The other thing I learned today is that I am the person responsible for me and no one else. I don’t need Axl or my parents to rescue me. I am my own motherfucking badass. I can rescue my damn self and him. I am the creator of my own dreams and no one else. Taking in my surroundings, I look around with a renewed sense of confidence. I promise myself to remember this moment and kick my own ass when needed.
The hours fly by gracefully and the bar begins to weed out with the joyous ruckus from earlier. Tami has gone home and it is just security and I until we close in the next hour. The front door opens and a cold strong wind funnels through the bar from the strong Nevada winds. A chill runs up my spine from the breeze and also from the man standing at the door that saunters over to the bar with big ideas behind those deep brown eyes.
“You got a beer for me, babe?” Snake’s eyes race over my tight black jeans and low cut t-shirt we had made. He stares at the bar logo that is stretched across my tits a little too long. Shit.
“Sure do.” I grab a cold mug from the freezer and grab the handle for the draft beer. Tilting it, I pour the beer until it’s full. Instead of handing it over to him over the counter, I walk around and slide the beer across the distance between us as I slide myself onto the barstool next to him.
Snake takes a long pull of his drink with a devilish grin. Taking a fortifying breath in, I ask, “You had a good day today?”
“Mm hm, and I think it’s about to get better.” His eyes try to capture mine with his unspoken promises.
“Snake, I’ve been distracted a lot with everything and I am going to set this weird thing between us straight. We aren’t ever going to happen.”
“I don’t see why we can’t.” He tries reasoning with me as he’s setting his mug down. He turns his body toward me with a questioning tilt to his head.
“We can’t because you are full of bullshit Snake.” I try not to laugh, but a little chuckle escapes my lips before I continue. “You want what you can’t have and always will. I fell for your games when we were kids. I’m not falling for your shit now. We were always meant to be friends. I’m not going to be your dirty little secret and then you ditch this town and me. Quit toying with me,” I finish my speech and stand up from my stool when he grabs my arm.
“I realize you don’t want games, who said I was playing around?”
“You haven’t seen me in years. None of this matters, I’ve got a man.” I step back out of his hold.
“Fair enough, you can’t blame a man for trying, babe. When Axl gets his ass back here, I hope he sees what he’s missing.”
“He will, or I’ll remind him,” I assure him as I’m walking back behind the bar. I won’t let the man that lights up my world walk away so easily again. Like I was saying before, I’m the creator of my own happily ever after.
Chapter 15
Axl
I spray alcohol on a tatt to wipe away the black ink off the brother’s back. Last night we had a patch-in party for this new prospect, Audio. Fool plays tracks and reminds me of Jenn, if she had a brother. My phone rings and I look over to see Dana’s calling. I hesitate, and then it is too late. By the time I start ripping off my gloves to answer, I missed the call. Some part of me demanded to answer. What if something happened to her and she needed me?
Shaking my head, I drop that idea, thinking it’s nothing and just me being a paranoid asshole. Besides, Blade would tell me if anything was going on with her.
I keep my concentration on this back piece. Audio wanted his whole back dedicated to our wolf patch. Getting lost in the lines and art, I don’t realize that it took me eight hours to finish. Wrapping up his tatt with his road name, I finish up feeling a little more at peace inside of myself.
This last week, a burden has been lifted from my heart. Being around Stryker and this old club made me feel connected to my old man in a way that I hadn’t been lately. Letting him go has been a little easier at least, even though the pain still lingers and I’m sure that it always will.
“Axl!” Stryker barks from his office. “Get your ass in here, you have a visitor.”
I take my gloves off and Audio shakes my hand. “Thanks, brother.”
Following him out, I stop dead in my tracks as I come face-to-face with Ghost. Fuck.
He sneers at me with an ugly gleam that spreads across his damn pretty face. You see, Ghost is a big motherfucker, served in the marines or some shit, knows how to kill men about a hundred different ways. He too, like Fuego, is Hispanic, some fucked up hybrid by the looks of his height and built. He’s got dark, slicked back hair and a tightly trimmed goatee, dark eyes and skin. Skeleton tattoos cover his arms.
Legend is that the man has a new one done every time after he kills a victim. I’m a total fan, other than in this moment. Because… Ghost is a mean asshole. He is VP to Fuego, who is sitting next to Stryker, and he is also Dana’s old man.
The last time I saw him was the night I fucked my princess in her office with the entire club right outside the door, him included. I really fucked up. I fucked up hard. I may die today, and I need to call my momma, and then Dana, to say goodbye. Fuck.
Stepping into Stryker’s office, I see a grin pulling at his lips. “Glad to see you got some color back into your face. White looks good on you. That’s how Ghost here got his name. Men seem to know when their past ghosts have caught up to them, and, it seems here, yours literally have. Man, when you fuck up, you really fuck shit up good, son.” Stryker continues to laugh, but is the only one.
I can’t even say anything. Where do you even start? Sorry I fucked your daughter then fucking left her? Ghost and Fuego wait me out a painful minute while I think of something to say. I decide on, “I fucked up.”
Ghost raises both eyebrows and looks at me like I’m a weak kid. “No, I know”, I say. “Shit went down and I left Dana high and dry. It was fucked up, but so was my life.”
Ghost interrupts me with his deep hispanic accent “Did she tell you about her past growing up?”
“Yes…” It happens before I see it. My head snaps back as the loud pop from my nose breaking splinters the silence.
“Fuck!” I pinch my nose, willing the pain to go away and the blood to stop running down my face. Stryker tosses me a towel with a smile. Asshole.
“Yes, I knew what happened with you and her past and her mom.” I finish my sentence as I’m holding the towel to my nose.
“And you still left her behind like her love wasn’t important enough to you?”
“I left her because I was fucked up inside, Ghost. I wanted to kill everything and everyone. I wasn’t in a good place. I would have ripped her heart out to feed the pain.” I plead with him to understand that I wanted to save her.
“Don’t fucking talk to me about pain, Axl. You’re a little golden boy, your life has been a cake walk compared to mine. I’d killed hundreds of men by the time I was twenty. Their ghosts are in my dreams every goddamn night,” he snarls at me, then continues, “As a young man, I came home to my woman at the time who’d had my baby while I was gone. Shit got ugly. And that’s a story your sorry ass doesn’t deserve to hear right now.” He pauses for a second.
“But I left my baby to save her from a real killer. Myself. You’re no killer.” Ghost closes his eyes only to snap them open and giving us glimpses of a soulless man.
“I could wrap my hands around your neck and feel nothing from it. I learned there was still love in me for a little girl who pumped life back into me with her pure love. I will tell you this one time and one time only.” He pauses to make sure I am taking all this in.
“You go back to her, you better lay your life down for her. If I get a call again to tell me she’s crying because of you, there will be no warning. Club or no club, your life will be taken with my bare hands. You protected yourself, not her. You never let her give you the chance to love you back into the living. You fed your pain.” Ghost’s vacant eyes hold mine with the promise of death.
Bowing my head, I let the
pain slice through my heart with the damage I’ve done to my princess. The realization spreading like fire in my veins that I choose pain over her.
“Mijo,” Fuego calls me. I lift my head and Ghost is nowhere to be found.
“We all have these fantasmas, or ghosts, that haunt our lives. They want to suck us into their hell. You have no excuses no mass, mijo. What life do you see for yourself? Que vida tu queres? One where you carry tu padre’s life with you wherever you go? Or, una vida, a life, rebirthed from your loss? You know the story, si?” He stops talking and points to the chair in front of him. “Sit, mijo, let’s talk.”
Listening to Fuego, I sit and listen as I’m told. Stryker kicks his feet up on his desk after he hands me a beer, then puts his hands behind his head. We settle in together. I toss the bloody towel in the trash and open the beer, then take a drink to wash the coppery taste away from my mouth.
Fuego looks at me and grins. “Many years antes, before, mi hermano, you know him, Cuervo… Este cabron, that asshole, he was so in love with his esposa. Rosa, his wife, she was a beautiful woman and had grown into a bonita madre also. He had a son and two daughters as well. Cuervo got careless with his familia, he also got into drugs. His bad dealing killed his family and those ghosts of his choices still haunt the man. Cuervo came home to a dead wife who’d been raped and tortured children.”
Fuego takes his fingers and touches his forehead, then brings them to his chest and then shoulder to shoulder as he whispers a small prayer in Spanish.
“You cannot bring back the dead, mijo. Was your father murdered? No. Was he taken early from you and tu madre? Si. But, mijo, that man, he lived. He lived for your mother. He praised her beauty and life. He lived for you and for himself, mijo. You are now living for his death. He is not happy with you, I know this. I know because I would be sad for my own ninos to live the way you are. Not if but when I die.”
I open my mouth to say something, but Fuego holds up his hand and I snap my mouth shut. “We all die. There is no way around it. Your padre in Heaven wants you to be a man and take care of your mama like he would. Tu padre would want you to love Dana like he treasured your madre. Tu Padre wants you to live for you, mijo, and live your vida, your life, not your death, si?
“Si, Fuego.”
“Bueno. You have the elders in our MC that are the fathers to you that you have forgotten. Shame. You forget those that came before you and helped raise you. Stryker, yo and Ghost, and many others, we all lost a brother on the day that Maddox died. But mostly Stryker, he lost his VP. You’ve been neglectful of your family. As one of the Presidents of this club, I am going to tell you this once. You do not deserve to be the VP in Reno, but Blade loves you like a brother. Shit has gone down while you’ve been gone, and you left your Prez and brothers in their time of need. It’s time you stopped using your ghost as an excuse. Pack up your shit and get the fuck back to the living. Stop being a fucking pussy and bleeding your pain everywhere. That shit is messy.”
∞ ∞ ∞
“Mom! You ready?” I yell at her from the U-Haul. I walk around and double check all the doors.
When she doesn’t answer, I walk around the two trucks looking for her only to find her staring at the front of the house that her and my father had built as their home. Harley’s arms wrap around her stomach and tears stream down her face.
“Momma,” I call for her and pull her into me, hugging her and wishing I could take her pain in.
“Hey, Dad is going to want you with me. He isn’t going to want you alone anymore. He would kick my ass if he could. I’ve been a piece of shit son to you since everything happened. For that, I can’t tell you that I’m sorry enough, but I’m never leaving you behind again.”
Harley smiles through her pain. “Axl, you have his big heart. When he died, it broke you. I think your heart stopped with his. Your dad was a man who lived, Axl, he lived and learned from love and from his mistakes. Live and learn, baby.” She then pauses, only to ask, “Have you talked to Dana?”
Shame and sadness wash over me at hearing her name. “No. I really fucked up. I’m going to get her back though. I didn’t want to call her. I want to hold her again when I talk to her.”
My mom smiles at me. “Good. I have something for you then. I’ve been holding on to these, waiting for you to be ready.”
She hands me a picture envelope but stops my hands with hers before I open it.
“Remember, Axl, things always happen for a reason. Your dad must have known deep down that his life would be cut short, so he lived each moment to the fullest. I’m so happy he chose me and the life we had together. When you open this envelope, remember that things happen for a reason. Live your life like your dad taught you to. It’s not too late for you. You look at every picture really well, then we’ll leave. Holler out when you’re ready.” She smiles as she walks through the front door of our home one last time.
I sit down on the front porch step and open the envelope. The first picture is of three cute young girls making faces at the camera. Two brown haired ones with a blonde in the middle. I start browsing through them all. Some are of them together at the pool with some boys. Who are these girls? More of the same goofy pictures follow. Until my heart stops at the sight of the beautiful blonde-haired girl kissing a young wannabe rock star in front of a stage with a Guns N’ Roses concert in the background. He holds up the camera, snapping a picture of them, of a night he should have never forgotten, but somehow his heart already recognized.
“Hahahaha.” I roll back onto my back and laugh for the first time in months. I look at the next one. She smiles back at me, the young man behind the camera. In the next, she’s watching the concert with hands up in the air, singing along with a group of rough young men. The one after that, I laugh harder at seeing the young blonde girl flashing her tits to the band as she sits on top of the young wannabe rock star’s shoulders. Laughing to myself, I hold the pictures to my heart. Blood and love finally explode life back into me. Pumping fresh air into a deserted body.
“Good pictures, right? I couldn’t go far. I had to see your face,” my mom admits with a smile.
“Pictures that helped to woke up my cold dead heart, Mom. How did you get these?”
“The day after you trashed your room, I was cleaning and found this old disposable camera under your bed. I had a hell of a time finding someone to develop the film, but it was well worth the trouble.”
“Yeah, fuck yeah! Let’s get the hell out of here. I have shit to do in Reno. There’s this beautiful blonde waiting for me.”
I take off running over to the truck, love pumping vigorously in my veins. I turn the engine on excitedly, then the CB radio. Holding the button down on the CB mic, I try the first channel.
“Roger Rabbit to Jessica Rabbit, hey, princess, I’m coming home, I’m coming home, 3’s and 8’s. Love and Kisses. I repeat, Roger Rabbit to Jessica Rabbit, hey, princess, I’m coming home, I’m coming home, 3’s and 8’s. Love and Kisses. Over and Out.”
Chapter 16
Dana
“Hey, you wanna go buy some…” I immediately stop talking as my CB radio bursts to life. Quickly, I turn it up to hear over the static. “I repeat, Roger Rabbit to Jessica Rabbit, hey, princess, I’m coming home, I’m coming home, 3’s and 8’s. Love and Kisses. Over and Out.”
Vegas looks over to me and I to her, our mouths hanging open and we both start crying. My phone pings with a text, and thank God that I had her drive us to the store as I wasn’t feeling well this morning, or the last few mornings.
Taking out my phone from my purse, I see a text from Axl.
Roger Rabbit: Hey, princess, you remember that concert from when you told me about where you lost your virginity? Did that guy who popped my girl’s cherry, did he beat the shit out of the guy she was with that night?
Jessica Rabbit: How do you know that?
Roger Rabbit: Did my princess actually pop her blunt berry with a wannabe rock star that night?
J
essica Rabbit: Axl, how do you know this??!!!
Roger Rabbit: Because you’ve been mine, Dana…See you soon, I’m on the road.
“Dana, what is he saying? What’s going on?” Vegas impatiently demands answers.
“How does he know about that night, Vegas?”
“Dude, slow the fuck down and breathe, backup a decade. What night? And he’s coming home!” She starts screeching.
“He’s coming home!” I squeal back. “But that night when I snuck out when we went to Las Vegas for spring break with our parents, and my dad said no, even though I was nineteen, remember?”
An evil smile spreads across her face. “Yeah, I remember the cherry-picking night. Why?”
“Listen to this.” And I start reading his texts out loud to her.
“He can’t be your cherry-picking blunt berry popper, can he?! Dana, think hard for once in your life, woman! Is Axl your blast from your past that you obsessed over?” She bounces around in her seat excitedly.
My face falls and I squint my eyes. “Think hard for once in my life? Did you really just say that to me? No, Vegas, I think I just love to live my life in mystery,” I deadpan, then yell back, “I was drunk before I met him, we blazed till everyone’s faces looked the same, and, after, I don’t know, like, ten years have passed, it’s hard to remember, you asshole!”
“HA! Good point, but what if he is your cherry picker, Dana?!”
Vegas’ eyes water with mine while we look at each other. What if this whole time Axl has always been mine, and we finally found our way back to each other?
∞ ∞ ∞
“Mom!” I throw the door open and run into her arms.
“There’s my girl!” She jumps off Papa’s bike and drops her helmet at her feet, racing toward me too. We collide into a heap of hugs as Papa gets up and joins in with us in my front yard. Pulling us apart, he tosses me into the air, then hugs me into his strong frame. Mom laughs next to us.
Nothing Lasts Forever (Battle Born MC Book 2) Page 11