Still Standing

by Kristen Ashley

I figured he didn’t have much to say about the life he led, and furthermore, if he told them, they wouldn’t want to know.

  So they didn’t ask.

  But his eyes did eventually move between Buck and me before he asked, “So, when you two gonna get hitched?”

  “Soon’s possible,” Buck said.

  At the same time, I said, “After Christmas.”

  Buck looked down at me. “After Christmas?”

  I looked up at him. “Is that too soon?”

  “Did you not hear me say ‘soon’s possible?’” he asked.

  “I did. But you haven’t even asked me officially yet. Therefore, ‘soon’s possible’ is indefinite.”

  “But you know I’m gonna ask.”

  “I do, and Christmas is a good time to ask.”

  “Christmas is over a month away.”

  Oh my God.

  My voice was pitched higher when I queried, “Were you going to ask earlier?”

  “Tatie helped me pick out the ring. You want it, I’ll give it to you tonight.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  “I think she wants it, Dad,” Gear put in.

  “I want a baby sister,” Tatie added.

  “No way, a baby brother,” Gear contradicted.

  “Okay, no. Dad’s got all his brothers in Aces. We’re outnumbered. We need a girl,” Tatie returned.

  “I gotta have a chance to show a baby bro the ropes,” Gear shot back.

  “Think we don’t got a problem sharin’ with the kids we got plans to expand the family,” Buck drawled.

  “Awesome,” Tatie breathed excitedly.

  “Clary, baby bro, get on that,” Gear ordered.

  I tore my gaze from Buck’s amused, happy one and looked to his son.

  “I can’t pick the gender, Locke,” I replied.

  “We’ll do some voodoo or somethin’,” he said, grinning.

  “Yes, voodoo to get a baby sister,” Tatie demanded.

  “I’m down to attempt voodoo, but I’ll warn you, if it worked, voodoo practices to guarantee the gender of a child would be far more widespread,” I informed them.

  “Doesn’t hurt tryin’,” Gear said.

  “Just as long as we don’t have kill a chicken or something,” Tatie laid out her boundaries.

  “You always have to kill a chicken,” Gear, the new voice of voodoo authority, educated her.

  “We won’t be killing any chickens,” Buck laid down the law. “And you’ll get what you get, however it pops out.”

  Tatiana looked to me and said, “Pops out. As if. Men,” before she giggled.

  I rolled my eyes, shook my head, and smiled at her.

  “Son,” Locke called.

  We all looked to him.

  But I felt what he had to say but did not verbalize as he stared at his boy.

  I felt it from the kids.

  I felt it from Locke.

  Mostly, I felt it in the way Buck was suddenly holding his body very still.

  And it felt beautiful.

  I suspected they could spend the rest of the visit staring at each other that way.

  But we only had two hours.

  So I sallied forth.

  “What do you want, Locke? A boy or a girl.”

  His brown eyes came to me.

  And I was again awash.

  Joy.

  “Whatever grandbaby you give me, girl. Just keep yourself safe and healthy givin’ it to me.”

  “That I’ll do,” I promised.

  He reached a hand across the table, turning it, palm up.

  I took it.

  We squeezed.

  He let go fast, probably because physical contact wasn’t prohibited entirely during the visit.

  But we had to be careful.

  And I hurt for all of them because they were a touchy family and I knew they needed it.

  I also now hurt for me.

  Tatie forged in to cover that loss. “Dad topped up your commissary for you, Granddad. And we brought some things. We left them at reception.”

  “You always do, baby, and I always love whatever you bring,” Locke replied.

  The rest of the visit went well, considering.

  But at the end of it, Locke asked to talk to Buck for a second alone.

  The kids and I walked out to the SUV.

  Fifteen minutes later, Buck walked out.

  I wasn’t going to ask.

  It was theirs.

  I didn’t have to ask.

  Before Buck started the car, he reached out, wrapped his fingers around my knee and held on.

  I looked into his eyes.

  I read him.

  And then I smiled.

  35

  Problems

  Buck

  The atmosphere in the Aces High meet room was intense.

  Some of the brothers did not like certain company they were keeping.

  Some of the brothers didn’t like any company in the meet room of the Aces High MC that wasn’t Aces.

  Not surprisingly, it was Sylvie Creed who had the balls to break into it.

  Sylvie, five-foot-two, blonde, mother of Buck didn’t know how many since that number kept growing, and a badass.

  “Right, way I see it, you boys got three problems,” she declared.

  No one said anything.

  Buck sat at the head of the table, drumming his fingers, because they’d had a good run.

  From Rogan Kirk’s funeral to now, five days before Christmas, it’d been trouble-free.

  Kids home, happy to be back with their old friends.

  Gear had his first girlfriend.

  Tat was dating, and Buck might be the only father breathing who was relieved when his gorgeous daughter went on a date.

  But Gear had shared the kid was solid.

  And Clara had informed him, “Tatie really likes him, and I think this is turning an important corner, honey.”

  Since their first date, Tat had been out with the guy three times, and Buck had met him. He couldn’t find fault in the kid. He was into his girl. He didn’t seem like a creep or an asshole.

  The rest remained to be seen.

  Buck’s dad dug Clara to the point he wasted no time and made no bones about the strength of his stamp of approval.

  One visit, she won him over.

  Then again, it was Clara.

  Buck had fallen for her in about the same amount of time.

  Further, the store was doing a good turnover.

  And they had so much work on the contracting side, they were going to have to recruit more people, or more brothers, or they’d have to schedule far out, which might mean they’d lose business.

  Clara had embraced her new tub and had a little table set up next to it filled with all sorts of shit.

  She’d also paid off her credit cards early.

  This was because she had a little less than three million dollars in the bank.

  The government took its share.

  She gave the million and a half back to the pension fund.

  But now, his woman was loaded.

  For him, that manifested itself in sexy underwear, something she was on a mission to one-up her own damned self in getting a rise out of her man with each new set.

  She achieved that feat.

  She got a rise out of him.

  Every time.

  But she didn’t need the underwear.

  That said, Buck didn’t share that with her.

  Life was steady.

  Good.

  And then what started happening, happened.

  Ending in what happened yesterday.

  Which was why Buck was drumming his fingers.

  Because he was pissed that run was over.

  “First one,” Sylvie continued. “As we all know, Enrique Esposito was found, relieved of his head, yesterday.”

  Yeah.

  They all knew that.

  Rayne Scott was staring at the table so hard it was a wonder his gaze didn’t burn t
hrough it.

  He probably wasn’t a big fan of Esposito’s.

  He was less a fan of murder.

  But beheading took that way to the highest level.

  Sylvie kept going

  “We also know this wasn’t a loss to humanity. Onward from that, this happened because he let Tia Esposito get her hands on some pretty damning shit, and that was part of what led to the arrests Scott and his boys made last week.”

  Yeah.

  They knew that too.

  Didn’t take long for the higher-ups to link who went down with those arrests to what Esposito had knowledge about, and corroborating evidence for, and for them to take care of Esposito.

  The issue with that was, they didn’t gut him or shoot him.

  They beheaded the motherfucker.

  Everyone was wired just because of that.

  That said some serious shit.

  “So,” Sylvie went on, her gaze locked to Damian, “you wanna share with the class why Tia Esposito is still in Phoenix?”

  “She wants to have Christmas with her girl,” Damian replied, his tone openly unhappy.

  Because he was.

  It didn’t take a psychologist to see the guy was twitchy.

  And he was that way because he wanted himself and Tia in Bali or someplace like that about two weeks ago.

  “We got players spreadin’ the word that it was what they thought it was. Esposito was pissed they took him down a notch, so he laid those boys out by handing shit to the cops,” Lynch put in, and Buck looked to him.

  Lynch and Slate were back after spending months trying to find Tia.

  And of course, Clara had met them.

  After which, she’d felt the need to inform him they were “exceptionally good-looking, almost as handsome as you!”

  Buck studied Lynch.

  He didn’t see it.

  “Tia’s back, Damian is tight with Scott, you don’t think they’ll put those together?” Tucker Creed, a good friend of Buck’s and Sylvie’s husband, asked.

  “I think we’re runnin’ the best interference we can on that until Damian can haul her ass outta Phoenix,” Slate responded to Tucker.

  Buck looked at his other brother.

  He didn’t see it with him either.

  He then sighed.

  Tia being hauled out of Phoenix had two meanings for him.

  The first, it was clear Damian was not going to do anything without Tia with him.

  And as such, his woman could quit worrying that Damian was going to get shot of her girl to carry on his “rootless life.”

  He could have called that two months ago, something he told Clara repeatedly.

  The man was gone for her girl.

  Clara still worried.

  The second, now he was going to have a woman on his hands who again was going to lose her best friend.

  Yeah, Buck had given her Lorie, Minnie, Pinky, the rest of the old ladies, and Toots and Tatie were thicker than thieves.

  Fuck, they were at the Valley Inn the other night and some woman had told Clara, “You and your daughter are so sweet together!” And Clara was the only female alive who was barely old enough to be claimed as a mom of a sixteen-year-old who would beam that bright at that comment.

  But she was going to feel the hit of Tia being gone again. Even if she could talk to her.

  Those two were tight.

  He reckoned, given the lives they’d lived together, navigating the system, that happened.

  So he didn’t want his woman to lose her girl.

  “She gonna go after Christmas?” Sylvie asked Damian.

  “After Christmas, I’m not giving her a choice,” Damian answered.

  There were a number of approving grunts sounding in the room.

  “Right, second problem,” Sylvie continued counting them down. “Aces High is back on radar, times two. The Esposito shit, which, I don’t need to remind you also includes a personal member of the family being tied to it, and along the line, they might remember that.”

  Buck felt a muscle jump in his cheek, seeing as Clara was that “personal member of the family.”

  “Redhot has dick to do with any a’ Esposito’s shit,” Chap clipped.

  “She’s just saying, you might be in a position to remind them of that,” Tucker pointed out.

  No one had a response.

  Sylvie kept talking.

  “And Imran Babić is a very poor loser.”

  This was what Buck wanted to talk about.

  And this was why Buck had called the meet.

  Pinky had left work the night before, went to her car, and found a note under her wiper blade that said, I don’t get her, I want you.

  It had freaked her, she’d told Cruise about it, Cruise told Ink about it within earshot of Lorie, and Lorie had shared she’d had the same thing. She thought it was a mistake, or some crazy marketing thing, so she’d thrown it away.

  Commence Ink tagging Buck, and Buck hauling everyone in for this meet.

  They knew it was Imran because Lynch and Slate went to the bar where Pinky worked, demanded to see their security tapes, and they saw one of Babić’s boys place the note.

  Those boys knew those cameras were there. They weren’t acting sneaky.

  That meant Babić wanted them to know who was communicating.

  The other old ladies were asked, none of them had received one, but now, they were on high alert.

  It didn’t take much to jump from I don’t get her, the “her” being Clara, I want you, that Babić, like Babić could do, was going to start playing with them.

  And Babić was a lunatic.

  So that was a problem.

  And he was already a problem, kidnapping Clara at all, much less the way he had.

  So now, he was a big problem.

  “Your last problem is that Eleanor Moynihan is one serious liability,” Sylvie finished. “Because a woman who’s convinced herself she was wronged is a helluva wildcard.”

  Buck looked to Gash.

  Eleanor Moynihan was Nails.

  And since Buck had turned her out in a way she would never get back in, she’d been fucking with them.

  It started with a “pregnancy scare” that ended up nothing.

  But that didn’t mean she didn’t rope Gash and Cruise into that situation, sharing it could be either of their kid.

  And she did this by telling both Minnie and Pinky that she might be carrying one of their men’s baby.

  Pinky had been devastated.

  Cruise had lost his mind, pissed at Nails, but even so, he’d focused since he was more concerned with the thought of losing Pinky.

  Buck had given the man some time because he was a brother, a friend, and a good man who had occasion to do something seriously stupid.

  Chap, however, turned him out.

  Some things Chap was willing to counsel you about.

  Others, he figured you should just know. And if you didn’t, he wasn’t going to waste his time educating you.

  Cruise talked Pinky into trying to work it out.

  They were trying.

  From what Clara said, it wasn’t really working.

  But they were still trying.

  Minnie had scraped Gash off.

  Done.

  The end.

  Which put Buck in a tough position because—on threat of having access to Clara’s body being denied “for an appropriate time of punishment, you’ve got your brother code, I’ve got my sister one” (her words)—he couldn’t tell Gash that Minnie was in his living room with his woman, crying her eyes out about the man she loved cheating on her, losing him and her family.

  But there was no turning her back.

  Not that Clara had tried.

  She’d just explained to Buck, “She knew, or figured it was a possibility. I think it’s more about him acting like he was innocent and throwing you under the bus. Being a man like that and taking a good man down to be able to keep doing it. I also think she’s embarrassed th
at cast aspersions on her Professor Higginsing. She was pretty proud of being my biker babe mentor.”

  For Buck’s part, it went against the brother code, but he’d shared with Clara that Gash had not been a stranger to the liquor stock in the Dive and was making it his mission to down as much of it as he could in order to drown his guilt and loss.

  An endeavor which appeared to be failing.

  And after sharing this, Buck had not denied Clara the option of giving this to Minnie.

  She had, and Minnie might have been affected by it, but not enough to give Gash a shot at redemption.

  So now Buck had this issue both ways, Gash as a brother, Minnie as his woman’s sister, and they’d had to declare boundaries.

  Minnie got their house, and Gash wasn’t allowed there if there was something happening where people could be invited, occasions where Minnie always showed.

  Obviously, Gash got Ace.

  But Nails wasn’t done.

  A week ago, in the store, she’d pretended to slip and fall and hit her head on a display.

  Bitch didn’t consider they had cameras everywhere.

  And while she was moaning and threatening lawsuits, Jimbo pulled up the video on an iPad of her sitting her own self down and then starting to shout and showed it to her.

  They now had pictures of her everywhere, in the store, warehouse, even in the Dive (but that was just a joke), put up by Driver, that said, If you see this woman, report her to management immediately.

  Unfortunately, someone had told Nails about this.

  Which meant yesterday, she’d come in, trying to tear all of them down, and so no one was in danger of having her claim shit if they laid hands on her, they’d had to call the cops.

  But she wasn’t done.

  They knew this because, under escort of the police to her vehicle, she got in her car, shrieking, “I’m not done with all y’all in the Aces High MC!”

  “So, to sum up,” Sylvie said, “you got possible issues with a drug cartel, whatever Babić is, but all he is, is no good, and a skank bent on vengeance. Over to you, Scott.”

  She ended with her gaze on Scott.

  “I cannot say Tia, or Aces, is not in deep shit,” Scott said like he really did not want to. “We’re gonna have to turn over the evidence to the defense. So they’ll know how much we got, where it came from, and this could cause some uncomfortable questions to be asked. And those won’t be uncomfortable for the DA. They’ll be uncomfortable for Tia and maybe Aces. Tia was followed. Enrique’s boys knew what she had. We don’t know, but they could also know she was going to go on the run with Clara. Which is another link between them and to this shit that’s not good.”