7. Braxton
Chapter seven
Braxton
Iwasn’t planning on following Vanessa to New York.
Shit, I had no idea she was even in New York.
The last thing I wanted to do when I came back to the clubhouse at lunch was drive over two hours away.
But when Vanessa hadn’t shown back up an hour after I got back, I checked the location on the tracker I installed on her car when I changed the oil.
This girl has a history of running, and I wanted to be able to find her if she did that shit again.
“How in the hell are you here?” She stomps to where I’m standing next to her car and places her fist on her hip. I’ve only been here about fifteen minutes. I was going to see if she came out. And if she didn’t, I was going to start blowing up her phone and knocking on doors if that’s what it took.
She doesn’t necessarily owe me any explanations or permission to leave the clubhouse, but when I saw where she was headed, I thought for sure she was running.
“Who lives here?” I ask. “Your ex?”
Her head rears back. “That’s none of your business.”
“Vanessa, if that piece of shit has been harassing you, and you haven’t told me—”
“My mom and sister, asshole. I haven’t seen or heard from my ex. A friend told me he skipped town because he owed some people money. As far as I know, he’s in the wind. That’s why I knew it was safe to come home for a visit.”
“That’s good news, at least,” I reply, feeling slightly relieved that he’s out of the picture.
Vanessa crosses her arms, and I’m a special kind of asshole because my eyes immediately zero in on her tits that are pushed up under her thin T-shirt.
“You still haven’t answered my question. How are you here?”
“I rode here,” I reply, nodding at my bike parked in front of her little sedan.
She drops her arms and closes the distance between us. “Move,” she says when we’re standing nearly chest to chest.
“Okay, okay.” I hold up both hands in surrender. “I put a tracking device on your car.”
“You…you put a tracking device on my car?” she yells.
“I needed to make sure you were safe, Vanessa. As far as I knew, your ex, who had beaten you to hell, was out there and still wanted to hurt you.”
She narrows her eyes. “We need to have a serious discussion about overstepping boundaries, Braxton.”
“I won’t apologize for wanting to make sure you’re safe.
” Even if my reasoning was a little more involved than what I told her.
Judging by her reaction, I’m glad I omitted the whole truth.
That even though she’s healed and back to work, I don’t want her taking off.
Hell, I don’t want her leaving the clubhouse and hope to hell that there’re no available apartments for a while back in Shine.
But that means she might decide to bail entirely, like I was worried she was doing today.
“The second we get back to Shine, you’re taking it out,” she says, poking her slim finger into my chest.
I grab her finger and bring her hand to my mouth, kissing the back of it. “That’s fair.”
She narrows her eyes then rolls them, letting out a frustrated growl. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”
“Well…since I know you don’t work tonight or tomorrow, I was thinking about having a night in New York. Maybe get a hotel room and grab some dinner. We could even say hi to Clyde.”
Vanessa arches her brow and studies me for a moment. “Spend the night in New York? With you? After you just admitted to basically stalking me?”
“No, not stalking, sweetheart. Call it…aggressive concern.”
The woman in front of me opens and closes her mouth a few times before she shakes her head. “You’re something else, Braxton…actually, I don’t know your last name.” Vanessa looks away. “Jesus, and we’ve been sleeping together,” she mumbles more to herself than me.
I smile and gently turn her face back to mine. “Reynolds.”
“Mine is Krain, but you probably already knew that, considering I work for the club.”
“I did know that.” After realizing I didn’t know her last name when I saw her at Midnight Rose that first night, I looked up her file. “Do you feel a little better having told me yourself?”
Vanessa tilts her head to the side. “Actually, I do.”
“Great. Now that we have that settled, can we have a little fun tonight?”
She blows out a long breath. “Are you trying to take me out on a date?”
I shake my head. “Of course not.” Maybe. “That would go against the rules of our arrangement. I just figured it might be nice to get out of Shine for the night. Hang out, have some laughs, visit old friends.”
“Good thing the only old friend I want to visit is Clyde, then.” Her eyes narrow again as she mulls over my offer. When a barely-there smile tilts the side of her mouth, I know I’ve won.
“Alright. Let’s do it.”
Vanesa follows me to the same hotel I was at the last time she and I were together in New York.
“There’s only one bed,” she says when we step through the door.
“That’s all they had.” I don’t know if that’s true in the strictest sense, considering I didn’t ask.
“You going to sleep on the couch?” She nods toward the small sofa in the corner. “Don’t we have a no-sleeping-together rule?”
“I’m definitely going to be fucking you on that couch, but no, I have no plans on sleeping there. I don’t think sleeping next to me for one night is going to break our rules.”
“What would you call it?”
My head tilts back and forth as I consider her question. “Bending them?”
She shoots me a dubious look but doesn’t argue further.
“You hungry?” I ask as Vanessa sits on the bed and leans back against the pillows, judging their softness.
“Not really. My mom made a big lunch.”
“Is she the one who taught you how to cook?”
I’ve never been more than a cereal guy in the morning, maybe some eggs and toast if I was inclined to pull out a pan, but Vanessa has spoiled the hell out of us at the clubhouse with her breakfasts.
“Yeah. There were a lot of days I had to cook for us. My mom…she had some troubles after my stepfather passed away. Some days she couldn’t get out of bed.”
I had no idea her mom had remarried in the first place.
Hell, I didn’t even know she had a sister.
Vanessa isn’t exactly an open book. We have a good time together and she’s quick-witted and fucking dynamite in bed, but I don’t know much personal information about her.
Maybe some time away from the clubhouse and the distractions of having everyone around can change that a little.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Vanessa. That must have been tough on you.” I walk over to the couch and have a seat.
Vanessa sits up and crosses her legs before spearing me with a narrow-eyed look. “Thanks, but I don’t need pity. It was what it was, and we survived.”
“Not pity,” I say, putting up my hands in surrender. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent, remember? And you lost two.”
“I lost one,” she says in a firm tone. “My stepdad and I weren’t close, and I never saw him as a father.”
I nod. “Understood.”
I’d like to know more about her life growing up, but it’s obvious the subject of her stepfather is off-limits.
That makes me more curious than anything else, but I’m not going to pry.
Something happened there, but until she decides to share it with me—if she decides to—I’m going to respect her wishes to keep it private.
“Sorry, I just get a little”—she shakes her shoulders—“squirrelly when I think someone feels bad for me. I hate seeing that look on people’s faces when they find out I lost a parent.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” I tell her. “But it’s okay to accept an I’m sorry from someone who went through the same thing. If anything, I know exactly what I’m sorry for. My mom handled my dad’s death pretty well, though. He wasn’t much of a father or husband.”
“It’s still tough. When my dad died, she kept it together as well as anyone would, I guess.
I was young and dealing with my own shit.
But when my stepfather died, it was like she gave up on life, and that included me and my sister.
” Vanessa looks down at her hands folded in her lap.
“She wasn’t a bad mom; she just couldn’t pull herself out of the hole she was in. ”
“I would never think that, Vanessa. Grief has a shitty way of taking over some people’s lives. Some can heal and keep moving, and others get stuck.”
“Are you some sort of outlaw therapist?” she asks with a tilt to her lips.
“Nah. But my mom did send me to one after my dad died.”
Her eyes widen. “Really?”
I let out a quiet laugh at her surprised reaction. “Really. She wanted to make sure I had someone to talk to if I wasn’t comfortable talking to her. It was no secret she and my dad didn’t get along. I guess she was afraid I wouldn’t come to her when or if I was sad about it.”
“And were you?” Vanesa tilts her head. “Sad about it?”
I look at the painting above the bed as I consider her question.
“It’s complicated” is the best answer I can give her.
“As a kid, sure, I was sad that my dad was dead, but I noticed the change in my mom. The freedom she had without him weighing her down. It’s not as though she was dancing around the living room or anything, but there was a noticeable relief, a peacefulness that she didn’t have before.
Of course, she would never admit to being relieved, but as an adult looking back?
I can see that’s what it was. I was happy about that.
And I guess as an adult I have to accept the fact that the chance for us to have a relationship, the chance for him to get his shit together, is gone. There’s sadness in that.”
Vanessa blinks a few times as she stares at me. “Holy shit. That’s pretty insightful, Braxton.”
“See, I’m not just some dumb biker.”
“Never said you were. Never even thought it.”
I shrug and stand from the couch. “I’m just saying, death and grief can be complicated and everyone handles it differently. And I don’t judge anyone for the way they deal with it. You know what’s not complicated, though?” I ask, holding out my hand.