by A. J. Downey
The lightbulb went off. He was right, first mom, then Luke… My first real relationship outside of the family. I mean, sure, I’d been the one to break up with him, but to have him turn on me like he did, and then to have my father die, I could see Nox’s point. I let him hold me, the fire crackling in front of us and felt myself calm considerably.
“Need me to score you some weed for times like these?” He asked me suddenly. I startled.
“That bad?” I asked vaguely, lulled by the warmth and the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear.
“I don't like seeing you like this, all wound up, white as a sheet and looking like you’re going to fly apart any second. You need to chill, Angel. You need to relax, sometimes. You can't do it all. I don't fuckin’ care what everyone expects, it just ain't practical.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, “Is that why you did whatever you did?”
“Yes.” Unequivocal; a solid, one word response.
I swallowed hard, “What did you do?”
Nox kissed the top of my head, “Two reasons why I’m not going to tell you that. One, its club business and we don't share club business, not even with our girlfriends or ol’ ladies. Two, it’d probably make you an accessory after the fact, and I’m not going to do that to you. That’d really be risking everything. There’s this thing called plausible deniability and you have it. In fact, this little conversation right here didn't even happen. You get me?”
“Yes,” I said dully.
“Ain't gotta like it, Angel, just have to do it; for your protection. Get me?”
I nodded and pulled from his embrace, even though I didn't want to.
“We okay?” He asked, carefully neutral.
“Yeah! I just need to check on Sage, make sure he’s off his game and actually gone to bed.”
“Okay.”
“Be here when I come back down?”
“You want me to be?”
“Yes.” From me, an unequivocal, one word answer; full of all the certainty I could muster and put behind it.
“Okay, I’ll be here,” he said softly, and I knew that he would. It was nice to have someone solid, someone that I could depend on and believe in when he said something. Even if he could do frightening things.
“Hey Maren,” he called gently, as I was halfway up the stairs.
“Yes?”
It was as if he pulled the thoughts from my mind, saying “I got no problem doing bad things for you, but never in a million years would I do bad things to you. You know that right?”
I smiled, “I do now.”
Nox nodded, “Good.”
I took a half step forward and paused, “Hey Nox?”
“Yes?”
“What if I asked? Would you do bad things to me then?”
He laughed, and the mood lightened considerably, “I’d do anything for you, Angel.”
“Good to know,” I said and finished my temporary retreat up the stairs.
Chapter 17
Nox
I hadn't heard from Maren. It was odd, we texted and talked daily, sometimes sneaking texts between my clients and her classes, but today she’d been eerily silent. Only one or two word responses and not at all like herself. It bothered me, even though our heaviest talk to date, about the club, about the label of property, had been well over three weeks, maybe even a month ago now. Valentine's Day was coming up quick, then, after a couple more weeks, it would be her birthday. I couldn't wait for that day, let me tell you.
I’d been spending a lot of time with Sage on Sundays and had become a regular fixture at Taco Tuesday which had only been a few nights ago. Maren had been just fine, then. Now, it was radio silence and it was freaking me out. I kept watching the clock, the time dragging; my agitation at the situation growing as I worked on a groaning Mrs. Robinson type. You’d like to think I was giving her the best sex she’d ever had, rather than just a massage, but I guess for some people it could be as good. I didn't want to think about that too hard, I really didn't.
I finished up, and did my usual routine; forcing myself to deal with the necessities of stripping the table of its linens, remaking it, and washing my hands before I went for my phone.
Me: Are u okay?
Maren: I’m fine.
My last text asking her if she was alright had been sent an hour and fifteen minutes ago. Her response, short, clipped and to the point, had come in fifteen minutes ago. I frowned. The more comfortable Maren became with me, the more animated, the more open, and the more expressive she had become. These one and two word short clipped answers weren't her style. My Angel wasn't prone to the short version.
I checked my client schedule to see if there was any chance of me getting out of here early or on time. No fucking dice. Well shit. I typed out a fast text.
Me: Ur not fine. I’m coming over.
I kept checking obsessively and got nothing back by way of reply before my next client came in. Dammit. She would be out of school inside the next hour. Best I could hope for was kicking my ass into high gear between clients and that everyone would show up early so I could get them in earlier. I would not, under any circumstances, gyp them of their time on my table but if I got lucky, I could get out of here up to a half hour early. We’d have to see.
I checked my phone after all three clients, no answer from Maren. That straight up cemented my belief that something was clearly wrong, so I skipped remaking my table after my last client and took off. I could do it in the morning. When I got to Maren and Sage’s, Sage was the one to answer the door.
“Everything okay, man?” I asked. Sage looked past me at my bike ticking and cooling in their driveway. He rolled his eyes and stepped back further, opening the door wide.
“Yeah, let me guess, she’s not answering her phone.”
“Uh yeah, how’d you guess?”
Sage laughed, “She always gets super emo this time of the month.”
Stupid me; I blurted out, “I don't follow.”
Sage said, “She’s on her period, she’s in her room.” He was laughing now, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.
“Hey, knock it off,” I said pushing past him. I went up the stairs, easing my way down the hall until I could glance in Maren’s doorway. She wasn’t in that sexy as hell nightgown of hers. No, she was in some raggedy ass sweats, curled on her side, arms around her stomach. She looked asleep, so I backed off and nearly collided with Sage who looked amused.
“I’ll be back in a bit, gonna give it my best shot to fix this. Answer the door when I get back,” I told him.
He rolled his eyes at me again and I bent down nose to nose with him. “Disrespect me again,” I said; voice low, controlled, and even.
He swallowed visibly and said, voice shaking, “Sorry, Nox.”
I straightened up and nodded once, “Glad we understand each other.” I ruffled his hair and left him at his bedroom door, jogging down the stairs and on a mission.
Chapter 18
Maren
I hated how much my cramps took it out of me. I couldn't bear to be around people when they hit. I didn't even feel human. All I could do was curl on my side and wait for it to pass which, thankfully, only took the better part of the first day, with tolerable pain the second. I took two Tylenol the moment I got home and crawled into my favorite sweats. I lay curled on my side on my bed wishing for death or for the damn pain to just stop when a light touch fell on my head, smoothing aside my hair. I jerked, startled and looked up into Nox’s gently smiling face.
“Oh god, did you try to call?” I asked.
“No, Angel, your texts have been off your baseline all day. I texted to say I was coming over. Found you like this after Sage let me in. I left out and came back. Let’s see what we can do to make you more comfortable, okay?”
“Honestly, I’m not really up for any company right now Nox…” I said and hugged my middle, the cramps in my stomach close to unbearable, twisting down so tightly I thought my spine should suffer permanent dama
ge.
“Not going to let you suffer like this, Angel. Not when there’s something I can do about it. Come on, up you go.” He helped me into a sitting position and I sighed.
“All I can do is take my Tylenol, which I did, and wait for it to stop, which I am,” I said glumly.
“First off, fuck Tylenol; take Ibuprofen. Second, have you ever tried heat or massage?”
“Okay, and no I haven’t… what does heat do?” I asked curiously.
“I take it your dad didn’t know much about these kinds of problems?”
“No,” I murmured.
“And your mom?”
I gritted my teeth, but not from pain and said, “Not around.”
“Not here to push, just here to help,” he said and he did help me to my feet. I let him take me downstairs and blinked at the crazy setup in my living room.
Nox stood by the table and held out a hand, “Hop up here. No need to take anything off, I can work around it for now. Someday, though, I’d like to do this for you for real.”
I hopped up on the side of the table and sat there, Nox came around and touched the side of my face, his fingertips lightly resting on the pulse point in my neck, his thumb grazing my jaw. I shivered and closed my eyes for a second, relishing the touch despite how I hurt to the point of nausea. God, I hated being a woman sometimes, and the march of the red menace was definitely at the top of my list of times I hated being female.
“You trust me, don’t you, Maren?” he asked low and the quality of his voice made me shiver again.
“Yes,” I said breathy, and it didn’t have anything to do with the pain.
He put an arm around my legs, cradling my head still with the hand that he’d touched me so gently with, letting it slide to the back of my head. I moved with him, easily, doing what he wanted, almost instinctively by touch alone as he laid me back, face up on the table.
He lifted my sweatshirt a bit and tugged down the corner of my yoga pants until he could dip his fingers below the waistline of both the pants and my panties beneath. My breath caught and I closed my eyes and tried not to think about how this would look if anyone came in here, like Sage…
“I’m going to press, and I’m going to lift your leg against my shoulder, I need you to remember to breathe, you get me, Baby?”
“I… I think so.”
He lifted my leg with his free hand and braced it against his shoulder in a stretch I’d seen the cheerleaders do a thousand times with one another at my school. Then, he pressed a couple of inches down and to the side of my right hipbone, in the soft spot and holy god that hurt! I yipped and bit down on it, whimpering and holding my breath as he mercilessly worked the spot.
“Breathe, Angel,” he ordered and I sucked in a deep breath, tears stinging the corner of my eyes. “That’s it, let it out.” Nox breathed exaggeratedly, in a bid for me to follow by example and I did.
“That hurts!” I cried and he nodded.
“Only for a little bit, just breathe for me, Baby,” he said but he backed off to where the pain was tolerable. He flexed my leg back and forth and pressed in that same damn spot, ordering me to breathe as he worked the muscles loose on first the right side before starting on the left.
A knock fell at the front door, and Nox called out, “Come in!” I tried to sit up but he put a hand to my chest and pressed me back down, he pressed in that spot hard enough to make me go “Ouch!” just as my brother and I’s caseworker from the state walked through the door…
“Oh my god, Pam!” I cried and covered my face with my hands as it flamed away.
Nox, not to be deterred, said sternly, “Maren, I need you to breathe.” I immediately sucked in a deep breath and wished I could melt into the floor.
“What are you doing here?” I asked voice muffled as it was still hiding right along with me behind my hands.
“Sage called, said someone was hurting you… I can see the rumors of your impending death were greatly exaggerated, as I suspected they would be.” Her voice was tinged with amusement and I lowered my hands.
“Hi, I’m Nox,” Nox said and followed it up quickly with, “Probably looks bad, but I’m licensed and working here, do you mind? She’s tensed up as it is and it’s not making my job any easier.”
Pam fought to suppress her smile and said, “By all means, I’ll wait in the kitchen.”
“Do me a favor and start some water for some hot tea?” he called.
“Huh,” Pam muttered, looking Nox over before turning and walking into the kitchen. I tried to sit up again and Nox pressed me back down.
“Relax, Maren. I can’t help you if you don’t relax.”
“Kind of hard, don’t you think!?” I demanded and he sighed, letting me up.
“We aren’t done here,” he murmured low, a sexy growl next to my ear that made me bite my lower lip. I told my teenaged overwrought sex drive to chill and swung my legs over the edge of the table, blinking, my cramps much diminished but still there. I looked at Nox who smirked, bemused.
“Okay,” I griped. “We aren’t done, but let me deal with one disaster at a time, this one takes priority.”
“I don’t disagree,” he said and held out his hands. I put mine gently in them and he helped me hop off the table, trailing into the kitchen behind me.
“So you’re Nox,” Pam said switching on the stove beneath our kettle. I slid into a seat at the kitchen table while Nox moved around my kitchen getting down tea and sugar, cups and saucers. It never failed to amaze me just how civilized he was, for being a rough and tumble biker.
“I’m Nox,” he confirmed. I’d told Pam about him before, and she eyed him critically now.
“Somehow I pictured you a little…”
“Younger?” he supplied. Pam’s response was for her mouth to flatten down into a thin line. Nox set down cups and saucers and asked, “What kind of tea would you like?”
“All due respect, I’m not here for the tea,” she said and I closed my eyes. Her tone wasn’t especially thrilled and I cleared my throat.
“I can explain,” I murmured and Pam’s keen brown eyes flicked to me.
She tucked some of her long, frizzy, dyed blonde hair behind her ear from where it was parted on the side and said, “I’m all ears.”
Shit, she wasn’t happy… I scrambled, “I wasn’t feeling well,” I flamed a special kind of crimson, “Cramps, and well, Nox was just trying to help…”
I was flailing for the right things to say. Tripping over myself, when Nox’s hands fell to my shoulders and his thumbs dug just right between them, easing out some of the tension gathered there.
“What did Sage tell you on the phone?” he asked succinctly. “Can’t fix what’s broken if we don’t know why you’re here.”
Pam eyed him critically, and said, “Sage called and said that Maren’s much older boyfriend had forced his way into the house and was hurting his sister and that I needed to come quick.”
I let my face fall into my hands and Nox pressed just a little bit harder, a silent plea for me to chill. I looked at Pam’s angular face and sighed, “That’s not what happened at all…” I said.
“First of all, I’m just a friend,” Nox said, “Second, I was texting with Maren and she seemed… off all day, so I swung by to check on her and Sage. Sage was the one to let me in the front door and pardon my French, but he was acting like a disrespectful little shit. So I checked him. Maren was napping up in her room and looked pretty wrecked, and Sage seemed to think it was awfully funny that Maren was in pain. Probably because he’s an eleven-year-old kid and doesn’t get that a woman’s period is a natural part of life and they aren’t funny, especially when it’s taking it out of his sister like that.”
His hands disappeared and one reappeared over my shoulder, reaching past me to hand Pam a laminated card. “Third, I’m a licensed massage practitioner and knew I could lend a professional hand for this particular set of circumstances, so I left back out and came back with my gear to do what I could
to ease her discomfort. Seems to me, we might need to have a little talk with Sage.”
Pam considered the card for a long minute before handing it back to Nox. “Before we call Sage down here, I’d like to know exactly what he did and precisely what you did, to quote-unquote,” she raised her fingers and made quotation marks in the air, “check him.”
“He rolled his eyes at me so I did this,” he stepped around my seat and leaned down putting his nose inches from Pam’s. His face grew stern, his look blank and frightening and he said in an even, controlled tone: “Disrespect me again.”
Pam’s eyes widened and he sat up, she asked him quietly, “And what did Sage do?”
“He told me he was sorry, I ruffled his hair and I left out.”
“That was it?” Pam asked.
“That was it,” Nox agreed.
“You didn’t grab him, or lay a hand on him?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“I see.”
I swallowed hard, “You see what?” I asked, mouth dry as the kettle began to whistle, filling the silence left behind; the air thicker with the gravity of the situation. My heart pounded and my mind raced and all I kept thinking was please don’t take him away. Please don’t take him away. Please don’t take him away.
Pam looked from me to Nox and sighed. “Maren, it’s fine, really. Mr. Fisher didn’t do anything wrong except, perhaps, come on a little too strongly, but I somehow gather that this isn’t the first time Sage has been disrespectful in his presence?”
“Not by a long shot,” Nox declared from the kitchen island where he poured three cups of tea. He brought them over and set one in front of me and one in front of Pam before fetching his cup and pulling out a seat next to mine.
“I see,” Pam said.
“Listen, I didn’t do anything to Sage that I haven’t done to my nephew, Noah, a time or two. There’s no sense in yelling when that type of calm does so much better, am I right?”
Pam smirked and added sugar to her tea meanwhile I felt my eyes mist with tears at the sheer anxiety crushing me from the inside, like a black hole had taken up residence in the center of my chest and was sucking me down and inside out from the force.