Between Brothers: The Sacred Brotherhood Book IV

by A. J. Downey

  I’d thanked him, and he’d told me not to mention it, but it broke my heart that our relationship was so strained. That things didn’t feel the same and probably never would.

  For having his support and the support of Blue and his club, I never felt so alone in my life before.

  “But I’m not alone, not exactly, am I?” I asked out loud of my little bean, not even sure it was to a stage it could hear me or what have you, but I’d like to think that it could feel something and if it were to feel anything? I wanted it to feel loved and wanted.

  I turned back to the project in front of me, well aware that if I were to go back to work come morning that I should work on it as long as possible today. Still, first I would need breakfast and so I drifted across to the house to fix something to eat.

  Chapter 39

  Blue

  I picked up cones, stacking them, walking alongside the pickup and heaving them up into the bed while another guy, Chip, stood in the bed and arranged them neatly.

  “You doin’ alright, man?” he called down to me and I looked up and nodded.

  “Yeah,” I grunted back, remembering at the last minute that I didn’t have anyone to speak for me anymore and that I needed to make more of an effort to do it.

  “Got any plans for lunch? Me and a bunch of the guys were gonna hit Jake’s diner. Ain’t that the place you used to go to every day with Cell?”

  “Yeah, my girlfriend works there… I actually planned on it. Today is her first day back to work.”

  “Why don’t we all go?”

  I nodded, we were actually wrapped up early today, the job completed until we hit the next one tomorrow. I was suddenly looking at a free afternoon.

  “How many of us?” I asked.

  “Six or seven,” he called back and I heaved up and handed him the next stack.

  “Sure, let me call ahead and let her know to expect that many. She might have to move some tables.”

  “Sure!”

  Chip knocked on the window and Sean who was driving turned around. Chip gave him a big thumbs up and Sean gave one back before getting on the radio.

  “That’s all of us boss,” crackled out of the one at my hip and I remembered…

  The end of each job, the boss tended to treat all the guys to lunch either that day or the next. Cell and I had only gone once or twice preferring to keep to ourselves. I guessed that was still an option for me but why? I didn’t have anything else to do. That and I was pretty sure the guys had picked Jake’s to get me to go with ‘em so I wouldn’t be on my own. It was a nice gesture and I would have been going anyways, so why the hell not?

  I shot a text to Hayley letting her know what was up and we kept on until all our cones and signage was cleaned up.

  Several of the guys rode together in their cages but I was on the bike. I didn’t think twice about mounting up and putting my knees in the breeze, but I spared a thought to Hayley and how she might feel about my riding after Cell… I feared a fight might be brewing there, because I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, give up my bike or the club. Not if it was all I was going to have left.

  It was everything to hold myself together as it was, lately. Not just for Hayley and the baby, but for me, too. I didn’t want to end up locked up, and I was well aware I somehow dodged that bullet while on my bender. I was also well aware I’d dodged ending up like Cell.

  Just thinking about what that would’ve done to Hayley, losing us both within days of each other, I felt sick with guilt. My gorge rising and bile burning the back of my throat. I pulled in at the diner and backed my bike by the door in that space that wasn’t a parking space at all but was perfect for around three bikes next to each other and freed up the rest of the marked out spots for cages.

  The rest of the guys on the road crew I worked parked a minute later, a couple of the trucks having to find street parking, the lot pretty full. It was busy at the diner today, and I checked my phone. Hayley had just given me a one letter answer to my text about two minutes after I’d sent it. A simple ‘K.’

  I got off the bike and went up to the diner’s door, pulling it open and holding it for Chip, who held it for the boss, who held it for Sean and right on down the line. I was surprised to find my heart thundered in my chest and I was nervous as hell about seeing her. About whether my presence would be welcome or not.

  Jake looked out from the kitchen and his face was entirely unfriendly. A booth had a table and chairs moved up to it and was set up for seven, a ‘reserved’ card on it and I looked around for Hayley.

  “Table’s for you,” Mel thrust her chin in the direction of the setup with her chin as she breezed by with a pot of coffee in one hand and a tray balanced on the other, making her way across the dining room to her section.

  “Thanks, Mel…” I said and she gave me a megawatt smile, likely over the fact that I’d spoken to her.

  We all sat down and Hayley came out from the back and the direction of the restrooms, drying her hands on a paper towel. She threw it away in the trash behind the counter and came over to our table, expression guarded, slipping her pad and pen out of her apron.

  “What can I get you guys to drink?” she asked lightly and the guys put in their drink orders. She didn’t bother to take mine. I always drank just water, and water is what she brought us first, bringing me an extra-large glass.

  She moved as she did before, quietly and withdrawn and it killed me that I was responsible. That Cell and I had brought her so far and that I had set her right back to square one… hell, further back than even that.

  I had a lot to answer for and I would crawl on my belly through broken glass if it would make any of it better. I didn’t think it would, though and I didn’t know what to do.

  The guys laughed and tried to draw me into conversation and I pretty much found the whole thing to be excruciating, but I knew they all meant well, so I did my best to just go with it. When lunch was over, the pie most of the guys had ordered for dessert devoured, and the bill laid down at our boss’s side I perked up a bit.

  “Can I have that?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The receipt paper.”

  My boss frowned, but his curiosity got the better of him and he passed it down. I stared at it for a long minute before I folded it down into a square and folded the excess back and forth. I folded the square carefully into a tiny paper crane and with a pen from the inside of my cut, wrote ‘no words’ on the discarded scrap of excess.

  “Thanks,” I muttered and left the crane and the note beside it on the corner of the table.

  I looked over the rest of the guys who were looking at me like I was crazy and I got up, muttering, “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

  I watched through the diner’s window as Hayley returned and picked up the small folded offering and the discarded scrap of paper. She looked over and I nodded, and the pain unmistakable in her eyes, the longing and wistfulness clear in her expression, she inclined her head gently back.

  Chip said something to her and she bowed her head, slipping the bits of paper into her apron pocket and taking the boss’ money.

  I rode back to the club, frozen down to my soul despite the warm weather.

  When I got there, I went around back and straight to the outbuilding. I found Dani right where she always was, Red-Thirteen in his corner by the door, a book in his hands. He gave me a questioning look and I nodded, and he smiled at me, a sad smile full of understanding.

  “Babe,” he called out and Dani looked up and back, over her shoulder. He got up and went out past me giving me some privacy with my best friend but his woman and I couldn’t express how grateful I was for that.

  “What is it?” Dani asked and I dropped into the seat Thirteen had vacated.

  “I don’t know how to fix this thing with Hayley, but I want to… I want to so bad and it’s killing me inside.”

  Dani’s true blue eyes grew sympathetic and she turned to set down what she was working on. She looked over her tool
s and with a sigh said, “I honestly don’t know how to begin to fix something that big either, Blue… The fact she’s even willing to give you a second chance shows just how much she loves you and that she understands.”

  I nodded, “I figured that.”

  Dani sighed and said, “I’m almost done with this piece, you want me to help you make something for her?”

  I looked up and gave a wan smile, “I don’t think a piece of jewelry will fix anything, but it couldn’t hurt.”

  She smiled and asked, “What does she like?”

  I thought about it and finally said, “I fold paper into things.”

  “Origami?”

  “Yeah. Something that I picked up doing in prison. It’s calming to do it, you know? Meditative almost.”

  “I can work with that.”

  “You can?”

  “Yeah. It won’t be super easy, but I have an idea.”

  She waved me over and I got up, curious about what she had in mind. I blinked and looked her over and said, “You’re a genius.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “It’s not going to be easy though. I mean, it’s not pliable, you’re going to have to work at it.”

  “No, I get it, and I have to work at a lot of things…” I rolled my lips together. “Dani, she’s pregnant.” Her eyes and smile lit up but one look at my face her enthusiasm cooled. I shook my head and said, “No, I’m happy, believe me I’m happy. I’m just scared. Horribly fucking scared.”

  “No, I get that, and Blue that’s totally normal I’d imagine. I mean, why don’t you talk to Dray, and Ghost, and Archer? Dragon even. I imagine they all will have some kind of wisdom about this. They’re all fathers. They’ve all been where you are.”

  I nodded and she turned back around, picking up what she was working on, turning it this way and that under her magnifying light. She got absorbed in working on the piece pretty quickly and I just sat and watched her for a time until Thirteen came back. At which point I got up to give him his seat back.

  “Come back tomorrow afternoon,” Dani said. “I should have something for you by then.

  “Thanks,” I muttered and went back to my room to grab some clean shit so I could take a shower and wash the day, short as it’d been, off.

  I felt a little stir crazy, with too much time to think being by myself. I wanted to give Hayley the time she needed and so I showered, went to the weight room in the main club house and worked myself ragged and went back and showered again.

  I did all manner of menial tasks just so I would have something to do. Filling up the rest of the day with laundry, cleaning up around my room, fixing a healthy dinner for me and the guys around the club only to finish it with a bottle of Jack and staring at the ceiling of my room. A lit cigarette, one of Cell’s brand, burning down in an ashtray like some kind of morbid incense.

  I picked up the key from around my neck, the one that Dani had given me and closed my eyes. Cell had been buried with the matching leather cuff that bore the key plate.

  Afternoon dipped into dusk and dusk deepened into night and I just sipped the Jack and stared at the ceiling. Eventually the exhaustion caught up and I passed the fuck out, but the dreams were uneasy.

  Chapter 40

  Hayley

  Friday came and it was nearly eight o’clock. I stared at myself in the mirror and swallowed hard. It was supposed to be mine and Blue’s first date. Well, the first one since, you know…

  I was in one of my favorite summer dresses while I could still wear them. The weather in the low eighties today, spring as sprung as it was going to get and moving right on into summer. My stomach was still deceptively flat and I realized I had no idea how any of this pregnancy stuff worked, like when I was going to start to show, or when the morning sickness was supposed to stop.

  I heard his motorcycle pull up and went out the back door to meet him. He swung a leg over and turned around, stopping and taking me in. His face was tired, and carefully closed off and I fidgeted nervously, waiting for him to say something.

  “You look beautiful,” he said and I managed a brave smile.

  “You look tired…” God, I didn’t know why I said that, but it was true. It was so very true. He looked exhausted.

  “Working hard, picking up some overtime, trying to sock some extra money away for the baby.”

  I nodded, “Me too. Saving up every bit I can, actually.”

  “You’re not doing any of this alone,” he said and it sounded like a vow or promise.

  I took a step and then another down the back steps and asked, “So what did you have in mind for tonight?”

  “Um, first…” he went to one of his saddle bags and undid it, pulling out a bouquet of flowers and turning back. He came to me with the hydrangeas and handed them to me and I smiled, the stems wrapped with string and a tag. I admired the carefully folded paper blossoms and turned the tag over to read it.

  No words except ‘I love you…’

  I felt my heart twist in on itself with such an extreme longing to go to him and have him put his arms around me and tell me that all of this was just some terrible dream, but it wasn’t. Still, I didn’t care to punish him, or us, any more than we’d already been punished by fate and who knows, even by God himself… I just couldn’t stand the thought of either of us hurting one another anymore and so I looked up at him with tears staining my lashes and told him the truth…

  “I love you, too…”

  He came to me carefully and put his arms around me, drawing me against his chest and said, “Shh, don’t cry. You’ll ruin all that careful makeup.”

  I uttered a broken laugh and cried anyways, saying in a broken little girl voice, “It’s waterproof.”

  He held me lightly, and breathed deeply and it was as if he was trying to commit the feel of me in his arms to memory. As if this was the last time he would hold me like this and though I didn’t think he was completely forgiven, I didn’t think we were quite as broken as we’d been the moment before.

  “Let me put these in my studio and we can go,” I told him and he nodded, reluctantly letting me go.

  I set the flowers on my work table and returned to him and he said, “You want we should take your cage?” I nodded, not quite ready to face a ride on the bike so soon after Cell’s accident.

  “Let me drive so you can fix your face.”

  “You never said where we were going.”

  “I figured the good ol’ classic of dinner and a movie.”

  I nodded, “Sounds good.”

  “I thought we could both use something a little fun,” he said holding the door open for me and I got into the passenger seat of my own car. He closed the door and jogged around and got in on the other side.

  “You going to leave me hanging?” I asked with a faint smile, curiosity getting the better of me.

  He threaded his fingers through mine and raised the back of my hand to his lips and said, “You’ll see.”

  He took me to a Texas Road House. When he pulled into the parking lot I had to laugh and he smiled shyly and said, “I told you, fun.”

  It was fun and the food was good, the topic of conversation quickly steering in the direction of our baby.

  “I have to ask, how do you want to do that?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked carefully, spearing some more of my salad onto my fork.

  “Do I need to get us a place?”

  I shook my head and he stared at me, waiting me out. I finished chewing and said, “My dad is letting me clear out one of the upstairs rooms so that I can build it into a nursery.”

  Blue nodded and didn’t look happy but what could either of us say. He sighed heavily and said, “I’ll come by and help you with it… you know, paint and stuff.”

  “I won’t know for a while if it’s a boy or a girl, although if you’re in a hurry I suppose we could choose gender neutral colors, like green or yellow…”

  He shook his head, “That shit’s for p
ussies.”

  “I don’t know about that…”

  He smiled and sounded just like Duracell, or something that Duracell would say when he said, “I do. A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl. I don’t much like fucking with that and giving kids screwed up ideas.”

  I looked at him pointedly and said, “Next thing you’ll be telling me I belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”

  “You’re already pregnant, but no, that’s not what I mean… what I mean is there’s nothing wrong with blue versus pink and there’s nothing wrong with a girl hunting, shooting, or doing whatever the fuck she wants. Boys are boys, girls are girls, activities and colors and shit aren’t gender specific, they never have been.” He shrugged. “People just made ‘em that way.”

  I could see his point and knew what he was saying and the view was mighty progressive for these parts… he was just really bad at explaining it.

  “Melody wants to hold a baby shower…”

  “You should let her. The club and ol’ ladies love to do shit like that and they can be a pain in the ass if they don’t get to…” it was his turn to look pointedly at me. “And I’m not just saying that to save my own ass, I’m telling you so that you can save your own because it won’t be me that they pout and whine to until they all get their way. You just inherited a whole bunch of siblings. You’ll get used to it.”

  I changed the subject, slightly uncomfortable with where this was going, still wounded and preferring my isolated bubble right now. The one where I chose who could and could not come in.

  “So, what movie were you taking me to go see?”

  He took me to a romance, something sweet that left my face slick and salty, and I have to say I melted a little, my resolve to stay angry, to not forgive him, weakening but still steadfast. Just because I understood why didn’t mean that it was okay… but I had to keep telling myself that.

  He took me home and stopped me outside my studio door.