Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
G enesis…
I had been surprised at his suggestions for building out the patio and planting things above the garage. It was nice though – like he was just picking on something to prove to me that he wanted to and he was all in on this… which was nice .
I had told him how I’d felt pretty unseen most of my life growing up, and how it’s always been the same with the men I’d dated in the past. How they’d always talked a good game and told me what I wanted to hear, but they never felt fully present with me in the relationship.
Chainsaw was wholly different. I hadn’t known what to expect, but it was nice discussing plants and design ideas and all of that as we wandered through the French Market and had some lunch nearby in the Quarter.
That afternoon, we’d ridden to the club and he’d bypassed the colorfully muraled fence around the side to the back, and the warehouse that was undergoing quite the renovations. One of which had Cypress on one of the old loading docks, welding something.
I turned from the bright glare of spitting sparks to protect my eyes because light from a welding machine, even with sunglasses on, could be damaging to your eyesight.
He stopped and lifted the face screen on his welding helmet to look at us when we rolled up by the stairs leading up to a regular doorway into the building.
“How goes it?” Chainsaw called out.
“Aw, you know – damn thing’s bein’ a son of a bitch – but I got all the Cajun ingenuity and it ain’t beat me yet!” he called back.
“Mind if I take a look, babe?” he asked me, and I smiled and shook my head.
“Not at all, go ahead,” I said.
“Hex and them should be inside,” he said, and he kissed me, then sent me in the direction of the steps up to the double glass doors at the top.
I went in, and whoa, it was not what I expected in here.
“Wow.” I looked up into the high soaring ceilings up above and the way that the walls were going up as Hex walked over.
“Well, hiya!” he called.
“Hi, Chainsaw’s outside, helping Cypress,” I said.
“Hey, our castle is your castle, Doc. Come on in and have a look!”
The place was impressive, a bar going in to make a tasting room out here, but in back, where the loading docks were?
They were making big changes. There were four, and the two that Chainsaw and Cypress were working on were being retrofitted to take new doors with glass panels, where a big deck would be built out from it to entertain on.
A wall was going up past them, cutting off the back works of the distillery – the two loading docks on that side, remaining in use for trucks to come and go, taking deliveries and shipments to and fro from the building.
Giant copper stills were in the back and were assembled and ready to go by the looks of things.
Saint was on a ladder, a milk crate with spray paint cans hanging from a rope and pulley system next to him, as he worked on a big mural along the cement wall at the back of the building, and it was impressive, so far – a scene of the swamp and of colorful characters that looked to be straight out of voodoo legend.
“I’m sensing a theme,” I said, smiling, and Hex winked.
“Good eye,” he said.
I got the grand tour, Chainsaw joining us a little while later, having successfully troubleshooted the door weld with Cypress.
It was nice, the plans they had and how they were carefully using the money from Cor’s settlement with the state to build everything, but still taking on the majority of the work themselves to save as much as possible to bring Ancient Spirits to life.
Their bottle label art, the theme of their alcohols, all of it was sourced from their own talent pool.
The recipes for the shine had come from Hex, the artwork was from Saint, the build was all of them together.
Bennie was running the books, Collier was putting in the work as the master distiller, and getting it all right to satisfy the liquor board.
It was an incredible team effort.
“Your man there wired this whole place for our needs,” Hex declared, and I had kind of figured.
“Definitely worlds apart from line work, but electricity is electricity,” Chainsaw said with a shrug.
“It’s coming along beautifully,” I said.
“It takes up a lot of our spare time, just about every drop, but it’ll be worth it,” Hex said, looking over everything like a proud papa.
“I can only imagine,” I murmured.
“Soon as we get the liquor going, we got some weeks before this can all be finished off, but we’re getting there,” Chainsaw said, hugging me into his side and kissing my temple.
“Seems you’ve got the building and creating bug,” I said, and he chuckled. My thoughts certainly hadn’t been far from all the talk of making my patio into a nice little oasis to relax on.
“Speaking of which, I got some shit to check and we can be on our way, yeah?” Chainsaw looked at me, and I looked at him, nodding happily.
“Bet,” I said, and he let me go and went up a flight of stairs at the back to what looked like some kind of office or control room at the far back corner.
Hex looked me over. “Ain’t never seen Chainsaw take to a lady the way he’s taken to you,” he said.
I nodded and said, “I feel the same way about him.”
He nodded, “Just checkin’.”
I smiled at him and nodded knowingly, and he gave me a wink.
In a brotherhood such as an MC, it wasn’t always sunshine and roses. It was a hard life spent threading the needle, or more accurately, splitting lanes between two worlds. Usually equally as dangerous.
I wasn’t a fool. I knew the price to be paid, loving a man like Chainsaw. I thought that I never wanted something like this, but the longer I was away from it, the more I found myself longing for a love that felt like home.
I wasn’t sure if that made me a fool or not.
Right now, I was splitting lanes myself, between past and present, blazing my own trail into an unknown future, but one that I wanted and was so easy to picture with Chainsaw, it wasn’t even funny.
We hung out a bit longer, then called it a day with the plan to go grab something for dinner on the way back to the house. Neither of us really felt like cooking, and lunch had been light.
We stopped at an Italian place, the food rich and delicious and family-owned.
I was pretty sure it was family -owned, as in run by the mob – and said nothing when the manager, who carried the same last name as the hand-painted classic gold lettering on the door, stopped by our table at the end of the meal with complimentary spumoni ice cream for dessert.
I said nothing and pretended I didn’t see when he leaned down to clap Chainsaw on the back, and a manila envelope with a brick of cash was slipped from the inside pocket of the manager’s suit jacket to the inside pocket of Chainsaw’s cut.
It bothered me, sure, but I wasn’t sure the business itself between the club and this place is what got to me, as much as the fact that Chainsaw would do it right in front of me. Usually, that stuff was kept harder on the down-low… at least it had been when I was growing up.
I remember the time one of my “uncles” had me ride my bike down to the corner store and collect an envelope like that.
When my mother found out about it, she had had a screaming fit and had called the prison where my father was.
She’d gone down to it for an in-person visit the next week and had gone without us, which my brother, River, had been pissed about that.
Usually, he and I were close, but he had gotten downright savagely angry with me for telling Mom and making it so we couldn’t go see Dad. He’d told me, when it came to things like that, to keep my mouth shut , but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to get caught doing anything bad – I
“Hey.” I snapped out of my memory when Chainsaw’s hand covered mine.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
I forced a cheerful smile and told the truth, “I just remembered something, is all… Can we talk about it later? At home?”
He nodded and said, “Sure, babe. We can talk about whatever you want, whatever you need, whenever and wherever you want. Thanks for letting me know.”
I nodded, relieved, but still dreaded the conversation anyway.
I was quiet and a bit nervous on the ride home.
I didn’t want this to be our first fight – but I did need to establish some boundaries about some things.
I was afraid he’d pitch a fit, or wouldn’t listen, but almost as soon as we got in the door and locked out the outside world, he caught me by the waist and turned me to face him.
“Okay, we’re home. You wanna tell me what that was about?”
I took a deep breath and told him about the childhood memory, about how to this day it had affected me, and I set the boundary.
“I can respect your life, and what it is you guys are doing or not doing, as the case may be – but please, when it comes to anything like that again, just not in my presence if we can help it?”
He searched my face, amused, and nodded slowly.
“Okay, first of all, I owe you an apology.” He was earnest in the way he looked at me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I needed to pick up the rest of my payment, and I’m sorry I didn’t explain that nothing underhanded was going on there.
I know how it looked, but I was legit just getting the rest of my pay.
And yeah, it was under the table, but I took down a storm-damaged tree in the yard of Tony’s Nonna’s house, and I did it on the side, and as a favor at an extremely cut-rate.
It was all above board – it was just enough money we didn’t need to go flashing it around.
While I won’t deny the club sometimes does other not-so-above-board shit for their family and its establishment? It wasn’t this time.”
I relaxed my shoulders and said, “Now I feel like an asshole.”
He laughed and shook his head.
“No, baby. I get how you grew up, and that shit could, would, and did get sticky for your dad and his brothers, and that the shit spilled over onto his family and such. What you’re asking isn’t a big ask. You got a lot riding on staying under the radar for any of our dealings.”
“I worked really hard to become a doctor,” I said and scrubbed my face with my hands.
“I know.” He pulled me in and hugged me tight, and I wrapped my arms around him, too. I rested my head on his chest and sighed.
“You’re not mad at me?” I asked, and he kissed the top of my head.
“Not about this, no.”
“Offended?” I asked.
“Nope, not that either.”
“Anything else bad?”
He chuckled and said, “Nope, we’re all good, baby.”
I closed my eyes and sighed with relief.
“I was really worried we might be about to have our first fight.”
“Naw.” He shook his head. “That’d be some really stupid shit for me to get upset about.
I totally understand the optics, and I think it’s good we adopt a policy now that nothing gets said in public, on the phone, or any other shit like that.
If you want or need to know, all you ever need to do is ask me – but in person and here at home. How’s that sound?”
I nodded and looked up at him. “Agreed, any time something comes up that might have to do with your world—” I stopped, frowned, and said, “Well, that world, we just say ‘talk about it at home,’ does that sound about right?”
“Sounds perfect,” he said. “Thank you for not getting pissy and for waiting until we got home to talk.”
I laughed a little at that and said, “Did we just adult? Like, were we just the adultiest adults of all time?”
He grinned slowly and said, “I think we were, yeah.”
I smiled back and we just gravitated toward one other and kissed, which was ruined by Charlie and his incessant yowling and twining around our legs hoping for his dinner.