by A. J. Downey
“I don’t know how,” I said and it was the most honest thing I think to come out of my mouth today, even with all the truths I’d been spilling.
He gave a slight chuckle, “Well then it’s just something I have to add to my list then isn’t it?” he asked.
I didn’t rise to the bait, remaining resolutely silent instead. He turned us into the lot at Open Road where Dray had put a couple of the new guys with mechanical know how to work. A couple more were out with ladders and buckets of paint going over some fresh graffiti curtesy of The Suicide Kings. Disney was one of the guys on the ladders and I sighed softly to myself.
“What’s wrong?” Ghost asked as we rolled to a stop.
“Nothing,” I lied.
Truth was I pretty much felt like it was my fault that Dis had so much free time on his hands. I felt responsible for Open Road Ink’s destruction, because let’s face it. It all circled back to me in the end. I got out of the truck before Ghost could get my door and Dray came out of one of the bays. He looked me over, his dark eyes holding something that he’d never turned in my direction before. Compassion. It felt awkward and uncomfortable. The new, softer Dray still took some getting used to. It wasn’t bad, I mean I kind of wished I knew what this Dray was like. The Dray I knew and had fucked around with had always been rough and intense. We’d shared some brutal fucks he and I, brutally awesome but really rough just the same.
He came up to me and before I could move or make a protest, hooked an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side. He planted a gentle kiss on my temple and asked those dreaded three words.
“How are you?” I stared resolutely at my red Docs on their asphalt backdrop.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled. Dray was too much like his damned daddy because he barked a short laugh.
“Bullshit! Don’t lie to me Shells, don’t you ever lie to me,” I shuddered in his grasp and his arm tightened.
“Easy,” he said and his tone had gentled.
“Really Dray, I’m fine,” I glanced up to see Ghost leaning against his truck’s front fender, his posture stiff as he watched mine and Dray’s interaction.
“Shelly,” Dray’s tone held warning and I felt my muscles tighten.
“Please don’t Dray,” I pleaded softly, “I’m okay, but I’m not gonna be if you keep pushing it and I really don’t need it today, okay?” I said and he let me get away with it. He kissed my temple again through my hair and shook me a bit by my shoulders before letting me go.
“I’ll accept that, but you’re not fine,” he said. I turned my face away from the lot of them watching me and stared for long moments out towards the street.
“I keep hoping that if I say it long enough and wish for it hard enough that it’ll come true, okay?” I asked, and I looked at my one time fuck buddy because lovers we were not, lovers we had never been… to be someone’s lover there had to be love and I was pretty sure Dray had never loved me. I know I had never loved him. Our physical relationship had been based on respect and on the understanding that there were no strings attached. My eyes drifted to Ghost who was looking me over with a slight frown on his face.
“I get you Shells,” Dray said and I was pretty sure he did. He’d flown the same banner for years after his mom died. I’m fine. I’m all right, I’m okay… Say it long enough and often enough maybe it would come true. Yeah. Wish in one hand shit in the other and see which one filled up faster?
“What’s wrong with my car?” I asked gently and looked to where she sat, backed into one of the work bays. Dray sighed.
“Alternator’s shot. Waiting on the part. Might have to rebuild the one you got. Parts are getting scarce for a car that old.” I bobbed my head softly in a nod at what he was saying.
“I can’t pay you,” I said and Ghost spoke up.
“It’s taken care of,” I looked over to him sharply. He was fishing his ugly ringing phone out of his breast pocket beneath his jacket. He gave me one of those one shouldered shrugs of his.
“What are friends for?” he asked before answering his phone, “Pauley’s Towing this is Derek how can I help?” I blinked at him a bit incredulously and looked at Dray.
“Don’t look at me Sweetheart,” he said with a shrug and let me go. He took some backwards steps towards the open bays. With one last lingering look of concern, he turned around and waved over his shoulder before getting back to work.
“Shelly!” I looked up and had to smile. Disney was waving at me from the top of his ladder. I raised my arm and waved back. Ghost was talking on his phone and was totally absorbed so I figured I had a minute. I stepped across the lot, closer to the men who were painting over whatever The Suicide Cunts had scrawled on the cinderblock building.
“What are you covering?” I asked curiously.
“You don’t want to know, but since I’m out of work for now while Trig tries to find us a new shop I figured I’d keep up on my skills. I talked Dray into letting me do a mural on this wall. Just gotta lay down primer and paint the building. Blessing in disguise if you ask me. This place needed a new coat of paint.” I stood back and craned my neck back to look up at him. Disney’s positive and sunny disposition was usually pretty infectious. I already felt a little lighter just from being near him.
“You going to be at the club later?” one of the guys on the ground asked me. I snapped my attention down to him. He was a new guy, from a chapter in Arizona. I couldn’t remember his name but he had long light brown hair with streaks of blonde in it and a dimple in his chin. His eyes were hazel, but not like Ghost’s. Ghost’s eyes were clear with a differentiation between the brown and the green. This guys’ eyes just looked muddy to me.
“I don’t know, why?” I asked. He looked me over from my head to my feet and back again and where once I would have appreciated the look he was giving me, like I was something good to eat, where once I would have felt empowered and sexy and beautiful… Now all it did was nurture that seed of fear planted in my heart and mind by a man, who I had to remind myself daily, was dead. I swallowed hard.
“Just like to get to know you better is all,” he said and he sounded genuine, but still, I had to swallow hard again to get it past the sudden lump in my throat. I painted on a smile. I didn’t need anyone to think I was as crazy as I felt like I was these days.
“I don’t know yet,” I said and shrugged. I gripped the strap of my purse with both hands to keep them from visibly shaking.
“Aaron and I will be there,” Disney said and I shaded my eyes and looked back up to him. His smile was thin as if he could read my mind and knew exactly how uncomfortable I was and I loved him for it.
“We’ll see, I’m kind of out of a car right this minute,” I said.
“Be happy to pick you up, Baby.” The man said with a smile. He wiped the paint off his hands and strode towards me. It took everything I had to stand my ground but I did.
“I’m Grinder,” he said and I held out my hand with trepidation and shook quickly before taking it back.
“Shelly,” I murmured. I knew he was a Sacred Heart and I knew what the club stood for and how they operated here but at the same time, these new guys who had freshly patched over? They were an unknown quantity and that put me off my game.
“Oh I know,” he said and winked. If ever there was a time I didn’t want my reputation to precede me, this was it.
“Shelly,” Ghost was right behind me, I jumped sky high and yelped. The guys painting laughed. Disney didn’t. His eyes dimmed in sympathy.
“Sorry Princess, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from snapping at him or barking at him. He’d scared the crap out of me all right but it wasn’t his fault. I nodded a bit too rapidly.
“I got a tow,” he said and I nodded again.
“I’ll come with you,” I said quickly. Grinder’s eyes shifted back and forth between me and Ghost.
“She yours?” he asked as if I wasn’t standing right in front of him. The bub
ble of irritation I’d been holding back peaked and burst with this new outlet.
“I’m no one’s!” I snapped and turned on my heel. I immediately wanted to cry, but I would be damned if I would do it! Wasn’t that part of what had gotten me in trouble? I’d refused to wear Dragon’s or anyone else’s property cut that weekend. My pride and my obstinacy, a direct result of trying to prove to Ghost; to will him to understand that I’d really wanted something legit with him, had been my downfall. I’d told myself a million times since then, that what had happened to me was my own damned fault and that’s what really sucked about it. It was. It was all my own damned fault, for not taking the cut and for not staying closer to the guys from our club. Ghost walked with me and let me get my own door. When we were safe inside the truck he started it up and put it in gear immediately.
“Easy Princess,” he said in that smooth and soothing tone of his. I nodded.
“I feel like such a freak,” I uttered and huddled in my seat, wrapped in my misery and guilt.
“Naw I’ve seen it before, I’m a soldier, remember?” he looked me over.
“Seen what before?” I asked, a mixture of suspicious and curious.
“You went through a traumatic experience,” he said as if that should explain everything.
“And?” I prompted.
“PTSD Baby, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” I felt hot and cold at the same time for a second.
“I know what PTSD means!” I snapped and looked out the window, so I didn’t have to look at him. I had always thought of myself as stronger than that. I pursed my lips before finally settling for raking the lower one between my teeth.
“You okay?” he asked somberly a little while later.
“No,” I said curtly. No I wasn’t okay. I didn’t want to be crazy, I didn’t want to be sick!
“You just want to ride with me for a while or you want me to drop you off somewhere?” he asked. I didn’t want to be alone, but I didn’t want to be around a whole bunch of strangers either. I swallowed hard.
“Yes please,” I eked out.
“Yes, you want to ride with me or yes, you want to be dropped off?” he asked.
“I’ll um, I’ll ride with you for a bit if that’s okay,” I said and he nodded.
“Yeah Princess, it’s fine, I like your company,” he told me. I snorted incredulous that anyone could and would want to be around me anymore.
“Please stop calling me that,” I said softly. He nodded and I turned my attention back to the passing scenery.
The first tow we went to was a woman who’d rear ended a man on the highway. The woman was on the side of the road in tears, her small daughter clutching her waist, terrified of the lights and police and the man, who was standing by his SUV screaming at the woman, despite the police officer telling him to calm down and to stop shouting.
“Shit, this is gonna be fun.” Ghost pulled up behind the whole mess and threw it in park.
“Stay here Baby,” he said and I nodded numbly, my eyes fixed on the little girl’s tear soaked face where she looked at the monstrous tow truck from beneath her mother’s arm. Ghost went up to the State Patrolman and they shook hands like they knew each other.
The man shouted something at the mother and the little girl jumped in her mother’s arms, clinging to the woman’s coat as she started to cry harder. Suddenly the girl I’d been before decided to come out of nowhere because before I knew it I was out of the truck, my Doc Marten’s thudding against the gritty highway blacktop and I was striding forward.
“Hey jackass! You aren’t the only one having a bad fucking day here! So why don’t you just calm your shit before I come over there and really give you something to bitch about? I’m sure his dash cam would provide the next greatest YouTube sensation of you having your ass handed to you by a girl! So sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up before I give it to you!” I wound my fist around and pointed at him and the small population on the side of the road blinked at me incredulously. I went up to the woman and her girl.
“C’mon Mamma, let’s get you and your little one in the truck where it’s pleasantly warm, not heated from all the hot air he’s spewing.” I led them over to the truck. The guy yelled at the cop who was with Ghost.
“You going to let her talk to me that way?”
The cop looked back and forth between us and called back to the guy, “Yep!”
“She threatened me!” he cried incredulous.
“Threatened you? That skinny little thing?” Ghost asked, “I think you’re making that up!” he grinned and winked at me, the cop nodding along with what he was saying.
“I didn’t hear any threat sir, now for the last time, get back in your vehicle and wait for your tow to arrive!” I swung the door shut on the mom and daughter closing them in Ghost’s truck. I crossed my arms, leaning a shoulder against the truck’s door, daring the guy to smart off to me with my sour expression. Ghost and the cop finished their exchange and he came back to the truck and we both got in sandwiching the mother and daughter between us.
“Nice going Princess,” he said, his voice holding a shine of pride to it. He held out his fist across the mom and daughter’s laps and I bumped it with my own.
“No sweat,” I said and swallowed convulsively. He pulled in front of the woman’s totaled Toyota.
“I’m Lindy and this is Kaylee,” the woman said, voice shaky.
“Shelly. Nice to meet you,” I said and smiled at the little girl, “Kaylee is a pretty name…” By the time we dropped the woman and girl off at the body shop, they were smiling. I waited in the truck for Ghost to come back and when he did he stopped and looked at me for several heartbeats before putting us in motion again.
“I’ve missed that girl. I’m glad she could make an appearance,” he said, turning us in the direction of his next call.
“Me too. I just wish I had the ability to back her mouth up,” I said and went back to staring out the window. Ghost made a noncommittal noise and we rode in silence through two more non-passenger tows. Around lunch time he pulled into the lot at Soul Fuel, Everett and Mandy’s coffee and chocolate shop.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“I need coffee and you need to do something other than hang with me while I work all day. Let me get your door,” he said and had efficiently switched off the truck and was at my door before I could protest that I could do it myself. He opened the door and stood aside. I got down and he smiled at me.
“Thanks,” I said nervously.
“Any time…” I put up a finger.
“You call me ‘Princess’; I’m kicking you in the balls,” I said and he laughed.
“Any time Beautiful,” he said and I bit my lips together and blushed. I still wasn’t sure that was an accurate description anymore… Pretty to look at, maybe, but I wasn’t beautiful by any means. My soul was still stained with too much ugly for that.
“Heya Lass!” Everett called from behind the chrome and mahogany monstrosity of an espresso machine. She twisted levers and knobs and banged this and that like a pro. “Usual Ghost?” she called.
“Yeah!” he called back from behind me. One of the club’s new guys looked up from his phone in the corner. Protection detail. Dragon had one on every Ol’ Lady at their place of work since Open Road Ink went kablewy.
“Dray said you both were at the shop. I kind of expected y’ t’ come ‘round a lot sooner than this,” she said. She poured coffee and steamed milk while she talked. I looked past her to see Mandy back in the kitchen, carefully shaking a chocolate mold back and forth. Air bubbles, or something, I think she once told me.
“Yeah, Shelly rode along on a couple of tows,” Ghost told her.
“Here you go love.” She handed Ghost his coffee over the expanse of marble countertop. She sighed and looked me over.
“Glad you’re here,” she said and I looked her over.
“Why?” I asked startled. Everett and I didn’t always get along, she knew about me and
Dray… from before, but I don’t think that was it, I think I just rubbed her the wrong way for the most part.
“What can I make you first?” she asked with a sigh.
“Um, I’m sorta broke right now,” I said, cheeks flaming with a touch of embarrassment.
“Good! This might make things easier!” she said, “Now what can I make yeh?”
I blinked. What a bitch thing to say! But I respected Dray and so I bit my tongue and grated out, “A mocha.”
She made my coffee and handed it to me and then came out around from behind the counter, “I was going to beg,” she said and led me to one of the little tables in the café section of their shop. I sank into the leather seat and blinked at her.
“Beg for what? Bitch, you can start making sense any second now!” I said and she laughed.
“I can’t keep up with the damned books Shelly, I need help,” she said and sighed. Mandy joined us.
“We need your help,” she corrected her friend.
Ghost cleared his throat behind me, “I gotta bounce. I can come back and get you Shells…”
Mandy waved him off, “We can take her home,” she said, I nodded slowly.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Kay,” Ghost bent and kissed the top of my head and I startled, hard. He locked eyes with me for a second, his expression somber and inclined his head once, slowly, before leaving out the front of the shop. I stared after him for a long few moments, my paper cup of coffee forgotten in my hands.
“Shelly?” I blinked and came back to myself and turned, Mandy and Everett exchanged a look and then looked at me considering.
“What?” I asked. Clearly I had missed something. A variation of the dreaded three words came out,
“Are you okay?” Mandy asked and she was such a timid and quiet thing on a good day that I didn’t have it in me to front or be a cow so I simply nodded.
“Yeah I just don’t know what’s gotten in to him,” I said.
“You did. He’s liked you for a long time,” Everett said. I shook my head as if to clear it.
“What did you want?” I asked.
“The books…” Mandy reminded me.