by Lewis, R. J.
“No!” I shouted, jumping off my stool and running to the stereo. “Not the hillbilly stuff. Anything but the hillbilly stuff!”
But Graeme blocked the way, shaking his head at me solemnly. “This is my jam, Emma. Do not be a party pooper.”
I died. Fucking died. Laughter poured out of me as I exclaimed, “I’m the party pooper?”
“Yes, you’re pooing on my party.”
This guy.
I heard Hawke choke on a sip of his beer. “Leave it on, Emma. This is good shit.”
“You like country music too?” I gaped at him, although I knew he was full of shit. “You’re meant to be a metal head! I’m surrounded by hard ass criminals who like the beat of banjos and fiddles instead of screeching voices singing about death and turmoil?”
“We have enough death and turmoil in our lives as it is,” he replied.
Shrugging to myself, I returned to my beer, letting Graeme have his country music. I was taking reserved sips, making sure the bottle would last so I didn’t get carried away. Remembering my younger days, I was capable of drinking an absurd amount in a short period of time. Now I was a lightweight and I needed to keep it to a minimum. Part of me kind of wanted to just get shitfaced so I had an excuse to dodge going to Granny’s house.
Oh, God, I was going to Granny’s house!
Even if I wasn’t, I had to be modest about where I was. It was still work hours and if I wasn’t fucking Borden, he’d probably fire me for my actions. Wait…
“Is Borden going to get pissed at us for this?” I asked them.
“Probably,” Graeme answered.
Hawke took another sip. “Borden gets pissed at everything. Why should it matter?”
I shrugged. “Good point.”
We lingered around the main bar. I couldn’t later recall what we talked about. It was mostly small talk. Pointless conversations. Drifting from random facts to dirty jokes, the latter of which Hawke seemed to have an endless supply of. He was currently on to his hundredth joke. They were tasteless and crude, just the way I liked them.
“What’s the difference between a drug dealer and a hooker?” he asked, looking between Graeme and me with this straight face that made him even more laughable.
I gasped and jumped up and down. “Oh, oh, I actually know this one! A hooker can wash her crack and resell it.”
Hawke laughed. “What the fuck? Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, come on! I’ve been around.”
Graeme shook his head, flaring his nostrils. “Disgusting.”
“I talked about Santa’s ball sack before that and suddenly this one is disgusting?” Hawke retorted.
“Graeme’s got sensitive ears,” I said, smiling.
“More like pussy ears.”
Graeme exhaled. “You’re shit drinking companions, the both of you.”
He sulked off to the other side of the bar, his ear right next to the music. We watched him relax in his own little zone, his eyes closing shut, his lips moving knowingly to the lyrics of every song.
“Does Graeme do this a lot?” I asked Hawke.
He nodded. “He used to before you came along. Would knock off work and spend hours at the bar.”
“He doesn’t have a wife or…husband?”
Hawke chuckled. “Nah, he lost his wife years ago.”
My eyes widened. “How’d she die?”
“She didn’t die. She ran away with his partner, and he quit law enforcement a week later.”
Whoa. What? “He was a cop?”
Hawke took another swig of beer. “Yep. One of the best.”
“How’d he end up working for Borden?”
“I don’t know. Borden went to him and offered him the job. Maybe he was tired of walking the line and wanted to look after number one. Or maybe the pay was too good to knock down, even for a copper.”
I didn’t say anything for some moments. I continued to watch Graeme lose himself to his shit music, and then I turned and faced Hawke.
“What about you?” I wondered aloud, searching his face. “How did you end up with Borden?”
His lips pressed tightly, and then he took another drink of his beer. His adam’s apple bobbed, and it made me stare at it for some time before my eyes wandered to his upper body. He was big guy, Hawke. Almost as big as Borden. He paused his sip when he caught me staring, and I casually looked away.
“What about me?” he then asked, his voice low.
“How did you end up with Borden?” I forced out.
He glimpsed at his scarred up hand. I looked there too, at the middle finger missing. Now that I was openly staring at it, I could see how fucked up it looked. It was definitely not a clean cut, like he’d accidentally sliced it or something. No, it looked uneven, the scar tissue thick, trailing up his arm.
“I got my reasons,” he finally murmured.
“You could have been a biker.”
“Could have.”
“And you chose Borden instead.”
He nodded slowly, his mouth remaining shut.
I cocked my head to the side, my loosened mind filled with questions. “You’re loyal to him, right?”
He looked back at me, his eyes filled with confusion. “You don’t think I am?”
“That first meeting with Hector, it got pretty intense.”
I saw the realization dawning. “You thought I’d protect my brother instead?”
I shrugged. “Would you have?”
“No.”
And that was all he was going to say on the matter. I don’t know why I believed him, but I did. Even though I didn’t trust my judgment anymore after Blythe, there was something so concrete about Hawke and his devotion to Borden.
“Why don’t you like me?” I then asked him curiously.
His lips twitched. “I don’t dislike you, Emma.”
“You’ve been an asshole to me.”
“Like Borden said before, I’m an asshole to everybody.”
“But you’re particularly mean to me. I’ve been with Borden for so long now, and he cares for me deeply. Wouldn’t you warm up to me because of him?”
His brown eyes shot to mine. “It’s because you’re with Borden I couldn’t warm up to you.”
“Why?”
“You could have been fooling him.”
I raised a brow. “I never wanted to be around him in the first place, Hawke.”
“You’re lying. I saw it that first night at the club when I dragged you to him. I saw the way you stared at him.”
“I was scared of him.”
“You were curious of him too.” He watched me carefully, reading the truth on my face. “Anyway, I saw what was happening. I didn’t want him to be distracted. I thought you’d be a phase. He never cared about girls, Emma. We’d send him an escort to his apartment all the time, and she’d come running back down ten minutes later, cursing him off. Some of them thought he was gay. Said nothing they tried to do got his dick twitching. Then you come along and suddenly he’s doing anything to get to you. It was a first.”
I felt my cheeks heat. “Yeah, well, now he’s in some room with a whole heap of women.”
“And you’re being a fucking idiot for worrying about it.”
“I’m just a girl. I can’t help myself.”
“Of all the things you should be stressing over being with a guy like him, it’s girls sauntering around him in the nude that’s done it? Come on, little one. Haven’t you ever stayed up nights wondering what the fuck you’re doing living in our world?”
“Yes,” I answered truthfully, feeling myself drawn into this conversation. I really needed to have it with somebody. Blythe would never understand, and Graeme never wanted to talk about it. “I used to stay up every night thinking about it. I question my sanity all the time. I wonder how I can love someone so crazy, and then I remember some of the things I used to do growing up. Things I’m not proud of, choices I made I don’t really regret, and I realize that maybe we’re all a little craz
y too.”
“Borden’s killed people.”
“I know.”
“And you still love him?”
I nodded, looking into his solemn brown eyes. “Yes. Does that make me wrong?”
He didn’t respond for a moment, and then he chuckled. “Darling, what the fuck do I know about right and wrong? I grew up a biker, in a biker-infested culture, blood and gore all around me all the fucking time before I got thrown in prison for my own personal crimes. I’m not the right person to ask that question to.”
“I still want to know your opinion,” I pressed.
He paused, surprised by my urgency. “Yeah,” he finally said. “It’s wrong.” I looked down, frowning, when he added, “But sometimes wrong isn’t so bad. Sometimes it’s what a person needs. Sometimes two wrongs make a right.”
“But that’s not the way the saying goes.”
“Fuck the saying. It’s the truth.”
I felt my heart swell a little. He was talking to me like he genuinely cared about our conversation. I never knew I could go from hating somebody to wanting nothing more than to befriend them in a blink of an eye. I needed the hard truth. Maybe Graeme didn’t want me to hear it, but I could tell Hawke gave it straight all the time, regardless of who he was talking to.
“I’m sorry for being a dick to you,” Hawke added, contritely. “It’s how I am when I try to build boundaries.”
“Why do you need to build boundaries with me? If you were like this, we’d have gotten along so well right from the start.”
His smile vanished and he just stared at me. That stare spoke of a lot of things I didn’t want to say out loud for his own sake.
“What in the holy fuck!” screamed a familiar voice. We turned our heads and watched Linda reappear, her hands on her hips, glowering at us. “Would you turn down the goddamn volume? You realize the rest of us are working while you guys are drinking away like irresponsible shitheads? I’m in the process of hiring another bartender after Sonja decided to leave me fucking high and dry and I can’t fucking HEAR ANYTHING with that annoying shit on the stereo!”
But Graeme only turned to the stereo and cranked the music up even louder, drowning out the rest of the words coming out of her mouth. Her face reddened in anger. She flipped him off and angrily stormed out. We burst out laughing. Hell yeah! It was good to put her in her place. I stood on my stool and applauded Graeme for his efforts.
“Well done!” I hooted. I didn’t realize how tipsy I was until I tried to get back down. I lost balance and slipped off the head of the stool. Hawke’s arms caught me before I crashed to the floor, and he quickly situated me back on my feet. I was laughing at my stupidity, and he was smiling down at me and shaking his head.
“Thank you,” I said.
“What?” he shouted down at me.
I raised myself up on my tiptoes and shouted into his ear, “I said thank you!”
He nodded. “No problem!”
I stepped back from him and added, “And I’m sorry for calling you Chewbacca! You don’t look like him. I promise. You’re actually alright.”
He began to nod again, but stopped abruptly. His body tensed, and I looked up at him and his gaze was straight ahead, that smile of his gone. I didn’t have to look to know. I could feel Borden’s presence in the air. Even with the music on, I was sure we’d all fallen silent.
I slowly turned around. Standing half a room away, his body was tall and rigid. His blue eyes held mine for a moment that seemed to stretch for an eternity. He studied me, head to toe, and his jaw ticked and his anger rose. Then his gaze flickered to Graeme, and that simple gesture had Graeme turning to the stereo and shutting the country music off.
Uncomfortable silence followed, the kind that made your lungs work harder, as Borden quietly analysed the situation. I caught the sight of Hector feet behind him, amused at our situation, leaning his back against the wall. Jesus, he looked comfortable, like he’d been watching us for a while. Oh God, how long exactly? I looked back at Borden, and he was staring between Hawke and me, a face of raw disdain. I waited for him to say something. To ask us what the fuck we were doing. Never did I think his face would darken even more. I’d seen this look recently, but in small bursts and only fleetingly. It was that face he made when he felt extremely possessive of me, and it usually happened when a man stared at me inappropriately.
Finally he cocked his head in Graeme’s direction. “Are you drunk?” he asked him, his voice hard and low.
Graeme nodded calmly. “Damn close, Mr Borden.”
“Then you’re useless. Go home. Come back when you want to take your job more seriously. That includes you too, Hawke. Get the fuck out.”
While Graeme nodded and gathered his things to leave, Hawke stayed put, his body still, his face tense. “I had hardly one beer,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t care if you’ve had a teaspoon of that shit, I want you out.”
“You’re seriously sending me home?”
“What did I just say?”
“Borden,” I cut in softly, raising my hand up to him, “it’s my fault. I forced this on them –”
“Stay out of this, doll,” he interrupted, sharply, giving me an eyeful with that glare of his. “I’m talking to these men I entrusted to look after you, who think they can drink on the fucking job like I’m operating a clubhouse the likes of which Hawke grew up in.”
Hawke’s face split with anger, his lips twitching as he retorted, “This is fucked up, and you know it. I just told you I had just one beer –”
“And I just told you I don’t give a fuck.”
“Well that’s a piss poor excuse, Borden. I know what’s going on. You’re getting your panties in a twist because I’m harmlessly chatting to your girl? Honestly, after everything I’ve done for you, you’re going to stand there and question my intentions? Fuck you.”
Borden stepped closer, fisting both hands as he growled, “Don’t you fucking talk back to me. Remember who you answer to since I saved your fucking ass. Get the fuck out of here before I remind you every second of it, asshole. Come back when you’re not so fucking obvious about your wants around someone you can’t fucking have.”
In a blink of an eye, Hawke grabbed the bottle he’d been drinking and threw it hard across the room, past Borden and feet away from Hector. It smashed against the wall, pieces nailing Hector’s arms and face. He stepped away, shooting his older brother a look of shock. Hawke took two fevered steps in Borden’s direction, every inch of him trembling with fury, but Graeme, even in his drunken stupor, got to him in time. He thrusted himself in front of Hawke, shoving his chest back, repeatedly telling him to take a walk. Hector moved just as fast, grabbing at Hawke’s arm and pushing him in the direction of the entrance doors.
“Come on, brother,” Hector said. “It won’t end well if you don’t stop.”
“I didn’t fucking do anything,” Hawke growled.
Even then I knew Hawke, over six feet tall and built like a wrestler, could have overtaken them to get to Borden. But he let them push him out, all the while levelling Borden with a look that spoke of so many conflicted emotions: hate, betrayal, sadness. It was difficult to watch Borden barely react. He stared on with those empty hard eyes, fists still clenched at his sides.
“Fuck you, Borden,” were Hawke’s final words before he was out of there. Borden didn’t even blink, so coolly reserved until the second they were gone. Then he looked back at me, and I saw that face split. He moved to me quickly, practically knocking me back a step as he abruptly grasped me by the chin and forced me to look up at him. His grip was rough, but still his touch spoke to me, making me tremble. He studied my face, roaming every inch of it with nostrils flared, and I stared on back, my mouth slightly open, my gaze locked with his.
“You’re actually fucking drunk,” he spat out in disgust. “After everything you fucking said about your mother and why you don’t drink, you fucking picked up a bottle and decided to down that shit?
What the fuck is wrong with you, Emma?”
What was wrong with me? I fumed, sputtering out, “I was tired of waiting around for you to finish getting your goddamn lap dance! Did you enjoy it?”
His face hardened. “Are you a fucking idiot when you drink? Are the circuits in your head broken or something? Because it must be the alcohol that’s fucked you up right now.”
“I’m not drunk. I know what I said.”
With an annoyed grunt, he dropped his hand and grabbed me by the arm, harshly, and dragged me fast across the club and to one of the private rooms. He opened the door and pulled me in, slamming it loudly behind him. The room was dim, and black leather couches occupied one side of the room, against a wall of red curtains – probably the seedy ones Hawke had mentioned earlier. Several small stages, each fit for one person with a pole running down it, occupied the other side of the room. It was like a cross between a party room and a mini strip club, and it looked high-end and posh, but still in that man-cave kind of way. It also smelled like fresh cologne – cologne that smelled of Borden – and perfume combined. My spine straightened as I realized this was the one he was in with Hector and the girls.