Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
S triker…
I was at home, on the couch, with a cold beer perched on my knee, my boots off, and the television on. I hadn’t bothered with turning on a light, so it was just me and some mindless action flick on the boob tube casting the room in a blue flickering glow.
Made me think of her. Made me think of holding her while the television in her room played.
I sighed and was about to switch it off and head on into my bedroom when my phone buzzed twice, walking itself in two short steps across the coffee table in front of me.
I picked it up, an unknown number, but Florida area code for the region, and I knew it was her just by the contents of the text… I could use a friend.
I hesitated, a bunch of shit tumbling through my head on what would be a good response when I felt my shoulders drop as I told myself to stop fucking overthinking it.
Talk to me. I’m right here, I shot back.
She texted a novel, pouring out her heart and soul about her worries. For her mother, for her brother’s future, about how she felt like she was letting them all down, and if her dad were here, how she wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t be disappointed in her. She said her mom had told her she was proud of her – but she just didn’t understand or believe because of how her mom ragged on just about every choice she made and how confusing it all was.
I didn’t think she’d had anyone she felt like she could talk to in a while, and for some reason, she’d decided that she could be frank with me. I glowed from the unspoken praise.
I wasn’t used to being trusted. Not outside the club and even inside the club… sometimes trust was a rare commodity.
I did my best to shore her up and assure her that she was doing great. That yeah, it sucked, for sure – she was overworked, and she’d been through some shit that would leave a lesser woman crumbling, but not only was she holding it together and still showing up, but she was also doing it in a way that to the rest of us made her look like she was Supergirl.
Thanks… she texted finally after what felt like minutes of radio silence. Bars closed this week, and I only have two days at my other job. Looks like I’m free for a few days after the middle of the week.
I hesitated, then started to thumb out a response. Deleted that and tried again. Deleted that and thought to myself, you’re fuckin’ crazy…
I held my breath and thumbed it out anyway. You should take some time for yourself. Come up to St. Augustine for a day. I’ll show you around.
I swallowed hard, staring at the text, then went to delete the fucker but fat-fingered it, and it sent.
Fuck. Me.
I felt my face flame with embarrassment and thought to myself, you old fucker – she’ll never go for it.
Bet.
Do what now?
Bet? I asked, just to make sure I wasn’t completely delusional.
I’d like that, she came back with and I was floored.
Okay. You just name the day… I wrote.
We concluded our conversation shortly after that, and I polished off my beer, feeling as giddy as a schoolboy.
For real. I hadn’t felt excitement or butterflies like this since I was young, dumb, and full of cum before I enlisted.
I got up, tossed my empty in the kitchen trash on the way by, and returned to my bedroom.
I stripped and flopped down in bed and read and re-read our chat.
I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I couldn’t even say I was being wholly altruistic and not a selfish fuck by wanting to see her again.
Hell… I tried to live as uncomplicated a life as I could for being a Royal Bastard – which always had its complications… but fuck … I couldn’t tell, to be honest, but this felt a whole lot like I balanced on some sort of brink that could either be really good or really bad. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted, but I was a man before she’d even shot out of her mother’s womb.
I pulled on my neck to try and relieve some of the tension in it and sighed.
It took her a bit to get back to me, but get back to me with that ideal date and time she did.
Now, all that was left was to figure out what to do…
* * *
The week had dragged on for what felt like forever. I dealt with some shit on some purchase orders we’d made not being fulfilled on time at the shop, but other than that one hiccup, everything else had run as smoothly as I could have asked for.
We hadn’t been bothered by the cops or any prosecutors over the Bloody Scorpion thing all week. Neither had Jacksonville nor Ocala. Renegade and The Bishop had a pretty high confidence that it’d be dropped and we wouldn’t hear anything more about it, which told me without telling me, they had somebody in their pocket.
Either that or Ormond Beach was just being smart and taking the gift that they’d been given on a silver fuckin’ platter in putting some Scorpions away.
Like I said, North Florida was ours … and we weren’t done yet. We were moving south as steadily as vetting new members and new chapters coming online would allow, but building an empire like ours was painfully slow going. Move too fast, and don’t vet newcomers right, that’s how you get rats on board your ship. Rats who would chew through the decking and the rigging. Rats who’d put holes in your hull and sink said ship.
Ain’t none of us keen on a trip to Davey Jones’s locker, so it was a slow and steady to win the race type of a deal.
Don’t ask me why my thoughts were meandering in that direction. Probably to keep me cool and steady. My nerves were firing on all cylinders the more I watched the clock and the slower that damn minute hand made its move around the face.
I was more nervous about seeing Rarity again than I was about getting into a firefight – and I didn’t know what that meant.
You’re fucked. That’s what it means, I told myself.
“Yo, Striker!” I heard called up the stairs.
“Yeah!” I called back down them.
“Got Jailbait down here lookin’ for you!” Sounded like Adrian Hernandez – good worker, talented mechanic, and a stellar artist when it came to custom skins for a bike, but damned if he couldn’t mind his own fuckin’ business when it came to some things.
He wanted to move up in the world of the Royal Bastards. Had been in a hang-around tee for the better part of a year, but Renegade just wasn’t ready to make him a prospect. Neither was Shadow, and neither was I. He just didn’t have the street smarts to curb aspects of his outgoing personality and again, loose lips sank ships.
He had a long way to fuckin’ go, but I was pretty sure if he could mature some, he’d make it.
“Send her on up!” I called down and spun in my chair to watch her crest the top of the steps. She was blushing a bright pink.
“I’m twenty-four,” she said, and I grinned and laughed.
“Don’t mind him. He can be a dumb fuck,” I told her.
She looked good. She had on makeup today, and you couldn’t even tell where she’d been clocked. A lot of us had healing bruises and cuts, purple fading on down to sickly yellows, greens, and that tan that was just off-putting to look at.
She looked good in her denim short shorts, her tanned legs almost looking long, and a pair of cute light pink Vans on her feet. She wore a fitted white tee, which was a daring choice for a woman with three brothers who were still toddler-age. I imagined that’s why she wore it – no danger of sticky fingers.
It had a V-neck, short cap sleeves, and some light pink flowers along her ribs on one side.
“You look good,” I complimented.
“Thanks,” she said, taking off her little backpack handbag and dropping into the seat by my desk.
My phone rang just then, and she smiled and gestured for me to answer. I picked up the handset.
“Striker? This is Nightmare. Got a minute?” an unfamiliar voice asked on the other end. I racked my brain for half a second, and it clicked almost right away. Nightmare was a Royal Bastard, but out of Atlanta.
“Nightmare, huh? I’ve heard good things about you from Mav. He said you’d be calling. How can I help?” It’d been a minute since his president, Maverick, had called me up and told me about the dude. Said he was having some issues carrying the mental and emotional load from over in the sandbox.
As fucked up as it was, I didn’t have any trouble with any of the shit that went on over there. I didn’t know why and actually felt like I was somehow the one to come back fucked up for not having any real troubles. Still, I faked it well enough to help where I could when it came up like this.
“Mav said you might… you know, get where I’m coming from.”
“I’ve been around long enough to see some shit and to know some shit. What’s eating you?” I asked, ready to listen.
I heard the guy take a deep breath on the other end of the line, and I leaned back in my seat, giving Rarity a wink and holding up a finger to let her know this might be a minute.
“Back when I was with the Army Rangers… there was a mission. Intel was wrong, and I ended up taking out a civilian. A kid. Wrong place, wrong time type of deal. It’s been years, but that shit still gets me, man. Some days, I can’t even look in the fucking mirror.” He sounded… rough, his voice heavy with emotion and cracking.
“I hear you, brother. I’ve got my fair share of ghosts, too. Different details, same load of guilt. You feel like it stains everything you do after, don’t you?” That part was true, but I’d come to grips with it quick, leaving most of it behind in-country. Maybe I was better at compartmentalizing. Who knew?
“Exactly. Even now, being in the Bastards, it feels like I’m just pretending to be something better. Like I’ll never make up for it.”
I couldn’t relate to that one, but I took a deep, considering, and yeah, somewhat cleansing breath and tackled it head-on.
“Listen. You can’t undo it. That’s the hard fucking truth. What you did back then ain’t but between you an’ God, homie - but you’re not pretending. You’re carrying that weight and still trying to do some good. That’s what matters.”
“Yeah, I get that, but some days, it feels like I’m handling things. Other days, it feels like I’m dragging a ball and chain.”
“That’s to be expected, but bad days don’t last forever. It’s simple. On your bad days, you lean on your brothers. On their bad days, you hold them up. That’s how this works. You feel me? You’re not alone in any of this, and you can’t live like you are.”
He made a scoffing noise and said, “That shit’s not simple. Can’t have them thinking I’m not solid.”
“You think being vulnerable makes you less solid?” It was my turn to scoff. “No way, Nightmare. It makes you real . A brother respects that a hell of a lot more than any front you try to put up. If they don’t, it just means they ain’t been there like we have. When that happens, it’s on us to make sure they don’t go through the same hell. And if they do? It’s our job to show them how to wade through this shit, just like you are now.”
“I guess so.” He sounded solemn but also like some of the weight had lifted, or at the very least, shifted into a more manageable way for him to heft it.
“Look, what you’re dealing with is part of the package. When it happens, you have to remind yourself why you’re still here. Why you fight. For me, it’s the brothers I’ve got now. The people I can still protect. If you look around, you’ll see you got that too.” I met Rarity’s eyes and wasn’t at all startled or surprised to realize I somehow meant her in that, too. Her blue eyes sparkled. Her face was solemn as she listened, but she remained respectfully quiet as though she wasn’t hearing a thing. I appreciated her for that, more than I could express.
“The thing is, it’s hard to focus when the past keeps dragging me down.” He sighed, and he sounded under load again. “It never lets go, and I’m constantly haunted by the images from that day.”
“You’ll never change the past,” I told him, and it was true. You couldn’t. “But you can honor it by how you live now. You’re already doing that every time you show up for your chapter,” I told him. “For some guys, the concept of having a battle buddy was so ingrained that when they got out, they sought out the structure and commitment they’d felt when they’d served. When they joined up with the Bastards or got involved in any other group thing, it was familiar enough to bring comfort but different enough that it was easy to forget that the club was their unit now. Their brothers, whichever one or ones they chose to lean on? They were your battle buddy now.”
“I try, but some nights... it just feels like it’s not enough.”
“On those nights, don’t try to carry it all. Write it down. Punch a bag. Hell, scream into the wind if you have to. But don’t bury it. That’ll only eat you alive.”
“Writing, huh? That’s your thing?”
“Yeah, sometimes,” I admitted. I mean, I kept a journal, but it wasn’t something I talked about with anyone. I also did this other thing that Pope suggested when I had the odd time of being troubled by something. “Sometimes I write letters to the people I’ve lost or to my younger self. Sometimes, I burn them, and sometimes, I keep them. It’s not about fixing it. It’s about making peace with it. ”
“Not really good on putting my thoughts down on paper, but I’ll think about it,” he said.
“Good. And remember this. It’s not about the mistakes you make, Nightmare. It’s what you choose to do after you make them. You wouldn’t be the man you are today if you hadn’t lived it. Remember that. All the good that comes after for the people around you? It’s there. I know you can’t see the forest for the trees when you get down bad like this, but there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be alive and unscathed if it weren’t for you, either. The scales may never balance out. I have trouble with that, too.” I didn’t. Not anymore, but at one time, I had a bit of an existential crisis about it. I kept talking. “But use what time you got left to do what you can, and who knows, after we kick off this mortal coil for good? Maybe it’ll make a difference, maybe it won’t. Like I said, that’s between you an’ your God, but at least we fuckin’ tried, yeah?”
“Thanks, Striker. That actually helps,” he said after almost a full minute of silence while he parsed through what I’d said.
“Anytime, brother. Call me whenever you need to, and when the bad days come, lean into the Bastards. We’re your family now, and we’ve got your back.”
“Guess I need to take my own advice, huh? I’m always telling them the same thing.”
“Exactly. Now go take care of yourself. You’ve got a lot of road ahead, and you’re not riding it alone.”
“Thanks, man. I owe you.”
“No debts here, Nightmare. Just Royal Bastards watching out for each other. Stay safe out there, and keep the shiny side up.”
“You too,” he said and ended the call. I sighed, hung up my end, and looked back to Rarity.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“No worries,” she said softly. “Sounded important.”
I nodded. “Yeah… kinda was,” I said.
“You field a lot of calls like that?” she asked. She looked a little uncomfortable as if she wasn’t sure if it was okay to ask such a thing.
I smiled. “Not a lot, but I like to be there when someone needs it. Truth be told, I’ve wrestled with some things, but for the most part, I’ve gotten cozy with my demons. It’s… I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I’m faking it to make it, and I can’t relate with how hard someone takes some of the shit they’ve been through over there.”
She cocked her head and looked at me, searching my face, and finally said, “It’s like you told Nightmare. You balance your scales however you can. Maybe you’ve compartmentalized things enough to get by, but I think you can relate more than you let on. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t know what to say.”
I searched her face right back and found myself nodding slowly.
“How’d you get so smart, darlin’?” I asked her, and she smiled.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Guess I had good parents.”
I smiled and nodded. “Mine weren’t all bad,” I said. “My dad was a good man.”
She lit up.
“Mine, too.”
“My mom and I never did get along, though,” I said, grinning, and she laughed.
“My mom and I do alright,” she said. “I just wish she didn’t worry half so much.”
“I think every parent worries about their baby no matter how big or old they get,” I said. I felt a momentary flash of guilt, like I should maybe call my parents or something, but then my mother’s nagging voice hit the back of my mind, and I decided, yeah, no. I’m good.
“So, what adventures are we off to do today?” she asked. I smiled and felt my head bob on my shoulders.
“First, we go for a ride,” I told her.
She tried to suppress her smile but gave up, laughed, and said, “Not great for my mother’s nervous system.”
“It’s cool. I think we can keep it between you and me,” I shot back, and she laughed.
“You’re a bad influence,” she accused.
“Guilty,” I told her.