by Tia Lewis
My stomach turned a little—light nausea—and I remembered that I had a big challenge coming my way. Maybe tending bar was the most that I could hope to do while I was pregnant, then after the baby came, I could do better for myself. That was another reason for me to be less than thrilled about being pregnant. As if I needed one. Like the swollen feet and nausea weren’t enough, not to mention the thought of finding a better apartment and buying a bigger car.
The worst part was feeling alone. That was the thing I felt like I was missing out on. Somebody to go through it all with me. I knew Nicole, my best friend, would be by my side, but her marriage was her priority. I didn’t think Drake would be the easiest man to be married to, even though he looked perfect on the outside. They were both stubborn, hot-tempered people. I couldn’t ask her to give me more time out of her life than she already had.
No, what I needed was a partner. And I didn’t have one. I could have, but I knew too well Creed’s track record with women. I wouldn’t be another one of his failures. Not when a baby was hanging in the balance. I had to be smart for the baby’s sake.
And for my own as well. I mattered, too. If taking care of my heart and not giving it away to somebody would get bored with playing house or get tired of screwing the same woman every day was what it took, then that was what I would have to do. I would go through the process alone if it meant not being abandoned further down the line. I didn’t think that I could take that, and I had always thought of myself as a pretty strong person. I usually had my shit together. I wouldn’t be able to bounce back from that, not when I needed him to stand next to me through thick and thin. That was just it. I couldn’t need anybody. Especially when the person in question was Creed, Mr. Unreliable. Not when it came to the Blood Riders business, of course—then he was always on top of things, or else he wouldn’t be Drake’s Vice-President. In personal relationships, it was another matter.
That was why I had to break things off with Creed the two times we’d gotten together. I couldn’t see anything coming of it. He’d get bored like he always did, or he would decide I was untrustworthy like he usually did when it came to women. It would be my fault in the end, or so he would tell anybody who would listen. I would want too much from him—like continuity. Like security. Like trustworthiness and commitment. Qualities that a man like Creed could never hope to attain.
4
Creed
I was still hanging out in Drake’s office, trying to stay the hell away from Tamara, when Drake walked in. I grinned, standing up to greet him with a pat on the back.
“Hey, brother. You look so… Tan. Did you have a good trip?”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “You should go down there sometime.”
“I think this is the only Jamaica I’ll ever visit,” I predicted. “I don’t see myself on a tropical beach. Do you?”
“With your pasty skin? No, probably not.”
“I can’t help being Irish,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You want some coffee or anything? I was gonna get some more.”
“Yeah, sure. I was in a hurry to get in here.”
I went back out to the bar to get us both a cup. And there was Miss Happy, glaring at me again. She sat on a stool at the bar, same as she had been earlier, still drinking a cup of tea. She wasn’t looking very good at all. Like she was a little nauseated, maybe. A little green.
I tried to pour two cups of coffee without paying attention to her, but it was impossible when I could feel the weight of her stare on the back of my head.
Finally, I turned to face her. “Can you tell me what the hell I did to piss you off, Tamara? So, I don’t do it ever again? I’m tired of feeling you staring at me.”
“You didn’t do anything,” she said, shrugging.
“So you just fucking hate me for no reason, huh?”
“I don’t hate you,” she sneered. “God, will you get over yourself?”
“You just hate seeing me. I mean, really. Let’s cut the bullshit. Just tell me what it is.”
I didn’t get it. We used to be tight, tighter than tight. Something had happened to throw Tamara totally off, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I wished somebody would clue me in—maybe with Nicole back in town, she could find out for me. Tamara sure wasn’t telling me the truth.
“I don’t hate anything about you, okay? I’m just in a bad mood. I feel like shit today.”
“You should have stayed home, then.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not trying to… Damn it! Why do I even bother?”
“I don’t know, but you can stop. Just leave me alone.”
“Crazy bitch.” I murmured and stormed into Drake’s office. I stopped myself just short of splashing coffee all over his desk when I set the cup down.
“What the hell is her problem?” Drake asked. “That’s not like Tamara at all. She’s usually so chill.”
“Honestly, I have no fucking idea, man. She’s had this shitty attitude for weeks, ever since you and Nicole’s wedding.” I sat back in my chair, thinking about that day. “Did I do something stupid?”
“When do you not do something stupid?” Drake joked.
“No, come on brother. I mean it. Did I do something to really piss her off, because I don’t remember doing anything that would provoke this kind of a shitty reaction from her.”
Drake sat on the edge of his desk, pondering. “It was a blur,” he admitted. “I don’t think you got too drunk, but I couldn’t watch you like a hawk, either.”
“I didn’t get too drunk,” I said. “I really didn’t. I only had a handful of drinks stretched out through the whole day, and I ate a lot of food. Damn, Darcy really knows how to cook.”
She knew how to do a lot of other things, too, but that was all in the past.
“Yeah, and if you did something dumb—like, pissing people off—I would remember. So, I don’t get it, either.”
“I must have done something. You know women. They’ll never tell you why they’re actually mad at you.”
He laughed. “You’ve never met my wife, then. Nicole has no problem telling me exactly what I did to piss her off and what I have to do to make it up to her.”
“And you wouldn’t have it any other way, right?”
Drake grinned, looking at the floor. “I guess not. I don’t know.”
“You’re pussy whipped,” I teased.
“Fuck you, man.” He glared at me.
“I’m just messing with you,” I smirked and held up my hands, then tried to change the subject. “I hope the books look okay. I did my best to keep track of things while you two were gone.”
“It was only two weeks. I’m sure you did fine.” Drake looked around his crowded desk, piled high with mail, bills and invoices to sign. “Shit. Whose idea was it to take a two-week honeymoon?”
“Um, yours, Prez. But I’m sure that it wasn’t all your idea.” I coughed into my hand and mumbled “pussy whipped” under my breath for good measure.
“I swear to God, Creed, I’ll kick your fucking ass if you say that one more time.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll stop. But seriously, I don’t think anything happened that you can’t get back on top of. It’ll be cool.” I watched as Drake opened the ledger book and compared it to what he read on his laptop screen. I had just gone over the numbers the day before, wanting to ensure that everything was in order.
It wasn’t, apparently.
“This is all fucked up,” Drake muttered. I saw from the look on his face that he wasn’t kidding.
“It is?”
“Yeah. What the hell were you doing when you were going over this shit? Getting hammered?”
I sputtered, trying to come up with something. “No, man. I wouldn’t do that. I honestly thought I got it all right.”
“You didn’t.” His voice was tight. “Damn it, Creed.”
I stood up, facing him. “Hey. We’re buddies and all that, but I don’t appreciate you talking to me like I’m a fucking idiot.”
&n
bsp; “Then don’t act like a fucking idiot and I won’t talk to you like one.”
We stood there, facing each other. “You know I’ve never been good with numbers. You’re the one who wanted me to keep an eye on the books.”
“Fuck, I should have let Harris do it, then. That kid probably would have done a better job than you.”
I snorted. “Why are you so bent out of shape about this? Why are you on my ass? You’re getting nasty with me, too? You’re not usually like this.”
Drake groaned, running his hands through his black hair.
“I’m sorry, man. I’m just stressed over this shit. What happens if we get audited and everything’s fucked up? What happens if the cops come down on us for working with Bobby? What happens…”
“What happens if an asteroid hits the planet tomorrow?” I interrupted.
Drake smirked. “You know what I mean.”
“And you know what I'm saying. Listen, brother, you knew what you were getting into when you took this job. Jack trained you himself.”
“I know.”
“He didn’t sugarcoat anything. He was upfront with you for the most part. Right?”
“For the most part. As much as Jack felt like being.”
“But he did his best.”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Okay, so what are you freaking out about? You don’t have any reason to worry about it. You’re just making trouble in your head when there isn’t any in real life. Get yourself caught up, and let that be the end of it. Don’t spaz out.”
“Thanks. Any other advice?”
“Yeah. Call your wife in here so that she can tell me what I fucked up, and I won’t make the same mistakes again.”
Drake smirked and called Nicole in. She took the time to sit with me and go over each entry, explaining how I had categorized them the wrong way.
If there was one good thing about me, it was the way that I didn’t like making the same mistake twice. If I fucked something up, I had no problem admitting that I had, and I didn’t care how many times I had to have something explained to me before I picked it up. I had a lot of pride, but that never bothered me. I wouldn’t be deliberately ignorant. Nobody could ever accuse me of that.
It was the same way in the Army. When we were in the classroom, I asked a million questions, to the point where the rest of the guys would groan whenever I raised my hand. But I wanted to understand what we were learning. If I was going out there with a weapon in my hand, or if I had to use some sort of navigational equipment, I was going to make damn sure that I knew it inside and out. That just didn’t fly with the guys who wanted to get out of class and get their hands on a gun.
That was never the life for me, anyway. I was never good at following orders without asking why especially if I didn’t believe that what I was doing made sense. They beat that out of me, or they tried to.
I’d pissed off more than one commanding officer, and as soon as I could get the hell out, I had. And I’d never looked back. Some guys didn’t ever leave. Some stayed on, tour after tour. Not me.
Even so, I carried scars. Like the one on my cheek, which my beard all but covered. I had grown it out on purpose to cover that scar. It made me look older, but that was better than having a scar going from my ear almost to the corner of my mouth.
“Helloo? Earth to Creed. Are you paying attention?” Nicole asked, waving a hand in front of my face. I grabbed it, and she laughed.
“Yeah, I’m paying attention. I put the last liquor shipment under the wrong category, and I marked it as paid when it wasn’t paid yet.”
“Right. Okay, so you’re getting it.”
“Why the hell did you mark it paid if you knew it wasn’t paid?” Drake asked.
“Why do you ask questions like that? Everything in the ledger was so tiny, I couldn’t see what I was doing. That’s why this isn’t my everyday job. I’m glad you’re back.”
I really was, too. I wouldn’t have to deal directly with Tamara all the time. I could leave that to Drake, who she always had a smile for. I used to think she had a thing for him, and that he maybe had one for her. Then he met Nicole, and I had to rethink things. But that didn’t mean Tamara didn’t still have a thing for him.
Maybe that was why she was so bitchy after the wedding. She knew she would never have Drake for herself. No, that didn’t make any sense. This wasn’t a cheesy soap opera; it was real life. And she was best friends with Nicole.
I saw the way Nicole and Drake looked at each other. The way they smiled. No way they weren’t totally in love. I wished them well, even though I didn’t believe in love for a second. A man didn’t see the things I had seen and come out of it believing there was such a thing in the world. No way.
5
Tamara
“You need to ease up on Creed,” Nicole murmured as soon as we were alone. I decided to pretend I didn’t hear her, since if I told her why I was giving him shit, it would mean admitting he was my baby’s father. It was unbelievable somebody as smart as Nicole hadn’t figured it out yet. She always saw the things that happened between the lines, behind the scenes.
It was the first time that we had spent any time together since she got back from her honeymoon. “Tell me all about the honeymoon,” I said, pulling up a stool to sit on. “Every last bit. I want to know everything!”
“Every last bit?” Nicole giggled.
I rolled my eyes. “I can imagine certain things on my own, thanks,” I said. “I’ve been around the block.”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard,” she winked.
“Watch it,” I warned.
“Okay, okay.” She held up her hands.
“So? Tell me all about it.”
I had never been anywhere. I had never even flown on a plane. That wasn’t something many people knew about me. Certain things I was raised to believe and one of them were that travel was only for some people. I wasn’t “some people.” I was the kind of person who stayed put.
I used to tell myself New York was enough for me, and in some ways, it was. The best city in the world. Everybody knew it. Still, it might have been nice to go to an island sometime and have drinks on a white sandy beach the way that Nicole had done on her honeymoon. I couldn’t imagine Drake on a beach like that—I had never seen Drake out of a pair of jeans and his leather vest, except on his wedding day. I tried to imagine him on the beach with his leather vest and a pair of swim trunks and giggled a little.
“How are you?” Nicole asked, after telling me all about Jamaica—the actual island, not the part of Queens that we currently sat in.
“I’m good,” I nodded. It wasn’t something I liked talking about around other people. We were alone, but only for the moment. Diesel, Harris, Phil and a bunch of others were walking in and out all the time.
“You’ve been to the doctor?” she asked.
“Not since before the wedding, Mom.” I rolled my eyes, even as I reminded myself my real mother wouldn’t have asked a question like that. She wouldn’t have cared about my welfare enough to ask.
“I’ll chalk that smart-ass attitude up to pregnancy hormones,” she said, smirking.
I reached out and put a hand on her arm. “That’s all it is. I’m sorry.” I laughed a little, coming to a funny realization. “I’m not used to people caring about me, I guess.”
“I care about you. I always have.”
“I know, but you’re in a tiny group of people.” I sat back, thinking about it. “I’ve been taking care of myself for too long.”
“You have, but now some people want to take care of you. You have to learn how to accept that,” Nicole said.
“How do I do that?” I was genuinely curious.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Not to rub it in, but that’s not something that I ever had a huge problem with.”
“You always take care of yourself,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, I’ve had to. When my father died… I didn’t have a choice. But when I need help, I accept it
. You helped me so much when I first came to the clubhouse. You brought me in and treated me like a friend, and when you found out who I was, you didn’t push me away. You helped me.”
“I didn’t see it that way,” I admitted.
“How did you see it?”
I shrugged. “I never thought about it. I just did what felt like the right thing to do.”
“And the right thing to do is to let other people have a chance to take care of you, now. It’s your turn. You deserve that.”
Drake called Nicole into his office to talk about the books, which Creed had been fumbling with for the two weeks that they were on their honeymoon. He didn’t sound happy, and I rolled my eyes when I thought about what Creed must have screwed up. He tried hard. I had to give him that much. He just wasn’t good with numbers.
Nicole thought that I was worth taking care of. At least one of us did. She didn’t know how it felt to grow up in a world where nobody cared about her. I never knew her father, at least not personally—I had heard about him over the years as a detective, but that was it. He had loved her. He had taken part in her life. He had encouraged her to make something of herself, and he had treated her well. She didn’t know how it felt to have a parent care more about herself than she did about her own kids.
It made me think about my mother. All she ever gave a damn about was going out to party and have fun. She could never be bothered with her kids as long as we weren’t embarrassing her or roaming the streets like wild animals. And even then, she didn’t give a shit. She used to have me watch the younger ones and sometimes even the older ones. Once she was out, they were my responsibility. If anything happened, it was automatically my fault.
No wonder I didn’t think I was worth taking care of and it pissed me off when people tried to do it. I took it as an insult, like whoever was being nice to me was only trying to tell me that I couldn’t be trusted to take care of myself. I took that shit hard. I had to stop acting that way. There was a baby to think about.
Creed slinked out of Drake’s office, looking a little embarrassed. I guessed Drake gave him a little shit over the way that he’d messed up the books. He didn’t look at me—probably sure I would make fun of him. I felt guilty. I had to stop being such a bitch to him.