Craving Me, Desiring You

by C. M. Stunich

  Without my having to ask, Tax and his men copy me, moving up alongside my frozen form. It only takes them a minute. Good thing, too, because as soon as we're in place, the men turn and start to move towards the chain link fence. I don't know what the signal was, but there they go, off and runnin'.

  “Ready,” I say, glancing down the line. I get a nod from Tax as I pull my Ruger out and hold it tight in my sweaty fingers. “Now!” I whisper harshly, and the eight of us rise to our knees, take aim, and fire.

  Chapter 11

  Austin

  By the time I get back to the clubhouse, I am a fucking wreck. I've shed more blood today than I have in the rest of my life combined. I don't much like the feeling. At least I got my boys by my side still. Didn't lose a single member of Triple M. I didn't ask how many Seventy-seven Brothers lost – it wasn't my place.

  “Lights are still on,” Beck says cheerfully as we pause in the driveway and I get off to open the garage door. There are a lot of bikes in here, not the whole club obviously, but a few. Beck and I park, leaving the guys to clean 'em up. Blood fucks up the paint job, you know.

  I sweep a hand though my hair and exchange a look with Beck. I don't really know how to describe what happened today. A fucking nightmare. That's what it was. At least Tax and I got that shit taken care of. Thing is, I don't know that we're done. I don't know that this is over. We didn't kill everyone, obviously. A couple of minutes after we got back to the fight, Broken Dallas and Bested by Crows started looking worried and fled. We didn't bother to give chase. It was rough enough as is. And then I spent the last few hours treating the wounded and moving the dead. Fucking hell. I don't ever want to do that shit again.

  “Keep the details to yourself for a little while,” I tell Beck as we open the front door and come in to find an empty entryway. There were a few guys out front, but they didn't say anything when I came in, just nodded to acknowledge me. A quick glance out the back windows shows me that there a bunch of Triple M'ers in the yard with a fire going, drinking beer and having a good time. I don't know if they realize how serious this crap is.

  “I got a bad feeling in my stomach, Beck,” I tell him as we pause on our way to the back door and glance up. Kimmi's standing at the top of the stairs looking nervous. I don't like nervous. Scares the everliving crap out of me. I grit my teeth hard and turn towards her. “What is it now?” I ask, stretched thin, tired, pissed the fuck off. When she speaks, my heart nearly explodes inside my chest.

  “It's Amy.”

  I'm up the stairs before she can utter another word, headed straight down the hall towards the only bedroom that's lit up. The door slams into the wall when I shove my way through and find Amy resting on a cot in the corner. Her friend Christy is asleep on a lawn chair nearby while Tease watches over them, a book clutched in her hands as she lounges on the end of the cot. My heart is thumping so loud I can barely hear my own words when they come tumbling out of my mouth.

  “What happened?” I whisper as Beck and Kimmi move into the room behind me and pause. It feels like there's a sea of tension between me and Amy, like a laser focus aimed at those big, blue eyes. If anyone crosses my path, it's cuttin' em down.

  “Oh, Austin,” Amy chirps, trying to sound cheerful. I must have a God-awful look on my face. “I'm glad you're back.” Her voice quivers briefly before she gathers herself together and unconsciously crosses an arm across her chest, fingers coming to rest on a bandage on the opposite side.

  “What happened?” I ask again, but nobody seems to want to answer me. I don't know if they're scared of me or what, but lips stay sealed and gazes travel elsewhere around the room.

  “I was going to call or text you, but Mireya made a good point,” Kimmi begins as I start across the room, boots loud on the covered wood floors. Amy watches me come, raising her chin, face stoic. “We thought you might be in a sticky situation, and we didn't want to distract you.”

  I lean down and cup a hand gently against the back of Amy's head, pressing my lips against hers. I don't realize that I'm the one trembling until I pull back and glance down at my hands.

  “Somebody took a shot through one of the windows on the West side of the house,” Tease says, scooting off the bed and shivering when Beck comes up behind her and wraps an arm around her waist. “Amy got hit in the arm. It's a clean wound though,” she adds, like that even matters to me. Somebody shot my Amy? Somebody fucking shot her? My vision flickers darkly for a moment, and I glance over my shoulder.

  “Get out.”

  “Austin,” Kimmi begins, but I turn my head and give her a look, too. She raises both hands, purses her lips and then shakes her head. “Never mind then. Christy?” Amy's friend rises to her feet, puts a hand on Amy's shoulder as if asking permission. Amy nods at her and she pulls away, taking Beck and Tease along with her. I put my forehead against Amy's uninjured arm and breath in, out, in again.

  “I survived a gunshot,” Amy says, reaching her fingers of her good hand up to play with my hair. “I assume this gives me some sort of street cred?” she asks, and I chuckle softly, keeping my head down. I feel like fucking shit. There should be some sort of high from coming out on top today, some sort of relief from finding out that Amy's alright, that it's not as serious as it could've been. Instead, all I feel is darkness inside of me. My mind flutters through images, moments in life that I'd rather not relive. Like my brother. How I got him shot. But he wasn't as lucky as Amy.

  I look up and find a worried face and flat lips. Amy's brows are pinched together as she waits for me to say something. I sit up a bit and perch on the edge of the cot, listening to the squeak of the springs with gritted teeth. She shouldn't be laying here on this old piece of shit. I want Amy to have a good life, an easy one. Because I love her. I do. I figured that shit out, back when I saw Kent trying to kill her, when there was red oozing down her tender throat. I open my mouth to say the words, but they get stuck inside, frozen there along with my heart.

  “This is my fault, sugar,” I say. “And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.” I shake my head and get out a cigarette, lighting up and rising to my feet to open the window and waft the smoke out the screen. If I sit near her a moment longer, I'm going to crack. Amy watches me, resting her head back into the pillows and running her fingers of her left hand across the cover of a book. The girl is always reading, always lost inside a book. I asked her once, a few weeks back, if reading was an escape. You know what she said? It used to be, but now, now it's just a vacation. I ain't got the slightest idea what that means, but it almost made me curious enough to find out.

  “Did you pull the trigger?” Amy asks, and I can already see where this is going. I turn back to her, watching the soft fall of chestnut hair around her gorgeous face. She adjusts herself and the blankets fall down her chest, exposing a hint of cleavage above the line of her tank top. I try not to look at it, but fuck. I want to toss my cigarette to the floor, storm across the room in a flurry of unfettered emotions, and kiss the ever livin' crap out of her. Then I want to rip those blankets the rest of the way off, strip her and kiss her entire body before I make sweet motherfucking love to her.

  But I don't do any of that.

  First off, because the girl's been frigging shot, and second, I have the answer to my question. I am not good enough for this woman. If I was, I wouldn't be dragging her through this shit. Getting shot at is nothing compared to what could happen. If what I saw today is any indication, we're all in a heap of shit.

  “That shouldn't have ever happened to you, Cross,” I say, letting my gaze take in the orange spots of the streetlights. “I should never have dragged you into this shit.”

  Amy turns and puts her feet on the ground, mouth downturned and face flushed.

  “What the hell you doin', sugar?” I ask, crushing my cigarette out in the glass ashtray that's sitting on the windowsill. I move over to her, but she stands up, steady on her feet.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asks, and I glance away. I don't know if
it's the day I've had or just everything catching up to me all at once, but suddenly I feel antsy. Like I need to ride. Just take off into the night with no idea of where I'm going. I'm a fucking wimp. Jesus, where the hell did my balls go?

  “I mean I should've left you back in that little town of yours.” As soon as I say the words, I know they don't sound the way I meant them to. Amy slaps me across the face, not hard, just enough to let me know that I'm not wanted in here right now. All I want to do is hold her tight, but instead, I find myself backing towards the door.

  “Go find yourself again, Austin Sparks, and then come back and see me in the morning.” Amy turns back around and climbs into bed, lying on her back with an arm flung over her face. I turn the light off on the way out and don't look back.

  Chapter 12

  Amy

  I spend the night at the clubhouse with some of the Triple M'ers and wake feeling sore and slightly dizzy but okay. I think I'll survive this, I tell myself with a smile, pausing in the freshly remodeled bathroom that adjoins my room. Our room, I correct myself. This corner room I've just spent the last few hours tossing and turning in is supposed to belong to me and Austin.

  I mean I should've left you back in that little town of yours.

  I understand what he was trying to say, or at least I believe I do. But he still shouldn't have said it. I gingerly wash my face, feeling my arm protest and strain when I move it around. I don't think I'll be getting much renovation work in today. At least my right hand is still functional. Maybe I could still paint? I look up at my reflection, at my pale skin and my even paler lips. I need to get something to eat, find Austin, and get past this silly fight. I think it's officially our first, but that's okay. All couples must have them at some point. Humans will be humans. The important part is not that we've fought but rather, how we overcome it, how quickly we make up.

  Nausea grips my belly, drawing me down to my knees with a gasp when I make the mistake of reaching out and gripping the wall with my injured arm. I bend over the toilet, coughing and heaving, unable to get anything up but bile. If I'm going to be sick, I may as well have something to vomit up. Not having anything is almost worse. I don't hear the knock on my door because I'm too busy hunching over the toilet.

  “Amy?” I expect it to be Christy, but it's not. This time, it's Tease. She comes up to the bathroom door and pauses outside of it, leaning against the frame and looking down at me. We haven't known each other for long, but I like her very much. I have fantasies that one day, I'll have a group of friends much like Austin does. My very own Beck, Gaine, and Kimmi. I hope Tease is one of them. And the fact that she's having a baby is even more exciting. I'll get to be a part of the child's life. “You're having worse morning sickness than me,” she says with a small laugh. I think it's meant to be a joke.

  “What?” I ask, my fingers clenching tight. I cry out and wrap my arm over my chest, touching the bandage gently as I turn to look at Tease.

  “You should come see Didi again,” she says, her red brows wrinkling in worry. “I think she's down in what used to be the kitchen.” Tease smiles again, but I don't move from where I'm sitting. My heart is thumping a million miles a minute. Oh dear. I swallow hard and think very carefully. My life has been such a whirlwind lately, I've not been going about things as carefully as perhaps I should have. When was the last time I took a birth control pill? I think about it hard, but my mind is all muddled with fear. I've been taking them regularly. Well, mostly. Okay, maybe not mostly but often … Jesus, Amy. And then, there are seven pills in each pack that don't have hormones. I certainly don't remember taking any week long breaks with Austin. My throat gets tight.

  “Oh Lord, help me,” I whisper as Tease bends down next to me. I look her straight in her green eyes and try not to pass out. “I think I might be pregnant.” She blinks at me a couple of times and then opens her mouth, shuts it, opens it again.

  “Why would you think that?” she says, and I remember her telling me that she and Beck never used condoms nor was she on any birth control. It was like we were asking for it, she'd said with a smile. I'd tried to be good, but everything was so up in the air.

  “I don't … ” I pause and force myself to smile. It feels like my face is being stretched like taffy. “Maybe I'm overreacting?” I ask instead, forcing myself to my feet with a grunt. Tease helps me up and moves out of the bathroom, waiting with a bemused expression on her face. Just because my boobs are sore, and I feel slightly dizzy, and I keep throwing up, that doesn't mean a darn thing. I smooth my hands down the front of yesterday's jeans and wish fervently for a set of clean clothes.

  “Is there a reason you might be pregnant?” Tease asks and then takes a deep breath. “I mean, do you use condoms regularly or … ?” She spreads her hands and then shrugs. Tease might only be eighteen, but she's a hell of a lot more worldly than I am. I feel for a moment as if I'm speaking to my big sister.

  “We never use condoms; I was on the pill,” I whisper, twisting my hands and glancing over at the mirror to my right. I stand up straight and put my hand on my belly. No change there – it's as flat as it's always been. “But I … didn't always take them. And we didn't stop … ” I try to figure out how to phrase this without being vulgar. No, I did not sleep with Austin during any heavy days of my period, but I … certainly didn't abstain for the entire seven day span either. Can one get pregnant during their period? I feel ridiculously misinformed at the moment. A product of my upbringing – I was no Carrie, but I didn't learn about my period until after I'd started it. At least Mama was with it enough to get me the pills in the first place. Oh, the dichotomy of it all. “Oh my.”

  Tease's eyebrows draw together and she shrugs again.

  “I have some leftover … sticks,” she says with a slight smile, brushing some ruby red hair back from her face. Since she and Beck both have green eyes, red hair, and pale skin, I imagine their child coming out looking much the same. Unless, of course, I'm wrong and they end up with a brunette. “Come on. Let's go back to the hotel for awhile, and grab something to eat.” I try to smile back at her, but I don't feel particularly well, gunshot wound aside. This is a different kind of sickness, a fear that's worming its way into my gut. What ever would Austin say?

  Chapter 13

  Amy

  “It would be kind of fun, right?” Tease says, poking at the remains of her sandwich. She's sitting on the end of Austin's and my bed with her plate on her lap, dressed in a clean black tank top and fresh jeans. I've still got my robe on, a towel wrapped around my wet hair. Showering was not as pleasant as it should've been. I had to wrap my wounded arm with plastic, and then struggle to shampoo and condition my hair with only one hand. From shoulder to wrist, there's a dull, throbbing ache, numbed just barely by the ibuprofen and the Tylenol I took together. The ride over here was bad enough, all that jostling around, struggling to stay seated on Beck's bike. He made me sit in front of him while he drove me back, convinced that Austin would chop off his … well, he made a dirty reference to his testicles … if he let me ride my bike back injured. Not that there's any way to know that – Austin and his motorcycle are gone.

  I didn't ask Beck if he knew where his friend had gone. To be honest, I don't want to know. He'll be back soon, I'm sure of it.

  “What would be kind of fun?” I ask, throwing a wary sidelong glance at the box sitting next to the TV. This is ridiculous, I keep telling myself, even though I know it's not. Even if I hadn't messed up with the pills, they're not one hundred percent effective. This is something I should be doing regularly anyway. Especially since I didn't have my period last month. It took some hard thinking while I was in the shower, but as I scrolled back through the days, I could only remember the month before. My word, Amy Cross. How have you become so scatterbrained? If I'd been paying attention, instead of luxuriating in the arms of my real life book boyfriend, I might have noticed.

  I move casually towards the pink box and pick it up, feeling the two pregnancy tests inside
slide around.

  “To have babies at the same time,” she says, picking up her plate and setting it back on the room service tray that's balanced on the table near the balcony doors. Tease glances over her shoulder and throws me a winning smile. I'm not sure if she's serious or if she's simply trying to make me feel better. Either way, I appreciate it.

  “I guess so,” I say, wondering if this is something I should be excited about or if I should be dreading the results. Do I want a baby? I've never really given much thought to it. I was raised with a preconceived notion of how my life would go. Grow up, get married, have kids, help out in the church. That was it. So I never really had the opportunity to even consider not having children.

  My stomach turns as I suck in a deep breath and brace myself. I suppose there's no reason going over this in my head until I know for sure anyway. I give Tease a look, and she passes me a thumbs-up right back.

  “Okay then,” I say, more to myself than to her. “Let's just get this over with, shall we?” I head into the bathroom and shut the door before I can change my mind. Ignorance is bliss and all that, right? I set the box on the counter, pull up and my robe and get ready to … pee. It doesn't sound quite so scary when you put it that way, right? Right?

  I take both tests and set them on the counter, slumping to the tile floor while I wait. Above me, the fan whirs, blocking out any sound from outside the bathroom. I realize that the box says results in one minute with a very excited couple of exclamation points after it, but I sit there for a good fifteen minutes, pulling the towel off of my hair and brushing the brunette strands out with slow strokes.

  I am a new woman. An independent woman. I am in a motorcycle club. I make my own decisions. I survived a gunshot wound. I repeat comforting phrases in my head, one sentence for each brush stroke, until my hair is fully combed and lying softly against the fluffy white fabric of the robe. I wrap it closer around myself and sit up on my knees, grabbing one of the white sticks and pulling it towards me.