9. Chapter 9
BLUE
Aaron: Tell me you’re okay.
Aaron: Won’t stop textin’ ’til you respond.
Aaron: Can’t sleep not knowin’ if you’re hurtin’ or safe.
Aaron: Can’t breathe either.
What had possessed me to give Aaron my number?
I’d known he would abuse the connection, and honestly, I’d wanted him to. The phone was a burner, one I hid in the lining of my mattress and only checked before bed and after waking up every day. But the idea of having a connection with him again, a tangible lifeline to tug at when I felt like I was drowning, was too good to pass up.
And so Aaron had my number, and even though I tried to keep my distance, I fell victim to his charm within days.
Blue: I’m alive. I’m not exactly safe because the Raiders are assholes, and I’m hurting, but it’s mostly inside my chest.
Aaron: You miss me.
I laughed under my breath as I sat cross-legged in my little twin bed at the farmhouse.
Blue: I missed my ring. Thank you for finding it.
Aaron: Ask me anythin’ and you shall receive.
Aaron: Speakin’ of askin’ for somethin’, meet me.
God, I wanted to see him again.
The brief sight of him outside the back door had been too terrifying to process properly. I could still feel the rough texture of his calloused hand against mine through the screen door, the jagged edges of wire digging into my skin when he broke through the partition to reach for me.
It was such a little gesture, but it made my throat ache because I thought Aaron might not let anything get between us if I’d let him come for me. That he might really take on all the horrors of my reality to get to me again.
He’d seemed more than willing to go on a suicide mission through the house after seeing the bruises on my face.
But it was so much more complicated than wanting each other.
Whatever connection we’d forged, he didn’t know me, not really.
More than that, he didn’t know how cruel and ruthless Rooster, Hazard, and this lot could be.
Just last night, they’d returned home from a ride with a man in the back of a grey van. I could hear them torturing him in the barn through my open bedroom window late into the night.
When I woke up at dawn and looked outside, Jerky was sagging under the weight of a canvas-wrapped body slung over his shoulder.
I wanted to help Aaron and his club, but asking Aaron to get involved with me in secret, giving him leeway to insert himself in my life in a dangerous way, was not the way to do it.
So…
Blue: No. This is all we can have, and even then…we should keep our distance. I’m not joking around. Talking to me is dangerous.
Aaron: Your husband wouldn’t like it? Good. I don’t give a fuck.
Blue: Hazard is still in Calgary for now. But Rooster would kill you for touching me, and the rest of them would too, just to follow his orders.
Aaron: Some things are worth dyin’ for, Blue.
Blue: Yeah, trust me, I’m not one of them.
I put the phone back in my hiding place after triple-checking it was on silent.
Not a moment too soon either because the door crashed open without ceremony, and Rooster was there, chewing tobacco and staring at me as if he couldn’t understand why I was still in my pajamas at seven in the morning.
“You’re lookin’ good enough to start workin’,” he declared finally.
“Okay,” I agreed, too quickly because I’d been waiting for the go-ahead. Rooster didn’t like me out in public after a beating because people were ‘nosy cunts who ask too many damn questions.’
I’d already looked up nearby salons, and I still had a copy of my résumé saved in my inbox.
“Want you workin’ at Eugene’s Bar out off the Sea to Sky beyond Entrance,” he grunted, moving to my little closet to check out my clothes.
He’d moved me in the moment I could get out of bed without groaning. He could probably keep better track of me when I was surrounded by the eyes of the club instead of just his own.
“I’m a certified cosmetologist now. I can make good money working in a salon,” I said, trying to keep my tone light so it didn’t seem like I was arguing with him.
He snorted, gaze skirting over me like I was discarded trash. It made me shiver and hug my arms over my heavy, braless breasts. “What the fuck is that? Some kind’a beautician?”
“Yeah, kinda. I can do hair, makeup, and nails really well. I want to get into giving facials too––” I was cut off by fabric hitting me in the face as Rooster threw something at me.
“No. Eugene’s is a well-known biker bar and outlaw hotspot in the area. We could use a girl like you keepin’ her ears open there. We got a sponsor willin’ to back our takeover of The Fallen, but they want it done quick.”
“Who?” I asked before I curbed my curiosity.
Rooster was on me in a second, thick hand wrapped around my throat, squeezing so hard the pressure ached behind my eyes and my voice box felt crushed. His eyes, the same shade of blue as mine but bloodshot and filled with malice, were an inch from mine as he sneered into my face.
“You forget yourself already, kid?” he asked. “Do not question me.”
My hands raised to his, scrambling to peel them off as I fought for air. I tried to nod, but his hold was too tight.
He stared into my eyes for a long moment until I was sure I was turning blue, and then released me so I fell back to the bed with a gasp. My throat ached so badly I honestly wondered if he’d broken something.
“You do as you're told without askin’ dumb questions. Get a job at Eugene’s and make yourself useful until Hazard gets here. He might decide then to keep you home and get you makin’ some kids like you shoulda been doin’ the last eight years.”
He tossed another garment at me––a denim skirt––and then left as abruptly as he’d come in.
I lay there for a few minutes, struggling to breathe through the twin clutch of pain and panic still collared around my neck.
But eventually, I got up, pulled on the cropped shirt and little jean skirt Rooster had pulled out for me, and dragged myself to the bathroom. My reflection showed a woman I hadn’t seen in years, if ever. My usually healthy complexion was sallow, tinted green and yellow from fading bruises on the left side of my face. I needed to refresh the blue dye and resolved to find somewhere to have it done in town. Until then, I could do something about the ugly, unhappy face staring back at me.
As I opened my glittery blue toolkit and assembled the tools of my trade, I tried to focus on one task at a time so the tears trembling in the lower troughs of my lids wouldn’t ruin my canvas. Primer for staying power, foundation to even out my pale complexion, and concealer to hide the lingering bruises. Bronzer, blush, and highlighter made my features come back to life, if only artificially, and the addition of smoky eye shadow and a pink lipstick made my best features pop.
When I was finished, you couldn’t even tell the girl looking back at me was a shell of her former self.
She looked…beautiful.
Tears trembled, and I caught one on my thumb carefully so it wouldn’t ruin the illusion.
“You’re beautiful,” I told myself, my voice temporarily roughened by Rooster’s abuse.
Ugly, stupid bitch ! Rooster’s voice yelled in my mind’s ear.
“You’re beautiful,” I said again, and this time, I let myself imagine Aaron.
The way he’d looked at me, a little shocked and awed, the way he’d touched me in that stolen car, like I was more precious than the stolen jewels in the back.
Not ’cause you’re damn pretty, Blue, ’cause a man like me knows pretty girls. Nah, the sight’a you knocked the air straight from my chest ’cause a pretty girl with a sweet smile was mannin’ a gas station in the middle’a the night on a dangerous stretch’a highway, and I thought, this girl doesn’t have anyone in her life to tell her not to risk herself like this. She’s fightin’ and clawin’ for everythin’ she’s got, and what she’s got is no one. And, Blue baby, that sucker punched me. A girl like you should have a whole army’a family at your back keepin’ ya safe and makin’ ya promises they always intend to fuckin’ keep.
I closed my eyes as I recited those words back to myself, forever carved into my bones in a way I’d never forget.
When I opened them, I recognized the girl in the mirror again. She was the confidant, plucky woman I’d cultivated for eight years. The girl who wasn’t ashamed to love girly things and my soft curves. The girl who used makeup and hair and clothes like both an armour and a canvas to show the world exactly who I wanted to be.
Brave, bold, beautiful.
The kind of woman who could hook a man like Aaron Clare through the heart in one miraculous night.
Before leaving the house, I didn’t resist the urge to grab my hidden phone and stick it into the back of my short blue cowboy boot. Even if I didn’t text him again that day, knowing he was within reach made me feel like I could get through my day.
“Why?”
I blinked at the huge, rough-hewn man looming over the counter from behind the bar, his massive arms bulging beneath the plaid shirt, his dark grey eyes narrowed on me.
For a barkeep, he wasn’t very friendly.
“Um, because I need a job?” I suggested with a little shrug and what I hoped was a pretty grin. “And I’ve got experience serving, so I figured, why not ask here.”
“You figured,” he repeated dryly, his expression entirely unimpressed.
When I’d asked a pretty server to speak to the manager, I hadn’t expected this man. He hadn’t even introduced himself.
He was rude, but honestly, I’d fallen in love with Eugene’s the second I stepped foot in the long, low building on the side of the Sea to Sky Highway. It was retro in a way that wasn’t trying to be cool or hipster. Dark wood everywhere, neon signs and old biker paraphernalia on the walls, a small stage to the right of the huge U-shaped bar with some space for dancing before high top tables. The right corner was made up of booths and short tables, the tops scarred by time and a few choice etchings from visitors. A jukebox was lit up against one wall, the sounds of old-school rock crackling over the speakers. It smelled like spilled beer and maraschino cherries, like leather and seasoned wood.
I would have spent the rest of my life inside those four walls and been happy.
It was cool as shit, and the people drinking there at eleven in the morning were cool too—a handful of bikers who probably hadn’t gone to bed yet from the night before and a collection of pretty women crowded around two tables in the far corner.
“Listen,” I said because I had the feeling this grumpy barkeep was a straight shooter. “I need the work. You don’t want to give me a job, fine, but don’t play dumb here. This place is the tits, and if you don’t think I’d fit in, just say so, okay? I’ve had a long day, and it’s only eleven.”
The manager stared at me implacably for another moment before a tiny hairline fracture appeared around his mouth. A facsimile of a smile.
“Well,” he grunted, straightening those tree trunk arms so his palms lay flat on the counter, the tattoos on the backs of his hands clear to see. “Let me get you the paperwork, then.”
I huffed out an incredulous laugh. “Are you serious?”
He cocked a brow. “Don’t lose your gumption now. A girl pretty as you wants to work here, she’s gotta have mettle.”
“So you being a dick was a test?” I asked, shocked into sincerity.
He chuckled, a short, sharp bark of humour. “Nah, I’m a dick all the time. But it’s good to know you can handle it ’cause the clientele here can be vicious. This isn’t some Denny’s, you get me? We get serious shit in here.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not little red, and you’re hardly the first big bad wolf I’ve ever met. I can handle some rude or grumpy bikers.”
He pursued full lips, pale pink framed by a dark beard, and if I hadn’t met Aaron first, I might have found him wildly attractive.
“Eugene,” he said finally, sticking out a huge hand for me to shake. His grip was cool and calloused against mine.
“I would’ve taken you for a Bullet or Hammer,” I said, taking a stab that he was either former military or an ex-con, two sects of men who always had absurd, oddly fitting monikers.
His smile flattened into a sharp line, gaze glazing over as if looking into the past. “Had another name a long time ago. Doesn’t suit anymore so, I’m Eugene.”
“I get that,” I said, my voice softening as I recognized the familiar stamp of tragedy on his features. “My name was Faith, but now…” I thought of Aaron calling me his Blue baby. “Now, I like to be called Blue.”
Something sharpened in Eugene’s gaze, but he nodded, and I realized when he dropped my hand that we had been holding each other’s grip a little too long.
“Blue,” he said the word like it had a taste and it was sweet. “I’ll get you that paperwork.”
He knocked his knuckles against the bar top and disappeared.
A moment later, someone slid onto the stool beside me, and when I turned to face them, I found a gorgeous Asian woman staring at me contemplatively.
“Um, hello?” I asked when she didn’t say anything for a moment.
Her grin was a quick flash of small, sharp teeth, almost vulpine. “Hey. I’m Mei.”
“Blue,” I indicated myself, then let my hand fall to the bar a little self-consciously.
Across the room in the corner with the group of beautiful women, someone laughed and then was abruptly hushed.
“You’re stunning,” Mei said, almost matter-of-factly, kind of bored by it. “Did you do your own hair and makeup?”
I fingered the curled ends of my hair at my collarbone and nodded. “I don’t colour it myself, and it needs a refresh, but yeah. I actually do makeup, hair, and nails for a living.”
“No shit,” Mei exclaimed, dark eyes sparkling. I was surprised she was so into it, given that she didn’t look like she was wearing more than mascara and had that kind of fabulous sleek, straight hair that didn’t require much maintenance.
“Shit,” I said with a little grin and listened to her laughter.
“Well, my man’s stepmum runs one of the best beauty salons nearby. Lin’s Beauty Emporium, have you heard of it?”
I blinked because, yes, I had. It was one of the places I wanted to apply before Rooster forced me to work here.
“Yeah, I-I have. I was actually going to take a peek at it later today.”
Mei clapped her hands, but her grin was too calculated for true surprise. “What a coincidence, I was going to head over there, too. You’re new around here, right? Why don’t we go together?”
Eugene’s bark of laughter caught me by surprise and made me jump. He’d appeared silently in front of me, slapping the paperwork on the wood for me while he shot Mei a bemused look.
“What’s with the voice?” he asked.
Mei narrowed her eyes at him, and the expression seemed to suit her features more than the saccharine smile she’d leveled my way. “Why don’t you mind your own business, Eugene?”
“My bar,” he retorted. “Therefore, it’s inherently my fuckin’ business.”
Mei’s glower deepened, and she muttered, “Touché.”
“What’s with the happy-go-lucky shtick?” he continued, crossing his arms across his barrel chest. “You and Bea decide to swap personalities for the day or somethin’?”
Mei blew a raspberry through her lips and threw her hands in the air. “Jesus, Eugene, it’s called being friendly . You should try it sometime.”
“Like you’re such an expert,” he quipped, but a little twitch in his mouth said he enjoyed this kind of banter.
Her sigh was beleaguered. “You know, I was trying to do my good deed of the year, and you totally ruined it.”
“Good deed?” I asked because as much as I was enjoying the exchange, I was tired of being lost.
Mei winced and gave me a weak smile. “Uh, I may have recognized you from that night at the clubhouse when Boner brought you over? We didn’t meet officially, but my Old Man is Axe-Man, or Axe as you used to know him, and Boner is an idiot, but I love him, so I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Mei…” Eugene said like a warning.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Fine! Boner may have mentioned that you had a cosmetology certification, and Axe-Man may have mentioned Lin was looking for someone at the salon.” She shrugged.
“So…you were, like, waiting for me to show up?” I asked, confused because there was no way she could have known I would be there that morning.
“It was actually just a coincidence,” she admitted. “Boner and I were still working out how I might run into you. He thought the grocery store, but I figured maybe the mall? And, uh, I hate shopping, so I didn’t relish the idea of just hanging out in a mall all the time until you showed up. He should’ve asked Bea because she loves shopping and she’s friendly as hell, but she’s super pregnant, and Priest basically isn’t letting her out of his sight. Besides, I’m the one with the connection to Lin’s, so…”
She stopped talking because I was laughing.
I couldn’t seem to stop.
God, Aaron Clare was fucking wonderful .
Mei and Eugene shared a look but let me have my slightly hysterical giggle. I wiped a tear from my eye, careful of my liner.
“He’s crazy,” I said finally. “I can’t believe you agreed to do that.”
Sincere kindness softened the edges of Mei’s precisely drawn features, and when she spoke, her tone was deeper and filled with warmth. “I’d do anything for Boner, and I know he’d do anything for me. That’s the way our crew works. It’s a ride-or-die kinda loyalty.”
My lips twisted instantly. “I know people like to say that, but c’mon, no one wants to die for anyone else. Hardly anyone is that selfless.”
Mei stared at me for a long moment as emotions worked behind her eyes.
“I could tell you a lot of stories about The Fallen that prove different, but they aren’t mine to tell. I’ll only say this; Boner took a knife to the gut for me and the Old Ladies without hesitating. I was abducted and buried alive, but the club saved me. You know what the first thing Boner said to me when I saw him after that? ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there diggin’ with the others to keep you outta the ground.’ And I know, if they’d let him, Boner would’ve been digging next to the others even as he bled out if it meant keeping me alive.”
A chasm cracking open at my center made me shudder as if someone had ripped out the backbone of my life. I felt unbalanced by the hope that filled the bloody cavern. Longing tasted like acid on the back of my tongue.
Mei reached over to touch my clenched hand on the counter, her fingers light against the faint bruise marks I hadn’t thought were dark enough to conceal on the inside of my wrist.
“If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that heroes come in all shapes and sizes, but the best heroes are the ones who are a little tarnished themselves. It means they’re literally willing to do anything to keep the people they care about safe. It means they can understand a little of the hell you’ve been through.”
“You’re saying Boner’s like that,” I murmured, my voice lost to the chaos of emotions wreaking havoc on my insides.
“I’m saying they are all like that,” she corrected softly. “And it extends to the women, too. We take care of our own at all costs.” She paused, wrapping her hand around my wrist so that her fingertips matched the bruise points, and I shivered at the gentleness of the touch against the cruelty of the one that left those marks.
I sucked in a shivery breath, trying to get myself under control. I wasn’t usually so emotional, but being back with Rooster was a daily barrage against my mental health, and then being infrequently faced with the blinding kindness of Aaron and his family was almost too much to bear.
“You’ve just gotta let us,” she whispered, looking from me to Eugene, who flinched imperceptibly at the implication, scowled fiercely, and then turned on his booted heel to check on a man at the other end of the bar.
“You don’t know him,” I told her quietly. “I had a crush on a boy when I was thirteen, and Rooster found out. The kid wasn’t at school the next day because he’d been a victim of a hit-and-run. Ten broken bones. Rooster sat on the edge of my bed while I cried and told me the only important men in my life were him and his club.”
Mei’s expression tightened, and I winced as her grip did on my wrist.
“I can’t imagine what he would do to Aaron for getting involved in my life,” I admitted. “And I’ve lain awake thinking about it at night. I grew up in the club, Mei. I know what happens to traitors and enemies. I’ve heard them tortured, seen them maimed, watched them beg on their knees in front of Rooster only to have him put a bullet between their eyes. There’s nothing romantic about dying at his hand. Not for love and loyalty and certainly not for me .”
“In my experience, people have a much better idea of our own worth than we do ourselves. I struggled for a long time, thinking I didn’t deserve love, and I was a much worse person when I shunned it. I’ll probably never think I’m good enough for Henning Axelsen because he’s the best man I’ve ever known. But it makes him happy to love me, and God knows it makes me happy to let him and love him right back.” She shrugged. “Something to consider.”
“You don’t know me.” The words were filled with the frustration that bubbled and churned where Rooster’s lifelong abuse met Aaron and the Entrance chapter of The Fallen MC’s kindness. My gut hissed and churned like the Bermuda Triangle, thoughts drowning in the riptides. “Not you and not Aaron.”
No one! my conscience screamed. No one knows you, and no one ever will because he won’t let them .
“No,” Mei agreed, sliding from the stool to her combat boots. “But I’ve got trust issues a mile wide, and Eugene hates just about everyone he meets, and yeah, Boner might have told us about you, but you wouldn’t have a job here, and I wouldn’t be offering to take you to meet Lin if we didn’t think you were worth knowing after only a few minutes of talking to you.”
She turned and started walking to the door. Distantly, I noted that her almost ethereal beauty was contrasted by ripped black skinny jeans and a paint-splattered Streek Ink Tattoo tee she’d cut off at the sleeves and hem to reveal her toned arms and belly. She looked like some kind of kick-ass avenging angel.
And I wanted to go with her more than my next breath.
Toward Lin’s Beauty Emporium and my dream job, toward a group of people who embodied the kind of loyalty I’d only ever dreamed about, toward Aaron and the safe, passionate security of his arms.
But I thought of Grouch after Rooster had let him go, broken nose and orbital socket, eye swollen closed, shoulder dislocated, the fingers of his left hand crushed by some kind of tool. He’d been broken, sobbing as Rooster tossed him his keys with a vague threat not to go to the cops and took off.
And he was just a civilian.
Not part of the club Rooster hatred through to his marrow.
Mei realized I wasn’t following her and turned, cocking her head for a moment before extending her hand to me. “Come on, Blue. You don’t have to see Aaron, and you don’t have to take the job if you don’t want it. Just come get your nails done with me.” She showed me the chipped black polish on her bitten-down nails and winced. “You know you don’t want to be responsible for me staying like this.”
A breathless laugh left me. “They are tragic.”
“That’s not the first time someone’s said that about me, believe it or not,” she joked, wiggling her fingers at me. “You’re going to give me a complex if you don’t take my fucking hand. I’m not usually the touchy-feely type, and I can’t face the rejection.”
I laughed again because I could see how she and Aaron would get along, her sharp sarcasm and his teasing charm. I thought I might pay all the money I’d buried in a lockbox in the backyard of the Raider’s clubhouse to spend just half an hour with them.
So I sucked in a breath, reminded myself that I was bold and brave, and stood to take Mei’s hand. It was warm in mine, small but strong.
And the smile she gave me, a true one that made a dimple pop in one cheek, was worth the effort.