by Hazel Parker
And I would bet that embedded in you is a little bit of creativity. It takes some time for people to exhume it, but it’s the rare person who lacks for it. Who knows? Maybe I will unearth it for you.
Talk soon!
-Lilly.
I just smiled and shook my head in disbelief. We had basically just had a pre-date, not even a real date, and already, I was feeling like a fool. Maybe it was because she was just so much smarter and more traditionally pretty than the usual women who populated the club, but even if it was only by comparison, it sure was a beautiful breath of fresh air to take in.
I refused to play the waiting game before I responded to her. I hit reply and started typing with my thumbs, doing my best to steady my trembling hands.
Lilly!
That sounds awesome, thanks. Let’s absolutely do that. Are you free Sunday or Monday? Perhaps in the evening after 5 p.m.?
-Jack.
It was not nearly as colorful as hers, but I just wanted to confirm plans. This was less emailing and more texting for me by this point.
With that reply, I started to get ready for my day, dancing a few jigs and humming to myself as I threw my clothes on. I tried to remind myself that it was early and that a lot could happen, but this was just how I did things; I tended to believe they would work out for the best well before I had any reason to believe so. Granted, there was a lot to happen before I could say anything about Lilly, but still.
Sometimes, Marcel and Uncle liked to mock me by calling me a Schmosby, after Ted Mosby from the TV show How I Met Your Mother, a guy who fell in love way too quickly and who pursued his potential romances with far too much zest and zeal. Well, right now, I was the Schmosbiest Schmosby of all, and I was unapologetic about it.
I kept myself humming all the way to the repair shop, smiling and laughing to myself.
And that all ended when the garage door came into view.
Someone had left graffiti on the front with a message that very much indicated whoever had hit our building knew exactly what they were doing and knew exactly who we were. At the top were three simple words.
“Bloodhounds Never Die!”
Then, just underneath that, with a dash, as if someone was signing it, was “-Devil’s Mercs and Degenerate Sinners.” Finally, beneath that was the warning, “All Saints are dead!”
I immediately captured the image on my phone, but I wasn’t about to go to the police. This was our battle. And it was one that was bound to go from cold to hot in a matter of hours if I wasn’t the one to decide what the club’s official reaction would be.
For now, Marcel had to know. I sent him the photo and said, “Let’s not do anything other than clean this up and tighten security.” As soon as that was sent, I followed up with another question. “Do we know who the Devil’s Mercs and the Degenerate Sinners are? Assume they’re new clubs of Kyle’s.”
I put my phone down and shook my head. Uncle couldn’t see this. The fastest way to get my back-channel negotiations shut down would be to have Uncle be so overbearing that even if he didn’t know about said channels, he would still cause us all nightmares and make it impossible to work. I had to start scrubbing everything down.
Just as I got the cleaning equipment outside, though, my phone buzzed. It was my brother—the one on my side.
“Marcel?”
“Is anyone else with you, Biggie? When did you see this?”
“Just now. No one else is here. I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“OK. Biggie, if you aren’t armed, get inside now and get yourself a gun. I’ll tell you who those two clubs are when you do.”
I did as commanded, even hanging up to do so. It being so early in the morning, I didn’t think they would strike us, but Marcel had a point—if things were hitting their most dangerous, we had to take every necessary precaution.
“Alright, I’m armed.”
“Got it. Biggie…”
That wasn’t a great sign, Marcel’s voice trailing off like that. Granted, he was more vulnerable with me, his brother, than in front of the club, but still.
“Devil’s Mercs and Degenerate Sinners are the names of the rival clubs for the Green Hills Savage Saints and the Las Vegas Savage Saints. It’s pretty clear that Kyle—and maybe some other people—know our club name well, and they know how to piss us off.”
“Don’t they realize that that’s just more likely to drag in the other chapters?”
“Maybe,” he said. “And maybe that’s exactly what they want. Maybe they want to warn us that an enormous attack of some sorts is coming. Look, I’m heading to the shop now. I’ll be there in five minutes. I assume you’re still there?”
“Yes, I’m cleaning.”
“Go inside until I get there. I’ll help you clean when I arrive. See you then.”
Begrudgingly, knowing other pedestrians and other officials would be walking by and seeing what was going on, I headed inside to the safety of the shop. At least Marcel showed up just a few minutes later, along with a few prospects, allowing us to get to work on cleaning up. Marcel, though, made sure to speak to me quietly as we worked.
“We need to put the club on full lockdown,” he said. “Club members can only come here or go home. They need to travel in pairs—”
“And just let whoever is making these threats control our lives like this?”
Admittedly, I had a selfish reason for pushing back on the idea of being under house arrest. But it went beyond the prospect of not being able to get that date I wanted with Lilly; it was going to be really hard to do back-channel talks with Kyle if my club wouldn’t even let me go somewhere alone.
“Look, we gotta be careful, I agree. But if we’re not stupid—”
“You’re assuming everyone in this club is as smart and measured as Niner or Fitz.”
Fuck. He has a point. Especially among the prospects.
“Are you still going to try and reach out to Kyle after this?”
“I mean, it’s not like we expected him to make that threat and then not do anything,” I said. “I do. I’m sure this won’t help matters, but then again, maybe how we react will. Maybe if we can react calmly and without violence, he’ll be more open to finding a common ground.”
It was wishful thinking. It was the ultimate in wishful thinking. But it was all that I had to hold on to.
“Here’s what we’re going to do then,” Marcel said. “We’re going to highly suggest that people lock themselves down. I’m not going to force it, not until we have anything more than violence. But Biggie. The minute someone so much as gets a papercut from reading a letter from Kyle, let alone shot in the head or the chest, we’re going to go to more aggressive maneuvers. I’m not going to stand to the side and just let them run over us.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll reach out to Kyle tomorrow. But don’t let anyone know. Anyone.”
“I know.”
“I’ll make sure things stay calm for now.”
I moved to my phone. I meant to reach out to Kyle innocently as if I didn’t know about the vandalism.
But what I saw instead got me moving in a different direction.
“Hey, Jack!”
Lilly had emailed me back.
“I’m actually at the coffee shop right by Southern Comfort, or what was once it. Slow day right now. Lots on my mind. Come by any time.”
Well, any time included now.
I put my phone in my pocket, made sure I had the proper protection in case shit went down, and headed for the coffee shop across the street from Southern Comfort.
Chapter 4: Lilly
I didn’t get a ton of fan mail.
The dirty secret of being a writer, one that I didn’t share with anyone besides other writers, was that while my work put up a pretty face for the kind of career that I had, it was the stuff that didn’t have my name attached to it that brought in the most revenue—the ghostwriting projects, the editing work, that sort of thing. I had my email prominently displayed on my we
bsite so that it would look like I was easily accessible, but in truth, I could count on one hand the number of fan emails I’d gotten in the past year.
That just made it all the more exciting, then, when, as I started to wind down my night, I received the nicest email from Jack. The correspondence had spilled over to this morning, and though I had agreed with the notion of having an actual date on Sunday or Monday, he was on my mind too much for me to think clearly. There wasn’t going to be any work done today, at least not more than a minimal amount.
So I sent off that email to Jack, hoping that I could catch him before he started his work at…whatever it was that he did. Come to think of it, I really didn’t know what he did for a living. It could have been anything from construction to being in an office. He struck me as a more blue-collar type, but being an author had taught me to look well beyond what people looked like they might be.
A few minutes later, I heard the door open and footsteps approach. I pretended to be caught up in my work as I smiled and spoke.
“You got…”
I cut myself off when I realized the person approaching was far too skinny to be Jack. I looked up with a smile that I forced to stay up as I instead saw Kyle Stone leering at me with an awkward smile.
“Hey, Lilly,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m…good,” I said, a little surprised to see him for the third time in just a short week.
But by this point, I had had to accept something. One time was just an amusing, serendipitous run-in. Twice was an unusual coincidence. Three times? Yeah, he was probably interested in something.
“What brings you back here?”
“Oh, you know. Coffee. Gotta get my morning rev on.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You look good, you know. You…you look good writing.”
If this had come from just about anyone else, I probably would have mocked Kyle for being creepy and interrupting my work, ignoring that I couldn’t get much work done. But knowing what Kyle had gone through and what kind of a home he grew up in, I had more compassion for him than I did most people.
“Thanks,” I said. “You know, I do have to get work done, but it’s always good to see you.”
“Yeah?” he said, his voice rising with hope. Crap. “Well, you know, if you want, we can turn this into a regular thing. I think both of our days can start on great notes by seeing each other.”
“Well—”
“Just saying, Lilly, it’s nothing more. But it would be great for me to talk to you more.”
Ugh. I’m not getting out of this one. The thing with guys like Kyle is that they might have been genuine when they said it was “nothing more” at the moment. But invariably, as time went by and as feelings grew, “nothing more” wouldn’t be good enough. They’d want a whole lot more, and they felt like they deserved it in some fashion.
Either I’d have to shut him down cold right here and inform him that I was only interested in friendship, or I’d have to hurt him later. I hated that it was coming to this. I hated that the boy I had helped defend from bullying in our childhood had now turned his hopeful eyes to me for a very different reason.
“I’ll meet with you later, but not in the mornings,” I said, which felt like compromise enough for me. “The mornings are my working time.”
“OK, what about Saturday night?”
“Sure, I’ll text you about it.”
I almost put my hand to my mouth to cover a gasp. I’d just agreed to a date with Kyle Stone. I was setting this poor guy up to have his heart shattered and ruined.
Fuck me.
And it wasn’t like he forced me to. My impatience had just won out.
“Sounds great!”
It was not lost on me that Kyle never got coffee before he headed out the door. He hadn’t come for a drink, and he sure wouldn’t come back now that I had told him my mornings were sacred. He’d just come to ask me out.
Well, hell, there was no rule stating that I couldn’t make the most of such a date. I most certainly preferred Jack, but there was no reason that I couldn’t enjoy one date with Kyle and then let him down easy. As long as I didn’t kiss him or lead him on, there wasn’t anything preventing me from having good conversation and a good time with him.
Unfortunately, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would be virtually impossible to have a date with Kyle that wouldn’t lead him on in some fashion. Kyle would invariably see a smile as a sign of interest. Shit.
The door swung open. This time, it wasn’t Kyle. It was Jack.
This time, I was going to be the one to look for signs of interest.
“Hey, it’s the author!” Jack said, followed by that boisterous laugh that drew a few more eyeballs now that we were in public. “How are you, Miss Lilly?”
“I’m doing wonderful,” I said, closing my laptop and playing with the strands of my hair. “I am pleasantly surprised to see that you were able to head over here for a little break.”
“Ah, well, you know, have to make time to get away from my world a little bit,” he said. “Besides, how could I pass up the chance to get to know an author more? With your mind, I’d be a fool not to learn more about you!”
“You’re sweet,” I said, almost certainly blushing like an idiot. “But I want to know more about you, actually.”
“Uh-oh! Am I going to appear in one of your fantasy novels?”
Jack seemed far more upbeat than he did last night, though some of that certainly had to do with this not being an introductory meeting. Maybe he was more of a morning person, although the fact that he had come to P.M. Coffee so late in the evening suggested otherwise.
“I mean, I draw inspiration from all over the real world from my fantasy characters, so it’s certainly possible.”
“Oh boy, go ahead and make me an orc or an ogre. It’ll be the closest to real life.”
“Jesus!” I said, laughing. “You’re not one of those things.”
“Um, hello? Do you see me? Bald? Thick? I am not exactly the model of a king.”
No, but that’s precisely why I like you. You’re not skinny and weak; you’re big and strong. You’re not tiny; you’re massive. Physically, that’s very attractive. That tells me that I’ll be safe with you.
“Well, if you’re not a king, then what are you, Jack? Tell me about your life.”
“Of course,” he said. “Come from a close family. Two brothers. Grew up in the area. As I said before, I’m not the one with the brains, let alone the creative juices, so I just went and became a car mechanic. But frankly, it works out perfectly for me. I get to use my hands for work, I get to crack jokes with like-minded people, and I get to work on what I love most—cars and bikes. I know it’s not as fancy or prestigious as some other jobs—”
“No, please,” I said, putting a gentle hand up. “I like you more because of this. I wouldn’t want you to be someone who works a quote-unquote ‘prestigious’ job. Most of the people like that are snooty and rude.”
“Oh, tell me about it!” Jack said, slapping the table. “I know a couple of dudes who work in the banking world out there in Manhattan. One of them is nice, quiet. Actually, funny enough, he quit that world to work in the mechanic shop. The other one is brash, loud, and crass.”
“And let me guess. He hasn’t quit his job?”
“Nope! We call him Uncle because, well, he’s my uncle. And Uncle is that kind of guy who you know means well and has a good heart, but in the process, he just does everything he can to make life hell. He’s loud, he cusses, he hits on women way too much—”
“Wait, there’s a man who can acknowledge that?”
I wanted to reach across the table and squeeze Jack’s cheeks with joy upon hearing him say that. Like, seriously—some men had it in their head that they could do whatever they wanted to me, and if they found out I was a writer, they would just say that they were giving me inspiration for future characters. Jack was getting more and more appealing by the sec
ond.
“Hey, why hide from the truth?” Jack said with a casual shrug. “I know Uncle is a good person. But yeah, coming from that world, humility is not exactly a strong suit of his.”
“Not like you,” I said, almost without meaning to.
Jack’s grin seemed to stretch further back than I had seen it go at any point. His white teeth seemed to glisten before me, and his eyes held mine in such a way that I couldn’t—and didn’t want to—escape. I barely knew this guy, but I already was feeling mighty good about him.
Provided, of course, that he would ask me out.
“But anyway, yeah, that’s what I do. I’m just a simple car mechanic.”
“You may say that, but you know it goes much further than that,” I said. “You’re an open-minded mechanic. You’re a curious mechanic. You’re a fun, amiable man.”
“Amiable?”
“Like friendly and easy-going.”
“Ah. You’ll have to forgive me. I have the vocabulary of a sixth grader. I stopped paying attention to classes around that time.”
I laughed. I didn’t think I had ever stopped being the de facto nerd. It’s probably why I stood up for people like Kyle, who were bullied—I wasn’t, but I knew well enough that people could easily get bullied for being too smart or being too different.
“Well, I think you display an education a little bit beyond just a mere sixth grader, just to be clear.”
Jack beamed, shook his head, and placed his palms flat down as if declaring that he was about to make a statement.
“Well, I suppose we’ve said enough that we might as well get to it,” Jack said. “I avoided saying this over email because I didn’t think it would be very gentlemanly to do so, but Lilly, I would love to take you on a date. I suggested Sunday and Monday, and I don’t know if you’re free then, but I would love to if given the opportunity.”
My smile gave me away. But it also gave me a chance to realize just how disparate my feelings were between Jack and Kyle. Kyle made me feel like I’d signed a contract that had a clause I couldn’t get out of, one that I figured I would embrace and just make the most of. Biggie felt like a promise of a happier, better time that not only did I not need a contract for, a contract would have made it feel too formal.