by A. J. Downey
“What do you know about it?” Christen demanded, raking me with her gaze and leaning back in her seat slightly, clearly reviled that the big, dirty biker would deign to even open his mouth in her direction.
“I know that the provision in my mother’s will dictates that if either I or Copper are deceased before the will is discharged, then the remaining sibling gets it all.” Aspen sounded somber but there was some steel in her voice.
“You’re lying,” Christen said, voice low and savage.
“Talk to your lawyer,” Aspen said calmly, shaking her head. “I honestly don’t know what else to do. I’ve bent over backwards to get you to like me, and I’m over it. I’m done.” Aspen stood, and I stood with her.
“I’m tearing a page out of your playbook, love,” she said, putting her hand in mine and looking up at me.
“The not-so-subtle art of not giving a fuck?” I asked.
“That would be the one,” she said, and she looked tired and not at all happy about it, but you know what? That was okay. Slow progress was better than no progress. I knew she was likely to knuckle under when Christen came crawling back for help – which she would. She would have to, and that was going to be okay too.
Aspen was right. It was about her but in this case and more importantly, it was about what was best for her nephew, who was an innocent child in all of this.
We left the coffee shop; Christen looking so pissed she was about to cry and honestly, fuck her. Again, she wanted to fuck around and now she was finding out. Hopefully when she did come crawling back, it would be with some fuckin’ humility but I doubted it.
I put my arm around Aspen as we made the walk back to her shop. She was in the middle of pricing things to sell and making more to come up with the money to break her lease so she could close down.
Her landlord had been good to her all this time, she said, so she wanted to at least do this right and I was all for it.
Turned out, she was a go for selling all her equipment and shit to me for a stupid low price. It wasn’t going to be a dollar, there was a minimum threshold that would be acceptable according to the courts, but her hubby wasn’t going to get near what he hoped out of it and that was going to be one hell of a shock and surprise.
We went in the back door and she called out to Amber that she was back before hanging her coat in the office and lifting down her apron, green eyes sightless and far away as she lost herself in thought.
I took a seat on one of the metal folding chairs and watched her as she moved around her shop, unwrapping a wad of clay, taking it over to the slab roller against the wall between two shelves. That thing was, by far, the biggest piece of equipment aside from her kilns.
I let her find some peace and solace in her work. I didn’t need to be front and center in her attention all the time. It was just enough that I was here in her presence.
“I don’t understand why I’m just so unlikable,” she murmured.
“It’s not you, babe. It’s them,” I said.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked, rolling the clay flat, turning the great wheel on the slab roller, making adjustments to it to get things the thickness she wanted, all automatically without thinking. I smiled a little to myself. She was a well-oiled machine when she created her things.
“Just going to have to trust me on this one, baby. I think I may have a little clearer perspective,” I told her.
She stopped and stared at me and nodded slowly. “Maybe you’re right,” she said quietly.
“Not always,” I promised her, “but on this one, yeah.”
“God, we citizens are so fucked up,” she said and came over, dropping into a seat around the worktable. Her hands hung limp between her thighs in the hammock made by her clay stained apron.
“Just starting to come around to that fact, huh?” I asked with a grin.
She looked up at me and shook her head and let her breath out of her lungs in a woosh. “They sit there acting like spoiled entitled brats all the while looking at you with disdain like you’re somehow in the wrong and I just don’t understand it.” She stood up forcefully and went back to the slab roller to collect her clay.
“It’s sheer madness,” she muttered. “The whole world’s gone mad.”
“So, fuck ‘em,” I said. “Let ‘em go crazy. Let ‘em try and live up to unattainable expectations, constantly running the fuckin’ rat race tryin’ to get where they’re going without even knowing what the destination actually is.”
She turned around and looked at me and I smiled. “You know better, Leaf. Don’t fall into their fucked-up rat trap.”
She sighed. “Well, I feel like I am stuck in it for as long as it’s going to take me to clean up this damn mess of everything.”
“We’ll get through it,” I promised.
She brought her slab of clay over to the worktable and laid it over one of her wooden forms. She put her hands on her hips and looked at me, an appreciative little smile curving her lips.
“I don’t know what I would do right now without you in my corner, cheering me on.”
“I do,” I said, and she cocked her head.
“Oh, yeah?”
“You’d manage just fine without me, it would take a while, but you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You’d get through.”
She came over to me and put her hands on my shoulders, straddling my lap and her lips against mine.
“I’m glad I don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what?” I asked softly.
“Have to muddle through without you. I can’t imagine what it’d be like, but I can imagine it would be very uncomfortable and unpleasant.”
“Baby, your whole life is about to change,” I murmured, smiling, looking into those beautiful green eyes of hers.
She smiled back and said, “I like the sound of that.”
“What you staring at, boy?” I looked down then up from the bales of hay I was stacking in the lower part of the barn, part of getting ready for winter and over to my pops.
“I want Aspen to come live here,” I said without any preamble. “I was thinking about turning the upstairs loft into a sort of studio for her, was thinking about what it would take to run better electricity out here and where to put her kilns and shit to where we could plug ‘em in and they would actually work.”
“Not out here,” my dad said with a dubious laugh. “One malfunction and the whole barn could go up. I think upstairs could work as storage, but as for a studio space?” He looked thoughtful. “Could always build one out back of the house, out near the tree line. One of them she-shed deals. Kilns could go up against the back of the house on the outside, wouldn’t take much to put the plug in out there for ‘em.”
“No complaints?” I asked. “No telling me I’m nuts or that it’s a crazy idea?”
My dad shook his head, and heaved a big sigh, leaning on his pitchfork he’d been using to lay down new straw in the birthing stalls.
“I like her,” he said with a shrug. “She’s one of us.”
I nodded slowly. The first was my father talking, the second? Vyking. Club brother, through and through.
“Guess there’s only one thing left to do,” I said.
“Ahhh, uh-uh,” he said. “There’s gonna be a metric fuckton of shit to do around here to make this place ready for her arts and crafts.”
“Guess we better get on it, then.”
He laughed at me. “Ha, ha, fuck you. I’m happy to have her around, but I ain’t up for all that.”
“Fine,” I said. “Can you at least call around for me for the relevant work dudes to get some of this shit done? I don’t know shit else about electrical.”
“Now that,” he said pitching a forkful of straw, “I can do.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aspen…
“Thank you for doing this for me,” I murmured and looked around my mostly emptied shop. Today was the day. A rainy November morning outside the front windows matched
a little how I was feeling on the inside about closing down and moving all of this stuff out to Fen’s barn.
I missed the farm. I hadn’t been in a couple of weeks and I was looking forward to the lush green pastures, the old wooden shake house, and the welcome sound of the bleating goats.
“Hey.” Fen’s voice snapped me out of my reverie and I dragged my eyes from the leaden gray outside and the falling rain.
“Hey,” I said softly, smiling.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“Yeah! Yeah, why?”
“You just seem a little out of it, that’s all.”
“Just saying goodbye, I guess.” I sighed unhappily. “I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”
He hooked a hand behind my neck and pressed his lips to my forehead.
“Ain’t gotta worry about any of that right now,” he said and I put my arms around him and cuddled into his chest.
“I know,” I murmured, but I did. I still felt so… detached. Like everything was up in the air, and I didn’t like the feeling. I had always been one to crave roots. Maybe it was a byproduct of my name? Aspen was a kind of tree, after all…
“I got you, baby girl,” he murmured and kissed the top of my hair.
“And I am so grateful for it,” I murmured.
The U-Haul pulled up out front, blotting out the rain bouncing in the street and I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Fenris had asked the club to help with the move promising barbecue, beer, and mead a plenty at the farm in exchange for their efforts. Nearly everyone had volunteered, so long, they said, as Vyking did the cooking.
Vyking was back at the farm, manning the firepit. Little Bird and Dump Truck were out there with him, along with Dahlia and Momma Kat fixing sides and making sure there was a dry place to eat.
It was the absolute worst weather to be doing any of this in, but that was Washington for you. You couldn’t plan anything by the weather here or you would never get anything done.
“Okay!” Maverick called, Marisol coming in the front door behind him. “Let’s rock-and-roll, people!”
I smiled and mouthed Thank you at him as Fenris let me go.
“Hey, boss?” Amber called from the office.
“Yeah?”
“Need you a minute, please.”
“Sure, sure!” I went in to find out what she needed.
“Well?” she asked, and I shook my head in confusion.
“Well, what?” I asked.
“How did he react?” she asked, eyes clear, bright, and curious.
“He didn’t really,” I said. “It was all very strange. He just stared at me like he didn’t know who I was and signed the papers.”
Amber fell into the desk chair laughing, her hands clutching her belly as I looked on even more confused than I’d been the moment before.
“That’s great!” she cried. “You shocked him so bad he didn’t know what to do!”
I smiled then and blinked as it sank in and I realized, she was right. He’d honestly expected me to just roll over and show my belly, and probably for the first time ever, I’d shown him some teeth.
I started laughing too, and the bikers that passed the shoebox of an office door just looked bemused, eyebrows raised in curiosity, but this was mine and Amber’s secret inside joke. For now, at least. There was too much to do to stop and explain.
It only took an hour and a half to empty the shop of its kilns, the slab roller, its worktables and benches, and all of its industrial shelving. I swept and cleaned as soon as things were moved out of the way and when the last of it had gone, Fen came back to me and hugged me tight.
“I didn’t think it would be like this,” I said, surprised at how I felt. “I thought I would be relieved more than anything, you know?”
“Shh, I know. I got you, babe.”
“It’s okay,” I said, letting him hold me. “I don’t think I’m going to cry.”
He chuckled and took a deep breath letting it out slow and said, “I’m so proud of you.”
“Proud? Of me? Why?”
“You’re getting stronger every day,” he said, and I nodded.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Let’s go home,” he said, and I nodded and put on another brave smile.
“Okay.”
Fenris drove my Prius, and it felt just a little strange being a passenger in my own car. Not because I was riding shotgun, but because I felt strange for not feeling strange about Fenris driving at all.
Everything about being with him was so easy and I was a little sad, I realized, that everything I loved about this new life going forward was going to be at the farm and I would be in my mother’s house… all alone.
It felt crazy to me, but it was what it was in some ways. I just couldn’t bear to ask to stay. I don’t think it was a matter of pride. I don’t know what it was. Fear of rejection maybe? That fear had led me to make some really poor choices lately, I thought to myself, running fingertips over the rough and dirty patches on Fenris’ vest in my lap.
He refused to wear it in a car. I guessed it was some kind of rule about respecting the vest and the patches on it. Something about refusing to cage something that was meant to be free. They had a tendency to call cars cages, too, and I understood that one. Especially after riding with Fenris.
We tried to only go out during good weather. Or, at least, he only took me out during good weather. He rode no matter what the sky was doing. Rain, shine, mist or even hale, he was out in it. Said he wasn’t a fair-weather rider, but I would be lying if I said that didn’t scare me a little. Not that I was worried about him and his riding capabilities. I was more concerned with all the utter fucking brainless assholes on the road.
He reached over without looking and threaded his fingers between mine, raising my hand to his mouth and kissing the back without taking his keen blue eyes off the road. I smiled, my heart swelling with love and commitment in my breast.
A feeling that turned into a bit of ‘wait, what?’ when we pulled down the long drive of the farm behind the U-Haul, several more trucks and bikes bringing up the rear behind us. I got out of my car and stared across the expanse of grass at the new, but still rustic looking shop building that had been erected next to the barn, the sliding barn doors on its front standing open as Derry and Sauley went in and out, working on something.
“What’s this?” I asked, looking over the roof of my car at Fenris.
“Something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” he said with a wink in my direction.
“Yo, Fen! Where you want this stuff?” Maverick called from the back of the U-Haul, unlatching the roll-up door and sending it rocketing to a sky that was lightening. The rain had finally stopped out this way.
“Gimme just a minute, Mav!” Fen called back and all the guys were looking at us, me standing there, mouth hanging open, breath fogging the air, Fen’s cut draped over my arm with reverence as he shut the driver’s side door and came around to me. I shut my car door and stepped back. He took his cut gently from my hands and put it on.
“Come this way,” he said and led me under the built-out roof section of the house, over the back patio.
I trailed along, my heart beating fast and faster against the inside of the cage of my ribs.
“Here, here, and here, are the plugs for your three big kilns. We figured they’d be safer out here than anywhere and the roof’ll keep the wet off.”
He led me down the flagstone walkway that had been put in from the patio leading to the new shed.
“Out here, is your studio. We’re still working on getting it wired for electricity, but I figured your potter’s wheel could go in this corner where it gets the light from both windows. You could have workbenches here, here, or there and the slab roller could go against that back wall. You still got plenty of shelves, and you could set those up wherever else there’s room as soon as we finish getting it drywalled and painted in here.”
I stared up at him o
pen mouthed and he smiled down at me with an edge of shyness I’d never seen in him before. It took me a second to realize it wasn’t shy but nervous. He was nervous and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why…
“Now, as for storage for pieces waiting to get fired and that, you could keep those down here but the rest of your shelves can go up into the loft in the barn. Come this way.” He towed me back outside and down the new path to the foot of the stairs outside the barn. We went up those stairs and he led us both in to the doorway at the top and into the freshly swept and cleared out loft at the top with its windows and high ceilings.
“I figured you could keep finished pieces up here, maybe do the online shipping thing for a while. You know, still work for yourself but on a smaller scale with little overhead. No rent, no mortgage. Just supplies… Little Bird likes taking pictures. Maybe you could set things up all artsy on the old stump out back. Could look really nice for like an Etsy shop or something. You could sell local on the weekends to build a following – hey! Hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong?”
I covered my mouth with my hands as my eyes spilled over and I stared at him speechless.
“No, no, no, babe! Don’t cry!”
He folded me against him as I let myself be overcome with all of the feelings.
“You did all this for me?” I asked, and he held me tight, smoothing a hand over my hair.
“Yeah, of course I did. I want you to be happy but more important, I want you to be with me. Here… I want you to do whatever the fuck you wanna do.”
I clung to him and looked up at him and he smiled down at me, caressing the side of my face.
“I don’t know what to say,” I murmured.
“Say yes. Although, I want you to keep your money. Build yourself a ‘fuck-off fund.’”
“A what?” I asked laughing.
“A ‘fuck-off’ fund, a big enough chunk of money that if shit goes sideways for you in any way. If this… stops working,” and he almost visibly flinched at the idea, “you can take yourself anywhere in the world if you wanted to.”