Chapter 25
25
Grim
I’ve never been ignored as completely as Scorpio ignored me when Karma and I got to the Fire & Heart Inn and walked past him to get to the bar. The sun was just coming up from behind the inn part of the compound—a drab looking multi-story structure with a chipped and cracked facade, multiple broken and boarded up windows and a smell rising off it clearly saying it should by rights be long abandoned. That stench of decay, dust and death, which once you smell for the first time, you never want to get near again. Even the tangy scent of the redwoods that grow everywhere around here has no hope of competing with that kind of stench. There’s also the classics of piss, puke, blood and alcohol mixed in. Karma will hate it here. I know I do.
When we rode up, Scorpio was faking being asleep, leaning against the concrete wall of the entrance to the inn, cradling a bottle of whiskey in his lap, and pretending to be just one of the many sleeping outside. Seemingly because they were too drunk to make it to their rooms. Or maybe because they can’t even afford the cheap rates the rooms here go for.
But his eyes were winter cold as we passed him, and stone cold sober. He looked right past us. It annoyed me in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. Childishly needy and angry. I wanted to pick him up off the ground and shake him, make him notice me. Maybe that means I am starting to have some sort of feelings for him. Or maybe I was just that angry for Karma’s sake, because she definitely does.
She looked so lost as we walked past him and he didn’t so much as glance in her direction. And her hands were shaking once we reached the inside of the bar, which was nice and cool and blissfully empty, even if it did stink as bad as a sewer.
Not long after that, Joker came in and told us to pretend we’d never met before while we’re here. He delivered the demand like an order, in that high and mighty tone of his. I almost told him to take it down a couple of notches with the ordering around, but then I remembered I don’t give a fuck about the guy and would like nothing more than to never have met him. He’s a plotter and a schemer, always has some sinister plan going and even when we collaborate on jobs, I’d rather not. I hate being a part of something I can’t see clearly and he’s a master at hiding stuff from others. I bet he does the same to Scorpio and yet he just blindly follows the guy. Why?
After he left, I had half a mind to do the same. Just drag Karma away from here and make her forget she ever met Scorpio in the first place. But I couldn’t. She kept glancing at the door, waiting for him to walk in, no doubt, for one thing. And for another, I’m not leaving until I give him a couple of choice words about this cold welcome.
Psycho, one of our Forsaken Outlaws MC brothers, is here with us. More are coming in the next few days. We have things to discuss as an MC. Things like where we go from here now that Reaper is gone. We shared the presidency, but he was always more of a leader. Maybe they don’t even want to follow me. And this decrepit place, filled with people so far down on their luck they’ve broken right through rock bottom, might be just the place to have that conversation. We’ve lost so many brothers and sisters in the last couple of years, I don’t even know if we’re an MC anymore. The revenge for Reaper, and his funeral ride brought us together again. But once that was done, we just all went our separate ways, riding alone. Maybe that would be for the best. But I’ll start that conversation once they’re all here.
“So, you think Joker will have something to do for us while we’re here?” Psycho asks, snapping me out of the lonely darkness of my thoughts.
I shrug. “Do we even want that?”
“Sure we do,” Psycho says. “He always pays well. And we’re running low on funds.”
He’s something like our treasurer, since he’s good with money.
“We were well on our way to having a healthy rainy-day fund from his jobs alone,” he adds and clears his throat. “Before Reaper… “
“Died,” I finish his unfinished sentence, letting way too much anger bubble up. For almost a year since then, we’ve taken on no paid work as we hunted down the assholes who killed him. Psycho clears his throat again nervously and Karma shudders.
“Reaper wanted us to steer clear of Joker and the Lost Sons,” I say. “Maybe he was onto something.”
Psycho shrugs and leans back in his seat and puts his hands up. “I’m just saying. It’s easy money and we need some of that.”
Psycho might have a vicious sounding name, but he’s actually one of the more level-headed members of our club. He’s on the run because he hacked up a guy who was harassing the girl he’s hopelessly obsessed with. She’s the one who called him a psycho after that and even though it’s been years, I don’t think he’s over that, or her yet. I’m pretty sure he stalks her when he’s away from us, but I don’t ask because I don’t truly want to know. It’s none of my business how he lives his life. But maybe a president should care about shit like that.
I could tell him that Joker and the Sons are mixed up in something we don’t want to be a part of. But that’s another conversation that best wait until we’re all gathered.
All other conversations will have to wait too.
Scorpio just walked in and he’s no longer pretending we’re no more than air in his line of vision. All he has to do is incline his head towards the door and Karma is on her feet following him outside. I’ve half a mind to stay right where I am. But the rest of my mind is screaming at me to go and give him a piece of it, so I’m standing too, before I even realize what I’m doing.
“Be right back,” I tell Psycho who’s looking at both me and Karma like we’ve lost our minds.
And maybe I have.
The sun’s beating down mercilessly, as though autumn isn’t just around the corner, as Karma and I follow him across a patch of weed-infested concrete to a workout station that’s just as rundown as the rest of this place. We’re in a part of this compound that truly is abandoned now and the squat building next to the workout equipment has a stench rising from it that makes me sure someone died in there and no one ever found them.
“Didn’t I tell you to move on?” Scorpio asks once we reach him.
“Yeah, you don’t get to tell us what to do,” Karma says, snatching the words right from my mouth. I’m glad to hear the fire in her voice. Makes me hopeful she’s maybe starting to move on from him and this insanity.
But then he looks at me and grins and I suddenly know exactly why I was so angry that he ignored me before.
“You look like you want to murder me, Grim,” he says. “So why are you here?”
“I don’t want to murder you,” I say, because maybe it’s time for some hard honesty all around. “I just don’t like being ignored.”
He smiles wider and it’s enough to get my dick semi-hard. Like always when he does it. I should maybe be more honest about that particular reaction too. With myself most of all.
“But that’s how it’s gotta be now,” he says. “Didn’t Joker talk to you?”
“He did,” Karma says. “Told us we’re pretending not to know each other.”
“But there’s that and then there’s looking right through us,” I add.
His smile wanes a little, but then he walks over and puts his arms around our shoulders.
“I’m glad you came,” he says. “Despite what I said.”
This is the exact opposite of being ignored by him, so much so, it’s more than a little dizzying.
“We have some time now. Joker left,” he says. “Do you guys have a room yet?”
One of these days we’ll have to talk about things. Not just argue or fuck. But it won’t be today. And that’s just as well. I’m no good at talking about my feelings. Or possibly even admitting I have them. But showing them… that’s a different matter. Just as soon as I get them all straight in my head. Which also doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon. I’ve never met anyone who could make me so mad my blood wants to explode through my skin… and then calm me down with just a smile and an invitation I can’t refuse.
“Let’s go,” I say and Karma finally smiles for the first time since we got here.
As traitorous as it may sound, even in my own head, neither Karma nor Reaper could ever destabilize me the way he can. They could in other ways, sure, better ways, maybe. Calmer ways, definitely. I killed to be with Reaper, but after that, he gave me peace. And once Karma came along, it was all smooth sailing. Nothing but pleasure. They reined in my intensity. Channeled it to do no harm. Made me a better man.
But Scorpio… he makes me forget all reason until I just want to go wild. Berserker style. Do things without thinking. Flare up at the slightest provocation. Abandon all common sense and let loose.
I’m too old for that shit. But I can’t walk away. That much is now clear to me. As for where this leads… I’m not even sure I want that answer. Because this thing we’ve started has an expiration date. And it’s almost here.
I hope I’ll figure it out in time and stop myself from dragging my whole MC into a war we can’t win just to make sure I don’t lose him, when I don’t even know if I want to keep him.
He’s right. Just fucking is simpler. And I’m not even getting that from him. Which is the craziest part of all this.