by Wilde, Leah
“Gardenias,” she said. She smacked my hand. “And don’t touch the petals; you’ll kill it.”
I dropped the flower, but went on to say, “If you tell any of my boys that I have goddamn gardenias in my house, I’ll dropkick you into the next county.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Youngblood?” she asked coyly. She’d taken to calling me Mr. Youngblood whenever she wanted to get under my skin. I hated it. For some reason, it made my hackles rise like no other.
“Watch it, little girl,” I growled. “You’re gonna get yourself into trouble that you won’t be able to get out of.”
She batted her eyelashes playfully. “That sounds just awful.”
I turned away to hide my grin. Behind me, I could sense her disappointment, but it was for the best. There’d been too many moments scattered throughout the last few weeks like this, when the tension between us was so damn obvious that I’d have to be an idiot not to notice. It was like a ticking time bomb, one that I was doing my best to keep batting down the road so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. The strategy was working so far, and I kept telling myself, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
But the whole plan to find an exit out of this marriage was looking more distant and unlikely with each passing. I’d assured myself then that it would be a cinch to find an easy way to nullify the thing and get the hell out of Dodge for a little while, but thus far, nothing presented itself. I didn’t have any other choice other than to batten down the hatches and keep myself to myself.
Another day, I was sitting in the bar, shooting the shit with Zeke, Bolt, Carter, and Bear as we took a break from schlepping the crates of files up and down the basement staircase. All of us were filthy from head to toe, covered with spider webs, dirt, and an impressively colorful array of mold and fungi. But the beer had never tasted so good.
Carter was telling a story about the night before. He and Bear had gone out to a local bar, on the prowl as usual. The kid was a walking, throbbing erection. He had a hankering for pussy like I’d never seen before.
“Damn, son, I used to think I was bad back in my younger and wilder days,” I said, shaking my head. “But you, kid, need to be stopped. Jesus.”
He laughed. “It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, prez,” he said. “You know how it goes. You walk into a bar and every townie girl there is crawling on hands and knees just to get in the line that leads right to your dick.”
Bear nodded in agreement. “It really is something else,” he said in his baritone rumble.
We all chuckled and took another sip of our beer. “I’m sure the married life is a little different, eh?” Bolt asked casually after a moment had passed.
The smile fell from my face instantly. I saw Bolt pale out of the corner of my eye. I slowly wiped the foam off of my lips, then stood up, cold and grimacing. “Enough chit chat,” I said. “Let’s get back to work.” No one said a word. They all left their beers on the table, half-finished, as I turned and strode towards the basement.
I couldn’t explain why Bolt’s comment had struck such a nerve with me. It was burning a hole in my brain as I lugged yet another box up the stairs, taking them one creaking step at a time. He’d meant it innocently enough; the guy didn’t have a mean bone in his body. And yet I’d turned on him like a junkyard dog. Part of me wanted to apologize, but it was too late for that. I couldn’t back down in front of my men. It was one thing to joke around with them—they were my brothers, after all—but it was important to show that some lines were not meant to be crossed.
Still, why this one? Why let that get to me? I just couldn’t put my finger on it, the same way I was still struggling to come up with a way to describe the way I felt going home every day. The sudden but predictable surge of joy that slapped me sideways every time I put my key in the lock of the apartment door and opened it, when I knew that Paris would be waiting for me on the other side with a sunny smile and something new around the place to show me.
It felt domestic as hell. Downright silly, if I thought about it logically. And yet, somehow…right.
I shook my head and redoubled my effort. This wasn’t the way I’d expected shit to go, not by a long shot.
I dropped the box in the hallway with a thunk next to the pile of other crates that had yet to be inspected. I walked into my office, where Carter and Zeke were handling the job of sorting through the documents to see if there was anything relevant in the mess. Both of them were bleary and red-eyed. I saw papers, weighed down at the corners with random objects, beneath the stream of an oscillating fan in an attempt to dry out some of the wetness that had crept in after the floods of a few months prior. “Any luck?” I asked coldly.
“It’s slow going, boss,” Carter said. His voice was thick with exhaustion. He ground the heel of his hand into his eye socket and blinked hard a few times like he was having trouble getting the world to sit still. Zeke, sitting next to him, looked patently ridiculous with reading glasses on. In normal circumstances, I would have made fun of him, but I was still stewing over how sharply I’d reacted to Bolt a little bit earlier.
“We’ve found a few things here and there. Whoever first organized that basement deserves a medal. They should be designing fucking cryptography puzzles, because I can’t make heads nor tails of any semblance of logic to the way they boxed shit together. And of the little pieces we do find that’re relevant, half of ’em are drenched or molded all to shit.”
I nodded. “Well, nothing else to do but keep on moving. This is important. Porter gave us something valuable. I’m not about to let this investigation fall apart again. They murdered our brother. Don’t forget that.”
Both men nodded. They were beat to hell by the tedious job, but they knew how much it meant to me and to the club. They were good men, some of the few left in this shithole of a world.
“Both of you should go home for a bit. Get some shuteye,” I said. “You’ll be more useful in the morning when you’re fresh.” Nodding again, Zeke stood and rubbed at a kink in his neck. He and Carter trudged out of the office with their heads hanging tiredly. I followed them out, pulling the door shut and locking it behind me. As we approached the open staircase that led down to the basement, Bolt emerged with a dusty box in his hands. He dropped it down and straightened up.
“That’s the last of ’em,” he said.
I looked around. “Where’s Bear?”
Just then, we heard a series of smacks, shouts, and then a gunshot from below. I was the first down the stairs, with the other men close on my heels. We tumbled down and fanned out onto the dank wooden floor below. I saw that every man had a gun or a knife drawn in his hand.
Bear crouched with his back to us. “Bear, you okay?” I asked cautiously.
He slowly pivoted around and stood up at the same time. As he did, we saw that he was holding up by its tail the biggest, ugliest rodent I’d ever seen in my life. What was left of its head was a bloody mound. In his other hand, Bear held a smoking gun, and on his face, he wore a huge, idiotic grin. “Got the fucker,” he announced proudly.
The tension was sucked out of the room as we all laughed or groaned.
“Goddammit, Bear,” Zeke cursed. “I thought you got fucking ambushed or something.”
“You big, dumb asshole, you had us all going for a second,” added Carter.
We trooped back up the stairs, feeling worn through but still managing to find the humor in the situation. Little by little, the anxiety that had been working its way into a tight little knot in my stomach began to loosen.
The men said their goodbyes and took off one by one, loading up on their bikes and rumbling down the road to sleep for a few hours before getting back to the files. I was the last one to leave. The sun was starting to kiss the horizon.
Grabbing my cell phone, I dialed the number of the little burner that I’d bought for Paris. She picked up on the second ring. “Hi,” she said brightly.
“Hey, you at home?”
“No, I stepped out to get a quick couple things I
needed.”
“Need a ride?”
“Sure! If it’s not too much trouble.” She rattled off the name of a store I vaguely recognized, and I took off to pick her up.
She was waiting out on the curb with a small pale green bag looped over her forearm when I pulled up out front. “Get anything good?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she quipped. “It’s a surprise though.”
“Who said you were allowed to have secrets?”
“Certainly not you, Mr. Youngblood.”
“Paris…” I growled warningly.
“I know, I know, you hate that. But I think it’s funny. You’re gonna have to make me shut up.”
“I just might. I just might.”
She clambered on and wrapped her thin arms around my waist. We slid out smoothly onto the road. It was only a half mile or so back to the apartment. But just as we approached the intersection where I normally took a left to go back home, I paused, rolling to a gentle stop. “Are you in any rush to get back?” I asked cautiously.
“Not in particular,” she said.
“Want to see something?”
“Yeah, sure.” She sounded confused but I could hear her smile.
“It’s a bit of a ride, just warning you.”
“That’s fine, Micah. I like riding with you.” She adjusted her grip on my sides.
I nodded, settled back into the seat, and swung the bike to the right. We took off, headed for the highway.
Twenty minutes of open throttle later, we edged off the road underneath a big sign for the state park. The asphalt turned into hard-packed dirt that got gradually less and less smooth as we rode deeper into the grounds. The landscape on either side of us was lush with late summer flowers blooming in the light of the setting sun. Browns, purples, and faded greens were swept across the ground as far as the eye could see, like big, messy brushes of paint.
We approached the foothills and slowly the road died out altogether, leaving me to weave the bike around the bigger potholes. I tried to go as carefully as I could, since I was worried about jolting Paris around too much. She’d started to show the tiniest hint of a growing belly in the last few days, and now the idea of the baby was constantly gnawing at the back of my head. Until now, it had been just a theoretical thing, not a real one. But it was happening, whether I liked it or not. I hadn’t yet decided if I did.
Soon, we were cruising between the rolling hills. We reached a point where the terra cotta clay gave way to gravel. I brought the bike to a halt and killed the engine. Silence took over. I sat still for a second, listening to nothing but the hush of the window in the tall grasses. I could feel Paris tensing behind me, wondering what was going on.
I climbed off and then helped her off as well. “Come on,” I said. “Not much farther.”
She followed me as I wound my way confidently behind one hill, towards where two massive boulders were nestled against each other. I turned to face her. “This is the last part,” I said, “but it’s the hardest. Think you can handle it?”
She screwed up her face in a pouty scowl. “Of course I can,” she said.
I grinned. “Let’s go, then.” I walked up to the boulders and found the familiar handholds. Even after all these years, I remembered exactly where they were. “Watch how I do it,” I instructed over my shoulder. I began to climb. It was easy. My body knew the path. Right hand up, right foot followed, left hand, right hand, then swing over the top. Before I knew it, I was ten feet off the ground. I spun back around to look down at Paris where she stood below me. “There’s not enough room for you to get up if I’m up here too, so I’m going to drop off the other side,” I said. “But I’ll still be right here. Don’t worry.” She nodded.
I tried to ignore my nervousness as she got ready to climb. From this angle, the belly she was growing was even more obvious than it was when I looked at her straight on. I couldn’t believe that there was a baby in there. My baby. It was too crazy to comprehend. I never thought I’d see the day when I became a father. On the other hand, I still wasn’t sure I would.
I turned around and looked below. The ground dropped off sharply, and a thin patina of high branches hid the ground from view. It was a completely blind jump. But it was one I knew. I slid off the rock and landed with a gentle thump on the other side.
When I’d regained my feet, I dusted off my hands on my pants and turned to look back up at the way I’d come. Then I I held my breath and listened close as I waited for this girl—my wife and the mother of my child—to come careening through the treetops.
Chapter 21
Paris
I bit my lip as I climbed up the boulders. Micah had disappeared on the other side, but I was too focused on the climb to feel nervous now that I couldn’t see or hear him. I dug my fingers into one little outcropping of rock, then lunged up to grab the next. I found a good rhythm as I moved inch by inch up the face of the dusty stone.
My legs were aching from holding me up by the time I reached the top. I sat down with a satisfied sigh. When I looked back over to see how far I’d come, I was pretty impressed with myself. It’d been a while since I’d done something so adventurous and outdoorsy. I’d forgotten how good it felt to tackle a physical challenge like that.
Turning to the other side, though, was a whole different story. Thin, flat tree branches with broad leaves crisscrossed over each other, forming a canopy that I couldn’t see through even a little bit. “Micah!” I called.
His voice came back muffled. It didn’t sound like it was that far below me, but I felt nervousness start to creep its way into my system nonetheless. “I’m right here, Paris,” he said.
“How do I get down there?”
“You have to jump.”
“Jump? Are you crazy? I have no idea where I’m landing!”
“I’m right here. I’ll catch you.”
I swallowed. My throat was dry all of the sudden and I noticed my hands were shaking. I couldn’t remember why I’d agreed to go on this crazy walkabout in the first place. Micah hadn’t even told me what it was he was showing me, for crying out loud. This was the last time I’d be following him blindly into the wild, I was sure of that. Never again.
I squinted and tried to find a gap in the leaves to peer through, but there was nothing. They didn’t look too strong or thick and I wasn’t afraid of getting whacked in the head with a stiff branch. But the nervousness pumped through me anyways. This was miles outside of my comfort zone.
“I don’t know,” I said fretfully.
“Paris,” Micah called back. “Do you trust me?”
That was a serious humdinger of a question. Did I trust him? There was more baggage attached to that than I could wrap my head around. Who knew four little words could have so many implications?
I trusted him not to murder me in my sleep. I guessed that was a start. We’d spent enough nights under the same roof for me to feel pretty certain that he wasn’t about to slip a knife between my ribs when I wasn’t looking, just to get rid of me. He’d even taken to sharing the bed with me after I’d called him out for complaining about the kink in his neck he’d earned from too many consecutive nights on the couch. After that, he’d agreed to sleep alongside me, although he still refused to even come close to making physical contact.
I trusted him to make me laugh, too. There was something about that wild grin of his that made me feel a little wild myself. It felt good to relax in his presence, to let him sweep me away in the little eddies of conversation I loved getting lost in with him. He knew how to poke and prod until I was almost annoyed with him, but then he’d look at a new piece of furniture or a dish I was cooking for the first time, and turn on me with such a look of wide-eyed surprise and amazement that I couldn’t help but flush with pride. It wasn’t the kind of look I was used to receiving. My mother had made me feel that way, but she’d been gone for long enough that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have someone be impressed with something I’d done or made.
&n
bsp; But did I trust him? It was more than those things. It was more than safety or giggles. It was the way I found him staring at me sometimes. Like I was a mythical creature he’d never seen before, only heard about. It was a bizarre look, and if anyone else had looked at me that way, I might’ve called the cops and reported a stalker or a psychopath. But on Micah, it was the opposite. I wanted to curl up inside that look, bathe in it, let it rinse over me and nestle me in its warmth. I couldn’t explain why I felt that way or what it was about him that made it feel so special. I just knew that it did.
I knew I was falling for him, even though I tried not to admit it. When I woke up before him or when he fell asleep while I was still up, sometimes I’d taken to glancing at his face and seeing a sense of calm confidence there, even when he was deep into his dreams. It made me melt in weird, unexpected ways.
So did I trust him? I took a deep breath and answered his question the only way I could think of.