Chapter Sixty-Seven
SYDNEY
I’ve heard many people say when you’re at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. I suppose there’s some truth to that statement, but it isn’t necessarily always accurate. Some can simply stay at the bottom and never recover, wallowing in the depression, pity and angst associated with being where they are. Having been at the bottom, and now hovering somewhere near the top, I was able to look down and realize the distance I had traveled was remarkable. Keeping my vision clear enough to continue to accurately see the pit from which I so desperately dug myself from was of the utmost importance. It remained a constant reminder of what could be.
I stared into my glass of wine, took a sip, and tilted the glass in my hand as I watched the wine shift from side-to-side. “So why did you sign the name Cambio?”
“You know, to my brothers in the club, I’m Toad. Hell, half of them probably don’t even know my actual name. I’m good with that. I don’t really care if anyone in that little town knows my name, but I have one and I like it; I was named after my grandfather. I guess there comes a point in time when we all need to take a step back and become who we really are for just a minute…”
As he paused, his finger pressed against the glass of wine, moving it from in front of my face to the side. My focus immediately shifted from the glass of wine to his face. He grinned, gripped the glass in his fingers, and pushed it down onto the table.
“I think I wanted you to see me as Cambio, at least while you were reading what I wrote,” he said as he released the glass of wine.
I nodded my head lightly and lifted the glass without thinking, glancing at it as I did. His hand immediately pressed against the stem, pushing it back into place. I shifted my gaze toward him and grinned.
“Got it, glass stays on the table,” I said with a grin.
“The glass needs to stay where it doesn’t obstruct your face. I don’t care what you do with it; I’m tired of trying to look through it. I want to look at you, I waited all week for this,” he said as he leaned forward.
I pushed the glass of wine to the side, pressed my forearms against the edge of the table, and leaned forward. “Well, I liked it. I liked that you signed your actual name, and not Toad. I think that was the turning point for me, when I read that. I read it several times, wondering exactly what you meant. We’re a funny breed.”
He leaned into his chair and winced from the apparent pain in his shoulder. “I don’t even know if I’ve known who I actually was until all of this happened. I know who I used to be, but I’m not real sure of just who the fuck I’ve been for the last ten years. That war fucked me up a lot more than I ever thought it did. I’ve been wandering around since I got home feeling guilty for having lived through it. I’ve been running from place to place and person to person trying to make up for something I didn’t need to make up for. I don’t guess it really matters, but I’m not sure if it was finding out Staff Sergeant Jacob was actually alive, or the fact I took that bullet, but one of those two things gave me a huge relief. All of that guilt I’ve been living with is gone.”
As much as I felt sorry for him, or anyone else who was exposed to the violence and death associated with fighting in a war, I was intrigued by the complexities of it all. The human mind’s capacity, or lack thereof, to process events or feelings attached to something as simple and natural as living. Cambio had spent almost a decade feeling guilty for living through the war. Now, after having learned that a fellow Marine who he assumed had died actually had lived, his guilt faded into nothing. I knew one thing if I knew nothing else; the new Cambio was a man I had great interest in being with. Although he acted differently toward me now, and had officially asked me out on a future date, I wondered what he wanted, expected, and hoped for. No differently than I expect any other woman would be, I wanted more definition to what it was we were doing, and what to expect in the future. For fear of scaring him away, I treaded lightly and hoped he would simply provide the answers as I muddled through our conversations. Well, either that or just kiss me.
He gazed beyond me, and his eyes became distant. After a moment, he began to speak softly. “Back to what we were talking about earlier, I never told you, but I had uhhm. I was riding out by the lake and there was this puppy in the ditch. Crows were all gathered around him, and I slowed down to keep from hitting them. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and stopped. He’d been shot several times, but he was still alive. He looked like someone had used him for fighting. I loaded him up, hauled ass to Wichita, and took him to the vet. I picked out a collar for the little guy, and waited for them to get him stitched up and ready to come home. When the vet came out and told me he didn’t make it, I lost it. Something in me snapped. I do think there’s a point where death is a necessary evil, and it always will be, but someone killing a puppy was different. When I got out to my bike, I realized my blood covered shirt was still in the vet, and my cut was covered in blood. I didn’t come to your house to get cleaned up, I came there for…well, I came there for…”
A puppy. The blood on his cut was from a puppy.
As my eyes began to well with tears, I leaned forward and reached for the center of the table. He gazed down at the table and raised his hand from his lap. Slowly, his hand moved across the table until it met mine, encompassed my fingers, and provided me with a comfort only he could provide.
“Comfort,” he said. “I came there for comfort.”
It seemed odd. Although I had just made the chalkboard about passing judgement, when he arrived on that particular day, I made assumptions about the blood on his cut, and how it probably got there. My suspicions about the origin of the blood were solely based on who he was and what I suspected he was involved in. For even the most caring of souls, not passing judgement is often difficult. Relieved to find out what had actually happened, but now feeling sorrow toward him for entirely new reasons, I held his hand and fought not to cry.
“So as soon as I can ride out of here, you’re going to do that? Go out with me?” he asked as he squeezed my hand.
I glanced up from the table and nodded my head like a child who’d been asked if he wanted a second helping of ice cream. “Yes. Yes, I am. Will. Absolutely.”
“How much longer?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said as he released my hand. “My lung is down to a dull steady pain. My shoulder’s a different story. It hurts to lift my arm, shower, cough, damn near any quick movement kills me. I can’t even hold it out in front of me, I damned sure can’t ride home.”
“What about riding home in my car, and maybe taking your bike home on a trailer?” I said as I reached for my wine.
“Not going to happen. Only time that bike’ll be on a trailer is if it’s broke down. If I can’t ride, I’ll just go down and do a swan dive off of that bridge downtown and end it all. Sorry,” he growled.
“Just a suggestion. So why aren’t you wearing your sling?”
“I don’t fucking like it,” he snapped.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Might speed things up.”
“I look like a pussy when I wear it,” he said as he positioned his left arm across his chest, mimicking the position of the sling.
I guess I shouldn’t expect a biker, Marine, and the Sergeant at Arms of a Motorcycle Club to act any differently. He was his own person, and he had his pride, whether I agreed with his decisions or not. Being my selfish self, I was ready to start this going on a date thing just as soon as we were able. Coming down to Austin on a weekend every other week left me for the time in between doing nothing but counting the minutes until I hopped in my car and held my breath for another ten hour drive. It all seemed too good to be true, and I wanted to take the next step.
“You could stay here,” he said.
I glanced around the large concrete deck and down at the swimming pool. As much as I’d love to stay with three overly wealthy and extremely gracious boxer/bikers while I waited for him to recover from his broken coll
ar bone, I couldn’t. I desperately needed to work and earn the money to pay rent and provide what little furnishings I needed for my new home.
I shook my head and laughed lightly. “I can’t, I have to work, you know that.”
He grinned and raised his index finger in the air. “I’m the boss, I’ll give you time off with pay. A vacation.”
I shook my head. “I can’t accept that. It’s a handout, and it wouldn’t be fair to the other girls. Just get better as soon as you can, and we’ll go from there.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to introduce you to my wife,” a voice said from behind me.
As Cambio stood from his seat, I pushed my chair from the table and turned toward the voice. A very attractive man wearing a hoodie was standing with an adorable blonde woman at his side. As he brushed the hood from his head, he wrapped his arm over her shoulder and playfully pulled her into his chest. As he did, she pushed against him with her hands, leaned back, and slapped his shoulder with her hand.
“Stop it Shane, quit goofing around. Hi, I’m Kace, Shane’s wife. He’s the idiot wearing the hoodie in this heat,” she said as she slapped his back.
“It’s like his security blanket. I got him to quit wearing it for almost a year, and now that all these new people are around, he’s back to his old tricks,” she said as she held her hand out.
I wiped my hand on my shorts and shook her hand. After studying the man in the hoodie, I remembered seeing him at the hospital with the big bald guy. The visit to the hospital had become nothing more than a big blur for me, but I was fairly certain he was the same person.
“Nice to meet you, Kace. You’re adorable, and I love that dress,” I said as I shook her hand.
“Thanks, I like it. Vee and I were shopping, sorry but I didn’t know when you were going to get here, so I didn’t rush home. Vee and I shop a lot to get away from these three oversized children. Don’t ever marry a boxer or a Marine, they’re like big kids. Hi Toad, how’s the shoulder,” she said without taking a breath.
Toad cleared his throat as she finished speaking. “Just a little sore, and what? Did you forget I was a Marine?”
She pressed her hands into her hips, glanced at Shane, and turned toward Toad. “Nope.”
I like this girl, she’s spunky.
She smiled. “Who else came with you?”
I stood there admiring Kace’s shoes. As she spoke, I quickly looked up and alternated glances between her and Cambio. “Just me. Otis is going to ride down tomorrow. Oh, and I almost forgot, Otis is bringing your phone.”
Cambio rolled his eyes and nodded his head. I grinned, shrugged, and shifted my gaze to Kace.
She was roughly five feet tall, blonde, and absolutely gorgeous. Outfitted in a tangerine summer dress and sandals with leather straps that tied around her ankles, she was dressed the way I used to dress and hoped to one day dress again. One day when I could afford it.
“And I think we met at the hospital when I came down, the day he uhhm. The day he uhhm, the day he woke up,” I muttered as I held my hand toward Shane.
He nodded his head and smiled, revealing very prominent dimples. “We did, nice to see you again, ma’am.”
Ma’am? Must be a proper southern boy.
“Do you mind if we sit?” Kace asked.
“Not at all, hell it’s your house,” Toad said as he sat down.
I turned, glanced toward the house, and down at the pool below. “Oh, this is your place? I love it. The pool, the deck, the house, it’s beautiful. We just walked over from A-Train’s, I didn’t know which one of you owned this one.”
Simultaneously, Shane and Kace pulled chairs away from the table and sat side-by-side. As Kace sat, she flipped her hair over her shoulder, picked up my glass of wine, sniffed it, and began babbling as she carefully placed it in front of me.
“Thanks. Shane makes a lot of money from beating people up. Isn’t that funny? He punches people in the face and they give him sacks of money for doing it. He bought this after he won the championship. Ripp and A-Train, the other two idiots, live on each side of us, and we’re in the middle. Is that Mascato? I want a glass,” Kace blurted as she waved her hand toward the house.
“It is, I brought it from A-Train’s,” I explained. “I can get you one.”
She tilted her head toward Shane, but kept her eyes fixed on mine. “No, you stay here, I like talking to you.”
She turned to face Shane and stared.
Shane stood from his seat and motioned toward Cambio and me. “I’ll get it, Kace. You need anything else?”
We both shook our heads. As Shane pulled the hood over his head and began walking toward A-Trains house, I turned toward Kace and grinned.
“I don’t always treat him like this, but he’s in trouble,” she said flatly.
I raised my eyebrows and responded in a somewhat sarcastic tone. “Oh really?’
“Yep. I was pregnant and he hopped on his bike and disappeared for a few months. Rode around the country beating up people in bars while I was home alone wondering where he was. Didn’t call, didn’t text, nothing. He was just beating up random people trying to decide if he should come home or not. A-Train found him down by Mexico somewhere and made him come back. He didn’t tell me that part at first, I thought he came home on his own. I just found out the other day, after this happened,” she responded.
“Oh wow, how long ago was that?” I asked, clearly seeing she was far from pregnant.
“I don’t know. It was with our first, maybe a little more than a year ago,” she responded flatly.
Surprised she had produced any children and looked the way she did, I quickly responded. “You’ve had children?”
She shook her head and bit her lower lip slightly. As she released her lip, and cleared her throat, she shook her head lightly. “No just one. We lost the second one. She was a little girl. There were complications.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
Her eyes fell to the deck. “It was God’s will, not ours.”
After a few seconds of silence, and me feeling like an absolute idiot, she glanced up and immediately continued with her playful behavior. She glanced toward Cambio, shook her head, and focused on me.
“You see, no matter how big or tough they are, they need us more than we need them, don’t let anybody tell you different. And don’t let anyone be mean to you, either. I was in a bad relationship with a guy who’d rather punch me than love me, and Shane helped me understand just how wrong it all was. I finally smacked him with a cast-iron skillet after he knocked this tooth out,” she said as she tapped her tooth with her index finger.
“Even though Shane helped me get out of the relationship, it doesn’t mean I owe him anything. I just explained all of that so you’d know what type of person he is. Anyway, men act like they’re tough and all that stuff, and maybe they are. But it doesn’t mean they’re in charge all the time, or that they’re entitled to anything more than we are. Sometimes we just have to take charge and remind them it’s a two-way street, you know, that we’re not doormats. That’s what I did with Shane.” She paused and turned toward Cambio.
It was becoming immediately apparent not only was Kace full of spunk and a little bit of attitude, she was also a very courageous, understanding, and brave woman.
“And don’t you dare ever mistreat her, Toad. Do you hear me?” she squealed.
My head swiveled his direction.
“I won’t,” he responded.
I turned to face Kace, anxious to see if there was more.
“You’re going to be good to her aren’t you?” she snapped back.
My head ratcheted his direction.
“Yes, I am,” he immediately responded.
My gaze quickly shifted back to Kace.
“And you’re never going to pull some shit like Shane did, running off on that bike and leaving her, no matter how bad things get, are you?” she huffed.
I glanced toward Cambio.
He
shook his head and grinned. “Sure won’t.”
She tossed her head in my direction. “See?”
“That’s why I like Toad. He’s nice. Well, that and he lets me cut his hair,” she said.
I turned to face Toad, smiled, and shrugged my shoulders.
He raised his right hand to his well-manicured Marine haircut. “I uhhm, I can’t do it, my shoulder kills me when I try to reach the back of my head, no matter which hand I use.”
Kace turned toward me and placed her hand on my shoulder. “I got some clippers at Walgreens. I’ve been cutting it every four days, he’s kinda needy.”
“So how long have you two been seeing each other,” Kace blurted as Shane sat down with a bottle of wine.
Before I could even think to answer, Cambio cleared his throat and responded. “Two weeks.”
Huh?
We’re seeing each other?
“Two weeks? Two weeks ago is when you were in the hospital, dork,” Kace responded as she reached for the wine glass.
She tilted her head toward me. “You’re all he talks about by the way.”
I gazed at him and waited, hoping he had more to say. I couldn’t hear enough about what he was thinking about me.
About us.
“Yeah, two weeks,” he responded. “We started the day she whispered in my ear and woke me up.”
And just like that, a girl I didn’t know provided the answer to a question I had yet to ask, but longed to hear the answer to.
And from that moment on, as hard as I tried, I could no longer see the pit from which I had so desperately dug myself from.
Because I was floating in the clouds.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
TOAD
The two weeks Sydney had been away were filled with thoughts of her arrival, boyish anticipation of seeing her again, looking forward to spending time talking to her, and finding out just exactly what she was willing to accept from me regarding any advancements I may wish to make into her life.
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