Resonance (Marauders #4)

by Lina Andersson

  “I did piss him off often,” I admitted. “I was a really annoying baby sister.”

  Felix nodded, and I got up to keep working on the bag. I thought he was done, but I was wrong.

  “Why were you annoying?” he suddenly asked.

  “I don’t know, honey. I think most siblings fight. When I became older I often felt left out. Zach and Tommy took off, and they didn’t want me with them. So when they got back, I annoyed Zach. I wanted him to notice me, I think.” I smiled. I’d been such a jerk, and it was just so he’d give me some attention. That was all I ever wanted from him. “He was my hero.”

  “And Daddy?”

  “Daddy, too.”

  “If I had a baby sister, I’d be really nice to her.”

  “I know,” I said with a laugh. “But you know she’d try to annoy you just like I did. Ask Travis about it. I bet he’d tell you Jacob can be a real pain in the butt sometimes.”

  Felix didn’t respond to that, so I returned to punching the bag. Once I’d found the rhythm, it was therapeutic. It was a steady rhythm, meditative, while I at the same time could punch my frustration into the damn bag. I kept going, until my lungs were burning, sweat was dripping on the floor underneath me, and I could just barely lift my arms.

  Panting, I lay down next to where Felix was sitting, and he handed me my water bottle just like he always did. He didn’t even look up from the book when he did it.

  “Are you working today?” he asked just about the same time as I’d managed to get my breathing slow and pulse right.

  “No. Why? Something you wanna do?”

  “No. I was just wondering.”

  “I need to go and see Mel. She said she might’ve found some houses for me to look at.”

  That made Felix finally look up from the book, and he was smiling.

  “Yeah?”

  “Think just the house will be enough even if we don’t get married?”

  He nodded eagerly.

  “Then let’s start there. Drink some water, then we’ll go upstairs to see if we can find something new for you to taste.”

  oOo

  “I’M FINE,” TOMMY INSISTED. “I can go. It’s—what?—a five hour ride. I can do that.”

  “Tommy, I appreciate that you’re willing to, but I’m not gonna let you in on the run,” Brick said. “I got a paper from your doctor that says you need at least six weeks off.”

  “Because I have a job that sometimes involves heavy lifting!”

  “And if you lay down your bike?”

  “What? You wouldn’t help me lift it up, and when the fuck did I lay down my bike?”

  “If you can’t get your bike up, you have no business on a bike,” Bear butted in with a shrug from the door to the chapel, where Tommy and Brick were having their discussion. “Just wanted to let you know they’ve arrived. You should come and greet them.”

  “Did you just come up with that rule?” Tommy asked Bear, ignoring his comment about the arrivals.

  “It’s not a rule; it’s common fucking sense,” Brick answered instead of Bear and got up.

  They were three members from the New York charter who had come Greenville on a loan. Since Eagle, and soon Pico, was currently based in New York, the charter had agreed to send a few guys to Greenville. Brick had asked for reinforcements from experienced guys, preferably vets, and New York had members like that to spare. Tommy only knew that one of the guys was called Ahab, and he was an old friend of Dawg’s who’d served in the army until he got a general discharge. Tommy had no idea why, but he knew from experience that it could mean he was a complete fuckhead, or just a guy who’d had the balls to take a stand against a fuckhead officer.

  “I’m just going crazy sitting on my ass here,” he muttered, as he got up and walked towards the door next to Brick and Bear.

  “I’m sure Shooter can keep you occupied,” Brick laughed.

  Brick kept calling Billie ‘Shooter,’ and Tommy knew it was mostly out of respect. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his president having a nickname for his woman, though, no matter how respectful it was. Not that he thought that Brick had any interest in her in a… less than respectful way, but it was still weird.

  They stepped outside on the lot, and the three of them halted at the same time. Dawg was standing next to a tall, skinny guy with long, slightly greasy hair in a ponytail, and he had a horseshoe mustache—not unlike Brick’s. There were two other men standing a bit away from them. Or, one of them wasn’t really a man. He was a fucking kid. He had dark buzz cut, paired with a five o’clock shadow, sunglasses—and a coat! Kind of like a coat, or a long jacket. No matter how determined or tough he looked (or tried to look), he was still twenty—at best! He almost looked like a skinhead, Tommy realized, down to the black pants and heavy work boots.

  And Brick seemed to have had similar thoughts.

  “They sent us a fucking kid,” he muttered. “What the fuck is unclear with ‘experienced,’ and when the fuck did anyone think kids were experienced in anything but jacking off?”

  “Well,” Tommy started and decided to try to be diplomatic. “We send kids around that age into war.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause the government ain’t there to see them get killed,” Brick muttered. “When I do that, I get to see them get killed, which is why I don’t want fucking kids fighting my fucking battles.”

  “He’s a member,” Bear pointed out, “so someone must’ve seen some value in him.”

  Brick didn’t answer that, he just groaned and then started towards the visiting men: Ahab with the horseshoe mustache, a huge dude called Slug, and the kid, who was called Roach.

  “Roach?” Brick asked when he shook the kid’s hand, possibly with a little tighter grip than necessary. Roach seemed to understand why and gave Brick a knowing smile.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “Short for Cockroach,” Slug explained. “It was too long to yell, so we shortened it. Felt a bit weird to yell Cock all the fucking time, though.”

  “He was my prospect,” Ahab said and put his hand on Roach’s shoulder. “Might not look like much, but I’m sure he’ll surprise you. I got some messages for you from up north. Think you have five minutes for me in private? Bring the VP if you want.”

  Brick had explained to Tommy why he didn’t like taking in loans or transfers. He thought a strong club was created when people grew into it and their place in it. Loans and transfers were usually guys who were used to getting their deserved respect as members, but in a different environment, and it usually got rocky when they first arrived. The fact that Brick had called in loans had initially made Tommy slightly worried, he had thought Brick was expecting trouble coming their way, but Brick had said he just wanted to get the help there in time to get to know everyone. They’d stay a few months, and that way they had guys they could call on later that already knew the club and were comfortable in it. As usual, he was covering his bases.

  A part of covering those bases had been to invite two members from the Blood Paradigm—or they were Marauder Prospects now—to Greenville and the clubhouse, too. If they felt at home and like a part of the club, and then went back to their own charters, it might spread. To everyone but Tommy’s surprise, Dig, the former Marine, had volunteered, and the other one was Crank, the president. They were coming the next day and were supposed to stay for a month. The idea was to feel them out, but also to introduce them to the business and be a part of a run.

  The situation made Brick itchy, and Brick didn’t have much patience when he was itchy, so Tommy was sure Veetor, the NY president, would get a chewing out like he’d never had before for sending them a kid as backup.

  They all went inside and sat down to have a beer together. Brick told him he’d talk to Ahab in a few minutes; he just needed to make a call first.

  Roach watched Brick as he left, and then shook his head when a sweetbutt offered him a beer.

  “Think Veetor might be in trouble,” Slug said with a chuckle, and Roach shrugged
.

  “You not old enough to drink?” Tommy asked him with a nod to the sweetbutt who was still offering a beer Roach was ignoring—like she couldn’t believe she’d understood his decline correctly

  “I am, but I don’t drink much.”

  “You don’t have to worry about him,” Ahab said. “He’s the kind of person people have in mind when they say that age is just a number.”

  “Where are you from?” Bear asked.

  “New York,” Roach answered.

  Bear talked to, or tried to talk to, Roach until Brick emerged from the office, but he didn’t get much from the kid. Brick still didn’t look convinced, but he was calmer. Whatever Veetor had said had apparently been enough for the moment, but Tommy wouldn’t bet big money on Roach ever being one of the guys that Brick asked back.

  The three NY members would be living at the clubhouse, since the initial plan was that they’d stay for a couple of months, and Brick offered them jobs at the Booty Bank. They almost always had room for a few bouncers there, and Roach and Slug said it sounded fine. Ahab said he preferred his time at the strip club to be free time, but if they needed people at the garage, he’d fill in.

  It was clear that Ahab was the leader out of the three, and he rubbed Tommy the wrong way. He understood what Brick had meant that it was better if people grew into a group, or it could just be that Ahab wasn’t Tommy’s kind of person. The look Ahab gave Billie when she arrived most definitely didn’t help.

  “One of your girls?” he asked Dawg.

  “No,” Tommy said and stood up. “My girl.”

  “My apologies,” Ahab said with his hands up.

  Tommy didn’t answer and went to meet Billie. To make it very clear that she was his, he grabbed her and gave her a deep kiss.

  “What’s going on?” she asked with a big smile on her lips when he let her go.

  “Maybe I just missed you,” he tried and her only answer was a cocked eyebrow. “New members visiting.”

  “Oookay. For future reference: If you kiss me like that, you better be ready to take me back to your room and finish what you started.”

  “For future reference: I’m prepared to take you to my room at any time.” He gave her another kiss. “I guess that’s not why you’re here, though.”

  “No. I’m actually here to see Mel. Thought I’d say hi to you, too.”

  “Mel?”

  “Well, you asked her to find you a house, and then she somehow found out I’m going to live in that house, too, so now she wants to talk to me about what kind of a house I want. Apparently you weren’t very helpful on that front.”

  He hadn’t been, and he knew it. Mel had kept asking him questions, and it was like she was talking in code when she got really excited. He’d known she’d be more than happy to help; he just wasn’t much help when it came to explaining what he wanted, because he didn’t know. He wanted a fucking house, he didn’t give a shit about much else than that it should have room for Billie, Felix, and maybe few other kids they’d hopefully have one day. But Mel had questions about the kitchen, the bathroom, appliances, and other stuff he didn’t know shit about. His answer that he wanted at least a double garage had meant she gave him a real stink eye while asking if he thought she was an idiot, so he assumed she had that part covered.

  “Did you talk to your parents yet?” he asked Billie.

  “No, I’m getting to that. It feels a bit odd, but I’ll do it soon. I promise.”

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like being at the Jensens’, but he wanted them to move along and start with their own life.

  “Mel’s in her office. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Love you,” she whispered.

  “Love you, too.”

  He watched her leave and then went back to the others. Ahab gave him a meaningful smile, and Tommy was starting to realize exactly what Brick had meant about people growing into a club as opposed to just showing up and demanding respect. And attention.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  What Is It We Want?

  oOo

  IT HAD ONLY BEEN a week since I’d talked to Mel about what I wanted in a house. I’d offered to search myself, but she’d told me she knew the town better than I did, and that she was already on it. She just wanted to make sure she knew my wishes. She’d called me the day before and said she had four houses she wanted me to see. Four! She’d managed to find four houses in Greenville that fit my description of what I wanted. That was pretty fucking scary, and also meant we might be moving a lot faster than I’d expected. What little I knew about Mel made me sure that those houses were most likely four really good options.

  So I was trying to find the guts to tell Mom and Dad, ‘Thank you for letting me stay here while my kid was sick, but he’s well now, so fuck off.’

  I was thinking about trying to word that a little more carefully, though.

  We’d had lunch, and Felix had left us three at the table when I finally gave it a try.

  “I have something to tell you, and I’m not sure how.”

  Dad put down the book he was reading and eyed me carefully.

  “Is this about the house?”

  “Um, yes. How did you know?”

  “If you want to keep a secret, you shouldn’t tell a five-year-old.”

  “Oh… So, does that make me an ungrateful bitch? That I’m moving out?”

  “No. I’d say it’s about time you did.”

  “Clyde!” Mom exclaimed. “He doesn’t mean it like that.”

  “She knows what I mean.”

  I did. It wasn’t that he’d been bothered that I’d lived with them. It was that he thought it was time I got a life.

  “Besides,” he continued. “If they don’t get a house, it looks like we’ll have Tommy living here again, and I’m not sure I’m okay with that. I didn’t mind it when he was fifteen, but it’s another thing when he’s sleeping in my daughter’s bed.”

  I laughed when Mom drew a deep breath in horror.

  “It’s been lovely to have Tommy here.”

  “It would’ve been more lovely if he’d stayed in the guest room.” Dad answered before he turned to me and gave me a wink. “Get a house, move in, have a family. I want more grandkids. Although, it sounds like you’re already working on that.”

  “Felix can come and stay a night or a weekend here sometimes,” Mom said, completely ignoring Dad. “What houses are you looking at?”

  It felt like I had mental whiplash. It wasn’t that I’d expected them to protest or get upset, I was almost thirty after all, but… still. And Dad’s comment about what he might’ve heard from my bedroom… I wasn’t even gonna go there. Not in a million years.

  “I don’t know what to say. I can’t… I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you. And I’ll still need your help.”

  “And we’ll be here,” Dad said. “That’s what parents are for.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “What houses, honey?” Mom repeated.

  “I’m not sure. Mel is looking into it. I’m supposed to look at a few of them tomorrow.” I looked at Mom. “Think you could come with me? I don’t know much about houses.”

  Whenever we moved, Mom had been the one in charge of the houses. Even if we’d been assigned a house at a base, she’d still been in charge of making it livable, so I knew she’d be able to see what suited us better than I would. The woman had been able to make the on-base family housing feel okay. And once there had been some problems with our house, so we’d been forced to live at a motel for a few weeks. I was just nine at the time, and I’d thought it was pretty cool. Mom hadn’t. She was picky with her living situation, so I wasn’t surprised when she jumped at the chance to have an opinion on my future home.

  “Of course,” she answered.

  And that seemed to be it. Dad returned to reading his book, and Mom kept eating. I’d feared this talk for over a month and apparently… we were done.

  Maybe it was stupid to think that telling your p
arents you were planning to move should cause a commotion when you’re almost thirty.

  *

  When Mom and Dad bought the house it came with an octagon gazebo and a loveseat swing. Dad thought it was an atrocity, and I was inclined to agree with him. In my case it was that I thought it looked horrible, like something out of a Jane Austen novel, but Dad was mostly annoyed at its placement. If it had been ten or fifteen years earlier, he probably would have torn it down to give us more room for training. But given his retirement, my age, and Felix’s condition, he knew there wouldn’t be much training going on anyway, so the gazebo was still there.

  Which was lucky, because Felix loved to sit on the swing in the shade on both good and bad days. It was a place for him to get away, and once he became older we tended to leave him alone when he was there. He would bring coloring books or picture books and sit there alone to get some time off from his worrying mother and grandparents.

  So, when I realized he’d been gone for a while, I had a pretty good hunch about where he was, and I gave him another half an hour until I went out to find him. He hadn’t brought anything with him, but was sitting dangling his feet in the air.

  “Hey, little guy. What’s going on?” I asked when I sat down next to him.

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” He sighed, but it sounded like a happy one. “Is this what it’s like for other people?”

  The question broke my heart. “If this is how other people feel when they’re well?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  Even if I no longer asked him how he was doing each morning, he still told me out of habit, and lately they had always been good assessments. He felt ‘great’ or ‘really good,’ and they were always accompanied by a big smile. It was as big of an adjustment for me as it was for him—to accept that he was well. Even if we still had to keep an eye on him and the kidney, he was turning into a healthy kid, and I still wasn’t sure how to be a parent to one. I assumed we both had to figure that out together—being a healthy kid and being parent to one.