by Ella Wolfe
Just as the thought crossed my mind, a firm knock sounded throughout the room, slightly worrying me as I walked hesitantly over to the peephole.
Could my luck really be that bad?
I swung the door open to reveal Jett and I knew in that moment that my luck was apparently worse than I’d ever imagined. Somehow, he was looking more rugged and handsome than I remembered, and I’d been thinking about him a lot. He was in loose jeans and a fitted white V-neck, leaning against the doorframe like he had all the time in the world.
“Jett,” I breathed out and then winced. Clearing my throat, I asked, “What are you doing here?”
He stepped around me and invited himself inside, taking a few steps and surveying the room as if he had a right to do so. I was immediately ashamed and slightly angry at his audacity. This place was all we could afford and I didn’t need someone like him judging us for it.
“Jett?” I demanded, a little harder this time. “Why are you here?”
Turning to me, he said, “You told me you were staying here. Last week, remember?”
“I remember,” I confirmed, slightly uncomfortable that he’d come all the way down here.
“I thought I’d check anyway, in case you were lying about this too.” He sounded casual enough but I was instantly on guard.
“Excuse me?”
“If you didn’t want the job, a simple phone call would’ve been enough. Just so I could start looking for someone else.”
“Jett, I’m sorry, I really am. And I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted the job, I just … some things happened that were a little unexpected. I should’ve called.”
“Yeah, you should’ve. So, what happened?”
I shifted uncomfortably on the spot, wishing there was some furniture in the room so that we could at least be seated for this conversation.
“Nothing, really,” I hedged. There was no way I could tell him that my mother had told me to stay away from him.
“You’ve been listening to town talk, haven’t you? Is that why you didn’t call me?” When I refused to meet his eyes, he continued. “I should’ve known. Dayna, you should’ve come to me and we could’ve talked about it.”
“I’m sorry. It was my mom, she told me that it wouldn’t be the best idea to get involved with the club.”
“Now that, I can believe.”
I took a step closer, not being able to stand the distance. Placing a hand on his arm, I waited until he snapped his gaze to my own.
“Is it true?” I asked gently. Even after all my mother said, I couldn’t help but want confirmation. After all, I couldn’t spend my life listening to town gossip. Especially since I knew a lot of it was a load of crap. There was a small part of me that couldn’t reconcile the two versions of Jett that I knew. All I wanted was some answers and who better to ask.
“It’s true. A few months ago, when Dad died.”
I couldn’t take the broken look in his eyes, something about it calling to me in a way I didn’t understand. I lifted my hand to cup his cheek in the hopes of providing even an ounce of comfort and surprisingly he didn’t pull away.
“I remember him. He was a good man. I’m sorry for what happened.”
He let out a bitter scoff at that. “Yeah me too, Dayna.”
“How ... how did it happen?” I couldn’t help but ask. From what I knew and remembered of Billy Walker, he was a kind-hearted man. I couldn’t imagine someone murdering him. But since I’d never even known he was a biker, I supposed my opinion hardly counted.
Jett pulled away from my touch at my question, leaving me feeling strangely cold and alone, and began pacing.
“It was a drug deal gone wrong. Have you heard of Joe Slattery?”
I shook my head.
“He’s the president of the Succubus MC. We’ve always had a rivalry with them but it was never as bad as now. He sabotaged the deal that my dad was on that night. They shot my dad in the chest. Three times.”
Jett had turned his face away from me as he spoke and I pretended to ignore his audible swallow and the slight tremor in his voice.
“So, you joined the club?” I asked. I couldn’t really understand why he’d made that leap.
“Yeah. I never wanted that to be a part of my life, but it’s different now. My uncle is a good man, he wants to avenge my father like I do.”
At least I wasn’t totally clueless. I’d had a hard time grasping at the idea of a younger Jett being even remotely interested in a motorcycle club, and it was nice to know that I wasn’t wrong. But upon hearing his plans of vengeance, I realized just how much he must have changed over the years. I breathed a deep sigh and this time I turned away from him.
“Look, Jett. I understand why you're angry, I really do. But I really don’t think I should be involved in—”
“Oh really? You understand?” He was advancing on me know, striding forward quickly and forcing me to retreat until my back was firmly pressed against the wall.
I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, but the unmistakable rage in his eyes and his cold exterior was beginning to frighten me. He was almost trembling with rage, his anger reminding me of a different man in a different life.
“What could you possibly understand?” he shouted.
At this point, I was no longer in the room with Jett; instead, I was bombarded by memories of my life before. My stepfather’s scowling face as he raised his fists to my cheek, my paralyzing fear as I lay on the ground and his heavy boots kicked my stomach again and again, the shouts of my mother that could be heard from rooms away, but worst of all, his acidic breath and shiver-inducing voice that would whisper in my ear, “Scream for me, Princess.”
I didn’t even realize that my eyes were squeezed shut, a lone tear dripping down my face, shaking like a leaf and both hands brought up to shield my face from the anticipated onslaught.
“Dayna!” A voice was shouting but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t open my eyes.
“Dayna!” it repeated. There were hands caressing my faces and a calming voice whispering nonsensical things in my ear.
“You're okay, you're okay. Open those beautiful eyes for me, darlin’.”
My breathing slowed and I was still once more, though I still refused to open my eyes. The memories were so real.
“Dayna?”
This time the voice seemed to break through my barriers. I knew I recognized it, associated it with something that wasn’t pain and violence.
“Jett?” I whispered brokenly. I finally pried my eyes open to find both his hands clutching my face, forcing my gaze to his even as I frantically tried to look everywhere else. Realizing where I was and what I was doing, my actions in the past few minutes came back to me in a flood of shame and embarrassment.
“Uh- sorry,” I stammered. “I wasn’t- I didn’t realize…”
“Don’t be sorry,” Jett said adamantly. “Tell me what happened.”
“I was just- I remembered … I don’t really know.”
My knees felt weak and I was struggling to focus on anything. It had felt so real, more than real.
“You know I would never hurt you, right?” Jett said gently, watching my face intently.
I nodded absently, not really listening or understanding.
“Here,” Jett grabbed my shoulders and led me to the bed, sitting me down. He walked to the kitchen and brought back a glass of water, sitting beside me and letting me lean my body weight into him while I tipped back the glass.
Feeling marginally better, I leaned further into Jett and placed my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry,” he grumbled. “Tell me that you're okay.”
“I’m okay,” I insisted.
“Good. Now tell me again when you mean it.”
I laughed once before falling silent again.
“I hope you know what you're doing,” I said.
“I know what you're thinking, but I’m not being stupid,” he said. “Carson already gave me an earful bout bei
ng reckless and acting too soon. I'm biding my time for now.”
“Okay.” I couldn’t argue with that and I doubted that I could stop him, no matter how hard I tried.
We fell silent once more and I couldn’t help but appreciate how content I felt in his company. It wasn’t just a nostalgic feeling, a remnant of our youth. It went deeper than that.
I was coming to find that I liked the older Jett just as much as the younger one, and that scared the hell out of me.
“Did you ever end up finding another job?” he asked.
“No, unfortunately. It’s been a lot harder than I expected.”
“You know … the offer is still open if you want it.”
I was shocked. “Are you serious?”
“Everyone deserves a shot. Let me know if you want it.”
I hesitated for a moment, running through my options. Could I really afford to refuse his help again?
“Okay. I’ll really think about it and this time I promise I’ll call.”
He let out a lighthearted chuckle and I felt my chest constrict a bit. I could spend hours listening to that laugh. In fact, I could spend hours with Jett. And that was a dangerous thought.
“I better head off,” he said, getting up.
I walked him to the door and waved him off, thanking him for coming around and trusting me enough to tell me the truth. Closing the door behind me, I leant my back against it, smiling like a maniac even though he’d left.
Maybe things were starting to look up after all. The only thing left was talking to my mother about it, and I was not looking forward to that at all.
Chapter Six
Jett
I was surprised when Dayna showed up at the shop the very next day, bright and early. She was smiling widely, as wide as the last time she was here. In a way, seeing her so happy reminded me of her panic attack the day before.
I’d never been so helpless in my life, just trying to calm her down from her invisible demons. It made me wonder just exactly had happened to make her have an attack like that. I knew I’d need to ask her about it sooner or later but I didn’t know if I could bring myself to do it. Awful scenarios were swimming around in my head and it took a lot of effort to dispel them.
“Dayna,” I greeted.
“Hey,” she smiled. “I’m here to accept your offer, if it’s still on the table?”
I grinned widely at her. Of course it was still on the table. I’d lied yesterday when I said that I needed to start looking for someone else. In a town like Waco where you knew everyone, it wasn’t hard to accept that nobody wanted the job. There was literally no other option.
Still, that didn’t mean that I wasn’t pleased Dayna was the only one going for it.
“Great, come with me,” I said.
I was more than happy to be having her around, and it didn’t hurt that she was easy on the eyes too.
She followed me through the shop and into the office out back. The garage was one big rectangle with plenty of room for me to work, but the office was mainly an afterthought. Built as a small room coming off one of the walls.
It was a little cramped with only enough room for a desk and a filing cabinet. I led her inside and reached for a gigantic stack of papers that I’d left on the floor. I couldn’t really remember how long they’d been accumulating for, but let’s just say that I hate filing.
A solid thud sounded out as I dropped the mountain of papers onto the desk, not because it was necessary but because it entertained me to no end. I turned back to look at Dayna and the expression on her face was a mixture of shock and disbelief. Exactly as I’d predicted.
The job really wouldn’t be that hard, I just needed some basic filing and sorting done, something I’d do myself if I had more time. The real hassle was that all the files now had to go digital, and so I had to log all the documents into the system. This was where Dayna came in. It wasn’t rocket science, but it was something that I was definitely glad I didn’t have to do.
“So, does that make sense?” I asked, after I was finished explaining everything.
“I’ll get right on it, boss!” She chirped.
Shaking my head in amusement, I left her to it and returned to the bike I was working on.
Luckily for me, I had an excellent view of the office from my bike, and so an excellent view of Dayna bending over to file things, or biting her lip in concentration.
Man, I could get used to this.
###
It was just after lunch when Mike came in. I’d known Mike for about five years, a son of one of the guys in the club. He was one of my best friends, surprisingly trying to dissuade me from joining the club a few months back. I never understood why, considering he was in the club himself.
“Mike. How’s the bike?” I asked pointedly, noting its absence and realizing that he wasn’t here for business.
In the corner of my vision, I could see Dayna perk up at his entrance.
Unfortunately, Mike noticed, too.
“What do we have here?” He said, eyeing Dayna up and down. She blushed and looked away and I could feel my blood boil.
“Mike, this is Dayna. Dayna, Mike,” I bit out shortly.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Mike drawled out, extending a hand to her.
Dayna approached him and placed a delicate hand in his. I rolled my eyes when Mike lifted her hand up and kissed the top of her fingers.
“Alright, that’s enough. Mike, this is a workplace, what do you want?”
“Interesting choice of words there, Jett. You could say that I want a lot of things, starting with the beauty standing beside us.”
I let out a quiet growl and he raised his hands up in placation.
“Whoa, down boy. Just wanted to drop by, see how you're doing. You’ve been cooped up in here for months.”
“Much appreciated,” I muttered, turning away. “Nice of you to stop by, you know where the door is.”
“Jett!” Dayna chastised.
“Yeah, Jett!” Mike repeated.
“Fine, we’ll go out tonight. Okay?”
“Perfect,” Mike grinned. He turned and waltzed right back out the door, but was only gone for a second before his head appeared again.
“Do you want to come too, gorgeous?” he asked Dayna.
“No thanks, I have to be somewhere. Next time?”
“I’ll hold you to that.” And with one last wink he disappeared again.
Dayna was about to return to her office when I called her name.
“What’re you doing tonight?”
“Well … nothing really. I just need to talk with my mom.”
I deflated a little on the inside. “Is she not happy about you working here?”
She winced a little and didn’t meet my gaze.
“She knows she can’t stop me. I just want to make sure she’s still okay.”
I nodded absently and we both turned back to our corners of the shop.
Strangely enough, I felt like I was a kid again. I remembered a time when parents used to tell their kids not to hang out with biker scum like me. It hurt at the time, still did. Back then, I had Dayna as my biggest champion. And now … thinking about her mother and her opinion of me made me wonder just how much she’d changed.
Kelly Blake used to be part of Hell’s Raiders, and was really close to my dad. I could still remember being six years old and asking her if she was my mom because of how much time she spent around my dad.
I still remembered her voice, clear as day, “Jett, sweetie. No, I ain’t your momma, but you can sure as hell be my son.”
It struck me then that Kelly didn’t just leave Waco behind when she upped and moved with Dayna. She left my dad behind, the club behind, family behind. All to protect her daughter.
Maybe I was being selfish.
I looked over to the office to see Dayna bent over the computer, her eyes flicking up at that exact moment and her lips stretching into a reassuring smile. Yeah, I was being selfish. But I couldn’t find it i
n me to care.
###
It was about closing time on our first day working together and if I’d had any doubt earlier, I didn’t anymore.