by Naomi West
I grinned a little at that, although mentally I made a note to keep an eye out for whatever it was that he had done that he thought that we had already found out about. “We're not here to punish you, Cole,” I told him. “We just had some big boy stuff that we wanted to discuss with you if that's okay.”
“Okay,” he said, sitting up a little. “I'm almost done with my math homework.”
“Good job, buddy,” Jake said, eyeing the paper. I knew he was still so proud of Cole and his homework. Jake had never been very good in school, a symptom of moving around from foster home to foster home and always having different curriculum to learn, so he was impressed with Cole's ability to really stay on top of his grades and do a good job.
“Honey, remember that time that we had the conversation about Brian and how he wasn't really your daddy?” I asked, and Cole nodded. I took a deep breath. “Well, I don't know if you know this, but Jake is really your daddy.”
Cole shrugged a little. “Okay,” he said. He looked at Jake. “Does that mean you're going to teach me to ride a motorcycle? Because all the kids at school think that your motorcycle is really cool. I drew a picture for show and tell!”
Jake laughed and gave me an apologetic look. “Maybe someday,” he agreed. “But not until you've graduated college.”
Cole pouted a little at that but then sighed. “Fine. But will you at least teach me how to throw a baseball better? Matt Dickinson always gets to be pitcher for our games because everyone knows he throws the ball the hardest, but I want to get to be pitcher sometimes too.”
We were both suppressing laughter at how blasé he was about this. “Sure thing, buddy,” Jake said. “We can work on that. Now that the weather's nice and warm when you get home from school, we should go practice a few times a week, and I'm sure you'll get better in no time—how does that sound?”
“Good,” Cole said.
We continued sitting there, as I mustered up the courage to say what I had to say next, and Cole finally rolled his eyes impatiently. “Mom, why are you still sitting here?” he asked. “I have to finish my homework.”
I laughed a little and pulled the little munchkin sideways into a hug. “Well, the other thing that your dad and I wanted to talk to you about is that we're going to be moving. Just you and I and Jake, into this nice little house that's not too far from here. So, we'll still be able to come back and see grandma and grandpa a lot, but you will have to move schools next year.”
“Oh,” Cole said. He shrugged again and pulled his math homework back towards him. “Well, I already know that.”
“What?” I asked, surprised.
“How?” Jake asked.
“Grandma told me the other day. She told me that it was a secret and that I wasn't supposed to tell you that I knew, but I did.” He scrunched up his face. “She didn't say it on purpose or anything, I was just talking about the teachers that I would have next year and she told me that I might have different teachers and when I asked what she was talking about or if Ms. Rosen was getting fired or something, she told me. But that's okay. She told me it means I get to make even more friends, and that sounds like fun.”
“Well good,” I said, shaking my head a little. Of course, my mother had already told him that we were moving; I shouldn't be surprised. Really, Jake and I had been meaning to talk to him sooner, but I'd been afraid that this conversation would be more difficult than that.
I got up off the floor, and Jake stood as well. “Well, if there's anything that you want to talk to us about, buddy…” Jake said.
“I know, I know,” Cole said, rolling his eyes. “Dad, it's fine.”
Jake looked a bit stricken at the name, and I was taken aback with how quickly the kid had adopted that. But then again, he'd been so fine with it that I had to wonder if that was another secret that Grandma had spoiled. Or maybe he had just worked it out on his own; he was a smart kid.
I smiled at Jake and held out my hand to him, glad that everything finally seemed to be falling into place for us.
And now that we were finally in our house together, it felt even more that way. The place was a bit small still, but it would do for now. Of course, if we had any more children, things would be a bit tight, but we'd cross that bridge when we got to it. For now, it was big enough for us and Cole, plus a nursery for the new baby. And it had a big yard for the kids and Maverick to play in.
What I really loved about the house was the sunny, yellow kitchen. And there was plenty of space in the garage for both Jake's car and his bike. There were good schools in the area, and really, everything seemed perfect.
“You all right?” Jake asked, coming to stand behind me as I stared out the kitchen window into the backyard, watching Cole and Maverick playing fetch. He wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my shoulder and his hands across my stomach, which wasn't growing yet but would be soon.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling happily. For the first time since I'd found out that I was pregnant with Cole, it felt as though maybe my life was on the right track. “Yeah, everything's just ... perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“Good,” Jake told me. He lightly kissed the side of my neck, and I could feel his smile against my skin.
THE END
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Bull: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Asphalt Angels MC) (Asphalt Sins Book 2)
By Naomi West
I claimed my dead brother’s woman.
She was begging for my help.
So I made her beg for her release.
But the girl comes with baggage…
My brother’s baby in her arms.
XANDER
I’m drowning in booze and sorrow.
I know that this is killing me.
But the thing is, I just don’t give a damn.
I’ll either drink or f**k myself to death, whichever comes first.
After all, what’s the point of carrying on?
Those motherf**kers stole my brother’s life in a stupid bar fight.
Petty. Reckless. Dumb.
But that’s the outlaw way, isn’t it?
Life is cheap out here.
And I’m the only one left who cares about Arsen’s death.
At least, that’s what I used to think.
Then she knocked on my door.
I thought it was the liquor making me hallucinate.
This delicious girl, with curves for days and a glimmer in her eyes that gets me rock hard…
What could she want here? With me? A degenerate biker?
Then I saw what she was holding, and I understood.
Kayla is my brother’s ex and the mother of his baby.
She needs my protection.
She’s desperate.
Well, that makes two of us, sweetheart.
Because I’m dying to see what you look like…
When you’re on your knees, begging me for more.
KAYLA
I can’t help thinking this is wrong.
But I don’t have a choice.
Because I have nowhere else to turn.
And with a baby to feed, I can’t afford to hold out for something better.
Besides, there’s a little voice, deep in the back of my head, whispering ugly truths.
Telling me that I like this – submitting to my ex’s brother.
It’s saying I love being his pet, his toy.
It’s saying that I’ll keep it up, for as long as he wants, as long as he keeps me and my baby safe from harm.
Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.
Maybe I shouldn’t be sleeping with this bull, this beast, this animal.
B
ut I’m addicted to the biker.
And every time I open my mouth, the same words come rushing out before I can stop them:
I need more, more, more.
Chapter One
Xander
Just one more whisky’ll do it, the sweet elixir sliding down my throat a way to forget every bad thing that ever happened in this shitty world. I pour the drink, slug the drink, and then immediately pour myself another one. Around me, music plays, something with a rock feel to it, but I don’t pay much attention. I just sit in the corner of the clubhouse bar, the table pulled across the way to block anybody approaching, slugging whiskies and trying not to think about Arsen. I fail. He was a good kid, man. I remember when we were little and he’d beg me to take him out on my dirt bike. I never normally would because he was a real pain in the ass back then, with his shoulder-length black hair, his bright eyes, all happiness and energy. But one time I did, and it was the best day of my life. I don’t reckon I’ve ever had fun like that before. I don’t reckon I’ll ever have fun like that again.
I look around the room, at the pledge at the bar, the few fellas in the opposite corner playing poker, the photographs on the wall. There are plenty of photographs with me in them, but quite a few with Arsen in, too. He’s always smiling in the pictures, always looks just as happy as he did that day on the dirt bike. He flew over the ramps like he was made for it, skidding in circles and laughing at me when I chased after him, telling him to give it back. He took me on one hell of a ride that day, my little brother, my little dead brother, my little burnt brother, so goddamn burnt that we couldn’t even see his face when we got him out of there. Ten months ago, a blackened husk, no features, just two pits where his eyes ought to be. His nose must have turned to ash; his face was flat.
“Xander.”
I glance up. Christopher stands with his old-man’s thumbs through his belt loops, as wrinkly as a crumpled-up newspaper. His face is just as wrinkled, his eyes hidden somewhere within folds of skin.
“Old man.” I take another drink.
The corner of his lip twitches. “It ain’t even lunchtime.”
“Ain’t it?” I ask, pouring myself another. The bottle’s almost empty. Pretty soon I’ll have to get up from the den I’ve made for myself here and get myself another. “I guess I lost track of the time. What’s it matter to you? I did my job last night, didn’t I? Any complaints there?”
He flinches, ’cause he knows I’ve got him on that one. “That’s not the point, kid. Maybe you did those pervert bastards. Maybe you got their shitty heroin off the streets. But this ain’t about them. It’s about you. We’re tired of seeing you do this to yourself. Arsen died a year ago now. How long is this gonna go on for? You goin’ to pull this for another year?”
“Ten months.” I brush my glass aside and drink straight from the bottle instead. Christopher is becoming a little blurry, two old men where there ought to be one. I reckon he looks ridiculous stood with his thumbs through his belt loops like that, like he’s trying to look father-like or something, like he’s trying to get through to me man to man.
“What?”
“It was ten months, not a year. It’s a year, come August.”
“Whatever.” He bristles. “You get the point. You’ve got some friends in this club, kid. The Asphalt Angels don’t abandon their own.” He turns toward the corner and two men stand up: Maxwell and Ranger. I must be drunker than I thought. They’ve been here for hours and I didn’t know it was them. Or maybe I’m not drunk enough, because I give a damn, even if it’s a small damn. “Fellas.” Christopher nods.
“Fellas,” I echo, nodding at Maxwell and then at Ranger.
Maxwell is an ex-soldier, baldheaded. He always stands like he’s about to meet his general, arms behind his back, back completely straight. His eyes are brown and hawkish, seeing everything. Ranger is the other way, fat in the middle with a slightly pregnant look, two skinny arms dangling down like string, but with an oddly thin face, a blond goatee, and a blond Mohawk haircut. He’s the weirdest looking bastard I’ve ever laid eyes on, has always been that way ever since we were teenagers.
All three of them pull up seats and surround the table, sitting close. It turns out boxing myself in back here might’ve been a mistake.
“What’s this?” I ask. “A fucking intervention?”
“Something like that,” Ranger says, smiling awkwardly. I know that smile. It means he’s sorry for what’s happening but is gonna do it anyway. It’s the same smile he gave me a few days before my fourteenth birthday when he stole Marie Keller from me, the hottest girl in school.
Sorry, X, but you’ve seen her. You know I can’t turn this tail down. You punched up, all right? She’s sixteen, man. You did a really good job.
He leans forward and rests his chin on his hands. I can’t believe how fat he’s gotten, and now he’s going to lecture me about vice. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?” I toss the bottle back, emptying it. The whisky moves through my veins, rests in my belly, turns my body fuzzy and warm. It’s like there’s a blanket between me and the world. All these bastards want to do is tear that blanket to shreds. “I’m doing my job. How many fuckers’ve I killed since Arsen’s death, eh? By my count it’s nine, four of those biker fucks down from Vegas, three of those sick bastards who were raping those schoolgirls—I was even in the paper for that, remember, but they just called me a ‘local vigilante’—and those heroin-dealing fucks last night. That’s more than any one of you. So what’s the problem?”
“This isn’t about work,” Maxwell says. “It’s true. Operationally, you’re doing fine, better than fine.”
I tip an imaginary hat. “Thank you kindly, soldier.”
When Maxwell clenches his jaw, it’s like his teeth are going to shatter. “Don’t call me that,” he says. “You know I hate it when you call me that. We’re here to help, Xander. You’re going to end up addicted to alcohol.”
“It’s true, X,” Ranger says. “Just think about it. How many drunks did we know growing up? Do you think all of them were just born drunks? Nah, man, something bad happened to them. Something real bad, maybe, and so they turned to the bottle, and they started drinking, and … and they couldn’t stop. Don’t you get it? That’s how drunks are made.”
“Do you remember Marie Keller, Ranger?” I ask, smiling at him.
“Marie … that chick from high school?”
“That’s the one.”
“Goddamn, X, yeah, I remember her. What’s she got to do with anything? That was—what—that was more’n a decade ago.”
“Did I ever tell you that Arsen wanted her, too? He was real into her. It made no sense. He was ten and she was sixteen and it made no sense, but I was a mean bastard back then and I told him that I could get her for him. I told him I’d get talking to her and convince her what a good kid he was, because he was a good kid, always was a good kid. And then when he ran into us at the park, I kissed Marie Keller right in front of him and laughed at him when he ran home, crying his eyes out. Our old man beat him for that. No crying in the Black household, no, sir.”
“That was a lifetime ago,” Christopher says. “You were a child.”
“Aren’t you the one always calling me ‘kid,’ old man?”
“Because to me, you are, but in reality you’re a man and it’s about time you started acting like one.”
I shoot to my feet, knocking my chair against the wall. It’s one thing to come in here acting all high and mighty, but how can he stand there and tell me I’m not a man? There’s still blood under my fingernails, for fuck’s sake. “Careful,” I warn him. “I’m not in the mood for this shit.”
“Xander.” Maxwell stands with one leg slightly back. They must’ve taught him that in military school. “You’re talking to an old man, remember.”
“Who the fuck are any of you to tell me what to do?” I ask. “Get the president down here. If there’s a problem with my performance, let him tell me.
Hell, get the vice president down here. Someone who has a problem with how I’m doing my job, anyway. Is there anyone? What is this, then?”
“We care about you!” Ranger snaps. “That’s what this is! Maybe you are doing your work, X, but there’s more to life than that. You don’t come to parties anymore. You don’t come for rides with us, just for the sake of it like we did before Arsen died. You don’t drop by mine to play some video games. You don’t do shit except get drunk and think about Arsen. And I get it. He was a good kid. But you’ve gotta move on, man …”
Maybe he’s right; his words penetrate my blanket and knock against my head. But then I see Arsen, tears streaming down his cheeks, little hands bunched into fists. His eye was already turning as black as our name from the beating our old man gave him. “You lied to me!” he squealed. “You’re just a big liar!” He came at me, fists flying. The kid was fast, but he was a kid and his arms hadn’t grown much yet. I grabbed him and threw him against the couch, laughing like a real bully. My little brother, my baby brother.