24.
Bear
I t was dimly lit inside, the atmosphere steeped in the quiet murmur of conversations and the clinking of glasses from outside at the party. The amber liquid in my glass caught the light from a nearby lamp, casting a warm glow, and my mouth watered in expectation and need. I held the whiskey, swirling it absentmindedly, contemplating the myriad thoughts that raged within me. The weight of past mistakes and lost opportunities hanging heavily across my shoulders.
I had heard everything that woman had said, and I had needed a moment to gather myself. To discard the blanket of guilt from my weary shoulders.
It wasn’t my fault.
Rocky’s death wasn’t my fault.
It was terrifying, how quickly I unshed myself of the burden of it, the conversation I had had with him playing differently now I had all the facts.
My cell had rung and I’d pulled it out of my cut, seeing that it was Rocky and expecting him to give me shit for not being at his house already. The seat of the bike was between my thighs, and I’d been looking forward to getting out on the open road and forgetting my problems for a day or two.
‘I’m on my way,’ I’d said as soon as I had answered.
‘Nah, brother, I’ve got this one covered. Go relax for the weekend.’
‘Are you sure?’
Rocky let out a devilish laugh. ‘I’ve got it covered; it’s no problem. Besides, I need to go see my other woman.’
I sucked on my teeth, uncertain. ‘JD had wanted two of us on this.’
Rocky laughed again. ‘Well, what he don’t know don’t matter. So just go have a drink or three on me. I need to sort out some shit. I’ve got the wife giving me shit over never being home, and the girlfriend giving me shit over never being with her…I’m in a lot of shit, but I shouldn’t complain,’ he laughed. ‘It’s a hard life being this wanted, brother.’
I stared down at the ground, feeling miserable. Feeling lonely. I knew he’d been cheating on his wife for years. Can’t say I blamed him, really; she wanted nothing to do with club life and all he talked about was how much shit she gave him for being part of the Kings. But at least he had someone, which was more than could be said for me. ‘Can’t say I can relate, brother.’
Rocky laughed again. ‘Sorry, my man. What can I do, though? These women love me.’
I looked around the empty street, really needing to get out of there. Get away from the dark thoughts swarming me, chasing me into my dreams.
‘Listen, Rocky, maybe I could still come. I need to get out of here for a day or two, maybe more. I’m not feeling too great right now.’
‘I hear you,’ Rocky said, his tone hardening, ‘but not tonight. Another time—soon. I’ll call you when I get back and we’ll arrange it. Go get a beer and keep this between us, all right?’
‘All right.’ I’d hung up.
I stepped off my bike but hadn’t made it to my front door. I couldn’t go inside; I knew what was waiting for me when I went in, and it was things I wasn’t ready to face yet. It was the past and the present and a lonely, empty future, all mixed up in one pot and seasoned with the screams of dead men.
So I’d gotten in my truck, and I had gone to the bar, and I had drunk myself into oblivion.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Dahlia walking toward me, and I blinked away the past and found myself back in the present. She moved through the room with an elegance that was purely her, her presence drawing my gaze like a beacon. My God but she was beautiful. My hands itched to touch her. My arms aching to grab her and hold her close.
She stopped beside me, sliding onto a seat, and without saying a word she reached across and took the drink right from my hand. I felt the knot in my chest loosen, the threads of despair slackening as she swallowed the whisky down in one long swallow and placed the glass to one side.
“No more of that, okay.” It wasn’t a question, and she wasn’t asking for a reply, but I nodded in agreement anyway. “You’re too good for it.”
I looked into her eyes and saw the promise of redemption, of a second chance. The whiskey was forgotten as I turned my full attention to her, the drink symbolizing the old wounds I was ready to leave behind.
“Did you know?” she asked, and I knew she was talking about the woman and kid outside. “Please be honest. I can’t take anymore lies.”
“About her, yeah, but not about his son.”
She nodded and sighed like she had just let go of something.
“I’m sorry, Dahl,” I said. “I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t.”
A small frown puckered between her eyes. “Why?”
“It wouldn’t have been for the right reason. It would have been for me, and not for you. The truth is, I want you to hate him,” I said honestly.
“I want to hate him too,” she replied. “Rocky’s death…it wasn’t your fault. I mean, it never was, not really, but it wasn’t the club’s fault either.”
“Yeah, I heard. It feels better to know that if I’m honest. Doesn’t change the fact he’s gone though.”
She nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”
We sat in companionable silence for a while, the sounds of Rocky’s goodbye party echoing into us as we sat and thought and sought comfort in each other’s presence. I slid my hand across and placed it on top of hers, and I waited with bated breath to see if she would push me away. When she didn’t, I felt something grow inside me. I wasn’t sure if it was hope, or something deeper, but it felt good to have something good fill my chest instead of the cold dead hands of men scratching at my insides for a change.
“Your brother,” she eventually said, and a shiver of grief ran down my spine, “I’m so sorry, Matt. I can’t imagine how hard this all must have been for you. All these years…carrying that around with you.”
My head felt heavy, the weight of her words like lead in my veins. My shoulders slumped and I lowered my head. My throat felt too tight, and my hands began to sweat. Memories of that night, that god-awful night…and then the night that followed. As always, when I thought about it, I looked at my hands. The hands of a cold-blooded killer. I didn’t expect redemption, not for what I had done, and the scars that covered my hands reminded me of the monster I was.
Dahlia squeezed my hand. “Hey, look at me, Matt.”
But I couldn’t. How could I look into her face and pretend I was anything but this? The man that I became that night as I beat them until my own muscles tore. As their teeth broke my skin. As I hit them so hard I felt their bones break and crumble beneath my fury. How could I look at the woman she was and hope that she saw the man that I had been?
I deserved no redemption.
I deserved loneliness.
She deserved better than either Rocky or I could ever give her.
She was good and pure, and I was nothing. And to think I could ever have more than nothing was a lie that I kept telling myself to keep me on this earth. But there was nothing to keep me here now. Sebastion was gone; I had put the final nail in his coffin…
Grief came out of me in slow, tortuous waves, and I didn’t recognize that I was crying until I felt her arms around me. The warmth of her body against mine made it both worse and better. It gave me comfort where I knew I should feel none. It gave me hope where I knew I wasn’t worthy. It made me believe that maybe the impossible could be possible.
“I can’t…” I tried to shrug away from her, but she held on fiercely, refusing to let me go.
“It’s okay, Matty, I’ve got you,” she whispered against my cheeks, my nickname spilling from her lips like liquid gold.
My shoulders shook as the guilt and the grief and the monster left me. The poison of pain expunging itself from every crevice of my body and molding itself into something more manageable while Dahlia kissed my cheek, held me close, and promised me that it would all be okay.
When it was done and it felt like the demons had left me—at least for now, I looked up into her face. Her goddamn beautiful face that had been dreaming about for twenty years. A face that I had missed looking at. Lips I had missed kissing. Eyes that I had missed looking into. I dragged my hands down my face, and I wished that I could be a different man for her. But the years had changed me, morphed me. We weren’t those same two kids, young and in love. We were full grown now, and we were burdened by out pasts and forever changed by the decisions we had both made.
“Let’s go back to the party,” she said, placing another kiss on the side of my face.
I stared at her in confusion. “You hate this club…and Rocky’s kid…he’s out there, Dahl.”
She gave me a sad smile. “I know. And that’s okay. Maybe everything worked out exactly how it should have all along. You have to believe that these things happen for a reason, Matt. Or, what do they call you?” she laughed.
A small smile played at the corner of my mouth. “Bear.”
She nodded knowingly as she looked me up and down. “Bear. I think I know now why they call you that.”
We laughed together, memories of our time at the cabin playing through both of our minds. The door to the back yard swung open and Tex came inside. He looked at us both, something like recognition crossing his face, and he let out a long whistle.
“’Bout time someone made him smile,” he said. He headed to the bar and grabbed a couple of bottles from below. “For the record,” he said, looking between us two, “I only ever meant to stick around for a week or two, and look at me now—couple a years in and I still ain’t gone nowhere.”
He started back across the room, bottles in hand, his guitar slung across his back.
Dahlia looked at me in confusion and I shrugged, having no clue what he was talking about.
“Talking in riddles, my friend,” I called after him.
Tex spun on his heel to look at us. “What I’m sayin’ is that when you find your family it’s hard to say goodbye. Don’t matter how or what brought you to them, you’ll always belong.” And with that he turned and left again.
Dahlia let out a laugh. “He’s a gem.”
“Ain’t he just,” I replied, laughing with her.
“Listen, I know you hate this club,” I said to her, seriously.
“I do,” she agreed, “but—,”
“But, babe, they’re my family. They’ve been here for me through it all.”
I sounded desperate and I knew it but it couldn’t end like this. I didn’t want it to. I’d had to give her up once, and I wasn’t sure I could do it a second time. I had lost everyone I had ever loved, and it seemed unjust that after everything, I would still end up alone.
Fuck that, I decided.
Fuck the stars that pushed us apart.
Fuck fate who ran the course of my life alongside my demons.
Fuck destiny who strove to distance me from her.
Fuck it all.
It was time to choose for myself. Time to make my own destiny. Time to forge a future that I wanted, despite everything that had happened. And maybe that was what it had been about all along. About choosing for yourself. Fate, destiny…it could only take you so far, after that you had to decide for yourself.
My future was what I made it. It was in my bloodied, broken hands.
I stood up, towering over the woman I had loved with every inch of my being for as far back as I could remember. I looked down at her and took her hand in mine, and I brought it to my lips, kissing the back of it.
“I fuckin’ love you, Dahlia. I have always loved you. And whatever happens, I will always love you. I don’t know what the future holds for you or for me, but I know that I’ll never walk away from you again. You want me to go, then you’re shit out of luck, because I’m going nowhere. I’m going to be here, protecting you and loving you for the rest of my days.” I took a deep breath, “and if you want me out of the club, then I’ll do it.”
Did I mean it? Yeah.
Did I want to do that? Hell no.
But she was worth everything.
She looked at me seriously for long moments, and I waited for the guillotine to drop on my neck. “Well, that’s good to know.”
A smile climbed her face, and I could breathe again.
“Why’s that?”
“Because maybe I don’t hate them so much anymore. And maybe I could have family with them too.”
Her words were the nectar to a dying man.
“And you know what else?” she said, her smile flirtatious.
“What?” I asked, tugging her soft body against my hard one.
“I fucking love you too, Bear.”
I leaned down, finally doing what I had wanted to do since the day that I had seen her in the clubhouse—I kissed her. Her lips parted for me and the kiss deepened. My hands were on her waist as I kissed her like it was the first time and the last time.
And then I kissed her like we had all the time in the world.
Because maybe we did.
I didn’t know what the future held for a man like me, but for the first time in twenty years, at least I felt like I had a future worth living for.