The party was in full swing. Some God-awful fucking rap music blared from a speaker and I imagined the older guys were running a book to see how long that speaker would remain functioning. The oldies favored rock and roll, and it wasn’t unknown for a bass speaker to end up in the fire just to shut the damn racket up. The glow from the firepit showed that it had been lit some time ago and although I couldn’t smell the evidence of links on a grill, I knew there’d be some somewhere. I parked my bike up and headed to the nearest steel tub on the ground. It was full of iced water and bottles of beer. I wasn’t chasing a hangover, so it was just going to be the one tonight. Mom was playing on my mind and I needed to be ready for her in case any late-night antics kicked in. It was a shame really. I had a room at the compound, and it would have been easy to sink a handful, get blotto and then collapse there.
But I didn’t have that luxury.
My mom was emotionally unstable for reasons she couldn’t get over. I’d be lucky if I made it to middle age without killing someone in a fit of rage, with the way things were going.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, a hand that slowly moved to the collar of my cut. It was soft and gentle, but loaded with sexual tension, and I didn’t need to turn around to see who it belonged to.
“Marnie,” I greeted, around the mouth of my bottle.
“Hey, Gears, wasn’t sure if you’d make it.” She sat down next to me, wearing a short denim skirt, not as short as a lot of her friends, and a cropped tank that also wasn’t as cropped as the crowd she hung with. Every time she came here, I wondered what her deal was. Marnie always looked on the edge of not fitting in. And by that I meant with her friends, with the club and in her own damn life. It was probably the reason we hooked up. She was more ‘girl next door’ and less ‘female vulture’ than the rest. She was also the only reason my room in the compound had seen any use in recent months.
“Want a fresh one?”
“Not tonight, got things on.”
The look of disappointment was evident, another difference between her and her friends. They played games—blood-sucking, soul fucking games and Marnie didn’t have a manipulative bone in her body. There was no hiding how it made her feel when I either pleased her or left her to try her luck with someone else in the club. In truth, I didn’t think she ever went with anyone else, but I wondered if I told myself that to ease my conscience over the way I treated her.
I’d not always been a shit where women were concerned, but a bad experience taints your outlook sometimes. If I’d been an office robot like my old man, and Marnie was a girl from the local bank or K-Mart then this could have worked. But that’s the break with life sometimes and Marnie ended up here, offering herself to me like she had zero pride or self worth, and sooner or later I’d have become my dad and she’d have become my mom. As my mom always bleated—no one met the girl they wanted to take home to their momma in these places.
“Gears,” she mumbled. “I’ve been thinking…”
This was going to hurt her as much as me. “Don’t, Marnie. What we’ve got going on…” I made the mistake of looking at her, and even as the flames danced across her features, I could see she was on the edge. I should have just powered through. She’d put herself out there. I’d sensed she was building up to this weeks ago and I could see it took a lot out of her, yet because I was a douche, I’d pissed all over her efforts with just a few short words. “If things were different…” I tried a different track.
I winced as she inhaled and plastered a smile on her pretty face, a smile that would have been more at home on the face of one of her whore friends about to fake it until they made it. “I get it.”
“No, let me explain.”
“There’s no need to explain.” She flounced up away from me and tried to perfect the art of appearing unaffected as she walked off.
“Fuck! Wait.” I followed after her, and short of sprinting and in danger of looking like an even bigger fucker in front of the other brothers, I opted for a casual stroll.... with some speed. That, however, meant she got further away from me than I would have liked. By the time I was within reaching distance, we were in the dark forecourt of the autoshop and the only things around us were the huge security street lamps and the prospects manning the gate. “Will you let me explain?”
Marnie stopped, inhaled again and spun around. “There’s no need to explain anything. I just read things wrong.”
“Again, my fault. It’s just… I should have made it clear. I don’t have a lot of spare time. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
The look on her face told me I was fucking this up. I was trying to be gentle and honest without giving her my goddamn life story, and she thought I was spinning her a line.
“Look, I’m fucking this up. What we had, it’s been fun. I’m not in the right place for more than fun. You’re a nice girl—”
“Nice,” she harrumphed back, finally showing a different side to her personality, some edge, some character.
“See, I can’t even do this shit right. I’m not built for relationships, communicating. You’d be wasting both effort and years when you could be with someone who deserves you.”
“Next you’ll be saying—”
“Marnie, it’s not you. It’s me.”
“And there it is,” she ground out in frustration. “I thought you were different.”
This was going from bad to worse. Moments ago, when I’d made the decision to go after her, I’d figured it would be like ripping off a band aid.
“Look can we be friends?”
“Friends!” She finally let all of her hidden spirit shine through and because I was a complete bastard, I felt my cock twitch. I was a hair’s breadth away from reconsidering. Had she shown this level of fierceness before, things might have gone differently. “Friends don’t fuck like we did.”
“Marnie, I’m sorry.”
“Fuck sorry. You’ve used me and that’s not okay.”
I went to reach out for her when I heard female voices coming our way.
“Look, whatever happens, people at these parties come here for a good time. I thought I’d just show you so you know you’ll be safe here. There’s no pressure to come, but you’re part of the family now. You wanna come that’s fine. If you don’t that’s also fine.” Angel stopped with her back facing me. Whoever she was talking to was hidden both by Angel’s body and the brilliant shining security light behind her. “All that said, I just need to know that your priority is my kids and you won’t be showing up to look after Little Angel half cooked on hooch.”
“Oh, God no. Never, I would never do that. I want this job and I respect that you’ve trusted me with your kids,” replied a voice that turned all the blood in my veins to ice.
“I don’t mean to be blunt, but the last six nannies all said the same. The minute they spot the brothers, their priorities flip. Most of them applied because of the brothers.”
I waited for the response, just in case my mind was playing tricks on me.
“I promise I understand the importance of family. I don’t have a lot of time for men,” came the voice. “You can trust me.”
It was like someone had stolen every morsel of oxygen from the atmosphere around me and my lungs had forgotten to how search for it.
Those words.
Those two fucking words.
I promise.
They were the last thing she’d said to me.
Wave appeared off the to side, out of breath. “Brother, I was looking for you. Oh. Yeah, see I’m too late.” He nodded at Angel and the new nanny.
“Uh… Gears, we were in the middle of a conversation?” Marnie was stood to the side, her hands on her hips, leaning in front of me, snapping her fingers for attention like I was some damn dog. Now I was really pissed off.
“This is done. It was nothing. Stop fucking hounding me. I ain’t your old man.” I’d tried being nice. I should have just treated her like a bitch from the start like my brothers seemed to be able to do, an
d maybe she wouldn’t have got the wrong impression in the first place.
“Hey, Gears.” Angel turned around. “Glad you’re here. I’d like you to meet—”
“Gigi,” I spat. The icy blood in my veins felt like needles as it worked to restart my heart. Breathing right now was the same as sprinting in sub-zero temperatures—fucking painful.
“What the fuck have you done? Does JP know who his grandbaby’s new nanny is?” I barked at Angel, who wisely sensed it was a rhetorical question.
“Calm down, brother,” Wave murmured.
Stepping out from behind Angel’s covering shadow was the only girl I’d ever loved.
She broke me.
Fucking destroyed me.
Hearing her promise anyone anything sent me into a rage.
The fucking bitch had promised me once and I’d trusted her implicitly. Now, even at the grand old age of thirty, the disappointed, sinking feeling in my stomach was enough to remind me that no one should ever trust Gigi Livingston.
Gears
I shouldn’t have done it, but I was so enraged there was no sense or reason kicking in to stop me.
I needed to leave and got the hell out of there.
Wave muttered something about going to have words with the Prez. Wolf would be so thrilled by the news that his nanny was a lying let-down who couldn’t be trusted.
Marnie looked at me like I’d just killed her puppy.
Angel looked at me and had intrigue written all over her face. Straight away, I knew this was one puzzle she wasn’t going to be able to resist. She’d never met Gigi in the past. I was very fucking careful to obey my then president’s orders.
Gigi, well, from the brief glimpse I afforded her, she looked scared shitless.
And that was the mindset I chose to acknowledge. If she was scared now, she’d be down right terrified by the time I finished with her.
“Get that motherfucker open before I ride straight through it.” The prospect I’d barked at jumped in the direction of the gate and didn’t let me down. I had years of pent up anger and unanswered questions all rushing to the surface.
Without thinking, I headed to her old house.
A place I’d spent months stalking back when it all went sour, like a fucking creep, waiting for her just in case she turned up. The Livingston place was just as remote as the Black Sentinels’ land. To the naked eye, the place looked derelict and abandoned, but I could see the difference straight away. The windows that had once been thick with grime were now clean. The path had been cleared so you could make it to the front porch instead of running a gauntlet with garbage and disused drug needles. In this universe’s fucked up version of irony, the once Hermano stash house had become a crack den once the family left it. Two of the windows now had drapes hanging in them—the main family room and one of the bedrooms. Gigi, or someone else, was living in the old family home. My heart was thudding. I wanted to check and see if her prison, the woodshed, had survived, but I was already hanging onto my rage by a thread.
I left my bike next to an old oak where some kids had fashioned a rope swing. All that was left was the frayed bit of old rope. In the darkness it looked more like gallows with a hangman’s rope than anything else.
How fitting. I felt like the life was being squeezed out of me with every minute I stood there.
I leaned against the tree, shielding myself slightly from the approaching lane.
When she came home, I wanted to take her by surprise.
Not long after I arrived, I saw the dull yellow glow of dirty head lamps snake its way from the far end of the lane. Whatever she was driving was an old piece of shit and the gear mech was fucked. It needed a new timing belt and the tappets were fucking worn.
“Fuck me,” I muttered, surprised and shocked that the car was still operating.
An old car that was more rust than protective metal flew around the corner and pulled to a dusty standstill. It was a few seconds before the car’s headlamps went off and she climbed out, pulling a backpack with her.
All I wanted to do to her fought against all she’d meant to me.
Gigi Livingston had been my fucking world and I’d wanted nothing more than to give her everything she’d never had.
Her auburn hair still floated in the slightest of breezes. The sway of her hips that had a man mesmerized in an instant was still a sight to behold, only now they were more present, curvier and more womanly. Remembering sliding in between them always got me hard. It didn’t take a genius to work out that whatever she’d been up to, she’d looked after herself and that pissed me off, too. Why wasn’t she as shattered and broken as I still was?
“What the fuck have you come back for?” I barked the words, not hiding my anger as I stepped from behind the tree. Even though I was twenty feet from her, the breeze carried my words and she stopped dead before she reached the porch.
What she didn’t do was turn around and face me. When she went to take another step, I felt my temper bubble.
“I asked you a question.”
“Gears,” she began. My mom had tried to get her to call me by my full name, but Gigi loved my connection with the club. She was as proud of it back then as I was. “I’m sorry, I—”
“You broke your fucking promise. Your last words were, ‘yours, I promise’. Someone who was mine wouldn’t have left me hanging like you did.”
“I tried not to.” When Gigi finally turned to face me, I had to fight to stop my knees from buckling. She still had the same fucking hold on me and my soul knew she was close.
“They not have phones where you went?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Fucking US Postal Service not collect shit where you were? Hell, no motherfucking carrier pigeons?”
“Can you give me a chance to explain? I need—”
“Shit no. The time to explain was a decade ago.” I knew my words affected her. Even though she didn’t physically move, she absorbed every single one of them like punches. It was what she’d been raised to do. She was the mouse I’d met that very first time. “The Fosters are decent fucking people and they need someone they can depend on to look after their kids. That is not you.”
I hurled words across the space between us, and surprisingly, not once did Gigi look like she was ready to sling any back. This was not the Gigi Livingston who had left. The Gigi who walked away from me, breaking my heart and fucking me over with empty promises would have stood her ground, bitched back and made me listen to her. After all she’d endured growing up, I’d helped her find that version of herself. I loved the fucking fiery girl she became when she was with me.
“Nothing to say?”
“Gears, it’s late. I’m sorry you found out I was back like that. I kept meaning to visit, but—”
I cut her off again. “Listen, don’t kid yourself into thinking I still care. You are a memory. Scratch that, you were a memory. Now you’re a bad fucking dream on repeat. You need to leave again, but this time, stay the fuck away.” The only sign that my words got to her was the tiniest flare of her nostrils and widening of her eyes. “Did you think I’d be pleased? What? Roll out a fucking Hollywood carpet and welcome you back?”
“If you’ll let me explain,” she tried again, swallowing around emotion and words that weren’t coming easy.
I’d succeeded in what I wanted. I’d caught her off guard and made her feel as utterly fucking unwanted as she’d left me.
“No. Time’s passed. Just get your shit and get out of town.”
A low watt light bulb flickered on in the upstairs window with the drapes. “Who’s in the house, Gigi?”
Her body finally became fluid again as she spun to look up at the window and then ran for the porch. Before she inserted the key, she turned back to me. “I think you’ve made it clear you want nothing to do with me, so who I live with is not your concern. Goodnight, Gears.”
Quick as a snake, she twisted the key in the lock, opened the door and was inside before I could catch her.
In the
quiet of the night, I heard her footsteps ascend the old wooden stairs and as I stood outside in the dark, the light inside was extinguished just as quickly as it went on.
“Too late, Gigi, I know you’re hiding something,” I muttered to myself, only for the wind to pick up pace and bash the trees around me.
At least something hadn’t changed; the Livingston house continued to hold secrets and was still creepy as fuck.
Sleep never came that night and my temper was hanging on by a thread the following day. Unfortunately, that didn’t improve once I arrived at the autoshop for my shift.
I fucked up last night. I should have pretended I didn’t know Gigi. It would have served two purposes. Firstly, it would have told her in no uncertain terms where I stood and that I was not to be fucking toyed with, and secondly, it wouldn’t have given Angel the green light to get up in my business again. This was the kind of mischief she’d always lived for. If she couldn’t get her way with Wolf in the garage, she’d poke and poke at something until it provided her with either a distraction or entertainment. She was exactly the same with her dad, JP, back when he was president.
My mind spun at a million miles an hour and no engine or work challenge was helping to stop it.
Gigi and I had been inseparable since the moment we’d met, and even though we didn’t meet in the most traditional of ways, I still thought it was fate, not to mention love at first sight. I’d just turned nineteen and loved being a Black Sentinel. I was working on bikes, earning a paycheck, and I loved my life. Back then we had a tow truck and would regularly pick up broken-down cars and bring them in. It had been my turn to go out, mainly because it was the morning after a huge party and I was sick of cleaning up the compound and when I say cleaning, I mean hosing down all the puke. I was also the only one sober enough to drive. Even back then, we didn’t fuck with the law. When we hit town, we were model citizens, which meant no DUI’s.
Gigi: A Black Sentinels MC Novel Page 20