by Jade Kuzma
Jon held the smoke in his lungs for a second then exhaled it with a deep sigh. He turned to me with a smirk.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.
“You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’ve got that look on your face.”
“That look?”
“Sure…”
He dumped his cigarette butt on an ashtray then slowly walked toward me.
“…That look on your face.”
He raised his index finger up and pointed it near my face.
“The dimples. The furrowed brow. The blank stare.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“There it is… It’s more pronounced now that you’re older.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
I crossed my arms as I stared at him. He chuckled softly to himself and shook his head.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
“Are you telling me I have wrinkles? I’m only 25—”
“I know, I know.”
He put his hands up innocently, still laughing even though I wasn’t amused.
“But you’ve got that look,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. Something is on your mind.”
I nodded softly and looked away from him.
“I always told you that you were too smart to be in an MC,” I said. “You could’ve gone to school.”
“And then I could’ve gone to the big city. Get some fancy office job. Wear a suit and tie. Broker million dollar deals with big shots and big wigs and whatever big things are up north.”
“Yeah, you could’ve done that. Would that be so bad?”
I turned back to him but he wasn’t looking at me. He was just staring off into the distance like his mind was somewhere else.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“What?”
“When you left Ivory, what were you up to?”
“I finished school. I traveled abroad to see what was out there and expanded my horizons.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw lots of different things. Different people. Different places. New experiences.”
“A lot of different guys to meet…”
His eyes shifted back toward me. He gave me a knowing gaze. I rolled my eyes, trying to fight the grin from coming to my face.
“Is that your way of asking if I slept around?” I said.
“Did you?”
“And I suppose you weren’t hooking up with some of the sluts in this town. You were a total saint despite there being no shortage of whores just begging to get bent over by a club member.”
“This isn’t about me. This is about you.”
He took a step toward me. He looked into my eyes, his stare intense like it always was. My throat bobbed up and down with a hard swallow. I clenched my jaw as I stared back at him.
“I left and finished school,” I said. “And now I’m back here to help.”
“That’s all I wanted to do in Ivory,” he said. “Be a Reaper. Help the people who need it. And be happy. That’s more important than anything else.”
“Are you happy?” I asked. “Are you happy being a Reaper?”
He smirked at me the only way he could.
“I wouldn’t trade the patch for anything in the world.”
He leaned in close to me as I sat in my chair.
“How about you?” he asked. “How have the Reapers been treating you tonight?”
“I had a good time here with you and the others tonight,” I said with a smile. “All of you really made me feel welcome.”
“You’ve always been a part of the club, Anna. Just because you left doesn’t mean we forgot about you.”
“Yeah…”
I looked down at the ground as all of the memories came flooding back to me.
Five years had gone by but it still felt like yesterday. It helped that the man I spent most of my time with was standing right in front of me. The way he looked at me. The way he talked. The way he smelled. Everything about him was so familiar.
We were alone in front of the clubhouse. The sky was dark and the streets were empty. It was like we had the entire town to ourselves.
“Anna.”
I looked up and saw him staring right at me. The intensity of his green eyes were locked on me. I swallowed anxiously as he slowly moved his face toward mine.
I started to close my eyes. But just before they shut, the sound of the front door interrupted us.
I turned to the side and saw Sheriff Sutton walking out. The old man patted his stomach proudly with Ben right behind him.
“That Michelle sure knows what she’s doing,” he said.
“You enjoy the food, Sheriff?” Jon said.
“Maybe a little too much. Might have to call in sick tomorrow and take some time to recover.”
“Everybody knows you’d never do a thing like that.”
“Yeah,” the old cop said with a chuckle. “You’re right about that. You tell Michelle to do this again real soon. Come on, Ben. Let’s get outta here.”
The two officers got into their patrol car and sped off into the distance. The silence between Jon and I returned quickly.
“Now,” he said. “Where was I?”
Before Jon could move any closer, I put a hand on his chest.
“Wait,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s something I should tell you.”
“What is it? You got a boyfriend you haven’t told me about?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just…”
I sighed as I thought about what I was going to say.
“…I like you, Jon. We’re friends.”
“Of course.”
“I just don’t want something like this to complicate things. I just got back and it feels like I’m rushing into things all over again.”
“I get it.”
“You do?”
He chuckled softly. Jon was always smarter than he looked, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that he already knew what I was thinking.
“There was an us,” he said. “Was an us. Now it’s different. I’d be stupid not to realize that now.”
“Yeah…”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t be adults about it. This could just be… a thing. It doesn’t have to be serious. It can just be… casual.”
“Casual.”
Right.
I wasn’t much for casually hooking up with someone. If there was anybody I would do it with though, it would be Jon. On the other hand, we both knew that anything between us would be more than casual. Not with all of the things we’d been through before.
But despite all of the sound reasoning in my head, I didn’t care. Jon was the only man who could make me think with my body instead of my mind.
“All right,” I said, unable to fight the smile from forming on my face. “Casual.”
“I knew you’d see things my way.”
Jon leaned forward. I close my eyes, waiting for his lips to meet mine.
I felt his lips for just a second when he suddenly pulled away. I widened my eyes in surprise.
“Jon, what’s wrong—”
He turned around and looked out in the parking lot.
The sound of engines filled my ears. I looked and saw a couple of pickup trucks.
“Who is that?” I said.
The trucks had seemingly come out of nowhere.
A man exited one of the trucks and started walking toward us. Jon stood his ground right in front of me.
“You,” the man said, pointing his finger at Jon. “Reaper.”
The man was wearing a white undershirt and what looked like a pair of army fatigues tucked into his boots. His skin was tan and his muscles were bulging with so many veins running along them it couldn’t have been
natural. His head was shaved clean, so I could even see the veins on the side of his head.
I looked at the other man exiting the truck and they were dressed the same as the man who was confronting Jon.
The stranger walked right up to Jon and looked him in the eye.
“Jon—”
Jon put his hand up and cut me off before I could say anything more. Even though there were a dozen men with obviously ill intentions standing in front of him, Jon remained defiant.
“Can I help you, friend?” Jon said.
“You sure can. You can go fuck yourself.”
“Sorry. Can’t do that. But if you head over to The Bone Pit, I’m sure some Cobras would be willing to help you out with that.”
“Fuck you!”
The tension between the two was growing. I sat there helplessly. I wanted to do something but there was no way I could step between them.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the door to the clubhouse opened. Declan stepped out. He was flanked by the rest of the club.
“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” Declan said.
“You’re damn right there’s a problem,” the man said. “You fucked up our deal with the Triads.”
“We didn’t fuck up anything. We always had a deal with them.”
“We had a deal first!” the man barked. “Now you’re undercutting us, taking their lower offer. You got no respect.”
Declan put his hands up as he walked forward. He was trying his best to ease the tension but nobody was relaxing.
“You’re a businessman,” Declan said. “We can discuss this like professionals.”
Jon continued staring at the man in front of him. The man finally turned his attention to the president of the Reapers.
“You fucked with our money,” the man said. “You keep this up and we’ll fuck with you.”
“Is that a threat?” Jon said.
“It’s whatever you want it to be, Reaper. You got one chance to back out of the deal with the Triads. One chance.”
The man slowly started to back away. The man who confronted Jon glared at me. His eyes were so menacing they would be hard to forget.
They kept staring at all of us as they got into their trucks. Then they drove off down the street.
As soon as the silence of the night returned, I exhaled a breath through my nose, only now realizing I’d been holding my breath the entire time.
“What was that all about?” Jon said.
Declan glanced at me for a second then responded.
“Club business,” he said. “We’ll talk about it in the chapel later. Don’t let that asshole ruin the celebration. Let’s go, boys.”
Declan snapped his fingers and everybody headed back inside. I sighed another deep breath as soon as I was back alone with Jon. I rubbed my forehead, trying to get over everything that just happened.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure everything out.”
“Don’t try to figure anything out. It’s just like Garnet said. Club business.”
“Right…”
The grin forming on Jon’s face was enough to make me forget about everything that just happened.
“It’s been a long night,” he said. “Why don’t you let me take you home.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”
“Let’s go for a ride.”
Chapter 9
JON
“Don’t mind the mess. I’m still unpacking.”
I sat down on her couch while she searched through her fridge. I looked around Anna’s apartment and couldn’t help but smile at the sight.
“What’s so funny?”
The place was barren outside of her furniture and a few boxes of her things.
“It reminds me of when you first moved out,” I said.
“Oh… Right…”
She took a seat next to me and put a couple of bottles of beers down in front of us.
“I remember the look on your face,” I said. “You were excited about finally having a place to yourself. It was a real shithole.”
I burst into laughter. Anna didn’t mind my dig, smiling just the same as me.
“Hey, I was young and finally living on my own. It didn’t matter if it was a shithole, it was my shithole.”
“It wasn’t that bad once you got a hold of it. You cleaned it up real nice. You’ve got a magic touch with things.”
“Yeah…”
She bit her bottom lip and shifted her gaze away from me. I just watched her as she sipped on her beer. She started to drift away.
“I remember when mom and dad kicked me out,” she said. “They were both pissed. ‘If you wanna run around with that biker guy, do it on your own. You’re not gonna do it under my roof.’”
She shook her head as the memory played back in her mind, her eyes still lost in her thoughts.
“Do you regret it?” I asked.
“No. I was planning on moving out on my own eventually. It would’ve been nice to leave on better terms but it was all for the best.”
Anna took another swig of beer then smiled.
“I miss ‘em,” she said.
“At least you got the chance to say goodbye.”
“I wish had longer,” she sighed. “They’re in a better place now. I know that they only wanted what’s best for me.”
She finally shifted her eyes toward me.
“You done drinking tonight?” she said.
“I’ve had enough beer.”
“That’s not something I’m used to hearing from you. Last I remember, you haven’t had enough until you start forgetting things.”
“Ha! Now that you mention it… I do remember saying that.”
I swiped the beer off the table and took another sip. I’d had more to drink than Anna tonight but I knew I could handle my liquor better than her.
“The question is are you done drinking tonight?” I said. “You never could keep up with me.”
“It’s the weekend. I don’t plan on going to work tomorrow. I figure I’m still getting settled in. Tonight seems like as good a night as any to enjoy myself a little bit.”
“You sure you had a good time tonight?”
“I did. It was nice catching up with Declan and Blake and the others. It was nice meeting some of the new people, too. There’s a good group of guys and girls at the clubhouse.”
“Feels like home, doesn’t it?”
She sighed a deep breath and nodded.
“Yeah, a little too much like home…”
She put her beer down. The smile on her face was gone. I’d known Anna for so long that I knew when something was wrong just by looking at her.
“Tonight was almost perfect,” she said.
“Almost?”
“Those guys in the trucks. What was that all about?”
She stared at me, waiting for my response. I knew who the men were. It was inevitable that someone was gonna be pissed that we’d made a deal with the Chinese. There was only so much money to go around in Ivory and someone was bound to get jealous of the Reapers.
“I don’t know exactly who they are,” I said with a shrug. “I’ll have a talk with Garnet and the boys and see what’s up.”
“What was that about you stealing their deal?”
I took another gulp of beer.
“Club business.”
“Club business. Right. It’s always club business…”
She looked down at the ground and started messing around with her hands nervously.
“I’m not about to ask you about your business,” she said. “I know that you’re no saints. It’s been that way since the beginning and I know it’s not ever gonna change. But… You’re my friend, Jon. I worry about you. You do so much for the club that you’re gonna get into trouble that you can’t get out of.”
“That hasn’t happened before.”
“Not yet. All it takes is one mistake.”
&n
bsp; It wasn’t any secret why Anna was so concerned. The club was part of the reason she left in the first place. At least, that’s what she told me.
I wasn’t about to let her be worried though. Seeing the concern on her face bothered me more than anything else.
I took her hand in mine and tried to reassure her.
“Hey…”
She looked up at me.
“…You don’t have to worry about me. I know how to take care of myself.”
“I know you do. That’s still not enough though.”
“You let me handle my business. If you don’t want anything to do with the club, then you don’t have to deal with it. That’s my concern, not yours.”
I squeezed her hand tight in mine.
“I still care about you, Anna.”
“Jon—”
“Hold on. Let me finish…”
I looked right into her eyes. She was such a strong woman but compassionate at the same time. When I looked at her, I saw that same woman I met when we were young. So kind and caring. She looked at me like no woman ever did.
“…I know you care about me, too. I don’t know why you came back to Ivory. That was your decision. And if you decide to leave, I can’t make that decision for you either. But I know that there’s still something there between us. Five years apart just made me realize that. Shit, I would’ve waited forever for you, Anna.”
She closed her eyes and turned away from me.
“Jon… I do care about you. That’s what makes this so hard.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Her eyes widened as she looked back at me.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying… You just got back in town. You still haven’t had a chance to sort your feelings out. That’s fine. But I know that wherever you went, you haven’t met a man that could satisfy you the way I could.”
Her cheeks brightened red as she tried to hide her smile. That look in her eyes was enough to tell me that I was right.
“And I haven’t had anybody like you,” I said. “I’ve been looking. I’ve tried, Anna, believe me. But you were always the sweetest. Tell me I’m lying.”
“…No… You’re right.”
“Tell me you met a man who could fuck you as good as I did.”