by Drew Elyse
My whole life, I had been the girl content to hide out at home with a book by herself. What had happened to that girl? I couldn’t find her.
I was at work, my third day back since my vacation, going over everything with Chelsea, one of the volunteers who had been charged with maintaining the reference section while I was gone. She had gone through the same program I did, having graduated just a few months back. Staying on as a volunteer was a temporary plan for her until she found a paying librarian position still close enough to her family for her liking.
The temptation to tell her I was planning to put in my notice was maddening. I already knew she would be offered the job once I did. Justine, my boss, wanted nothing more than to give Chelsea a job, she just had none to offer. I liked Justine, and she liked me. She wouldn’t be happy I was leaving, but she’d be glad she could at least keep Chelsea around.
“This all looks great,” I told her.
“Thanks,” she said, but her eyes were on my hand, not the computer. She looked up to me when she realized I was watching her. “Sorry. I’ve just never noticed your rings before. I’m surprised. That’s a pretty big rock. I didn’t realize you were married.”
I should have expected some of that, but it caught me off-guard. I’d gotten questions about the wedding ring in the past. It had been my modus operandi to avoid answering like the plague—which had taken a lot of forms, from outright distraction to vague explanations.
“It’s…a long story,” I sighed at my own terrible attempt there. “I am married, but the engagement ring is actually new.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet,” she responded.
She was right. It was sweet. I didn’t look back on our wedding with disappointment. It wasn’t all pomp and circumstance, but I wasn’t the type of woman who wanted a huge to-do where there was so much focus on her all day. With things where they were between Ace and I, I could look back at our very private ceremony and appreciate that it was pretty much perfect.
“Yeah, he’s a keeper,” I said.
“Good. You deserve it,” she replied before looking down at her watch. “Crap. My time’s almost up here. Still have to get to work after this. I should go do a walk through, see if anything needs to be shelved.”
Man, I wanted to tell her so bad. Instead, I made myself say, “Alright. Thanks for taking care of everything here.”
“No problem,” she chirped as she headed out into the main library.
I got back to work, going through the emails forwarded my way from the main library account, fielding questions while I rehearsed what I would say to Justine in my mind. I’d never left a job before that wasn’t expected, like when I left my campus job after college graduation. Quitting was a whole new adventure in adulthood that had me all kinds of anxious.
The task and my mental rehearsal had me so engrossed, I hadn’t noticed anyone approach until they spoke.
“Hey, stranger.”
My attention moved across the desk to find someone I never would have expected.
“Damien,” I gasped.
He smiled warmly at me, and it felt wrong against the wave of unease I got from seeing him after all Ace had told me. I was trying not to hold the things Damien said in the hospital against him. He’d just gone through a major trauma and had learned he would never walk again. Lashing out was understandable. Still, I was struggling to reconcile my emotions to the hateful person Ace described with the Damien I had known before I got married.
Not wanting him to feel the awkwardness rising in my own head, I stepped around the desk and approached him. He spread his arms out, offering a hug. I gave him one even though it felt wrong. Setting aside Ace’s obvious issues with his half-brother, he had issues with me getting close to any man.
I sighed internally. All the crisscrossing thoughts needed to stop. I was going to be gracious. I was going to catch up with an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. I was going to probably hug him again when we were done because that was what we had always done. Ace could be possessive if he wanted, but that didn’t mean I was his to command.
Max would have loved that whole mental pep-talk.
“How are you?” I asked.
He looked good. Damien had always been impeccably dressed, always put together. It didn’t surprise me in the least now that he’d had time to adjust to the change in his circumstances, he was that man again. His hair was styled to perfection, his suit fitted with precision and worn with confidence. He exuded a charisma that made it very difficult to pay any attention to the chair.
“I’m doing well. How are you?”
For the first time in a while, I answered, “I’m good,” and felt it was true.
“That’s good,” he said with a warm smile. “Listen, I’m actually on a bit of a time crunch, but I drove by and something just made me stop in and see if you were here.”
“Well, you’ve got good timing,” I told him. “I was on vacation the last two weeks.”
“Lucky me.”
There was the smile, but for some reason, I was reminded of Ace’s words during our fight at the garage. You gotta open your eyes. You’re fucking gorgeous, and any goddamned man who thinks he can get the time of day is going to take a shot.
I told myself it was ridiculous, but the nagging feeling was persistent.
Damien pressed on when I didn’t reply. “I was hoping you might be free for dinner.”
“Dinner?”
He didn’t notice or chose to ignore my shock at the invitation. “Tonight?”
“If you’re free.”
It felt like I was wading in shark infested waters. I had John Williams’ compositions playing in my head quite a bit, but the Jaws theme wasn’t one I particularly wanted there.
I couldn’t tell whether it was Damien’s invitation or the reaction Ace might have had to it that had me on edge. Maybe both. Almost certainly both.
“Ugh…yeah. I’m free,” I stuttered out without deciding to.
“Excellent. Are you still living in the same place? Over on Broadway?”
I was surprised he remembered. “Yes, but I can meet you somewhere,” I offered, hoping he would take me up on that.
He gave me a look, and for a moment, the resemblance between brothers was so apparent. I almost had to laugh that the thought struck me in response to an expression that said I was being ridiculous.
“I’ll pick you up,” he insisted. “Is seven o’clock good?”
“Mmmhmmm.”
“Wonderful. And so we can avoid a debate about it later, I’ll state it now, I’ll be paying.” I was about to reply when he said, “I’ll see you tonight.”
He left before I could protest. Him picking me up, saying he was going to pay, it all felt like a date. I was married to his brother. He knew that. He hadn’t even known about the time Ace and I were apart, had he?
It occurred to me once he was already gone that he hadn’t said a word about Ace. He hadn’t even asked if my husband would be there when he showed to pick me up. That sense of unease grew.
Chelsea came back, looking between me and the way Damien had just disappeared. “He finally found you, huh?”
“What?”
She went behind the desk, grabbing her purse from where she’d stashed it earlier. “That guy. He came in twice while you were gone. Once was like a day or two after you left, then again Friday.”
I drove by and something just made me stop in.
Okay, that wasn’t just off, that was a flat out lie. And it bothered me incessantly until my day was up and I got home. The minute I did, I dialed Ace.
It rang and rang, then sent me to voicemail. I hung up. Ace had told me that sometimes the garage got loud and it wasn’t easy to hear his phone. He’d also made it very clear that I should at least try again once to see if I got through.
I didn’t try again one more time. I gave it another two goes.
Right when I thought the third call was about to head to voicemail, he answered.
“Yeah?
Yeah? That was it?
“Um. Hi,” I started.
“Babe, shits me to say it, but I can’t talk.”
“But…I—”
“This an emergency?”
An emergency? No. Did I need to talk to him in the next two hours? Yes. Definitely yes.
“Um…no. Not really.”
“Okay. Gotta go then. I’ll call when I can.”
Then, he hung up. Just like that. No apology, no “I love you”, not even a goodbye. All I got was a statement that he’d call when he could.
Not knowing what to do, I called Max. Feeling desperate, I called twice. She didn’t answer. I sent her a 911 text, but that didn’t summon her like magic either.
My best friend and my husband were incommunicado, and I was very much alone to deal with whatever the heck I was facing in going out with Damien. It wasn’t that I expected everyone to be at my beck and call, but Max’s lack of answering so hot on the heels of Ace’s brush off settled like lead in my gut.
Since everyone was apparently preoccupied, I did what I’d done more than once over the years. I summoned up what Max would have told me on my own.
“Sure, Damien was your friend once, but Ace is your husband. One of those means more than the other. Also, there’s the whole thing he pulled with blaming Ace for what happened. I feel for him, I do, but that was not cool. And, you know, him maybe being a creeper is a major no. You’re married to his brother. You don’t creep on your sister-in-law.”
Head-canon Max made some good points. It was weird that Damien had been around more than once, and it might have very well crossed the line into creepy if you counted the fact that he then lied about it. But the point that stood out the most, what got right to the heart of the awkwardness I’d been feeling since I looked over to see Damien there, was the rift between him and Ace.
Tragic or not, repairable or not, the fact was, the two of them were not in a good place. Maybe in time, I could help bridge that gap, but it was clear neither of them was in that place. Right now, my focus needed to be on strengthening my relationship with Ace. That was number one. Seeing his very estranged half-brother, a man who—though it had not been his intent—had played a major role in almost dissolving our marriage, was not the way to do that. I’d set that aside before, but I hadn’t thought it all the way through.
I couldn’t go to dinner with Damien, and that led me to making yet another call that went unanswered.
“You have reached Damien Blackhorne. Please leave a—”
I hung up before I heard the rest of his voicemail message. It was just not my day for phones. Unless he called back, I was going to have to tell him I had to cancel when he showed up. That was going to be awkward.
“Crap,” I muttered. “How the heck do I do this?”
Too bad my empty apartment had no answer for me.
EARLIER THAT DAY
My day started off as shit. It was a pattern I’d started to expect after the last couple days.
Two weeks of waking up next to Quinn again made me crave it. No, crave was too tame. I was fucking addicted. Waking up without her had me itching like a fucking druggie without a fix.
That feeling didn’t leave me during the day either. I was a fucking peach to be around, and the guys had no problem pointing that out.
“Never thought I’d say this, but you need to get that woman back here so you stop acting like such a sorry motherfucker,” Daz had put it.
He was an ass, but he was right.
I needed my wife with me, not living four hours away. We’d both had enough of that shit. Which was why I’d enlisted Max, Ash, and Ember to hunt for a place for us. Quinn and I would have to view and decide, but Max knew what my girl wanted. The three of them were in the office at Jager’s gym looking up listings. Max also took it upon herself to text me every ten minutes with things they were finding. This included pictures of shit options detailing why they sucked. Clearly, she was struggling with keeping this from Quinn.
If she found somewhere for us, she could text me all she wanted.
I was under a Mitsubishi 3000GT looking for where she was bleeding transmission fluid from when Roadrunner yelled into the bay for Ham and me. There was an edge to his voice I did not fucking like. When I got up to the office, Ham right behind me, we found Roadrunner and Gauge looking ready to blow.
“Call just came in from Officer Andrews,” Roadrunner started. Andrews was a friend to the club, so what the hell had them so tense coming from him had me tweaked. “He heard word there’s a search warrant before a judge quick to sign the fucker right now. They’ll be on the clubhouse in no fucking time.”
“The fuck?” Ham barked.
“No fucking time,” Roadrunner snapped. Gauge was pacing, looking as pissed as we were all feeling while he probably heard it for a second time. “Get your asses out there. Need eyes. Make sure none of those fuckers try to plant shit. Don’t know why the fuck we have heat, but it’s all too fishy for comfort.”
Neither of us wasted time talking. Ham and I were out of there, mounting our bikes in no time. Roadrunner was right. Something about that shit was off. Years ago, the club had been into dark shit, but the brothers had fought tooth and nail to clean shit up. We stepped over the line from time to time, but we also took pains to keep ourselves in the good graces of the boys in blue whenever possible. What could have triggered a fucking search warrant was beyond me.
When Ham and I rolled up, there weren’t any cops on sight yet. We didn’t have shit to hide—at least not anything we hadn’t stashed away already—but that didn’t make the situation any less fucked. Something was up and whatever it was led some serious attention to our door that we did not want there.
We made it through the doors to find Tank, Daz, Doc, and Stone in the main room. Doc and Tank were good to have. Doc, our oldest member, wasn’t easily fazed. Old man could keep his shit tight through anything. So could Tank. Fuck, the man had raised a woman who ended up married to another biker. If he could get through raising Cami after losing his wife, and now being a grandfather, he could get through anything. Stone was rock solid all the time, hence the name and position as Prez. The real wildcard of the bunch was Daz.
Daz was still on parole for another month from an assault charge that locked him up for three years. The last thing he or any of us needed was him getting pissy with a cop and ending up back inside. It had been hard enough keeping the asshole stocked with shit he needed to keep himself from landing in trouble while he was locked up the first time. He’d been in while I was still a prospect, so it’d been my job to sneak him all kinds of contraband. Half the shit I got to him wasn’t even for him, it was to pay off someone he had a problem with.
“You keep your shit tight, or you get the fuck out of here now, hear?” Stone was commanding Daz as we came in.
“I’ve got it, Prez,” he insisted. “Odds are, with a search of the club, they’ll be in contact with my parole officer. Better to be here for the sweep than called in when they find some of my shit on sight. I’ve got zero interest of being back in that pussyless hellhole, so I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“Good enough,” Doc declared. “Now, get somethin’ on the TV and stop huddlin’ in the middle of the room like shit’s about to hit the fan. We ain’t supposed to know about this fucking warrant.”
He had a point there. Whatever was going on, they didn’t need to know about our in at the Hoffman PD, or how we leveraged that in with payouts from time to time.
We followed Doc’s orders and had just settled into “natural” positions when we heard the cops pull up.
“Three cars,” Doc assessed the sound. “Not fuckin’ around.”
In all likelihood, three cars meant six officers, which meant it was a damn good thing Ham and I got back. The warrant could give them rights to detain us, but if not, we’d be keeping an eye on the search.
They knocked, so at least they weren’t given some bullshit, carte blanch paperwor
k that let them charge in like we were torturing people. Stone answered it, asking point blank to see the warrant before allowing them to enter. The prez took a solid minute reading over the document, making sure he knew exactly what they did and didn’t have rights to, before he stepped aside to let them file in.
Officer Andrews was there, along with his partner, so two of the six weren’t a concern. The other four weren’t Hoffman PD. Based on the intel Jager got, I’d guess they were state. When they were in, the oldest, who was clearly calling the shots, looked around at us.
“Going to have to ask you boys to stand. Warrant permits us to search anyone on the premises,” he stated.
I let the “boys” comment go, even though that shit rubbed me the wrong way. He wanted to call me, Daz, or Ham “boys”, then whatever. We were younger than him, it came with the territory. Saying it to Doc or Tank—or Stone, for that matter—chafed. It felt like disrespect, and on our own property.
Despite that, the searches weren’t rough. I got one of the unknown officers and still received nothing more than a standard pat-down. He pulled my pocket knife, which wasn’t a surprise. If I’d thought of it, I’d have stashed it at the garage before taking off.
“Going to have to hold this during the length of the search. It will be returned when we’re finished,” he informed me.
“Fair enough.”
The man was no-nonsense. His superior might not have won brownie points right off, but the officers seemed to be all business. They started the search right in the main room. They were thorough, which fucking sucked since it meant the space was a mess in a few minutes, but they weren’t blatant assholes about it.
By unspoken agreement, the brothers and I moved to Stone.
“What’re the search parameters?” Tank asked.
“Whole building, search but no automatic detaining for occupants, looking for drugs and paraphernalia,” Stone laid it out.
Good news was, we were fine. The only drug they’d have any chance of finding was a bit of weed, and that shit was straight up legal. It might have been easier to get grass from a dealer, but a friend of the club ran a dispensary, so Disciples took their business to him.