“But maybe that’s it,” I said.
“You’re not possibly in love with the idea of Roach. As I said, Roach isn’t your therapist, he’s your friend, and you know him as a person. You spend time together as friends do, and you know him as a person as opposed to someone who is in love with their therapist. You don’t know your therapist. Do you see the difference?”
“I think so.”
“It’s good that you’re thinking about this, though.”
“Because there could be problems?”
“I admit, I can see some problems that could be involved, but I don’t think it’s something that would automatically be bad.”
Even if I would’ve preferred to hear that it wasn’t a problem at all, this was at least a little better than my worst case scenario, where she told me to just try to forget all about it.
“Bad how?”
“I don’t know yet, Eliza,” she answered with a smile. “But I think the biggest problem could be you pushing yourself. Or maybe that you become too dependent on one person, which seems to be a risk you’re worried about, too. And you thinking about it makes me worry a lot less.”
“Or that I’m completely crushed when I find out that he doesn’t have any feelings for me?” I mumbled.
“That, too. But that’s a risk everyone takes.”
“Would I be able to handle that, though?”
“I think you would. I think you could handle pretty much anything, but I do think you need him right now.”
“You’re saying I should wait?”
“I’m saying you should figure out what it is you’re feeling for him. I’m not trying to trivialize it, I’m just getting the feeling that you’re a bit confused about it at the moment. Which is understandable.”
I was confused. Really confused, so she could be right that it might be better to be sure.
“Sometimes when we have really strong feelings for someone,” she continued, “it’s hard to know exactly what we’re feeling. For someone who’s been through what you have, it can be even harder.”
That made sense. Mostly because I understood what she meant. I felt a lot of things around Roach, safe most of all, so it was hard to really sort out the different feelings and what they meant.
Most of all, I was scared I’d lose him if I told him the truth and he didn’t feel the same way.
At least the topic of conversation had made me forget about the itching tattoo.
oOo
Brick
Eliza smiled when she saw him below the stairs outside the shrink’s office. She skipped down the stairs and took his hand.
“You okay?” he asked, just as he always did when he picked her up after her sessions. She’d come out of there with puffy, red eyes more than once, but lately it had been better. It was more like she was relieved and relaxed these days. He always asked, but he never waited for an answer. “Where do you want to go?” he asked instead.
“Clubhouse,” she answered. “Roach had some work for me.”
“I gotta say, Baby Girl, I like you working there. The place has never been cleaner.”
“Since when do you care what the place looks like?” Eliza asked with a laugh. She pulled a pack of smokes from her bag and lit one. When she offered him, he took one, too. He figured she owed him a few, even if he technically paid for all her cigarettes. “Did you take your bike?”
“Yeah,” he said and lit his smoke. “Wanna take a ride?”
She shook her head and pointed towards a café across the road. “No. Think we have time to grab a coffee, though? I’m a bit… unhinged.”
“Unhinged?” he asked, and then he nodded. “Let’s have a coffee.”
He put an arm around her shoulders, and they walked across the street to the coffee shop. He ordered two black coffees, and then they sat down at a table. This wasn’t something they usually did. He knew Bear used to take Vi out for Sunday breakfast every Sunday for years, he still did sometimes, but Brick and Eliza hadn’t had anything like it. They’d talked, she used to sit next to him chatting away while he was working, or she watched a movie with him, but nothing like this. In general, the only one Brick ever went to a café with was Bear, and that was at greasy diner along the highway to Phoenix.
“Was there something you wanted to talk about?” he asked, unsure of how to start.
“Not really,” Eliza answered. “Think I just wanted some time to land before we went back to the rest of them. I just… realized some things, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“I don’t think so,” she hurried to say. “I think I just need to process it on my own.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve been great,” she mumbled.
“Really?” he asked with a laugh. “Doesn’t feel like I have.”
“You have. Everyone has. I know this isn’t easy for you.”
Brick shook his head with a sigh. “Honey, don’t… blame yourself for any of this. We both know it was my fault.”
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever taken the blame to her face. He should have, but he didn’t think he’d said it. Not the way he just did.
“It’s okay. Or… not okay, but…” She looked at the table in front of her, and he realized she didn’t do that as often anymore. She generally looked him in the eyes when talking these days. “I don’t think it was your fault. I know it had to do with the club, but I don’t think that makes it your fault. Can I ask something?”
“Sure.” He wasn’t about to promise her a straight answer, but she deserved to ask whatever questions she had, and he would do his very best to answer them as honestly as possible.
“Is it over? Whatever it was that happened, is it… done, or… I’m not sure how to ask.”
“I know what you mean, and no, it’s not. We’re…”
They had no fucking idea what was going on, if he was honest with himself. Whatever was happening, it was all going on in Mexico. The cartel who wanted a war with the Marauders’ cartel had attacked a whole bunch of people ‘their’ cartel was working with in an attempt to start a war and to cripple the organization. If Brick understood it correctly, it had made two other organizations pull out, and he wasn’t sure how they had been punished for that, but the rest had stuck with the cartel.
Since the cooperation started, decades ago, Brick’s main contact had been a man called Roberto Ortega, and during the years he’d risen in rank but had stayed their main contact. Until now. And now they were instead dealing with Roberto’s daughter, a tiny half-Asian woman named Niu, and Brick still didn’t fully trust her. Roberto had ensured him that he could, but Brick wasn’t big on moving his trust from one man to a woman he barely knew just because someone else said he could. She apparently had the same problem, because she wasn’t keen on sharing information with him. So, in general, he had no fucking idea what was going on, and he’d just recently contacted Roberto directly and told him he wasn’t pleased about that.
Two days later, Niu had come by to talk to him. She’d been pissed he’d gone over her head, and he’d told her—maybe a bit harshly—that he wouldn’t have if he could trust her to give him the fucking information he needed. He hadn’t thrown the ‘my daughter was raped because you assholes kept secrets’ in her face, but it had been in the air. After both of them had been yelling for fifteen minutes or so, they’d sat down and talked. It had actually been a pretty good talk. He’d told her he didn’t need to know exactly what they were doing, but he needed to be reassured that shit wouldn’t slip by them again the way it had, and how they were making sure that wouldn’t happen.
It had felt better after that talk, but he still wasn’t convinced.
She’d explained that their mistrust wasn’t towards the Marauders, but against any possible way they had to communicate, but she was going to work something out, a way to keep them informed. She’d added it might mean they had to go old school, and he’d told her he was old enough to be comfortable w
ith old school. Hopefully she’d get back to them soon about it. It didn’t mean he trusted her, but it was something.
None of this was any help to Eliza, though. It wasn’t even of that much help to him.
“We’re on it,” he said, instead. “We’re more observant, and we’re…”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I wish I could… reassure you about things, and I know my promises probably don’t meant much to you right now, but I won’t let that happen again. I won’t.”
“I know.”
His heart almost fucking exploded. ‘I know.’ That was all. He’d fucked up, she’d gotten so hurt, and she still trusted him.
“I’d do anything for you, you know that, right?”
“Yes,” she smiled.
“If you…” He took a deep breath. “Remember what I told you at the hospital? That still goes.”
He hadn’t told anyone, not even Mel. Eliza’s second day at the hospital, she’d had surgery. When the staff woke her up, she’d been in a panic, screaming, and in her attempts to get out, since people she didn’t know surrounded her, she’d torn a bunch of stiches and they’d been forced to sedate her again to stitch her back up. So, the next time she was woken up, they’d asked him to be there. She’d panicked, but not as bad, and as soon as they’d made sure she was okay, he’d sent them out. He’d held her hand when she cried, and then he’d said it: ‘If you want me to leave the club, I will,’ and he’d meant it. She hadn’t answered him then, but she’d brought it up a few months later, mainly to ask him if was true, and he’d confirmed that it was. She’d asked him if that wouldn’t just make them less protected, and he’d been forced to admit that it probably would. He’d gotten them into this mess, and the safest way to get out of it was to stick with the club. She hadn’t brought it up again.
She shook her head. “It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” she said. “The safety and the risks are both a part of the club. Besides, I love the club.”
He laughed dryly. That was on him, too. He’d made damn sure she loved the club. “I know,” he said. “I do, too. I’m just not sure if I should be happy or sad about that.”
He didn’t want to leave, but if it was a choice between the club and his daughter…
“Things happen,” Eliza said. “Some for a reason and some not, some as a reaction to action and some just come you way. Either way, you deal with it.”
“Profound,” he smiled. “Who said that?”
“You. When I was ten or something like that. I think you said it about homework or something stupid like that, but it kind of works about this, too.” She took his hand. “Punishing you by making you leave won’t mean it didn’t happen, so what’s the point? Besides, I don’t wanna punish you.”
“Okay.”
“Promise me one thing, though.”
“What?”
“That you’re not doing… what they did.”
“Jesus! No!” he almost yelled. “No, baby, we don’t. I would never…”
“I think I knew, I just wanted to make sure.”
It made him sick to think she’d even for a second entertained the thought that they would ever do shit like that. He wasn’t proud about all the actions the club had taken, but he wouldn’t hurt innocents. That wasn’t, and had never been, a part of the club.
“We would never do that.”
“Okay. I’m sorry I asked.”
“Don’t be.”
She stood up, and he followed her, putting an arm around her shoulders again. He liked feeling her like that, close to him.
“I love you, Baby Girl.”
They walked over to the bike, and as she put on her helmet she smiled.
“You’ve never told anyone that, have you? That you made me that offer?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Not even Mom?”
“No.”
“If I’d said yes, and you’d asked to leave, what would you have said to the others?”
“Whatever you wanted me to.”
Her smile was wide “It’s strange.”
“What is?”
“To have that kind of a power over someone. That you’d just do that for me.”
“That’s being a parent, Baby Girl.”
oOo
Roach
Roach was slowly but steadily realizing he was in a heap of shit, and that he had been for a lot longer than he’d thought. Probably since the peeing on the graves incident. When he thought about it, that was definitely the first time he’d seen her differently, and he blamed that fucking laughter. No one should look or sound that good when they were laughing. It was against fucking nature.
It might not have occurred to him if it hadn’t been for that stupid bitch Sapphire making it totally weird between him and Eliza. Because if he hadn’t thought she might see him differently, too, he would’ve just kept ignoring those feelings. Analyzing her behavior and possible interest had made him notice his own, and that was just bad all around. Because analyzing his own feelings made him think about the kiss.
It hadn’t been much of a deal when it happened, really not, he hadn’t even gotten hard at the time, which he sure as shit got when he thought about it now. It was her hands, he decided, how her hands had almost been searching his face in featherlike movements all over his jaw, cheeks, and neck. He liked her hands.
She’d hugged him after they’d watched The Beauty and the Beast, but not since then. It was pretty much back to usual, with the not so great addition of him now and then getting a hard-on. She hadn’t come back for a second movie, though, and he was pretty fucking happy about that. Not because he thought he couldn’t control himself, he knew he could, but because he didn’t want it to become weird again. If hanging out with her would be forever as it had been so far, he was satisfied with that. It wasn’t right of him to try for more. As he’d pointed out to her: she wasn’t his luck. His part in her life was just to be there until she decided she was okay, and then he’d go back to New York and his own charter. He was still absolutely fine with that idea, he really was…
…but a small part of him wished it could’ve been different.
He was getting a nagging feeling that Bull and Eliza had been right about Sapphire, too, because she’d given him some weird looks lately. As if he needed more weird in his life. Between Eliza, Sapphire, and his growing fear that Brick would rip his face off, he was a little high-strung.
Thankfully, Eliza seemed to be more or less back to normal—or whatever it was she’d been most of the time they’d spent together. She still called him ‘Sweetums’ at times, though, and he was praying it wouldn’t stick with the other members. It was kind of worth it, because she always laughed when she said it, and she had a great laugh.
“What are we cleaning today?” she asked when she dropped down on the couch next to him.
“The bar.”
“But we’ve done that.”
“That was over a month ago, and people frequent this bar, so it needs to be cleaned on a regular basis, Princess. No need to empty all the shelves, though.”
“Good, because that sucked.” She reached for his pack of smokes and took one. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just peachy. You?”
“Fine. Just intense stuff with Dr. Flores today, and then a strange conversation with Dad. I’m kind of… weird right now.”
“Weird? When are you not?”
“Funny,” she said and gave him the finger. “Such a comedian. You should try standup.”
Roach nodded. Sometimes Eliza needed to land when she’d been at Dr. Flores’, and he got that. Those talks could really mess things up and turn things around, usually not in a bad way, but it was probably best to let Eliza digest it.
“So, wanna clean or ride today? Or both?”
“Both,” she answered without hesitation. “Let’s start with the cleaning.”
It took them about three hours, and Eliza was unusually quiet the entire time. He left her alone. Wh
en she was in that kind of a mood it was always to just best to leave her be.
Once they were done, they took a forty-minute ride and ended up at a diner they’d never been at before. He’d honestly thought they’d been to every place within less than an hour riding-distance of the club, but he’d been wrong.
“Wanna talk?” he finally asked when they’d gotten the food they’d ordered. “Or are we having a silent day today?”
“We talked about… dating, I guess you could say.”
He took a sip of his Coke and smiled, hoping he looked as relaxed as he was trying to look.
“And? You wanna date?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s more… I’m not sure I can, and how weird would it be, and all that stuff.”
“Might be good. Or it could be good if you think you’re ready. Dating isn’t sex, which I’m sure you know.”
“I know.”
“And it’s a pretty safe step on the way if you’re dating a nice guy.”
“You think?”
And as happy as he was about how eager she looked, it hurt. It fucking shouldn’t, but it did. He had no fucking business being hurt about anything she did, and internally he cursed himself for being so goddamn stupid.
“I think so. When dating works, you take the next step. I guess. Honestly, this isn’t really my expert area.”
“Never dated?” she asked with a laugh.
“Not really,” he admitted. “I had a girlfriend for a while, but it wasn’t… we were both pretty messed up.”
They’d both been drug addicts, and two drug addicts together was never a good idea. Ever. He’d liked her, maybe even loved her, but he’d moved on and she’d refused to. He had no idea if she was even alive anymore, but it had come to a point were he had to leave her behind or die next to her.
Another girl he hadn’t been able to save.
Equilibrium: A Marauders Interlude Page 13