by M. O'Keefe
Tiffany must have heard the gossip from around the park.
“We didn’t do shit, Tiffany,” he sneered. “We told a guy where his wife was living—that’s it.”
Tiffany shook her head. Color was returning to her face in great red blotches. “I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t keep pretending that this is okay. You make the world so dark, Phil. And our kids…” Her voice broke and she wiped a hand under her eyes, scrubbing away tears. “I’m not going.” Tiffany lifted her chin all the way up. “I’m not going and you’re not welcome here. If you come back I’ll call the cops.”
It was hard work not to clap. Not to cheer. All the hair on Annie’s body was standing up in ovation.
“My shit,” Phil said. “All my stuff is in there.”
“Get it,” Dylan said, and Phil started to walk back toward the trailer, but Dylan held up his hand. And like a well-trained dog, Phil stopped. “Tiffany,” he said, not looking away from Phil’s face. “Pack up his things, would you?”
“I’ll help,” Annie said. And the two of them went inside the trailer.
Tiffany walked down the narrow hallway toward the bedrooms, the walls lined with pictures the kids had drawn, glitter falling off into small piles in the carpet. Tiffany closed two doors as they walked past and Annie got glimpses of the sleeping kids. Thumbs in mouths, blankets clutched in tiny hands.
In the back bedroom, Tiffany seemed to hit a wall. She stood, staring at the unmade bed, the two dressers. She stood there and shook.
“Hey,” Annie whispered. “Hey, it’s okay. Tell me where his stuff is and you grab a bag for him.”
Tiffany pointed to the dresser in the corner with the cockeyed drawers.
Three minutes later, the dresser was empty of his stuff. Then the closet. The bathroom. Within ten minutes, they had wiped Phil out of the trailer. And with each oversized shirt and pair of underwear, Tiffany seemed to gather herself. Pull together strength and purpose.
When they stepped back out of the trailer, Tiffany threw the duffle at Phil’s feet.
“Tiff,” he sighed, looking up at her like he thought he could still change her mind. Annie knew that look on his face; she’d seen it before on Hoyt’s. She’d been suckered by that face more times than she could count.
For a second Annie worried about Tiffany’s resolve.
But she shouldn’t have doubted.
“Get your shit and get gone,” Tiffany told him. “And don’t come back.”
“Or I’ll break more than your fingers,” Dylan added, walking forward toward Phil, making the guy retreat. Phil stumbled as he walked backward, until he was pressed up against the driver’s-side door.
Yelling a few choice obscenities, he fumbled with the door handle and finally got in and roared off. A hand stuck out the window, giving all of them the finger.
“I should have broken that one,” Dylan muttered.
Tiffany put her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
“Tiffany?” Annie asked, tentatively touching her elbow. “You okay?”
“You broke his finger,” Tiffany said, looking up at Dylan, part horror, part happiness. She was laughing and crying.
“I don’t think he’ll come back,” Dylan told her.
“No. I’m sure he won’t,” she said. “He’s only here when someone kicks him off their couch. He doesn’t…he doesn’t like the kids. Or me.”
“Do you care?” Annie asked.
She wanted to say good riddance, but she understood wanting someone’s love even if that love was poison.
“For the kids, yes. But he’s gone. And I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”
“Did you know Phil has family? A mom, a brother, and a sister?” Dylan asked, and Tiffany turned to look at him, her brows furrowed. “I mean, did he talk about them?”
“Phil didn’t talk much about anything. When I asked, he just said that they were assholes to him. They kicked him out when he was a kid and then he said…I think he said they died.”
“His father did,” Dylan told her. “But his mother is still alive, and so are his brother and sister.”
Tiffany’s knees buckled and Annie grabbed her and led her to the picnic table.
“What are you talking about?” Tiffany whispered.
“Phil’s brother, Blake, is my partner. In my garage. And his mother is like a mother to me. I’ve known them for years, and I’m telling you, if she knew she had three grandkids living here, she would move heaven and earth to see you safe. And cared for.”
In Annie’s arms, Tiffany was positively still. If she was breathing, Annie couldn’t feel it.
“Breathe, Tiffany,” she urged, and Tiffany jerked, sucking in a breath.
“She is a very good woman,” Annie said to her. “Really decent. She wouldn’t…judge you. Or cast you out—”
“Not like my mom?” Tiffany asked, her eyes sharp.
“I’m just saying she’s kind. And she would want to help.”
Tiffany turned her face away, looking over at the trailer. One of her girls was coming down the steps, dragging a blanket behind her. Her fine blond hair in a rooster tail over her eyes.
“Mommy?” the little girl whimpered. “Is Daddy gone?”
“Come here, sweetie.” She sighed, and the little girl climbed up into her lap. “Did the yelling wake you up?”
“No, Sienna peed the bed again.”
Tiffany closed her eyes, and as Annie watched, she literally pulled herself together. Reattached muscle to bone, assembled her spine, screwed in her arms and legs. When she opened her eyes they were cold and serious.
“What’s her name?” she asked. “This…mom.”
“Margaret.”
“I can’t…I can’t do anything about Margaret right now,” she whispered over her little girl’s head.
Dylan nodded, everything threatening and brutal, everything dangerous about him so muted in the face of this woman’s bravery and fear.
Annie could not hold back the tide of feeling that curled through her, sweeping away defense. Sweeping away reason.
There was only him.
Tiffany’s long breath shuddered. “I’m going to get back inside,” she said.
She picked up her dozy baby girl and stepped toward the trailer. She sagged slightly, hoisting her daughter up. And Dylan caught her arm and then quickly let her go, but he walked beside her toward the trailer.
Keeping her safe.
The sight made Annie’s throat tight. Her chest hurt. It made everything swell inside of her. A feeling not unlike pain. Or lust. But neither of those two things. Or perhaps more than those two things.
“When you’re ready,” Dylan said to Tiffany, “I’ll get you in touch with her.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Dylan said, and Tiffany’s head snapped up toward him. “I…I should have thought maybe before I did that. You’re a family and I made a decision—”
“I made the decision,” she said. “And it’s okay. You’re taking care of Annie.” Tiffany shot Annie a smile over her shoulder. “And that’s a good thing. I’m going to be okay. I got family who can help. Apparently more than I knew about.”
“Lock the door behind you,” he said, and she nodded.
Dylan helped close the door behind Tiffany, whose hands were full, and then he waited there until they heard the crappy lock on the screen click.
Night was starting to fall and behind him the sky was purple. The trees black. Annie could feel the setting sun on her shoulders.
“We’re quite a team,” he murmured with that half-smile she’d grown to love.
Right. Yes.
Love.
Bedrock.
“I love you,” she said.
ANNIE
His silence was not unexpected. The way his mouth dropped from that grin into slack-jawed surprise—that wasn’t unexpected, either.
Saying that—admitting it, before she had a chance to really think about it. That
really was the unexpected thing.
“Don’t say anything,” she said, suddenly manic. Suddenly practically vibrating out of her skin. She didn’t regret it. No, she could never regret it, but she just wished she’d been more prudent. More careful with herself. But it was too late. “I’ve been thinking that when we were talking on the phone, even though we were lying sometimes, we were really showing each other exactly who we are. The parts of us we never showed anyone, or even…maybe forgot we had. We showed each other our bedrock truth, without even knowing it. I mean…I know I did. And I think you did, too. And since we came back here, things have gotten more confusing. They’ve gotten harder because we’re not showing each other that truth anymore. We’re back to telling ourselves lies about who we really are and what we really want like we used to. Like we had to before, just to get through the day.
“And I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to show you the truth of me. And…loving you is a part of that. It’s a part of who I am now. And I heard what you said to me in the trailer, about your parents, and I understand that me loving you, me…saying that, might make you panic. Or freak you out, but I just want you to know, nothing is different. I just said some words. The feelings were the feelings I’ve had all along.”
He was still silent, and she guessed maybe he needed some room. Some quiet.
“I’ll…talk to you later,” she said.
Annie turned and nearly ran toward the rhododendron bush and her trailer and all that quiet, all that solace. She’d climb into bed and put her pillow over her head and try to pretend she hadn’t said that.
Didn’t just potentially ruin everything.
“Annie,” he said, just before she cleared the edge of the bushes. She stopped, but didn’t turn around. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please, turn around.”
She did, reluctantly. His cheeks were flushed, the color above the scars bright. It was charming. He had his hands shoved in his pockets, his shoulders up near his ears.
“That was the bravest…” He stopped and shook his head, unable to meet her eyes. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Her smile was shaky. Me neither. “I know,” she told him, forgiving his awkwardness. His silence. His inability to return the emotions she’d just vomited out at him.
It was, after all, something she’d been doing her whole life. This was what she was good at, loving people who could not love her in return.
DYLAN
I bought the six-pack of cheap beer at the gas station and I headed straight to The Velvet Touch parking lot. I drove past the front door across the asphalt to the gravel and then around the building to the back.
There was a row of gleaming Harleys outside the back entrance, but none of the guys were around. I parked my car opposite those bikes. I got my six-pack and went out to sit on the hood of my car.
And I waited.
Because in the end, despite all my money, despite Blake and Margaret, who I would only allow so close, I was Max Daniels’s kid brother.
That was my truth. Or a big part of it anyway. Bigger, perhaps, than I wanted to admit.
And sometimes a guy just needed his brother.
Max was a reminder of who I was before all the bullshit changed me.
I drank a beer waiting and opened another.
A man came out, a tall Viking-looking dude with a Skulls cut and a mustache that made him look like he had a pussy on his face.
“Logsy in there?” I yelled at the guy.
“Who’s asking?”
“His brother.”
The guy vanished and within a few minutes Max came out, looking pissed. I imagined him as a cartoon with a bunch of smoke coming out his ears.
When Max got close enough I tossed him a beer.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, catching the beer. I thought he might rifle it back at my head, but he only clenched it in that fist of his.
“Trying to have a beer with my brother. Drink up—it’s room temperature. Your favorite.”
Max just sighed at me, like I was a kid refusing to go home when he wanted to get down to the business of stealing cars. So fucking familiar, that sigh.
“Look, I’m sorry Rabbit got you screwed up in club business. But you have got to go. Now.”
I took a sip of beer and didn’t move.
“I don’t want you here!” he said.
I leaned back against my windshield, stretched my legs out over the hood. Three weeks ago I never would have considered this, but these were different days. Wildly different days.
Annie loved me. She loved me.
And I wasn’t entirely sure who I was.
“Is this…is there something going on with Pops?” Max asked, proving he wasn’t such a hard-ass.
“I thought you didn’t care?”
“I don’t.”
“He’s fine. A fucking gardener, if you can believe it. Made me some cornbread.”
We were silent for a long moment. I had another drink.
This isn’t about the club, I wanted to tell him. This isn’t about anything but you and me and what we used to be. I need that for five minutes. I need my goddamn brother for five minutes and you owe me that.
It seemed as if Max understood, or had read my mind, or fuck, maybe he needed it, too. Maybe whatever shit he was going down with had him wishing he’d done some things differently. Maybe he wished things were simple. Like they used to be. When it was just him and me against the world.
Whatever.
It didn’t matter why. He sighed, leaned back against my car, and popped the top on his beer. I hid my smile with my can.
“Was it good? The cornbread?” Max asked.
“Yeah. He put the fried chilies in it.”
“Like Mom made.”
“Every Sunday.”
Max scooched up on the hood. “Sorry about the paint,” he muttered when the rivet on his boot scratched the car.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Right.” He leaned back against the windshield beside me. “Because you’re rich as fuck, ain’t you?”
“Yes, I am.” I toasted him. He toasted me back. We both drank.
“Dad’s all right?” Max asked.
“Well, he’s dying. But at the moment he’s fine.”
“You doing the chemo thing with him?”
“Annie is.”
Last time I saw Max I’d been unwilling to talk about Annie, scared of more blowback touching her. But this time—now—I was here to talk about her.
The world was a perverse fucking place. Or maybe that was just me.
“Annie’s the girl who shot her husband?”
I nodded.
Max eyed me over the can before he took another long drink. “So you in love or something?”
I drained my can and let it roll down the hood before opening another. Max took one, too.
“I know why you left me after jail,” I said.
“What’s this got to do with your love life?” Max asked.
Nothing. Everything. Somehow this was part of that bedrock Annie had been talking about.
“It hurt, what you did. It hurt a lot, but I get it. You gave me a new life.”
Max laughed up at the parking lot lights, with their buzzing halo of bugs. “And yet, here we are, like nothing’s changed.”
I had this ache. This pain in my chest I couldn’t get rid of. “You were out, weren’t you?” Out of the life. Out of danger. He’d been free. “You’d gotten out and I made you come back.”
Max twisted the pop-top off the can and tossed it into the dirt past the headlights. “Tell me about this girl.”
“Max?”
“I came back,” Max said. “Because of this girl. Because of whatever it is you feel for her. So fucking tell me.”
“She told me she loved me tonight. I broke a guy’s finger, terrified a woman and her kids, and Annie…she told me she loved me. It was the bravest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Brave?
” Max scoffed. “She know how rich you are?”
“It’s not about that,” I said.
“Yeah? You sure about that? Has she seen your fancy beach house?”
“You haven’t seen my house.”
“I saw it in a magazine, once. Pops had all that shit about you.”
I didn’t press about Pops and the magazine, one of Blake’s brilliant ideas. But that was the second time someone told me that Pops had kept tabs on me after I got out of jail. I understood why he left me; I got it. It was brutal and black-and-white, but that was the way Pops lived. All or nothing.
But it was easier to believe he didn’t care.
“Annie doesn’t care about money.”
“Or maybe she’s just lying about not caring,” Max said. “You were always a shit judge of women.”
I laughed, because I knew what he was remembering. “She’s not Michelle.”
“Or Mackenzie or Shoshonna.”
“I had some bad girlfriends.”
“You were just stupid grateful when they let you touch their tits.”
“Well, Annie’s not like any of them. She’s…real. You know? Authentic. And she doesn’t lie.”
Except when she does.
But she wouldn’t lie about this. Unless she was wrong. Unless what she felt was something else.
That’s what I was scared of.
“What happens if she’s wrong?” I asked. “Am I just supposed to trust that what she feels is real? What happens when it’s not and I’m left out to dry?”
Alone.
Again.
“You’re asking the wrong guy, Dylan,” Max said. “Trust got rubbed out of me a long time ago. I say watch your back.”
“Christ, you’re jaded.”
“Fine.” Max held up his hands. “You’re the one sitting out here behind a strip club with your brother instead of…doing whatever it is men do with women who love them.”
“You don’t know?” I asked.
“No fucking clue.”
“What happened to…what was her name, Drea?”
“Fuck, from like high school?”
“Yeah. She was nice.”
“She was, and that’s why she dumped my ass.”
There was no denying this was weird, and I think we both knew it. There were about a dozen things we needed to really talk about—what was going on in that club at the top of the list—but for whatever reason, this—shooting the shit—it was what we both needed.