“I don’t know, Dad,” she sighed. “She’s gonna kill me.”
Then she started to cry. He pulled her onto his lap and held her close. He hated her crying; every fucking sob tore through his heart like a dull knife.
“Oh, baby girl.”
“Especially now when the perfect daughter is home. Her pride and joy, and then she’s got me… such a fucking disappointment.”
“Baby, you know that’s not true. You’re amazing, smart, nice, and so extremely fucking talented.” He stroked some of the purple hair back from her face and fastened it behind her ear. “And, sweetie, even with bright violet hair, you’re so beautiful.”
Her light brown, almost amber, eyes hit his. “I’m not. Lisa’s beautiful, and Mom is beautiful—I’m just… plain.”
“Katze, there is nothing plain about you.” He stroked the little dimple in her chin and up over her very full lower lip. “You’re beautiful. I wish you could see that.”
He stroked her hair from the from the top of her head and down the sides to cradled her face between his hands, making her look at him.
“And I gotta admit, Katze, that hair color kind of suits you.”
It did. He would’ve thought a hair color like that would look horrible, but it made her skin look almost alabaster, her eyes brighter, and… in general it worked.
“You mean I can keep it?”
“Yup. You can keep it.”
He didn’t see any point in arguing about it. When it came to Vi, you had to choose your battles, and making sure she went to school was the biggest priority.
Ella would go crazy, but he’d deal with her for Vi. He was so fucking fed up with all these fights, and at the moment he was mostly trying to keep Vi out of Ella’s way. He hadn’t come up with a long term plan yet, but he was getting very close to taking Vi and getting the fuck out of the house. She didn’t need all this shit, and neither did he.
-o0o—
Mac looked at Vi sitting on the couch next to Edie. Edie seemed to be trying to encourage her, which was a very Edie thing to do. She’d always had a soft spot for Vi, and he’d seen her at Edie and Dawg’s place a few times. He’d been talking a lot to Dawg before he took off to prospect in Emporia, Kansas.
When Mac’d mentioned to his dad he wanted to prospect in another charter, someplace where he wasn’t just ‘Brick’s kid,’ his dad had told him to talk to Dawg, since he’d done the same thing when he became a Marauder. That’s how Dawg’d ended up in Greenville.
Mac didn’t really know Vi as he’d mostly hung out with her older sister, Lisa. With Vi being so much younger, she turned into one of those annoying younger siblings you did your best to avoid. To add to that, Vi hardly ever talked to anyone and tended to disappear among the other more outgoing kids in the club.
When Edie left her alone on the couch, Vi picked up a book and a well-used pencil from a worn bag. She seemed to scan the room for a while before she started drawing.
“Is it me or is that hair color… surprising?” he asked, turning to Mitch and Lisa.
Lisa started laughing. “Yeah. She usually tends to look as if she’s trying to blend in with the walls. Think she looks kind of cute, though.”
Lisa wasn’t that close to her sister, it was once again that age difference making it hard, but she always defended her.
“Well,” Mitch started, “you sure as shit notice her now.”
“Don’t think she’ll see that as a positive thing.” She studied her little sister with a small smile on her lips.
“What’s she drawing?” Mac asked Lisa, still looking at Vi and her focused expression.
“Only one who ever sees the drawings in that black sketchbook is Dad, but you could ask him,” she suggested with a sweet smile.
“I think I’ll pass.”
It wasn’t that he was scared of Bear, he’d pretty much been a second dad to him and Mitch, but Bear was very protective of his daughters.
Mac kept looking at Vi. She was so focused, like she was the only person in the room, so he decided to go have a look. When he started towards her, he heard Mitch laugh.
“Are you pissed she’s not giving you those long, longing looks anymore?”
“Shut up,” he said and kept walking.
Vi’d had a bit of a crush on him a few years back, and Mitch had found it hilarious. It might be because she was the only one of the female club kids that was crushing on Mac instead of him, which was the normal thing, but it was more likely he’d known how uncomfortable it made Mac. Not because it was Vi, but more because it was someone so young.
As he came closer to her he saw it—her drawing. It was Wolf and Bear by a table, and it was amazing.
Wolf was leaning back with his leg resting on another chair in front of him, and his arm was on the table holding a glass. Perfect down to the last detail with the long hair in a messy ponytail, the goatee, and the drooping bad eye. On the other side of the table was Bear, with his long hair and full beard down to his chest. He was resting both his elbows on the table with a glass standing between them.
Mac’d never seen anything like it and definitely not from a fourteen year old girl.
“Wow!” he said before he could stop himself, and she immediately slammed the sketchbook shut.
“No!” he protested as he sat down next to her. “That was fucking amazing. Let me see.”
She shook her head and put the sketchbook back into her bag. He should’ve remembered what Lisa’d said not too many minutes earlier––no one ever got to see except Bear.
He would’ve loved to see the rest of those pictures; it must be like a diary showing biker life. That’s when he finally got it—it probably was her diary, but in pictures. He knew Vi’d had some problems in school, and it seemed likely she’d rather draw than write in it.
“It was good, what I had time to see. Looked just like them.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” he laughed. “You’re not good with compliments, are you?”
She shrugged and looked at everything and everyone in the room but him. More than anything, she seemed embarrassed, and he could see a slight blush on her cheeks.
“Fine. I’ll leave you alone, but for the record—that hair color is fucking awesome.”
He thought she should know, and considering Ella’s earlier reaction she probably needed some encouragement. But she just stared at him, glaring, as if he was making fun of her which hadn’t been his intention at all.
“Not kidding you, Vi. It’s great.”
“Thanks,” she almost whispered. She always spoke in that low voice. When she spoke at all.
He gave her shoulder a slight nudge before getting up. “That’s how you respond to a compliment, girl.”
She shrugged again. As he walked back, he snuck a glance behind him and saw her taking out the sketchbook from her bag again.
“What did you say to her?” Lisa asked when he was back next to them.
“Not much. Just that her drawing was good, and that I liked her new hair color.”
“Marcus Baxter, you are a good person,” Lisa declared and rose up to her toes to give his cheek a kiss. “Thank you.”
“Hey!” Mitch yelled. “What the fuck, you didn’t give me a kiss.”
“I did, don’t get greedy.” Lisa lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m gonna have to be all nice with Mom and Dad tonight, but the roof tomorrow night? I bring the drinks, and you bring the smokes.”
They’d done that often, spent a night on the roof of the garage, smoking pot and having a few drinks. It had been a while since the three of them did it together, but he’d like it.
“Absolutely!” Mac agreed, looking at his brother who nodded with a big smile. “We’re in!”
PROLOGUE TWO:
16 years, 3 months
-o0o—
I RAN THROUGH THE apartment, trying to find my phone. It was just me and Dad living here. They’d separated over a year earlier, and now they were divorced. I had a feeling it was my fault.
They’d argued a lot, and often about me. Mom thought he was too lenient with me, that I was just lazy, and if I just made an effort school wouldn’t be such a problem. She said Dad just kept blaming it all on my ‘diagnosis.’ You could always clearly hear the quotation marks, like it was the alleged diagnosis; it somehow made me feel like ‘the artist formally known as Prince.’ She could go on forever about all the ways he was treating me wrong. And Dad defended me—always. Most of their fights started with me, or at least ended up being about me. I hated it.
Dad swore it wasn’t my fault, that there was a lot of shit going on that didn’t have anything to do with me. I knew about some of those other things, too. Staying out of the way, trying to not be noticed, meant people eventually did stop noticing me, and they talked as if I wasn’t there. Which meant I knew a lot of things I wasn’t supposed to know—things I would’ve preferred to not know. Like the fact that Dad roamed on Mom at times, and his reason, besides probably not liking Mom all that much the last few years of their marriage.
I also knew what kind of business the club was in, but I kept quiet about it; it didn’t matter to me. I liked the club, I liked the guys, and what they did or didn’t do wasn’t my business or my concern.
Either way, it still felt like it was my fault—the divorce. There hadn’t been much discussion about who I should live with, and about three months after the separation Mom moved out to California to be closer to Lisa. I didn’t mind. Things were easier when she wasn’t around. She still called and nagged, but her nagging over the phone was a lot easier to ignore than her nagging to my face. Mainly since it meant I didn’t have to see her expressions of contempt while she did it.
Once I’d found my phone, I grabbed my keys from the bowl in the hallway, ran outside, got on my bike, and took off to the compound. I was a bit late; I’d promised to be there early to help Mel and the other women fix the food. I’d gotten really good at cooking since Mom moved out. Dad couldn’t cook for shit, and he’d lured me into learning by making some rather farfetched comparisons about art and cooking. But it was okay, since it turned out I liked to cook, and I was quite good at it now. That’s why Mel’d asked me to help her with the pre-Christmas dinner.
The weekend before Christmas Day, the club had a combined party for Christmas and Brick’s birthday. It was the biggest party of the year, and a few of the kids had complained they weren’t allowed to it, which was why they now had the pre-Christmas dinner for members and their family the day before the big party.
Mel had been great; even if Mom was her best friend she’d taken my side. Dad simply explained that Mom leaving him meant she left the club, and Mel was with the club. It didn’t feel that simple to me. Mel had really backed me, just like Edie’d always done. It could be because they were sisters, but my guess was that Mel wasn’t too fond of how Mom had treated me.
Once Mom was gone, I realized a lot of people had noticed Mom being pretty shitty with me. I didn’t understand why they didn’t do more about it while she was around, but I guessed you didn’t butt in on how other people raised their kids as long as they weren’t, like, hitting them.
I walked into the clubhouse and was heading towards the kitchen when someone grabbed my arm. Not hard, just to stop me.
“Vi? What the fuck!” And then he laughed. It was Mac. When I looked at him, he let go of my arm and held up a strand of my hair. “Still purple?”
I still wore it purple. Edie’d suggested having it dyed two-toned with a purple-black color in the bottom layer. It made it look great; really deep and thick. I liked it, and purple hair had somehow become me.
“Yeah.” I took the lock of my hair out of his hand, and I hoped I wasn’t blushing as bad as it felt like I was. “Nice to see you.”
He hadn’t been home much. From what I’d heard, there was a lot going on in Emporia, and the few times he’d been home to visit I hadn’t seen him.
I hadn’t even seen him the previous Christmas, since Dad and I had spent it in California with Mom and Lisa—which had sucked. It was some attempt by them to ‘act like grownups’ and ‘do what was best for the girls.’ On our way home, Dad’d promised me they wouldn’t try anything like that again. I’d thought it was stupid from the very beginning, since it was just a few months after the separation, and I’d told him that. Parents had a tendency not to listen to kids, though.
The few times Mac’d been home, he’d mostly been with Mitch. They were really close, but still quite different. Both looked a lot like Brick, though, with their dark hair, brown eyes, and height. But they were skinnier than him, or… not as buff as he was. Mac had really short hair; almost a buzz. He was trying to grow a beard. Or, it sort of was a beard, but not, like, a lot of it.
Most seemed to think Mitch was the cutest of the brothers, but I’d always liked how Mac looked better, and he was nicer—calmer. I’d sort of had a crush on Mac before he left. I’d had it for years, but I was totally over him now. Definitely.
Early on, I’d hoped he’d come back from Emporia quickly, but he was a member in that club now. I guessed he liked it there; which made me think that he might not come back. Dawg had done the same thing. He prospected here instead of in his Dad’s charter in Englewood, and he was still here. Married and everything.
Just as he was about to say something, we were interrupted by Dad yelling at me.
“Katze! Get your ass into the kitchen—they’re waiting for you.”
“Gotta go,” I said to Mac, and he nodded with a smile.
“Hey!” he yelled just as I was about to walk into the kitchen, and when I turned around he smiled at me. “I still like the color.”
I nodded and waved before continuing into the kitchen. Edie handed me the three-month-old Travis. “Can you hold him? I need to help Lanie, and then you’re up for the potato salad.”
“You’re gonna cook?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes, I am,” she said and gave me a pretty nasty look.
Edie was a legendary bad cook. Like, really shit. First time I was going to a girls’ night, Eliza had told me to get something to eat before I went there so I wouldn’t have to eat Edie’s food. I was glad she’d told me that. Even Dawg was a better cook, and I was worried about what poor Travis was gonna eat when he grew up. I looked at the super cute kid I was holding and gave him a kiss.
“If you ever want proper food, kid, you can come and eat at my place,” I told him.
“Or mine,” Mel laughed. “Already have a deal with Dawg about that.”
“You two suck!” Edie muttered and started chopping vegetables.
I just hoped she stuck to chopping; it didn’t seem likely she’d manage to screw that up. But it wouldn’t surprise me if she did.
-o0o—
Mac kept his eyes on the purple hair as it left for the kitchen and shook his head with a laugh. He’d been surprised when she showed up with purple hair the first time, and even more this time when he realized she’d kept it. It looked nice, though.
His eyes automatically went down to her behind, and with an appreciative nod he noted she had certainly started to grow up. A quick count made him realize that she was sixteen, and he felt like a perv for scoping her out. It didn’t help that the father of the sixteen-year-old ass just then sat down next to him.
“Calmed down over there?” Bear asked.
“Yeah. All sorted. Thinking about coming back here.”
Mac felt very done with Kansas and was seriously considering transferring home.
Bear patted his back. “That would make Brick happy. And Mel!”
Mac nodded with a smile. His dad had met and married Mel when Mac was twelve. They’d met because Mac stole her bike. It broke down while he tried to escape her, and in panic he’d run into the garage his dad owned. She followed him and after screaming at him and pretty much anyone in the vicinity, his dad had come out from the office, and she’d screamed at him, too. Then his dad asked her if her bed was comfortable. He found out less than
a week later. Obviously it was, because he’d kept her close ever since.
Mac loved Mel. She was a great woman, a great mom, and had a lot of love for anyone she thought deserved it. About five years after meeting Brick, Mel’s sister showed up from traveling around the world––Edie. She’d lived with them for a while, and Mac had jerked off thinking about her more than once. It almost broke his teenage heart when she hooked up with Dawg.
Even if he wanted to transfer back to Greenville now, he didn’t regret leaving in the first place. He was still convinced it’d been a good idea to prospect, and eventually join, a different charter than the one where his dad wasn’t the President. But Emporia, the club he’d joined in Kansas, had gotten into some shit within the first two months of him prospecting, and it had been rough. Now, when it was over, he wanted to come home. He loved the Emporia guys, but he’d grown up in Greenville. It was still home to him.
He didn’t want to talk about it yet, though. And he didn’t want to discuss it with Bear until he’d talked to his dad about it. Instead he pointed towards the kitchen.
“Still purple?”
“Violet for Violet,” Bear nodded. “Fuck! Almost gave her mom a heart attack. Think that might be one of the reasons I told her she could keep it.”
Mac laughed. It hadn’t been much of a surprise to anyone when Bear and Ella finally decided to split. Their loud arguing in public had been a hint things weren’t all that good. Bear plowing through the sweetbutts without even trying to hide it had been another.
Before he had time to comment on what Bear said, his baby sister Eliza came running. She was, without a doubt, the least quiet and shy kid in the club. He picked her up and put her on the bar.
“How’s my beautiful baby sister?” he asked.
She really was a beauty; she’d inherited Mel’s blue eyes and blonde hair, and she was such a fucking charmer. He already knew he would to have to fend off guys with a shotgun when she got older. That much was already clear, and she wasn’t more than eight years old.
“Good,” she answered and pulled him down for a hug. The next second she screamed, and she almost ruptured his eardrums with her howling. “Violet! Did you bring my picture?”
Perfect Collision Page 2