of the closet and all and for the most part it was alright, but I still caught myself cringing inwardly whenever the two men held hands or kissed which was bullshit on my part. Old habits died hard though, I guess, I mean I was raised in the Midwest around people who liked to picket soldiers funerals with signs proclaiming ‘God Hates Fags’ which was an even bigger pile of bullshit.
It took joining the corps and finding out one of our unit was gay after they repealed don’t ask don’t tell for me to realize that gay, straight or a little crooked, none of it fucking mattered. Jack was a cool dude before I knew he was gay and he was a cool dude after, just like Disney who was peeling the tracing paper stencil off my arm. I cocked my elbow out from my body and looked down at the blue lines on my arm etching out the emblem of The Sacred Hearts MC.
Unlike most of the guy’s more realistic renditions done in blacks and whites, mine would be full color. I’d lived my life in blacks and whites for long enough. Took meeting Trig and a couple of tours in the bland, drab desserts of Afghanistan to really appreciate that things weren’t always black and white, good and bad, on one side of the line or the other with no in between. I vowed never to live that way again if I could avoid it.
“You ready?” Disney asked.
“Ask you a question first?” he looked at me and used the back of his brightly colored arm to push some of his lank brown hair out of his eyes.
“Yes. I think you’re pretty but no you aren’t my type. Aaron is my type,” he said automatically and I blinked before scoffing.
“Damn right I’m pretty but that wasn’t what I was gonna ask, smart ass,” I said and he gave me a devil may care grin. I tried not to shift uncomfortably. Being told by a dude I was pretty was fucking weird but the sparkle in Disney’s eye straight up told me he was yanking my fucking chain.
“Shoot. What’s your question?” he asked.
“Shelly talk to you? You know… about what happened?” I asked quietly, afraid to be overheard. Disney heaved a sigh and shook his head, and I think his heart was just as heavy as mine.
“No man. Not a word. I know she had to move in with Reaver and Hayden though. They’re supposed to be moving her stuff this weekend into storage, she’s gonna live in their spare room,” he said, voice low.
“Why, what happened?” I asked, worried.
“Stopped getting up, stopped going to work, stopped paying her bills, she just stopped everything,” he sighed heavily and gave a one shouldered shrug as he twisted this and that on his tattoo gun. It was a sentiment that I echoed except I was drowning in guilt over what had happened to her. If only I’d been less of a stubborn ass and talked with her, reasoned with her, like a grown up rather than just standing around with my thumb up my ass hoping she was some kind of God damned mind reader. I scrubbed my face with my hands and took another irritated pull off my beer.
“Can I offer a piece of unsolicited advice?” Disney asked softly.
“Yeah man, whatcha got?” I asked just as quietly.
“Be what Shelly needs, not what she wants. You had it right the first time and what happened to her, it wasn’t her fault but it wasn’t yours either. It was that asshole’s fault and we may not have been able to stop it from happening to Shells, but we definitely stopped it from happening to anyone else’s cousin, sister, daughter, niece… you get me?” his brown eyes were serious as he looked me over and I found myself nodding slowly. I felt slightly less guilty but by no means was I completely absolved of it. Only two people could do that for me and one wasn’t speaking to me and me, well it would be a while before I could forgive myself. I was working on it though. Some nights were better than others on that front.
“And brother,” Disney said breaking me out of my reverie.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“This,” he said, plucking my beer out of my hand and rolling over to the toolbox, “Isn’t helping you or her.” He set the bottle resolutely out of my reach and rolled back across the polished cement floor.
I gave him a half assed mock salute but found myself nodding, chagrined. After all, it was Disney that had cleaned up after my last drunken escapade. Not something I did often, but I felt bad about it just the same.
“So that’s it huh?” I asked as he smeared some goop on my arm and poised the gun to start. “Be what she needs and not what she wants.”
“That’s the best I can figure,” he said somberly, “Shelly needs someone to look out for her. Reaver has his hands full with Hayden and starting the next round of his life and truth be told he’s been looking out for Shells since they were kids. Not sure what’s going on there but she goes on these wild self-destructive benders just never anything this bad before. Even Reaver’s knocked a little sideways with how bad it’s been.” The buzz of the tattoo gun was sharp in the small space as I let his words sink in. I barely felt the sting as he laid in the very first line of my very first tattoo, lost down the rabbit hole of my own thoughts as I was.
“Something happen to her? Before Sparks, I mean?” I mused aloud.
I wasn’t really asking Dis, but he answered me anyways by shrugging and saying, “Who can say?”
Only one or two people that I knew of, and I wasn’t going to ask Reaver. I thought about it as I fell into an almost meditative state between the buzz of the tattoo gun and the endorphins that began to kick in after a couple of minutes of minor discomfort.
Be what Shelly needed. Not what she wanted. Hadn’t that been what I was trying to do in the first place? I sat still while Disney mercilessly ground ink into my arm with a look that was a cross between sheer concentration and apologetic sympathy which, the hell if I knew how he pulled that off, just as I had no notion of how the fuck I was going to be what Shelly needed at a time like this in her life.
There was only one thing I knew for sure and a lesson I learned well behind the scope. I needed to wait, to be patient, and for an opportunity to present its self. Once it did, I needed to jump on it. I needed to not hesitate for anything and to pull the damned trigger. Yeah. That’s what I needed to do. I needed to wait and be ready, and from the sound of things, I wouldn’t have to wait too long. At least I hoped that was the case. Not just for my sake but for my ice princess’ with the sapphire eyes.
About the Author
A.J. Downey has been a resident of Seattle, WA her entire life, that being said she has lived in many different places and many different worlds through her imagination. She enjoys music, coffee, writing (obviously) and a bunch of other boring things that you probably don’t really care about. She is ever so grateful that you either picked up her writing or that you continue to read her stuff!
You can find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorajdowney
Masked & Miserable: A Novella of the Sacred Hearts MC (Book 3.5) Page 10