by A. J. Downey
“I have to go, my little one…” his voice was strained and filled with regret and I looked up at him.
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t, I’m going to stay and I’m trying to win you back, not get pushy and drive you away further.”
“Oh.”
I wondered if he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t. Instead he pulled a fine golden chain out of nowhere and said, “Lift your hair for me.”
I did and he reached for me, I turned around so that he could clasp it behind my neck, and felt it fall against my skin. He kneaded my shoulders and before I could drop my hair to protect the nape of my neck against the cooler evening temperature, his lips fell warm in a single, simple, chaste kiss.
I sucked in a breath, hair standing on end and delicious shivers cascading along my back, setting my whole body awash in light, pleasurable tingles. I’d never felt anything like it.
“I love you, Hayley,” he murmured by my ear and then he was gone.
I turned around to watch the back of him, the brightly colored patch on his cut fading into the dark as he made strides down the driveway along the side of my house to his bike he left parked at the curb out front.
I unlocked my studio door and went straight into the bathroom, flipping on the light. I stared into the mirror at the glinting bit of gold at the hollow of my throat. A perfectly folded paper crane, except not paper at all… somehow he’d folded it out of a thin sheet of gold and attached a loop.
Tears, hot fierce and immediate welled in my eyes and I let my breath out in a shuddering hitch, bracing myself against the sink basin as the enormity of just how much Blue loved me overwhelmed me.
I ended up slipping to the linoleum floor where I sat and just cried my eyes out, swearing it would be the last time. I needed to sit down with him, make a plan, and figure things out.
Chapter 41
Blue
“I want to ask Hayley to marry me.” I braced myself for a punch in the face but Jake just stared at me. “I know I fucked up, but I love her and with the baby… I know it’s important to you and to her that marriage happens before a baby. I’m totally cool if she decides later down the line to divorce my fucking ass or whatever, but I never meant for any of this to happen this way. I always meant for Hayley to stay an honest woman.”
Jake leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms and asked the inevitable question meant to hurt, “What if the kid ain’t yours? What if it’s Paul’s?”
“Doesn’t matter the genetics involved, even if Hayley says no, that kid is mine and I’m man enough to take care of it, pay for it, provide for the mother of my child – whatever needs to happen.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, because that’s what men do.” I gritted my teeth and Hayley’s father gave me a look like really motherfucker? I nodded, “Yeah, really. They own their shit when they fuck up and I’m not going to pretend I didn’t when Cell died, but…”
“But it fucked you up but good, didn’t it?” he asked and I was surprised that there wasn’t any judgment in his tone. I nodded carefully. I think the only one to really get just how much it’d destroyed me was Dani… and maybe Dragon, but Dragon had a soft spot for women and Hayley was always going to be Jake’s little girl, so I didn’t bother to even try to use it as a defense for my actions when it came to her.
It didn’t look like I was going to have to, though…
“Not sure what to make of you loving another man like that. I personally find it to be distasteful in the eyes of God, at least that’s what I’ve always been taught.”
I bowed my head and shook it, “It didn’t start that way, at all… but it did end up that way that I loved him, but his being a dude didn’t have anything to do with that. I don’t look twice at any other dudes. It was just something about him specifically. It’s not the kind of thing I thought I would ever find again in anyone else.”
“Until you met my daughter, am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want to hate you,” he said frankly and I nodded again.
“I get that. I even understand it, but what I don’t understand is why you say it like that. That you want to hate me. It totally implies that you don’t.”
“Oh, I’m angry with you. Pretty fiercely, too… but no, I don’t hate you. I can’t hate anyone who did the good that you boys did for my Hayley. She was a different girl when she was with y’all. Happy… outgoing again. I didn’t know how you’ns was gonna do it, but I figured love would find a way.”
It had, just not the way any of us had expected… I rubbed the back of my neck and said, “I can’t imagine loving anyone else the way I love her. I want to do everything right but I can’t help but feel I’m doing everything wrong.”
“Hell,” he said with a note of irony. “That’s just part of life, son. This shit don’t come with an instruction manual.” He took a pull from the neck of his beer bottle and let out a long suffering sigh.
The bar we were in was still pretty quiet, it being only the afternoon and in the middle of the week. He’d met me here at my request to talk about Hayley as soon as he’d gotten off work at the diner.
“Does that mean..?” I asked.
“That I give you permission to marry my little girl? I’m not happy about it entirely, but yeah. I give you the go ahead to ask, but if she tells you to fuck right off?”
“I fuck right off and pay my child support,” I agreed.
“Men make mistakes. Lord knows I have. I spent a stint in the county jail for being a drunk and slappin’ Hayley’s momma around once, before Hayley was born. Eileen never should’a forgave my ass but by some grace o’ god she did and I not once raised my hand to her again. Hayley doesn’t know.”
“She won’t hear it from me.”
“She’s already forgiven you, you know. I know my girl. She’s the forgiving type. She just has to convince herself that she’s done it.”
I almost cried right then and there with relief.
“So, future son-in-law… Just how you planning on asking her and when are you moving in? Seems to me shit’s a changing and I sure as fuck ain’t letting my baby girl move out or into that club of yours.”
“The club’s a nice place to visit, sir, but I am sure sick of living there.”
He barked a laugh and it was like a thousand pound weight had been lifted off my shoulders for a hot minute. It was quickly replaced with the nagging doubts and fears of ‘what if she said no?’ which I couldn’t let that happen, but I also couldn’t spring it on her right the fuck now, either.
We were doing okay, had been on a couple of dates, and at the last one had even kissed goodbye. It’d taken everything in me to keep it civil, to not just pull her body against mine and carry her to the nearest bed.
I sighed, and figured I’d need to ask the girls for help in planning this wedding. It was important for her to be married before kids and for some reason, it was important to me that she not be showing yet in the wedding photos. That I get just one night of pretending that she was just mine because when that kid came? It would be ‘us’ again, only a whole different kind of ‘us’ and believe me, I was good with that, I was totally good with that, but I would love to have something to look back on, you know? A short between time when it wasn’t Blue, Hayley, and Cell or Blue, Hayley, and baby but just Blue and Hayley.
When I left the bar, I called Dani. When it came to this type of shit, the girls had it down pat. Besides, I needed to talk to Dani anyways. I needed a ring.
When I walked through the front door of the club into the barroom I stopped cold.
“What the fuck did you do? Phone tree that shit?” I asked.
The ol’ lady collective laughed and blinked. All of them were fuckin’ here. From Mel, to Maren, Red, and Em. Sunshine and Doll both sitting there with stacks of notebooks and, I shit you not, swatches of fabric.
First words out of Shelly’s mouth were, “First off, what is our budget?”
I blinked, “Cheap�
� like really cheap. I’m broke with a baby on the way.”
I forgot that Dani knew how to keep a secret because the next thing I knew I was drowning in girly squeals that would have had Cell screaming at ‘em all to shut the fuck up. I didn’t though. I kind of appreciated that they were all sharing in the joy because as fucked up as life had gotten without Cell in it, I needed every bit of joy I could come across and I was hoarding the hell out of them.
By the time all was said and done, we had a plan. It wasn’t super pretty, a justice of the peace wedding, but the girls had a fine reception planned and I think, one that Hayley would like.
The only reason I knew Hayley would like it is because once upon a time when it’d been me, her, and Cell, we’d talked about it. About her dream wedding, and her dream reception and they’d both surprised me.
She wanted low key. She didn’t want big or fancy. She didn’t want a dress that made her look like some kind of a cartoon princess, she wanted to feel like a princess, but the rest of it all? It didn’t matter to her. She was perfectly fine with a Justice of the Peace courthouse wedding and a back yard barbecue reception as long as she was happy.
If anything, I was the girl of the relationship when it came to the wedding issue. I figured that we could meet half way. A courthouse wedding followed by a reception that was half barbecue and half what Melody and Archer had… just not here at the club.
“This is going to be so easy,” Hayden declared.
“In the time it takes you to tie the knot at the courthouse we could have this shit set up where you want it for the reception.” Everett agreed.
“I’ll go to the courthouse with you guys. Stand with Hayley and her dad to throw suspicion,” Mel offered.
“I’ll be on your side with Dragon and probably Dray,” Dani said and smiled at me. “No way that you’re getting married and I’m not going to be there.”
“The club can have things set up and ready and that will save a ton of money,” Shelly said.
“Details, now…” Red chimed in. “What do you want for flowers?”
I smiled and felt some more weight come off… I sincerely hoped she didn’t hate me for this.
Chapter 42
Hayley
I turned from the counter in the middle of a horrendous lunch rush to the bell above the door chiming. I looked up, the words ‘be right with you’ dying on my lips when I spotted Blue and several of his co-workers.
“Two seconds and I’ll get a table cleared,” I said and he nodded, a strange look in his soft gray eyes. I bussed a booth carefully, went to the counter and pulled menus but when I turned around, Blue was on his knees and the diner had gone quiet.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and he raised his eyes to mine, a small gray velvet box appearing in his hands.
“Blue?”
I felt my face burn, a matching one taking up residence in my chest as my heart just stopped.
He opened the box and there, resting neatly inside was a paper orchid, a band of green electrical tape forming a ring.
“Marry me, please… I’m begging you,” he said and I swallowed hard, tears collecting in my eyes.
I stared at him hard past the perfect ring in its perfect little box and silently asked him if this was what he really wanted… searching his face to make absolutely sure that this was real and not just because I was pregnant or because of any other reason but the simple fact he loved me and wanted me.
“You know this is forever, right?” I asked breathlessly.
“Is that a yes?” he asked.
I nodded dumbly and said, “That’s a yes.”
The diner erupted in cheers, whistles, and applause. He leapt up and wrapped his arms around me crushing me to him like I’d wanted him to, despite remaining stubbornly in limbo with my anger and forgiveness. I flung my arms around his shoulders and buried my face in the side of his neck breathing him in, dying for more. Wanting and needing him like never before.
He put me down and kissed me like he was a drowning man and my kiss was the only thing that would provide him air and I knew the feeling.
“Go on and get out of here, you two!” My dad called from the kitchen and Blue called back, “Would love to, sir, but I have to get back to work myself.”
A man behind Blue said, “Aw fuck off with that shit! Go on and get out of here with your girl.”
Blue laughed and I stared at him, begging him silently to take me anywhere but here. He nodded and said, “I’ll follow you home.”
My hands shook as I turned the wheel into my driveway. I kept staring at the ring on my finger, a match for the first one he’d ever made me, the night he’d slipped it on my finger and had told me, I see you.
I parked my car and he pulled up on the bike, shutting it off and heeling down the kickstand. I got out into the warm sunshine and sighed.
I hated that he rode after what happened to Cell, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever begrudge him doing it. I couldn’t. It was too much a part of him. He came to me and leaned down, one hand on my lower back the other on my lower stomach. He kissed me, and I melted into it.
“I love you,” he said against my lips.
“Show me,” I murmured and went to kiss him again.
He drew back, however slightly and said, “The next time I make love to you, it will be as my wife.”
“Then we’d better hurry up and get married.”
He chuckled lightly, “How does a date with the Justice of the Peace sound?”
“When?”
“Next week.”
“You’re on.”
“Okay, then.”
I backed off, and took his hand and said, “Come here, I want to show you something.”
He followed me to my studio door where I unlocked it and left the door standing open to the warm weather outside. I led him to my worktable and said, “I finished it last night.”
He stopped and looked down at it, eyes roaming the bits of melded glass, from smoke to crimson, blues, reds, fiery oranges and blacks… He turned to me and asked, “What made you do this?”
I looked down at the large window with the Sacred Hearts logo done in bits of scrapped glass and shrugged. “It was for Cell… to remember him.”
“Little one, it’s beautiful.”
“Do you think that they’ll want it?” I asked. “I mean, I made it the dimensions of that front window, the one with the flag in it… I just thought if you didn’t want people looking in the front window that this might be a better way to do it.”
His eyes travelled over the bits of stained glass and metal and he brought out his cell phone, snapping pictures of it. He frowned at his phone and asked, “Turn on the overhead light?”
I went to it and flipped the switch and he nodded, “There we go.” He took several more pictures and fiddled on his phone.
“Who are you sending them to?”
“Dragon.”
I was nervous and a moment later he looked up from his phone, “He says he can have it transported today.”
“It still needs a frame,” I protested and Blue grinned.
“We’ve got a guy for that.”
“Oh…” It would be nice to get it out of here today so that I could start something else, now that it was done. I nodded, “Sure, send them the address, tell them to bring the guy and the wood, it really should be framed for stability before it moves.”
“You’ve got it, beautiful.”
I was shy and nervous about the men who showed up coming into my studio. I recognized them all. Dragon, Rush, Reaver, and Trigger. Dragon and Trigger showed up in a pickup truck full of timber and boards in the back and when Rush and Reaver got off of their bikes they were the ones to ask, “We building a framework for the back of the truck to transport this thing?”
I nodded, “It would be best.”
“Let’s see it.”
“This way…”
Reaver came up and hugged me and said, “Congratulations and welcome to the family
.”
I smiled and nodded, blushing fiercely and Trigger laughed. Dragon grumbled, “Quit stealing my thunder, Reaver.” He came over and hugged me next.
“Thank you,” I murmured lightly and he said, “I can’t believe you did all this…”
“I needed to do something… I just wonder if he would have liked it.”
Reaver was the one to answer me, which surprised me, “He would have thought it was cool,” he said and the look on his face, distant, wintery, a match for the look I’d caught on Cell’s face time and time again, I had to believe him.
“I’m kind of dying to see this thing, now.” Rush stated and I took them over to my work table.
Trigger let out a low, low, whistle of appreciation. “That’s something,” he said.
It was just like the flag that hung in the window, only a full sized to spec for the window that was at the club. I’d asked Melody to have Archer measure it and he had, and never even once had pried about what I needed the measurements for. The logo would glow with fire and alive from the inside, I’d used nearly opaque black glass for the surround and the logo itself I’d used the most richly tinted but transparent glass I could.
The barbed wire wrapping around the heart I’d used solder to make between glass pieces and the most impressive part about it all? I’d freehanded it entirely with no base image. I hadn’t needed one. I’d looked at that patch so often, stared at it so many times I didn’t need to.
“I used black as a background rather than white because…” I choked up a little.
“You ain’t got to explain,” Dragon said kindly.
“I’ve got an idea or two,” Rush said, sucking his teeth and I looked at him curiously. “In fact, I got a lot of ideas.”
“Oh, lord…” Trigger said and gave a gusty sigh.
“You sell this stuff?” Reaver asked.
“I have some pieces in an antique shop downtown that are on consignment.”
“Should give her the middle space at the club,” Rush said.
“Between you and Dani?”
Rush nodded his head, “My stuff is moving out of there as soon as we finish the outbuilding for it on the farm.”