“What’s going on? Why did Ghost call me over and then run away?”
I gently grabbed hold of Ever’s arm and dragged her away from the people there to celebrate my homecoming. I waited until we were locked behind a bathroom door to whisper-hiss my question. “Ghost said the bitch is cooling her heels at my woman’s house. Considering this is your house, I was knocked a little off my fucking axis to think you’d put our kids in danger by housing that cunt here.”
Ever looked angry for just a moment before the emotion faded away and looked more like amusement. “She’s not here,” Ever insisted.
“Did you buy a house I don’t know about?”
“Nope,” she told me. “Remember when I told you that I had a story to tell you about Toby and why I believed you saw him when you were missing?”
“Yeah,” I managed to get out, though it sounded more like a question, even to my own ears.
“Well, it’s all a part of that, and I was waiting until you were home and settled to launch into that bit of craziness.”
“Can you give me the short of it?”
“I met a psychic, she helped me find you, then she died and left all of her worldly possessions to me, though she asked that I hang onto all of it for a year and a day from the time she died, and so that’s where I stashed the cunt-faced troll who tormented you for months on end. That’s where her baby was delivered. She’s still there, waiting. I just checked on her day before yesterday. I have some help doing that,” Ever informed me before adding, “Trusted help.”
“Okay, when this party is over, we’re going to touch on both of those things, but for now, I need to tell you that I don’t care what happens to that cunt, but I want nothing to do with it.”
“What? Why?”
“If I go there, she will win. If I come for justice and try to take it out on her, I’m just feeding her delusion that I’m in love with her and will save her. Do what you need to, let the club have at her, it doesn’t matter. I just know that it can’t be me who does it. She’ll enjoy that too much.”
“That’s just so wrong,” Ever shivered visibly at the thought. “I’ll handle her after your party.”
“I love everyone out there,” I told her. “You know that, right?” I waited for her to nod. “You know what I wanted as a homecoming?”
“What?”
“A night with just you and our babies, cuddled up on the couch watching the goddamn Disney Channel.”
“Aww, babe,” she cooed and then her arms were wrapped around my middle and she was pulling me close. “I wanted that too, but your mom and dad will be here any minute, and this is all kind of for them too.”
“Ever?”
“Hmm?”
“It’s not looking good for either of them, is it?” She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “I missed a whole year and came back to your mom being gone and both of my parents so sick that…” my words grew thick as I started to get choked up.
“It wouldn’t have helped, even if you’d been here. You need to know that. There would be something else you would blame for time lost. The club, trips to the grocery store, a family vacation where we spent time away from them. That time only seems precious the minute we know for sure that it’s fleeting. Hindsight always robs us of it.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“I’ve always been this way. That’s why you fell in love with me.”
“Really? I thought it was your fantastic boobs?”
“Jesus, Deck!” She laughed as I leaned in and nuzzled my stubbled jaw into the tender flesh where her neck and shoulder meet.
“Let’s get back out there. The more I’m seen, the quicker we can kick them all out and send them home,” I suggested.
Ever
The following day, I went to Ava’s house to collect on the revenge payment that was due to us. The only problem with that was the bitch wasn’t there. I searched the whole house before making my way back to the attic a second time. Finally, I found a letter and a gorgeous, luminescent feather lying near it. I must have knocked them off the table with the slight draft created when I opened the door. I bent to pick up both the paper and feather and found that there was ink on the tip of the feather’s shaft. I turned the letter over so that I could see the words that were printed there.
Sis,
I didn’t want you to get your hands dirty, so I took out the trash for you. Besides, it’s kind of a part of this new gig I got. Watch the news, you’ll probably catch wind of it in a couple of days.
Take care of your family and don’t waste a moment on regrets, they don’t exist where you’re headed next.
Love ya,
T.
I think I swallowed my heart; it was definitely in my stomach after reading that letter. There just was not any way this could be possible. I knew I stepped out on a giant limb and believed in a dream I had of my brother, but this was just too much. It wasn’t possible.
I didn’t waste any time getting back to Deck and the kids after discovering Sasha was missing. When I got home, with pizza in hand, I didn’t even have to make up an excuse for where I’d been. I was concerned that maybe I should tell someone, but for whatever reason I decided to believe in the damned letter I’d received from my ghost of a brother. Thinking of the feather that had been lying with the letter made me wonder if I needed to reassess what exactly my brother was. Maybe he was an angel now, an avenging angel at that, if he did what I think he did.
Sure enough, a few days later, in between stories of a new virus making its way around the globe from China, there was a little snippet about the body that was found out in the swamp, half-eaten by gators. They showed a picture of Sasha’s face in the hopes of identifying her remains. Deck turned to me and though he never bothered to ask what I knew about it, he smirked and turned the TV off.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you to do something for me,” he started to say.
“Well, if it’s to kill that bitch, it’s too late, deeds been done.” I never said I was the one who did it, though I think he assumed that was how it went down.
“Nah. Told you, I didn’t want anything to do with that bit. What I need from you is another tattoo.”
“Oh yeah? You have something specific in mind?”
“Yup! I want you to tattoo my heart on my sleeve.”
“Like an anatomical version, or...?”
He chuckled. “No, I want something that symbolizes our love, family, and our guardian angel. The fact that we both had stories about Toby getting us through and helping us during his absence was something that had brought Deck and I even closer.
“I think I have just the thing,” I told him.
The following day, while the girls were in school, we made our way to Permanent Marks and I sat my man down, closed my eyes, and thought of Toby and Ava. An image so clear it nearly made me cry for the imagery popped into my head and I started drawing a man with angel wings bigger than himself, tucked up and around a woman who appeared to dangle in his arms lifelessly. His head rested on the back of hers, chin cradled on the point where her neck met her back. They both have lifelike vines tattooed all over their bodies and one feather has come loose to flutter behind them. It was obvious there must have been a struggle and the man was devastated by what happened to his love. Yeah, that sounded right, so I continued to draw it out. He was holding his love, but she didn’t have her own wings so all he really had was hope, his love for her, and the faith that they would remain together, even in death.
When I explained it all to Deck, he simply nodded and didn’t say a word the whole time I inked the image on his skin. When I was done, he looked down and smiled. “Funny thing, it looks a lot like Toby.”
“You’re wearing their story on your sleeve. It’s all heart, love, family, and guardian angels, but more importantly it’s our story too because without them, we wouldn’t be sitting here together right now.”
Epilogue
18 Years Later
Ever
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Never, in my younger years would I have thought that I would be standing in the Aces High MC Clubhouse, wearing a property kutte and grinning at the man who gave it to me. I certainly never imagined my girls would grow up to be MC princesses or that my boy would join the ranks of their brotherhood.
Yet there we were, gathered to watch it happen.
“Do you ever wish we had more?” Deck asked.
“I think three was plenty. It was perfect for my parents and it was for us too.”
“I missed your pregnancy with him though and the first half of his first year,” he lamented.
“You were there for the next 18 years, babe.” I smiled at Deck. “He’s being patched in today. Our son, can you believe it?!”
“Yeah, hopefully his legacy will be a better one than the men before him faced.”
“I think they’ll all do just fine. We should go enjoy the party.” I smiled thinking about all the changes that had been made to the club to ensure our children had a different life. The club didn’t allow any form of club whore to hang around at all any longer. So many things had changed after we got Deck back. Running background checks on anyone who got involved with the members in any capacity beyond simply checking them out at the grocery store was the norm. It had saved their asses a time or two over the years too. The men each expanded various businesses that also changed with the times. That was a story for the future generation to share though.
“Maybe, after the guys and I interrogate that little shit over there,” Deck nodded his head toward the cocky, frat-boy that Ash brought home with her.
I laughed. “You will do no such thing,” I teased my husband while knowing that I was already planning my own interrogation techniques. I might not have been a brother in their club, but I’d picked up on enough things over the years to be able to do a damn good job of it myself. I turned to see our other daughter, Amber, as she cozied up to one of the brothers, and not for the first time either. I wondered if Deck had noticed yet. I turned to see his gaze move from me to their direction. A stormy look passed across his face before he brought that smirk that I loved so much back to me.
“I’ll deal with that one later,” he insisted. I laughed, knowing he was telling the truth, and hoping that our baby girl would be given a better start into loving a club brother than my sister had. Even so, I hoped that if it worked out for them, that she had just as long and beautiful a relationship as Anna had with Joker. They still loved each other fiercely to this day. Kind of like how Deck and I were still madly in love too. Sure, we had a rough couple of years once we got him back. Thanks to head injuries, we had a lot of ground to cover just with his memories. He was never sure whether they were real or just something he dreamed up while he was being held captive.
Deck’s personality changed a bit afterward too, and it never quite went back to my care-free, fun-loving man. Instead, he was always a little more serious, a whole lot more temperamental, and definitely quieter and more contemplative. I know he struggled with the addiction he had been fed while held captive. To this day, he still has not touched a drop of alcohol, for fear that it would lead him down a path that would devastate his life and his family more than that missing year already had.
“Lost your dad exactly eight years ago today,” Deck commented. “Think he’s here watching his grandson being patched in?”
I smiled and thought about the fact that I’d been to visit with my dad earlier in the day and as I’d walked up to his grave, I noticed the same shimmer of something on top of his headstone as I had that day so long ago when we laid my mom to rest and I thought Toby was there. I knew, in that moment, that he was trying to tell me he was there, and he was listening. So, I filled him in on our lives and things he probably already knew. Then, I invited him to come see Archer get patched in tonight.
“I have no doubt. I bet your parents are here looking on too.” We had lost Merc later that year. He had already been sick with Prostate Cancer, though he refused treatment so he could help get Lily through hers. With his immune system already so low, he didn’t stand a chance when he caught a virus. Lily managed to beat the breast cancer and earned herself another five years until it came back, stronger than ever. She went fast, and with my dad by her side, where he’d been since Merc took his last breath. I think it was the only thing that got them both through losing the loves of their lives. They had one another. They also had their grandkids to dote upon, and they did. They would all have been so damn proud today. “I miss all of them, so much,” I admitted as I leaned in to give Deck a kiss and a little squeeze too.
“Fuck! Can’t you old people hold off on that mushy shit until after you leave for bedtime?” My son called out from across the room.
His dad wasn’t one to mince words, so Deck grinned at me before calling back to our Archer. “We ain’t leaving to go to sleep, numb nuts! When we leave early, it’s so I can go fuck your mom all over the house before you bring your ass home.” I spit my drink out laughing. I should have known better than to take a damn drink while those two were gearing up to have a go at one another. “How’d your toast taste this morning, boy? I could have sworn I saw you drop it on the table!”
We hadn’t had sex on the kitchen table since we nearly broke the damn thing two years ago, but the look on my son’s face was absolutely priceless as his fellow brothers began ribbing him. “That was just mean,” I whispered in Deck’s ear.
He smacked my ass and turned his beautiful face toward me. He had aged well, with little shots of silver running through his hair near his temples, while his close-trimmed beard was nearly all silver, with exception of a few darker patches near his mouth. I traced the crinkles around his eyes with my fingers as he smiled, loving the way our happiness and laughter had been etched into his body over the years. A beautiful reminder of our wonderful life together. “How about you take me home and we go break that kitchen table. He’ll really freak out in the morning.”
“And you call me evil.”
“Well, how else are we going to get that empty nest so we can go travel before they all start popping out kids of their own?”
“You have the best ideas, baby!”
“I know! The best one, by far, is standing right here looking at me.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge everyone who asked for more from Ever and Deck. I know hits is probably not at all what you were expecting! Why in the hell would I put them through more shit?
Well… Such is life! I did enjoy keeping the Aces High MC – Charleston MC dramatically real.
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