by Tia Lewis
It was time to change the subject. “Anyway, how are things with you and the kids?”
“Oh, wonderful. I’d been meaning to call you, now that you bring it up.”
“Really?” I got up to go to the kitchen, walking through my living room and dining room to get there. I loved the feeling of having my own house, a place just for Drake and me…and whoever else happened to come along. But that wouldn’t be for a while, yet. I poured myself a glass of iced tea and perched on a stool at the island. “So, what’s going on out in Pittsburgh?”
“Well, we’re not in Pittsburgh anymore.”
“No kidding! Did Uncle Joe get a transfer?”
“He sure did.” I heard a sunny smile in her voice.
“Where are you now? I know you hate northeast winters.”
She chuckled. “Sadly, I won’t be escaping them.”
“So? Where are you living?” She’d called from her cell, which was why I didn’t know she’d moved already. I hoped she was about to say California or Florida. Or Japan.
“How does Brooklyn sound?”
I sputtered, spitting iced tea all over the granite countertop. “What?”
“Yes, ma’am! He got a job in Manhattan, and we’re already in Brooklyn! I’m so glad to be back home in New York!” She sounded overjoyed, incandescent. I, on the other hand, struggled to stay conscious. Her distance was the only thing that kept me sane. How many times had I silently thanked God that she was in Pittsburgh and unable to show up at my door unannounced?
“So sudden?”
She laughed. “Not so sudden for us. I wanted to keep it a secret, but we’re so close to the big day I just had to tell you. We moved in three days ago!”
“Wow. That’s so great!” I did my best to sound enthused, even as my heart sank to new, unexplored depths. “What do the boys think?”
“Oh, they always loved visiting New York over the holidays. I’ve tried to remind them that we’re not living in Manhattan, of course, but just knowing we’ll be close enough to take the train in on a Saturday is enough to make them happy.”
“That’s fantastic. I’m sure it would have been much harder if they didn’t want to leave.” I didn’t know my twelve-year-old cousins well, having only spent time with them over Christmas vacation. Something told me we’d be much better acquainted very soon if their mother had anything to say about it.
“I just know your father would be so happy, knowing I would be there to look after you.”
“I guess.” I forced a smile.
“Oh! And I can help you plan the wedding, too!”
“I don’t know if I need any…”
“Oh, come on! It will be so much fun! You don’t know how much I’ve wanted a daughter all these years. I mean, it’s not right for a mother to even think such a thing, but I can’t help it. When I found out I was having twin boys, one of the first things I realized was that I wouldn’t be able to help my daughter plan her wedding.” She went on and on, and I did my best to stay positive, to make the right noises at the right times. In my head, I was screaming. She didn’t like the idea of the wedding, but she wanted to help me plan. I could only imagine the pushback I would get from her on, oh, every decision I tried to make.
I was dreading it already, and we hadn’t even set a date.
“They’re in Brooklyn?” Drake’s eyebrows shot up.
“Right? Can you believe it? The one thing I never wanted to happen, and it would have to happen now.” I pushed spaghetti back and forth on my plate, my appetite far from strong. I couldn’t stop worrying about the messiness with Karen.
“Well, maybe your uncle will be able to temper her a little.”
“Uncle Joe?” I snorted. “Dad used to joke that Karen took his balls as a wedding gift the day they were married.”
Drake laughed. “I hope that doesn’t run in the family.”
I smiled, taking his hand across our little kitchen table. The dining room had the long, formal table, but I preferred the intimacy of our small kitchen nook. “No way. I like your balls just where they are.”
“That’s a relief.”
“And they serve me well,” I bit my bottom lip.
His gray eyes danced. “It’s been a long time since they’ve served you,” he reminded me, his voice a little deeper than before. I felt a familiar shiver up my spine.
“Um, babe it’s been three days.”
“I know. Three long, endless days.” He rolled his eyes, groaning like a man on death row.
“We’ll have to do something about that tonight,” I promised.
“Tonight? How about five minutes from now?”
I giggled but held him off. “One thing I wanted to discuss first, before we have fun.”
“What’s that? It better be fast.”
I scowled. “I wanted to know if you had any ideas on a date for the wedding.”
He grew serious in the blink of an eye. “Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.” I didn’t like the way his mood shifted. Considering that he’d proposed to me, I would have thought he’d be a little more positive with the idea of setting an official date. “Were you planning on actually getting married, or just being engaged for the rest of our lives?”
“Of course, I wanna get married. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked you.”
“So why the aversion to setting a date? Was there anything you wanted to get done before that?”
He sighed, and it was his turn to push food around on his plate. “You know how it is with Jack.”
I softened. “Is Jack getting sick again?”
“Who the hell knows? He’s had two good years, but now… He seems tired again, and he has that sorta gray look to him. You know what I mean.” I nodded in sympathy. Drake saw Jack as a father, and it was tearing his heart out to watch him suffer. But he would never tell me that—a man like Drake didn’t reveal his feelings easily.
“So, what? You want to wait until you know for sure whether he’s going to step down?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems like a lot of things up in the air at once.”
I sat back in my chair, thinking it over. “We don’t need a long engagement, you know, or a big wedding. You know I’ve never been one for that sort of thing.”
“Really?” He smirked. “I thought all women went for that sort of thing once their turn came.”
“I guess I’m not all women, then.”
He stopped smirking, his eyes smoldering. “No, you’re not.”
There went that shiver again.
3
Drake
“Do you wanna tell me what’s going on with you, or not?” I glared at Jack, who looked like he had died around three weeks earlier and somebody had dug him up. I was shocked at how thin he had gotten—he’d started wearing layers, I could tell, so nobody would notice. I couldn’t help noticing.
“What do you mean?”
“Stubborn bastard.” I sat across from him, on the other side of his desk. He looked so tired, so totally worn out. I couldn’t believe he thought he had me fooled.
“All right, all right. So I’m not feeling so good.”
“No shit. You haven’t been feeling so good for weeks, have you?” It was just like before, when he first got sick. He lost a ton of weight, his skin sagging a little, his eyes always so tired looking. Dark circles. I used to find him sitting at his desk looking like he was ready to pass out, and when I walked in that morning to find him looking that same way, all the old feelings and memories came flooding back.
Including the memory of what an asshole he was every time I tried to ask him about his health. I understood being a private person—that’s how I had always been, too. Private, never wanting anybody to know my business. But he was much worse, and even I was smart enough to know that when my health was involved, and the future of my club, it was time to fess up.
He couldn’t lie to me anymore.
“So. What does the doctor say? And don’t forget that I
can call him myself to find out. That’s the problem with telling them they could share your records with me,” I said with a smirk. Somewhere deep inside, I knew it was a damned shame that he only had me to name as the person closest in his life. I would never take Nicole for granted, not when I saw what it was like to be alone.
“He says it’s back.”
“Shit, man.”
“It’s back, Drake okay? Are you happy now?”
“Of course, I’m not fucking happy.” I put my head in my hands. “How long?”
“He doesn’t know. Could be years, could be weeks.”
“Come on, Jack.” I looked up at him. “Weeks?”
He only nodded. “Like you said, you can call him yourself.”
“So, what? It moved somewhere else?” The cancer had started in his colon, and the doctors had removed it years earlier. That was what put him in remission. He’d lived with one of those bag things since then, and I always thought he did well with it. It was worth it, he’d say, because it let him live.
“Yeah. My bones.” The words were like a hammer in my head. Bone cancer. I’d always heard that was the most painful type, but what the hell did I know? I remembered one of the guys had a parent who died of bone cancer, and by the end, they couldn’t stand having a sheet over their body. Everything hurt.
“Jesus Christ.” I didn’t know what else to say. What did a person say when the only father they ever knew told them they were dying—again?
“I’m sorry, son.”
I raised my head. “You’re sorry? You had nothing to do with this. It’s one of those things. Fucking cancer, man.”
“Yeah. Fucking cancer.” He sounded so tired.
“What do they wanna do? Radiation?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want it.”
“Jack!” I didn’t mean to yell, but I was so pissed and hurt.
“I mean it. I can’t do through that again, Drake. No way. It was bad enough the first time. Besides, anything they do now is just gonna prolong my life. It’s not gonna save my life. In the beginning, there was a chance I would survive—and I did, just for a couple more years. I don’t want to go through the throwing up and wishing I would die already.”
“Jack.”
“Listen, son. I wanna enjoy as much as I can for as long as I can, okay? I can’t enjoy life when I’m throwing up all the time.” I could tell just by looking at him that there was no arguing. What could I say? I didn’t know what he was going through, and it wasn’t my life.
I stood up, walking back and forth. Not that it helped, but I couldn’t be still anymore. “So what do you wanna do? How are you gonna work this out? What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know. I’ll just have ‘em give me as many drugs as possible until it’s over. I’ll be on morphine a lot, I guess. Ha. That’ll be fun.” He chuckled a little.
“And the club? What about us?”
His expression changed. “You know what you have to do. The last two years have been about training you to do what you have to do. We both knew the time would come when you would have to do it. So do it.”
“Do you want a retirement party?”
“Hell, yeah! I’m not dead yet.” He winked. It didn’t make me feel much better, but at least he was trying.
“Okay. We’ll throw you a huge party. All the girls you can handle.”
“I can hardly wait.” He smiled a little, and I smiled back. From the way he looked, I’d have to make it soon.
A few minutes later, I went out to the bar to give him some time to rest—why he still bothered showing up at the clubhouse, I had no idea. He needed to be resting at home. Tamara was behind the bar as always, stacking clean glasses.
“I have a party to plan,” I muttered, sitting down. “Pour me one, huh?”
She looked pointedly at the clock on the wall. “Um, isn’t it a little early for that?”
“Since when are you the timekeeper around here? I’ll pour it myself.” I reached for a glass, but she swatted my hand away.
“Relax, relax, big guy. I’ll take care of it. Was just busting your balls.” She turned away to pull a bottle of whiskey off the shelf. “And we all know you have a party to plan. Your wedding.”
“I wish it was only my wedding,” I admitted. I told her about Jack’s retirement, and I didn’t have to explain why. She didn’t say anything, just took a glass for herself and poured a drink for the two of us. We tapped the glasses together before drinking.
“Shit,” she whispered, and I could see the tears in her eyes. I had to look away. Her face said everything I was feeling in my head.
“I know.”
“When?”
“That I don’t know. It’ll have to be soon. There’s not much time left.”
“We’ll give him a good one, Drake. Leave it to me, huh? I know you’ve got enough on your plate.”
“Are you sure?”
“I got it.” She nodded firmly, wiping away her tears. She was probably the toughest woman I knew. I couldn’t have been more grateful.
“Thanks,” I said, just as Diesel and Creed walked in. I shot her a warning look which she seemed to understand. I didn’t want them knowing about it just yet because I didn’t think Jack would want them to know.
“A little early, isn’t it?” Creed elbowed me before sitting down.
“Not too early for you to join me,” I pointed out.
“Well, you got the ball rolling.” He winked at Tamara, and I noticed the way she grinned. Usually, she would have smirked or told him to save his winks for somebody else. Maybe it was the way she felt over Jack.
“Trouble in paradise?” Diesel asked, looking at my glass.
“Can’t a man have a fucking drink before lunch without everybody thinking his relationship is in the shitter?” I asked. The guys laughed.
“Nah, we know Nicole too well. You wouldn’t be walking straight if the two of you had issues.” Creed snickered before taking a gulp of his whiskey.
“You act like you’re an expert,” I muttered. “Like there’s a woman around who would touch you with a ten-foot pole more than once. On a dare. With her eyes closed.”
We all laughed again, and I steered the conversation away from Nicole and me. I didn’t need them asking more questions about why I was drinking.
“Hey, don’t forget what we came in to tell him,” Diesel said.
“Oh, right.” Creed got serious.
“What’s up?”
“We ran into Bobby and some of the Vipers when we were out.”
“Oh?” I waited for more. It wasn’t like we were enemies of the Vipers, but we weren’t exactly best friends, either.
“Yeah, he said something about a business proposition for you. He wants a meeting.”
“Oh, I can just imagine,” Tamara smirked, rolling her eyes.
“What?” Creed asked.
“You know what the Vipers are into.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So I don’t want a bunch of whores walking around this place, that’s what.”
“Oh, come on,” Diesel argued. “We don’t know what it’s all about. He might wanna go in on some of our business, maybe expand a little.”
“Nah, I think Tamara’s right,” I grinned. And the boys knew it, too. They looked as excited as two kids on their way downstairs on Christmas morning. Already dreaming about all the goodies that would be waiting for them. “Did he say when he wants to meet up?”
Diesel shook his head. “He’s at your disposal.”
I wondered what Jack would say if he knew people were already treating me like the President of the Blood Riders MC. On the outside he would act like that was the way it should be. On the inside, though? I shook the thought from my head. I couldn’t let my feelings about my dying president get in the way of business.
“Okay. I’ll give Bobby a call, maybe have him come here with a few of his top guys tomorrow. Sound good?” The boys nodded enthusiastically, their eyes shining. Tamara only
shook her head in dismay.
“I wonder what Nicole would think of this,” she mused, staring at the ceiling.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I said. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t say anything to her about it—especially since I haven’t even talked to the man yet. Okay?”
“I guess,” she agreed. I wondered if she really meant it.
Time to change the subject again. “Jack’s ready to step down,” I blurted. Tamara gasped a little, but I cut my eyes to her. I couldn’t have her freaking out on me.
“He is?” Creed looked at the closed door to Jack’s office.
“Yeah, we agreed that it’s time. He needs to take care of himself. We’re gonna have a party, as soon as possible.”
“A retirement party?” Diesel asked.
“Yep and Tamara’s planning it.”
“Sounds good.” The guys started talking about the party, and Tamara joined them. It was so easy to lead them where I wanted them to go. I would have laughed if my heart hadn’t felt so heavy.
The doors opened, and Ace came in with the kid we’d just accepted as a prospect. Harris. Not a bad kid. He always wanted to do the right thing. I tried not to think of Richie every time I looked at him, although it wasn’t a bad idea to remember what an asshole I was to Richie. I would never be like that with another prospect again. I still wished sometimes that I could go back and treat him a little nicer.
“We picked up the parts for your bike, Drake,” Harris grinned, and I wondered how long it had been since all his adult teeth had come in. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
“Great, thanks. Now if I could just find the time to work on it.” No way I would trust any mechanic, even the best mechanic, with my bike. Any biker with an ounce of self-respect worked on his own bike.
“When you do, can I watch?” Harris asked. “I really wanna learn.”
“Sure.” I didn’t really want him hanging over my shoulder, asking questions and getting in the way, but if he wanted to learn, I wasn’t gonna say no. The kid seemed so eager to learn everything he could. And he was reliable, too. He didn’t fuck things up.