Loner

by Janine Infante Bosco

  Having Savannah’s blood on my hands is not something I’ve forgotten. It’s stayed at the forefront of my mind and is the sole reason I won’t make things official with Kelly.

  Back then, I was a kid fucking around on the streets of Nashville. A kid who would do anything to make a buck just to feed his girl. My biggest crime was trusting the wrong man. As a result, Savannah died. Now, I’m not that kid anymore. I’m a man who lies, cheats and kills for a living. I’m a man with enemies near and far, some of which I’ve never met. My life is dangerous and every day I slip that cut onto my shoulders is another day served on borrowed time.

  Still, I love her.

  It wasn’t something I expected to feel again and something I knew I didn’t deserve but, I fucking love Kelly more than I thought possible. I won’t compare what I feel for her to what I felt for Savannah because it’s a different kind of love. We don’t love the same in our twenties as we loved in our teens and I’m sure ten years from now, if I’m still around, the love I feel for her will change then too. It will evolve. We’ll experience new things together, we’ll be tried and tested by the trials and tribulations of life and the love I have for her will be more than I imagined it ever could be.

  Solid.

  Everlasting.

  A love that knows no bounds.

  The kind of love men like me die trying to honor.

  “You know I’m right,” he says. Spitting blood, he glares at me. “Cut her loose or make a move, man because you’re cheapening whatever it is you got with her.”

  Swallowing, I turn back to my bike.

  “Stay away from her,” I warn, straddling my seat. Fitting my helmet onto my head, I rev my engine and throw up my kickstand. Kicking up dirt, my tires peel away from the scene of the crime and I leave Shady in my dust. The wind carries his words as I make my way back to the girl who waits for me in my bed. They haunt me as I enter the quiet clubhouse and they keep me company as I pour two shots of whiskey.

  One for me and one for my father.

  His remains untouched as I knock mine back and pour myself another.

  I feel her before I hear her.

  My favorite kind of trouble.

  “Linc?” she whispers, causing me to turn my head.

  Broken and beautiful.

  Wearing a pair of shorts and one of my tshirts, her bare feet pad across the worn linoleum.

  “Hey, baby,” I rasp. Pushing the whiskey away, I swivel around as she reaches me. Reaching for her hand, I pull her between my legs and wrap my arms around her.

  “You smell like gasoline,” she murmurs against my chest.

  “I just got in. I didn’t have a chance to shower yet,” I reply, pulling back. Needing to look at her, I tip her chin and brush the unruly hair from her face.

  “Long night,” she whispers.

  I nod, tucking the strands of hair behind her ear. Leaning into her, I press my mouth against her forehead and she wraps her arms loosely around my neck. Angling her head back an inch she purses her lips and I bend my head, accepting the invitation. Our lips touch and that’s all it takes for me to temporarily forget the things I’ve seen, the crimes I’ve committed and the sins I’ve made. One kiss and I’m transcended back to where I belong.

  “Mmm,” she moans softly. “I missed you.”

  Sliding my hands down her arms, I take her hands and lace our fingers together.

  “That’s your cue to say you missed me too,” she teases, squeezing my hands playfully.

  Suddenly playing off her banter isn’t enough for me and I want more. I need more. Craving to know the things I don’t deserve, the dreams I’m not man enough to make come true.

  “What do you want out of life, Pinky?”

  The smile fades from her lips as she cocks her head and tries to figure the cause of our changing script.

  “In five years, do you still see yourself here in this place?” I elaborate. Waiting for her response, I watch as she gnaws on her bottom lip. After a few seconds, she decides on an answer.

  “I haven’t given much thought to what I’ll have for breakfast, much less where I’ll be in five years. But now that you ask the answer is pretty simple. In five years, I will be right where I am now—the only place I see myself is next to you.”

  “Yeah,” I rasp. “Side by side, together we ride,” I add.

  Lifting her hand, my lips brush across her knuckles and I pull her even closer.

  “I think we stay here. After all, this is home for us,” she continues thoughtfully. “Maybe we get our own place though. Away from my mother but close enough where you can get your ass to church.”

  Her fingers stroke the back of my neck as she smiles.

  “We make a home outside these walls. A place where tacos are always on the menu,” she jokes.

  “What about you?” I question, sliding my hands to her ass. “Are you on the menu?”

  Her grin widens.

  “Are you kidding? That’s the house special.”

  Laughing, I bend my head and nuzzle her neck. A man can wish and, he can dream. He can lie and tell himself it’s in the cards but, with Satan as the dealer, there are no guarantees. But a man knows one thing for sure, he knows when he’s found his wild card.

  Lifting my head, I bring my hands to her face and cradle her cheeks. Her big brown eyes shine mischievously at me and I feel my lips quirk.

  “I love you, Kelly and in five years I can only hope that’s where we’ll be.”

  Shock wears on her pretty face as she blinks at my admission.

  “You what?”

  “Oh, don’t act so shocked. It may have taken me a while to say the words but, I think I do a pretty good job expressing my love. At least I want to believe that I do,” I say dropping my hands from her face. “I may not know who I am or what I’m supposed to be but, I know I’m the guy meant to love you.”

  Ain’t nothing gonna change that.

  No dealer and certainly not the devil.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I blinked and suddenly I was twenty years old. Still not legally able to do half the shit I was doing since I was sixteen but, ask me if that stopped me. While my rebellious streak had yet to die, I was maturing in other ways. Deciding college wasn’t for me, I enrolled in a trade school and was apprenticing as a mechanic. It wasn’t conventional and Linc hated the idea I was surrounded by men all day. Especially since the club kept him on the road for days at a time but, I only had eyes for him and had no problem reassuring him I was his whenever he came home.

  We still lived in separate rooms at the clubhouse and he never did give me a property patch but that didn’t make us any less of a couple. After he told me he loved me, things got intense between us. Our time together was limited due to his obligations to the club, and we didn’t see each other as much as we did when he was prospecting. When he was home, we made the most of it, spending days on the back of his bike and our nights between the sheets. Sex was a tool we used when words weren’t adequate to express everything we felt when we apart.

  It was hot and heavy.

  Rough and reckless.

  And, a month ago we found ourselves staring at a home pregnancy test.

  It was negative and the next day; I went to the doctor and got an IUD. As much as we loved each other, neither of us were ready to be parents and truthfully, I wasn’t sure Linc even wanted kids. The last year had been hard on him and as many times as I tried to get him to confide in me, there was always a truth he omitted. I chalked it up to club business but; I knew it went deeper than that and part of me wondered if whatever he was hiding had anything to do with why he couldn’t claim me to his brothers.

  Still, I didn’t press him and accepted the fact he’d share when he was ready to share. That’s just who we were. Two people who marched to the beat of a different drum and lived for the moment.

  “What are you thinking about?” Linc questions, pulling me out of my head.

  Digging my toes in the sand, I smile back a
t him. Sprawled across a blanket with his hands folded under his head, wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks, he turns his gaze to me.

  “You better put some sunscreen on. Your skin is almost as pink as your hair.”

  “You really should think about becoming a comedian,” I retort, leaning over to bite his nipple playfully. Lifting his head, he frees his hands and grips my waist, pulling me on top of him.

  “Yeah? You think that’s my true calling?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” I tease, throwing my leg over the side of him. Fully seated on his abs, I run a finger down the slope of his nose. “You seem to be a natural born biker.”

  “I used to think that too,” he mutters.

  Reaching out to play with the barbell piercing in my belly button, he grows quiet and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore grow louder.

  “Used to?”

  He lifts his head.

  “You ever been to Brooklyn, Pinky?”

  “Years ago, when I was a kid we went to visit my uncle for a week.”

  I thought it was odd he wanted to go to the beach today and now, I’m thinking maybe he wants to take a vacation. Brooklyn is great and all that but, it’s not my ideal vacation spot. Now, Miami I can totally get on board with.

  “My dad was from Brooklyn. He was part of Wolf’s club,” he reveals, diminishing any thoughts of Pina Coladas. “Actually, he was the president.”

  Eyes wide, I stare at him dumbfounded.

  “What? Why did you never say anything?”

  “No one knows,” he says with a sigh. “Just your uncle,” he adds, lowering me onto his lap as he sits up. “You can’t tell anyone either, Kelly.”

  It hurt to think he actually thought I’d betray his confidence but the more I studied him, the more I understood there was more to the story.

  “You said was. What happened to him?”

  “He died,” he answers. “He wasn’t murdered if that’s what you’re thinking. He was a junkie and spent years swapping dirty needles. Eventually, he contracted hepatitis and found out he had liver cancer. Two weeks after he was diagnosed, he was dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say out of habit, knowing it doesn’t help any.

  “Don’t be,” he replies with a shrug. “I never knew him.”

  As I try to make sense of everything he’s telling me, it dawns on me that this is a conversation we probably should have had years ago. How did we get this far without him telling me about his father or me even wondering about him?

  Thinking about it now, there is so much we don’t know about one another. I don’t even know where to begin. Linc was eighteen when I met him and aside from his mom’s death, I don’t know anything about his life before me. Well, I know he had gotten into trouble—something I pieced together through the years. But, the details and why he gave up on his talent is still a mystery.

  Deciding to take things slow, I start with his father.

  “If you never met your dad how do you know my uncle?”

  “That’s not where the story begins,” he replies, swiping a hand over his face. “There was a girl,” he continues, dropping his hand to my knee. “Her name was Savannah. She was beautiful and sweet. Sometimes shy but when she sang, she was an angel. She loved music as much as I did and together we believed we could make it. Between her voice and my guitar, we were going to fill stadiums. Everyone would know who we were.”

  My stomach drops as I listen to him talk about another girl and wonder what any of this has to do with my uncle.

  “No one else believed in us. They said we were dreamers who wouldn’t amount to anything. My mother included. So, we left home. We ran and for two years we struggled, starved and made music. Standing on a corner singing while I strummed my guitar didn’t put food in our bellies or a roof over our heads and I realized I needed to step up. I couldn’t let her live like that. I started gambling. Shooting dice and playing cards. I wasn’t great but the more I played the better I got. I started winning and money started coming in. I got us an apartment and our days of digging through dumpsters were over.”

  As he continues with his story, my heart starts to break. It’s not pity that causes the cracks, it’s jealousy. It’s realizing I wasn’t his first love. It’s knowing she got him first.

  “A gangster noticed me and gave me a job. He let me gamble with his money and would cut me a piece of his winnings. The greener your palm the more you want. I became greedy and lost sight of what mattered. I don’t even remember how it happened but, I lost his money and learned people only give a fuck about you if you’re a winner. No one cuts a loser any slack and they don’t grant a pardon to the innocent people associated with you. He never gave me a chance to pay my debt. Instead, he took Savannah from me. He killed her,” he rasps.

  I lift my mouth to muffle my gasp but the moment he stares me in the eye, he sees the horror reflected in them.

  “I wanted him to kill me too but, he wouldn’t. He said living was my punishment, and he was right in a way. Anyway, I had nowhere to go after that so, I went back to my mother. Surprisingly she didn’t slam the door in my face. She took me in and tried to do right by me. You see, in the two years I had been gone, my mother had taken up my father’s habit. Addicted to heroin, she felt she’d be no help to me and called your uncle. He promised her he would take care of me that he’d bring me to Raleigh and keep tabs on me.”

  “I don’t understand. Why did he bring you here and not take you back with him?”

  “According to Wolf, my father had a lot of enemies and he feared they’d retaliate against me if it came to light that I was Cain’s son. At the time, he argued that Sin couldn’t know either or else he wouldn’t have taken me in.”

  “It’s almost four years, Linc.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think the secret is eating away at me? Kelly, I didn’t only start prospecting with the club because it was convenient. Yeah, I was comfortable but, I also thought I’d learn more about my father. I thought Wolf bringing me there was some kind of sign. A calling to follow in my father’s footsteps. But, all I’ve managed to do is chase a ghost, and I got to tell you, I hate him. I hate my father because while I might never know who he was personally, I know what he stood for. I live it every day on the road and it ain’t pretty.”

  I don’t know what to say or how to feel. All the truth he unloaded chips away at the foundation we laid. Brick by brick, it all falls apart.

  “Is that the only reason you’re here?” I ask hoarsely, willing the tears in my eyes to stay put.

  “God, no,” he whispers. Reaching up, he places his palm against my cheek and touches the tip of his nose to mine. “You’re my reason and as much as I hate what I do, I’d do it every day as long as I got to keep you.”

  The tears give way, sliding down my cheeks as I swallow the lump lodged in my throat.

  “I’m sorry about Savannah,” I whisper.

  “I am too but, I’m not sorry any of this led me to you. I don’t know what kind of person that makes me. If it makes me selfish or grateful. All I know is that I love you and the reason I’m telling you all this is that I haven’t been fair to you and I thought you finally deserved to know why.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Making you my old lady. I can’t do it, Kelly, I won’t do it because it puts you at risk. Hiding from my father’s enemies, I’ve made my own and I can’t watch you suffer the same fate she did. I can’t do it.”

  My lungs constrict as I pull away from him.

  “Are you breaking up with me?” I rasp.

  “No,” he says quickly. “Kelly, I can’t quit you. I can’t give you up but until I figure out where I belong and how to get out of this mess, I have to keep you safe and the only way I know how to do that is by doing what I’ve been doing.”

  “Everyone knows we’re together, Linc.”

  “Yeah, the club knows we’re together but the men looking to destroy it don’
t,” he sighs. Cocking his head to the side, he pushes his fingers through my hair and cradles the back of my head. “One day it’ll be just us. One day, the timing will be right. Everything will line up just as it should be and, you and I will create a different kind of trouble. The kind that makes life worth living.”

  Silly me.

  That’s what I thought we were doing all along.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I hadn’t planned on laying all my truth on Kelly. Having been on the road for a week, I couldn’t wait to get home. Anxious to see her, I wanted some alone time–away from the clubhouse. I also wanted to surprise her and do something nice. Something we didn’t usually do. Telling her I loved her wasn’t always enough. I didn’t have the luxuries that Shady and the rest of the guys had. After the fight we had a year ago, I realized he wasn’t being a dick so much as he was looking out for Kelly. I can’t be certain he didn’t want her for himself but, in the weeks that followed, he found himself a woman. Claimed her on the strength of three dates and they’ve been together ever since.

  I couldn’t do the same with Kelly because of the baggage weighing me down. Still, I wanted to show her how much she meant to me and more than that I wanted her to know she was always on my mind.

  A day at the beach seemed like a great idea. We could lie out, relax and the promise of seeing Kelly in a bikini sealed the deal. How a day of relaxation and fun in the sun turned into my first penance, I have no idea. Maybe it was the isolation, the way we seemed cut off from the world we were a part of, that made me want to share. Or maybe it was the guilt I felt every time I looked at her and knew she deserved more. As ugly as it was, she deserved my truth, my scars, and my past. Being the only person I loved made Kelly the biggest part of my life and lying to her didn’t seem fair. It also made her the only person I knew I could turn to. The one I could share my thoughts with and never be judged.

  A year had gone by since I asked Kelly what she wanted from life. Her answer was simple and everything I wanted to hear. My wildcard wanted me and without realizing it, Kelly offered me a future I could be proud to call my own. A streak of luck like this doesn’t come around often so when it does you need to strategize. Then, I had five years to figure how to get us there and I knew being conflicted by my choices in my life wouldn’t get us to where we wanted to be. The more I ignored them, the more they festered like a cancer and the more time passed without change.