Chapter 8 - Karter
After dropping off Diana, I head to the clubhouse. Unlike Babygirl, that place has zero curfew.
Babygirl.
I keep calling her that. In my head and out loud. It just fits. Like it was always meant for her. I know how club life sees it, though, so I need to keep it on the DL. Last thing I need is a brother getting ideas in his head before I have a clear picture of what I want in mine.
“Hey, Law,” people greet me as I go inside, and I give a few nods as I walk to the bar.
Jumper’s behind it, and he hands me a beer before I ask for one.
“Thanks.”
He just nods in acceptance.
“Seen General around?”
“Think I saw him go into the back. Everything okay?”
I wave off his concern that I might need some medical help. “Just wanted to talk to him about something. Thanks, man.”
I take my beer and head to the clinic we set up for General in the back.
Anyone can use it, but we all know this is his space.
He helped create it, and everything is in the place he wanted it.
Those who enter to get something do so at their own risk.
He’s been known to stab a person for messing with his system before.
Of course, he patches them up after, and it’s just a superficial wound, so nothing too damaging long-term.
Just a “friendly” reminder to not touch his space.
“Yo,” I say as I walk in and shut the door behind me, noting it’s just us in here as he looks over something on his clipboard. Property inventory.
The guy is like clockwork. He comes to the clubhouse often enough, but each time, he does an inventory check before he fully settles in.
Doesn’t matter that there’s a rotating inventory weekly check.
He does it as a ritual of sorts—his way of guaranteeing everything is on hand when he needs it without a moment’s notice.
“Sup.” He nods at me, then goes back to his paperwork.
I lean against the counter and sip my beer. He does his thing for a few minutes, then glances at me from the corner of his eye.
“Need something?”
“I know you saw.”
“Saw what?”
“Don’t bullshit me. Your bike is the only one with a high flow intake. I heard the sharp inhale before you gunned the engine. Only your bike has that, so I know it was you at the Ice Cream Shack.”
General shrugs and puts down the clipboard to reach up and pull some boxes down from the top shelf to a lower one.
“So I wanted ice cream. No big deal.”
“Except you didn’t get any.”
I’ve been staring at him hard this entire time. He hasn’t glanced my way since the first time he asked if I needed something. But now he looks. And there’s guilt on his face. For him? Me? I’m not sure.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“With what? Diana? Think there’s a problem going out with my former nurse?” I raise my eyebrows at his words. Could that hurt her career? Not something I want to do at all, but I’m not sure if I can stay away now.
Not after that kiss. Not after how she responded to my lips on her. All but claiming her.
I might have taken charge of it from the start, but she was an eager participant who did everything I could ever want or ask for. She followed my lead, and when her tongue traced over mine, I couldn’t help but imagine her doing that to my dick. Still can’t.
He shakes his head. “No, hospital has no issues with that. Only thing is if you come in and need help, she can’t provide direct care to anyone she has a close personal relationship with. It’s a professional boundary violation. But that’s not what I’m referring to.”
“Then what?”
When he says nothing, I give him options.
“Is it the kid or the wife?”
General flinches at my words and shakes his head. “You can’t even say their names. Yeah, it’s about Ruby. And Special K, Katrina, your wife.”
“She’s dead.” I don’t soften it.
He nods and rolls his lips in as if trying to keep from shouting something. “Doesn’t mean her memory is.”
“Am I meant to stay alone for the rest of my life? Is that what club life is all about nowadays?”
He scrubs his face with both hands, and I see the red marks left behind from the force of it. “No,” he grits out. “No one is expecting you to do that. It’s just that… well….”
“I used to.”
He nods. “Yeah. You were okay with that. You always said you fell for her the second you saw her, and no one else was ever good enough to match that energy. That it was enough to keep you going through the long nights and into the days.”
I stare down at my bottle of beer and spin it around a bit before looking back at him.
“Can’t that part have died when I coded?
Not my love for her and what she meant to me—well, the old me—but the part that was happy with being alone?
Could that part have been erased because of the memory loss?
Like I’ve lived it long enough, and now it’s time to start new? Fresh? Allowed to move on?”
He lets out a deep breath, a sigh of defeat, as he nods and then looks up at me. “Yeah, man, it makes sense. Sorry.” He shakes his head on a deep inhale. “It’s just going to take some time.”
“Tell me about it. You only have to deal with the changes I’m making, not feel the weight of the club and everyone else thinking what you’re doing is wrong as you try to remember something, someone, that isn’t there.” I knock my knuckles against my head a few times.
I wish it were that simple. That I could just knock everything back into place. But it doesn’t work like that.
And what might be worse, or not—I haven’t really decided, and I’m not sure if I want to—is that going back means remembering, sure, but it also means letting Diana go. It’s early between us, but I already know that having her out of my life right now isn’t something I want.
“Sorry, man. You have a head injury. It’s not something you did on purpose or are even pretending about. It’s a medical thing. I should get that more than most.”
“How do you know I ain’t pretending?”
General smiles, but it’s sad, as he shakes his head.
“No way you could pretend to not know your little girl. You might have kept her out of shit to keep her safe, but you were never cruel. You cherished that girl like nothing else before. She might not have always seen it—you had to hide a bit of it to keep her safe and keep a target off her back—but the club knew. When she wasn’t around and the drinks were flowing, it wasn’t Special K you were saying you loved but your little girl and how proud you were of her. ”
I feel something at his words. It’s a heavy feeling that sits on my chest, but that’s about it. Still not a glimmer of recognition beyond remembering her from her visits in the hospital after I woke up.
“She still lost?”
He runs his hand through his hair. “Yeah. Been about ten days now.”
Ten days. Meaning it happened on the day of the shooting at the hospital. No one told me anything besides that Atom got hit and a girl with the Crazy Eights was killed. The remorse on his face lets me know the entire club kept that part away from me.
“Was she the reason for the shooting?” It’s an obvious yes, but he does me the courtesy of nodding.
Now it’s my turn to look away, my jaw ticking as I clench it closed.
“Funny. You all want me to remember, but when it comes to something happening to her, you keep it to yourselves.”
He takes a step toward me, voice lower, as if the walls might hear.
“Look, man, this shit is crazy. You lose your memory. Ruby gets taken. We’ve got no clue how to help with either.
Casper is doing what he can. Half the damn club is ready to go hunting without a clue where they should go, and the other half is still coming to terms with you walking around and not caring like a father should. ”
He holds up a hand before I can go off on him.
“I get it. We all get it. You lost your memory, and that makes it hard for you to process your feelings on this. The club ain’t keeping shit from you.
You knew she was gone. We just didn’t want to add to the guilt about the shooting.
Hell, the club is placing that blame on all of us anyhow. ”
“Why?”
He winces. “Casper told her to go back and play nice after she said she was done with you. If we didn’t tell her to go, she might still be here and not God knows where.”
“It was the club that had her pissed when she came in and started yelling at Diana for no reason? Ruby was mad at me and you all, and Diana was the victim for being there at the wrong moment.”
“Victim?” He gives me a skeptical look.
“Yeah, victim. She did nothing but care for me as a patient. No lines were crossed.”
“Maybe not, but she had eyes for you. You have to know that.”
I don’t deny it.
“And you had eyes for her.” He says that last part softer, and I still don’t deny it. “We all saw what was happening. No one stopped it. Maybe we should have. Maybe not. But it’s done. Ruby’s missing, and you’re dating.”
“Those two things aren’t connected.”
“Jesus, I know that. You don’t think I do? Why do you think I’m in here checking inventory and not out there gossiping? You have a life. Ruby has a life, hopefully. This is just all fucked up. And till she comes home, whichever way that is, all I’m saying is to maybe be careful.”
“Careful.” I say the word slowly, trying to understand it and the warning behind it.
“Yeah, careful. There’s a lot of people out there who might be okay with what I saw now that I’ve talked to you and see it from your point of view.
But others might feel like you’re betraying Ruby somehow.
Forget Special K for a second. The club is focused on Ruby.
What does it say that her own dad isn’t? ”
I rub one hand through my hair and take a swig of my beer with the other.
“Shit.”
“Yeah, man. Shit.”
This just got a hell of a lot more complicated. I don’t know what I was thinking when I first heard Ruby was gone. Maybe that she ran away or something. I don’t know. Maybe I really didn’t care to find out more.
Was I mad at her for what she said to Diana?
Was I pissed at the way she kept saying shit to me too?
Calling me all sorts of things because she was dealing with her own grief and anger that I forgot not only her, but her mother too?
I bet she and I had a bond since we were all each other had for so many years.
She probably also felt some relief seeing that I would never forget her mom. And now I have.
And now here I am, dating someone else. Her biggest fear coming to reality.
Even if none of this started till after Ruby was taken, General’s right. I’ve had my eyes on Babygirl since I opened them.
“Now what?” I’m asking myself more than him.
He leans against the same counter and shrugs. “She worth it?”
I drain my beer in one gulp before tossing the bottle into the trash can on the other side of the room.
“Yup.”
“Then I think you have your answer.”