by Tillie Cole
When we arrived at the door, Phebe leaned into me. I looked at her freckled face, and she smiled in encouragement. “This probably won’t go well,” I said in warning.
“I know,” she replied, then nodded at the door.
I lifted my hand and knocked three times. I stood back, waiting. I looked down at myself and wondered if Claire would even recognize me. I was wearing faded jeans, a black shirt and my cut. My hair was long. The last time she’d seen me it was still short. And fuck knows I’d aged.
The door opened. Phebe’s hand squeezed mine as I slowly looked up into Claire’s older, but familiar, face. It took her a while to see who I was, then I saw her eyes widen.
“Xavier?” she whispered, bringing her hand to her mouth. Her eyes tracked over me, studying how I looked.
“Claire.” My fucking voice was raw.
“I don’t believe it.” She shook her head. Her hand dropped from her mouth. I braced myself for her wrath, braced for her to tell me to get the fuck gone. But instead, she sighed. “We’ve been looking for you for a real long time.” I froze. I froze and felt Phebe take in a long inhale. Claire pointed to the table and chairs on her wide front porch. “Let’s sit. Tea?”
I still couldn’t speak, so I was thankful when Phebe smiled and said, “Yes, please. Thank you.”
Claire went back into the house, and we sat down. “This is good,” Phebe said and brought my hand to her lips. She kissed the back of my hand.
“I thought she was gonna slam the door in our face.” I looked across at the picturesque suburban street. “She blamed me, Red. She fucking told me to my face that it was all my fault.”
“It was not,” Phebe said vehemently.
I smiled at her defense of me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever forgive myself for what I did, but I fucking appreciated how she wouldn’t stop trying until I did.
Claire came back outside and placed down the tea. She handed us each a glass and nervously sat in the seat opposite me, running her hands over her floral dress. “Tom was transferred from Plano when Zane was twelve.” I stilled as she mentioned my nephew’s name. “We’d heard you had come to Austin too, and from the minute we arrived—before that, in fact—we’ve been searching for you.”
“Why?” I asked gruffly.
Claire’s shoulders sagged. “Because he missed you, Xavier. He missed you so much.” I didn’t expect the fucking lump to build in my throat, but then I didn’t expect that Zane had wanted me . . . after everything.
“It was a lot, you know? Losing Tina and Dev like he did . . . the way he did. His parents gone in such a violent way. But what I will never forgive myself for was him losing you too.” Claire straightened her shoulders and flicked away a tear that had fallen from her eye. “I was so hurt by what Dev had done to Tina. I was so angry, was so blinded by fury, that I believed I was doing best by sending you from his life.” She regarded me with guilt in her gaze. “I blamed you.” Her words were a fucking blow to my chest. “I blamed you and thought you would hurt Zane too.”
My hand tightened around the glass in my hand. “It was my fault.” I looked down at the ice melting in my tea. “I fucked up. I fucked up, and all the shit that came to Dev and Tina—fuck, to Zane—was all on me.”
“AK,” Phebe said in a hushed voice and clutched my arm. But I couldn’t look at my bitch. If I did, I knew I would fucking break.
“He had PTSD, Xavier,” Claire said, and I lifted my head. “I had to have a lot of counseling. It took me years to deal with her death.” Claire choked on a sob. “She was my baby sister. And he killed her. Dev, the boy she had loved since high school . . . I couldn’t comprehend it. Couldn’t believe it.” She pulled herself together. “But over the years I had it explained to me in such a way that I do understand now.” She sniffed. “What Dev went through in Iraq . . .” I tensed. “The little help he got when he returned, left to fend off the darkness alone . . . I can understand how it happened. He never truly came back. He remained living in that time until he died.” She swallowed. “It still hurts. And there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think of Tina, especially if Zane does something that she would have done—a gesture, an expression, saying a certain word.” Her face crumpled. “It has been very hard.”
“I know,” I said and felt my own fucking tears rising.
“But I was wrong. That boy didn’t cope well with losing Dev and Tina.” Claire glanced away to gain composure. When she looked back, she said, “But you were his best friend. He idolized you above anyone, and he knew you were out there somewhere. He didn’t understand why you weren’t coming to see him.
“I told him it was me. I told him I had sent you away because I was angry. And he hated me. For a while there, he had a real hard time.” She blinked, her eye makeup running some. “But he is a good kid, Xavier. A kind boy. Smart boy.” She broke down, and I held out my hand and covered hers. It was trembling. “They would have been so proud of him.” She laughed sadly. “He looks like you. Just like Dev. Like a Deyes man.”
My head dropped as she told me that. Her hand flipped under mine and she squeezed my fingers. I still couldn’t fucking look up. “He begged us to look for you. He wanted you so badly, his Uncle X. We cashed in every favor we could with friends in the police, government, but it was like you had fallen off the grid.”
“I had,” I said when I could finally look at her again. My cheeks were fucking wet, but this was Zane she was talking about. My fucking nephew wanting to see me. Needing me, and I wasn’t fucking there for him.
After everything he’d gone through, I hadn’t been there.
“We had to give up eventually.” Claire shook her head. “But every time we go out anywhere, he looks for you. We believed you were in Austin, so he never stops looking.” Claire’s eyebrows came down. “And here you are, at our door.”
“It was time to come find him,” I said. I felt Phebe’s cheek land on my arm.
“He’ll be home soon.” Claire checked her watch. “School will have gotten out. He’ll be here any minute now.”
The nerves that accosted me were so fucking strong that I had to fight to fucking breathe. Then I felt Phebe tense beside me.
I didn’t look up. By her reaction, I knew he was here somewhere.
“He does look just like you,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. That was all it took for me to raise my head. I heard the gate open before I saw him. He was looking at my bike, his head turned in that direction as he walked up the path. Then he turned. He turned and looked toward the porch. Brown eyes, long brown hair. Jeans, a white shirt, and black boots on his feet.
Fuck.
It took him a second to see me. But when I stood, looking right into his eyes, I saw his brief confusion come clear. And I fucking saw the recognition hit home. He was tall, like me, and for a fifteen-year-old, fairly stacked. But it was his fucking eyes that I couldn’t get past. Because looking back at me was Dev. My brother was looking at me through his kid.
His backpack hit the ground, and he stood dead still. “Uncle X?” he said, and it sliced right through me. His voice that I once knew as belonging to a kid had dropped.
He sounded just like Dev now too.
“Hey, kid.” I stepped forward. But I stopped when I saw his eyes close and his head drop. I panicked, panicked that he didn’t want me here after all. But when a low sound came from his mouth and he launched forward up the steps to the porch and wrapped his arms around me, I fucking broke.
The kid was crying. Fucking holding me so damn hard that I fucking broke too. I held on tight to my nephew and wasn’t sure I could ever let go. Last time he was in my arms like this he was little and thin. Now he was anything but, but it still felt the same. My chest still felt as fucking big.
“I’ve missed you,” he said and I clenched my eyes shut.
“Missed you too, kid,” I said hoarsely.
Zane pulled back his head and searched my face. “I don’t blame you,” he said. I had to turn my head from his ga
ze. “I know he was sick from the war. But I don’t blame you for anything you did. You tried to help him.”
“Fuck, kid.” I wiped my eyes with my forearm.
Zane stepped back, and I saw him looking at my cut. His watery eyes widened. “You’re in the Hangmen?” His eyes lit up.
“Yeah,” I replied, confused how he even knew who the fuck we were.
You’d think I’d just told the kid I was Jesus fucking Christ by his reaction. “I see them all the time riding through downtown.” He focused on my cut. “AK,” he read. “That’s your road name?”
I nodded, a smirk on my lips. “You like bikes?”
Zane put his hands in his pockets and nodded. He looked over his shoulder at my bike. “That’s yours?”
“Yeah.”
“Aunt Claire?” Zane asked. “Can I show Uncle X the garage?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling. I caught Phebe watching, her fucking heart breaking. I held out my hand and pulled her in to my side. “Zane, Phebe. Phebe, Zane. Phebe’s my old lady,” I said to my nephew.
Phebe shook his hand. “Very nice to meet you, Zane,” she said. “I have heard so much about you.”
“You have?” he asked in shock.
“Yes.” She smiled. “And I have seen many of your pictures too.”
I saw the kid about to fall apart again, so I put my hand on his shoulder. “The garage?”
Zane exhaled deeply, then led me around the back of the house. He opened the garage and flicked on a light. I didn’t make it through the doorway. I didn’t move a damn step when I recognized the bike that sat in the middle of the garage floor.
“Is that . . .?”
“Dad’s? Yeah,” Zane said. The word “Dad” hit me like a blow to the chest. He moved beside the old Harley Davidson Low Rider, more rust than anything now. Zane crouched down beside it and ran his hand gently over the seat. “Dad never cared much for it when he came back from Iraq. After they . . . died, Aunt Claire put it in storage with all their other stuff. She couldn’t look at anything until a year ago, and that’s when I saw it.” He stood. “She let me bring it home and work on it.”
“You work on bikes?” I asked, suddenly feeling Dev’s presence beside me. His kid liked bikes too. It was always the plan. Serve our country, drink beers and just fucking ride when we were home from tour. I always imagined Zane doing the same one day.
I wasn’t too far wrong.
“I love them.” He came over all shy. “I ain’t too good at them yet. Learning mostly off YouTube and shit like that, but I’m getting better . . . I think.”
“YouTube?” I shook my head. Zane laughed at my horrified reaction.
I stepped further into the garage and ran my hand over the bars of the bike, remembering Dev riding beside me, fucking free with the wind.
A good memory for once.
“You wanna learn from real mechanics? Bikers who know what the fuck they’re doing?”
Zane’s mouth dropped open. “You serious?”
“As a heart attack. My brothers know a thing or two about this shit.” I winked at him, and he burst out laughing.
“Yeah,” he answered quickly. He paused. “At the Hangmen compound?”
“’Course.”
“I ain’t able to ride bikes yet though. Aunt Claire says I’m not allowed until I’m older.”
“Fuck that shit. I’ll teach you,” I said, and Zane swallowed.
“Yeah?” he croaked.
“Yeah.”
He stared at me and I stared at him. “You look like him.” I said and my fucking heart cracked.
Zane bowed his head. “I miss him. I miss them both so fucking much,” he said, his voice breaking.
I put my hand on the back of his head and pulled him in to my chest. “I fucking miss him too. Both of them.”
Zane didn’t say shit for ’bout thirty seconds, then said quietly, “And I miss you, X . . . so damn much.”
“Never again. Yeah?” I said and fought harder than ever before to not fall apart.
“You mean that?” He grabbed hold of my shirt like he was scared I would disappear.
“I swear it.”
“Good,” he said softly.
We stayed like that for a fucking age. And eventually, I could breathe. For the first time in years . . . I could breathe.
“You wanna come to a cookout soon? Stay for a few days? At the compound, then the lodge?”
Zane stepped back and wiped his eyes with his shirt. “With the Hangmen?”
“Yeah.” I laughed at the excitement on his face. “They’ll be there. Introduce you to my road brothers and best friends. Lil’ Ash too.”
“Lil’ Ash?”
“You’ll like him, kid. ’Bout your age. Likes bikes.”
“Cool,” Zane said, then fucking smiled.
“Yeah . . . cool.”
*****
Phebe
By the time we returned to the cabin, it was dark. AK and I had spent the evening with his nephew. He caught AK up on what he had missed—school, life events, plenty. I did not understand most of what they talked about, but I did not care. It was blessing enough to see him reunited with his nephew.
He was . . . happy.
“Saff staying with Li tonight?” AK asked as he closed our cabin’s door.
“Yes,” I replied and turned to stand at AK’s chest. I ran my hands down his cut, threading my hands underneath and pushing it off his shoulders. His breathing changed, his nostrils flaring under my touch.
“What’cha doing, Red?” he asked, his voice low.
I moved my hands to the hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his toned, muscled stomach. His tattoos stood bright against his olive skin. I pulled the shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor.
Leaning forward, I peppered kisses across his chest, moving to lick around his nipple. AK hissed and pushed his fingers through my hair. “Red . . . you ain’t ready.”
I looked into his eyes. “I went to the doctor yesterday with Lilah. I was given the all-clear, as they say.”
He searched my eyes, then moved his hand to my cheek. “Even so, not sure you’re ready in there.” He tapped my head with his free hand. I closed my eyes, letting the fact of how much he cared for me take root.
A strange concept indeed.
I let my forehead press against his and spoke from my heart. “I need you . . .” I did not want Meister’s touch to be the last on my body any longer. “There is only one man’s touch I ever want on my body again—given freely, and lovingly.” I met his dark gaze. “Yours.”
“Red,” AK murmured. I led him to our bedroom, closing the door behind us. I unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them off his legs. I stepped back as AK stood before me, gloriously naked.
I slipped my jacket, tank and bra from my torso, then slid my leather pants down my legs. I never broke AK’s stare as I removed my panties and stood up straight.
“Beautiful,” AK said, his voice raspy, as I held out my hand. He took it without hesitation, and I led him to the bed.
I lay down and he lay beside me. I stared into his eyes and pressed my mouth against his own. I let my lips worship his lips and let my heart fall into perfect sync with his.
I moved over his chest, moaning as his rough hands landed on my back. His soft tongue pushed into my mouth, and I could taste him. I felt his hands on my skin, felt his heat merge with mine. I felt it all. I allowed myself to feel it all. I did not block out a single second.
Breaking from his mouth, I kissed down his neck and chest. I kissed his torso and moved down to the muscled V that led to his manhood. AK groaned as his legs shifted in anticipation. Taking his length in my hand, I looked up into his eyes to see them glazed and dazed as he stared right back at me.
“I love you,” I whispered. His eyes flared as I took his manhood in my mouth, slowly and gently.
“Yeah, Red,” he hissed and ran his hands through my hair with the softest touch. I moaned as his taste burst on my ton
gue. My eyes closed, and I savored the feel of him like this with me. “Come here,” AK said. I crawled up over his body, confused. “Wanna taste you too.” He guided my hips toward him until my legs were over his face, my stomach pressed against his. I rolled my head back when his mouth came between my legs. His tongue explored me, and I stroked his length in my hand. Needing to taste him again, I bent down and took him back in my mouth. I licked him and sucked him until I could no longer take the feel of his tongue at my core. My cheek flattened on his thigh as he held me in place and licked me until I broke apart into a million pieces, falling slowly back into place.
AK lifted me and laid me down onto the mattress, then climbed above me. He spoke no words as he placed his hands on either side of my head and moved between my legs. I brushed my hands through his hair, locking his dark stare as he pushed inside me. He was as gentle as a feather as he filled me, carefully, beautifully . . . all so I felt no pain.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
I ran my hands over his arms as he rocked back and forth. His warm breath ghosted over my face, the heat from his body kept me safe, and tears came to my eyes at the reverent expression on his face. If I had not heard the words from his mouth, I would have known he loved me by the way he stared into my eyes. By the ease and gentleness in his movements, and by the way he cradled me close. As if I were precious. As if I somehow made him complete.
He completed me too.
“I love you.” I needed him to hear it as many times I needed to say it.
“Love you too, Red.”
I smiled, then I spoke what lay in my soul. “Before this, I did not know that home was a heartbeat. Or two, in my case. Beating in perfect sync with my own. Yours and Sapphira’s, the cleansing lullaby to my sins.”
“Red . . .”
“Repentance is a form of sorrow, AK. Grace is a form of joy. We have shed tears for every sin we have sowed. It is now time for us to smile. Smile and chase the light. Embrace the blessings we have been given. Together.”
“Yeah,” AK said, and I knew I could love no greater than I did in that moment.