by Cat Porter
“No, he doesn’t. He can’t. I hate all these bad feelings flying between all of us.”
“That’s my fault.”
“I’m not trying to lay blame here.” I put my coffee down and took in a breath. “I’m tired. I was up late last night with my mother.”
“Is she okay?”
“It comes and goes with the MS. The past few days, she’s had a new set of muscle spasms, and we might have to try new medication. She’s been depressed lately. She can’t knit anymore; her fingers won’t cooperate. She loves knitting. It’s more than a hobby to her, just like cooking was. How much more is my mother going to have to give up?” I grabbed the coffee and took a hard, long sip from the straw. “She was trying to knit a poncho for Becca yesterday, and she had to give up. She was crying, yelling at herself about everything. I gave the poncho to her friend, Nancy next door to finish. Every time I think we’ve got this under control, that we’re handling it, something new always comes along and blows that illusion out of the water, and we’re being dragged back into Shitville.”
“I’m so sorry your family’s going through this. I have something that can cheer you up.”
“Vanilla vodka over ice?” I shook the almost empty coffee cup, the ice rattling within.
“No, no.” She let out a laugh. “Too early for that. This is way better. I’ll be right back.”
Lenore headed out the door into the golden shower of the midday sun. I went back to my inventory program on my laptop, went back to ignoring the heaviness in my heart and the gnawing in the pit of my stomach.
Within five minutes, the bell jangled, and the door cranked open once more. Lenore held up one of her own store’s shopping bags, a grin on her face. She was pleased with herself. From the purple Lenore’s Lace bag, she drew out a breathtaking orchestration of silk and sci-fi fabric.
“Holy—”
“I know.”
From her hands hung an elegant corset of the deepest, richest tone of blood red I had ever seen. I was mesmerized by it, magnetized toward it.
My fingers outstretched and slid over the textures. “It’s gorgeous. It’s—”
“I made it for you. I’m almost finished with it. One piece. One size. Yours. Try it on.”
I pursed my lips, my eyes darting to hers. “Lenore—”
“Ah, Tania, trust me. I know these things. With your skin and hair…”
I took in a deep breath.
She raised a sharply defined eyebrow, her blue-green eyes gleaming at me. “You can’t take your eyes off it, can you?”
“Give it here.”
She laid it in my arms, as if she were handing over a precious, very delicate antique haute couture museum piece. The fabric deliciously glided against my skin, and I bit my lip as my fingers slid over the webbing of silken material.
“Go,” she ordered.
I went in the back storage room and kicked off my shoes and stripped off my clothes. I almost didn’t know where to begin.
“Be brave, Reigert. Be brave!” I said to myself.
I carefully stepped into the corset and sucked in a breath, smoothing down the gorgeousness of Lenore’s craftsmanship over my body.
“Honey, you need help?” Lenore stepped into the room. “Oh God, Tania. It’s perfect.”
I stared at myself in the antique full length cheval stand mirror that I had in a corner and swallowed hard. The silk and Lycra-like bands stretched across my flesh, a complexity of glossy texture, seamless workmanship. The corset covered just enough without being crude yet tantalized as it bound my body, revealing all the right curves. Elegant minimalist perfection.
“This color on you—it’s even better than I hoped.” Lenore smoothed her hands down my back and across my waist. “Fantastic,” she murmured to herself.
My hand passed over my hip, and something inside me trembled.
Her eyes met mine in the mirror. “Hon, you okay?” She stood up straight and put her arms around me, her chin on my shoulder. “Tania, what’s wrong?”
“You’re amazing,” I murmured. This is a beautiful work of art. I feel beautiful.”
“Babe, you are beautiful. Only you could carry this one off. The color on you is—”
“Stunning. Somewhere between blood and wine.”
“Exactly. Your eyes really pop, and your skin is glowing, that dark shiny hair…”
I pressed a hand against my middle. “I don’t even mind my tummy.”
“Stop. Your body looks great. I think you’ve lost a few pounds lately. Stressed out much?”
“Just a tiny little bit.”
“And don’t say a word about that ass. It’s glorious,” she continued, her hand sliding down the curve of my hip.
I let out a breath and averted my gaze.
“What is it, Tania? What’s wrong?”
“I haven’t felt this way in a long, long time.”
“What way is that?”
“You know what I mean.”
She squeezed my hip, and I found her gaze in the mirror once more. “Say it out loud right now while you’re feeling that shit.”
“I feel like the me I want to be. The me I have always wanted to be but was never usually on the outside—sexy, in charge of myself. Powerful. Bold.”
The mirror revealed this different me. Brash, saucy, out there. Here-I-am, take-it-or-leave-me-the-hell-alone Tania. Or the I-don’t-really-give-a-damn-because-I’ve-got-it-going-on Tania.
She gripped my arms. “That’s the Tania I know. This one right here. Very powerful. Very bold.”
“That’s the act I put on for everyone. Or when my back is up against the wall.”
“No.”
“Yes. There’s a part of me that’s still a scared little girl. Scared of the dark, scared of twisty roller coasters, scared without her daddy, scared of bikers wielding knives.”
Her chin lifted. “That’s not the Tania I know. No. This Tania is only scared of being alone, of not being enough.”
I bit down on my wobbly lower lip as a tear slipped down my cheek.
She pressed into me. “I know. Don’t I know?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
“You know.”
She wiped the tear from my face. “Hadn’t we said no more tears?”
“Tell me you’ve kept to that deal all these years.”
She screwed up her face. “Nope.”
“Didn’t think so. Me neither.”
She took in a quick breath. “It’s all right. We’re tough, you and me.”
I covered her hand with mine. “I’m glad you’re in my life again, whatever your name is.” I pressed the side of my face against hers in a sudden rush of emotions. “I really, really am.”
“Me, too.” She pulled back, and a small smile tugged on the edge of her lips. “So, tell me, are you falling for Butler?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
Her head tilted. “You’re questioning it. Maybe it’s too soon after your husband and you need to be on your own for a while?”
“I’ve been on my own for years and years. That’s not what I want.”
“Then, what is it?”
“I’m questioning myself. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to go the distance.”
“That’s the fear talking.”
“Says the expert.”
“We’re talking about you now.”
“I don’t want to screw this up. He and I are both screwed up enough as it is. How many second chances do you get in life anyhow?”
Her eyes flared.
Shit.
I’d always wanted her to stand up and take her second chance, and she’d refused. Refused.
“I’ve had my fill of second chances. Girls like me have a limited number. You wouldn’t understand. Thank your god that you never will.”
Those words of hers had haunted me for years after they’d fallen from her lips, her tear-stained face pallid in the headlights of the trucks thundering by us on the side of the road.
I smoothed
a hand over the corset. “I want to be with Butler like I’ve never been with anyone before, ever. But now he knows that I’m keeping a secret from him. A secret involving Finger. I haven’t told him all of it. Nothing about you.”
She turned me around and leaned her forehead against mine. “You’re a good friend, Tania.”
She planted a gentle kiss on my lips, and all those sensations flooded back. That fervid urgency, that delicious curiosity, that crazy sweetness, that apprehension of the unknown.
I cleared my throat. “I need to tell you something. Cards on the table. I can’t keep it from you, and I don’t ever want you to think that—”
“What is it?”
“After you left him, after you…”
“After I broke him, you mean? That last time?”
“Yeah. He and I—”
She held up a hand, shaking her head at me. “You don’t have to explain, Tania. I’m glad that he had you in his corner. I’m glad he tried to forget.”
I threw my head back. “Dear God, you are so wrong! He did it to remember. His passion for you is some kind of fury. A fury whose fangs and claws have sunk deep. A fury that won’t let go. A damn tidal wave of love, anger, pain, desolation. A tidal wave that won’t quit. And he tortures himself with it.”
She stiffened, throwing up the old barricades against my words, against the emotions they would surely invoke. How many times had we done this in the past?
“He got on with his life,” she said, her voice flat. “So did I.”
“Yeah, he sure did. Just like you did. Oh, there were the usual women. An old lady here, and another one there. They never lasted long though. Not one.”
She averted her gaze. “Well, I’m glad he had you.”
“We were only two people grabbing at something we couldn’t have.”
She stepped away from me.
I could tell her now, tell her whom I saw, that the enemy was circling. But it would only make her panic and run again. No, Finger would take care of it, take care of her. That’s why he is in her face now.
“It has nothing to do with me.” She plucked the shopping bag off the floor.
“That is such bullshit, and you know it,” I said, raising my voice. “You have to let him in. You have to tell Finger. I won’t ever. I made you that promise. But you have to tell him.”
She shook her head as she folded the bag and placed it on a nearby box.
“Who’s afraid now?” I said. “Finger knows I know more than I’ve been letting on. Honey, the other night was crazy.”
“He was so angry,” she said, her voice low. “He got angry at you, too.”
“Yes, he did. But that’s because he felt powerless. He wants to help you, and he doesn’t know how. He’s desperate to reach you.”
Lenore put her hands over her ears, drowning out the viciousness and the hope.
The howling of her own wolves.
“You still love him,” I said.
Her big eyes glimmering like sea water in the sun found mine.
Swim to the surface, Rena.
I pulled her hands from her head, her rings pressing into my fingers.
“Can’t you say it? Why can’t you say it?” I asked.
“There’s no point. Too much has happened.”
“No. You have to be brave. You have to be brave enough to act on that love.”
Those shrill screams, the ugly words, harsh decisions, stinging tears of our shared past roared between us.
“How brave are you, Rena?” I whispered, lacing our fingers together.
Her eyes held mine. “How brave are you?”
WES WAS COVERING HIS TRACKS.
I couldn’t pinpoint his location, so I’d tracked his best friend, Zach, instead, sending Dawes over to his house in the middle of the night to plant a device on the kid’s bike. Bingo. The boys had cut out of football camp today and were in Deadwood, about an hour-plus north of Meager.
A thick blanket of tall evergreens rose around me as I got into Deadwood. I followed the winding road into the center of the historic town nestled in the glorious Hills. Once a frontier gold rush town populated with infamous gamblers and gunslingers, Deadwood was now an American Wild West tourist haven, offering casinos, restaurants, bars, and shops. The streets crawled with people, and the road was clogged with vehicles and a shit-ton of bikes. Another hot summer day in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
I stopped at a red light and scanned the amazing selection of colorful, shiny bikes on my side of the street. Lock’s hand-painted version of the One-Eyed Jacks skull with the glinting star shining from one eye glared at me from the gas tank of a Panhead. Jump’s Panhead. My shoulders stiffened. The metallic candy shimmer of the paint on his unmistakable Harley danced in the afternoon sun.
Wes was right here.
I hunted for a parking space. I edged into one an elderly man on a trike had freed once his wife had come out of a store. I scanned the streets for any signs of the tall, athletic seventeen-year-old high school senior. The sidewalks teemed with couples, families, and strollers while the shop doors opened and closed, letting out folks, letting in more.
Left. Nothing.
Right. No.
I scanned the area once more. Wes. Across the street, at a diagonal from me. He dumped the remains of what looked like a hot dog in a garbage can and took a swig from a can of Red Bull, wiping his brown hair from his eyes. Wes was an expert dirt-bike racer, a great football player, and now, a rebel with a certified cause.
I’d recognized the signs months before when his parents could barely be in the same room with each other. And now since his father’s death, those signs of edginess, irritability, sourness had only gotten clearer, stronger.
I darted across the street and strode toward him. “Wes? What’s up?”
Wes’s body jerked back. Tense dark blue eyes met mine, narrowing. “Butler. Hey.”
“Surprised to see you up here. Didn’t you have practice this morning?”
“Nah.”
“Really?”
He shifted his weight on his long legs, his shoulders rising and falling quickly.
I gestured at Jump’s bike with a slant of my face. “How’s she riding?”
“She’s a dream.”
“Your dad always kept her in good shape. Hope you are, too, now.”
A frown passed over his features. “Of course I am.”
“Good. What are you up to?”
“Just out with friends. Great day to ride.”
We stared at each other. A draw.
“Wesley, this how it’s going to be for your senior year? For shit’s sake, you’re going to be starting quarterback this year. What the hell? You can’t be taking off for a good time.”
His gaze darted away from me.
“Who are you here with?”
“What’s with all the questions?”
“You here with that new girlfriend of yours?”
Wes cocked an eyebrow, rubbing his hands together. “Maybe.”
Fuck no.
Maybe used to be my stock response to a whole array of questions.
Maybe I’ll drink the whole bottle of Jack.
Maybe I’ll fuck this chick who’s rubbing her tits up against me along with her friend.
Maybe I’ll break the face of this motherfucker who’s staring at my old lady’s ass.
Maybe I’ll fix my bike’s cover today.
Maybe I’ll sniff more joy powder to keep the carnival in my mind whirling.
I leaned into him. “Don’t give me fucking maybe. Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m the king of maybes. Don’t bother making it a good story, give me the truth. And P.S., I know you’ve been blowing off work at Eagle Wings. Lock was looking for you a while back and then again the other day. He knows something’s up with you, but I stopped him from going to your ma. Plus, you blew off the go-kart painting yesterday.”
Wes’s chin jutted out. Defiance, resentment.
“Where’s the
girl?” I asked.
“In the restroom, making herself pretty for me.”
“Tell me, since you’ve had all this free time lately from cutting football, cutting your job, what have you been up to?”
He shrugged.
I leaned in closer. “Pyrotechnics, maybe? Did you set that fire in the Blades’ junkyard?”
Wes’s eyes pierced mine. I recognized the fuck-off-I-ain’t-telling-you-shit signs.
“Ah, damn it!” I gritted, clamping a hand around his arm
He shoved out of my hold. “You don’t know nothing! Nothing! Those fuckers have to pay for what they did to my dad!”
“It wasn’t the Blades, Wes.” I lowered my voice. “It was Reich, a Flame of Hell from Ohio. He was aiming for Nina and probably for me. Your dad—”
“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Collateral damage?”
“Yeah, he was. Look, Reich was punished by his own club for that and for many more sins. It’s done now, you hear me? And, as for the Broken Blades, their club is in pieces. They’re out there, begging for scraps. The one thing your father hated more than anything else, the one thing he never, ever wanted for our club, was to be taken over, ripped apart, told what to do by another club. And that is what’s happening to the Blades. The Jacks played a role in making that happen, and that right there is very sweet.”
Wes’s eyes filled with water, and I wrapped a hand around his neck. He pushed against me, but I yanked him back in.
“You do not ever go out there on your own. If they’d caught you—goddamn it, Wes. If anything had happened to you—” I caught my breath and pushed down the wave of emotion, that slice of pain ages old and so familiar, searing my middle. “The go-kart championship we’re running in a few weeks?”
He glanced up at me. “Yeah?”
“I’m working it with you. We’re working it together, whatever Lock has you on.”
“What?”
“That’s right. One-on-one. You could learn a thing or two about an engine from me, boy. And Lock doesn’t have the free time to show you how his designs get done whenever you feel like dropping by. You need to be showing him respect.”
“I respect him just fine!”
“Not good enough when you show up once in a while whenever you feel like it, pretend you’re listening, and then duck out. Think I haven’t been watching you? And another thing—”