14. Willow
14
WILLOW
“Babe, what have you been drinking and can I get some?” Grace asks, while she makes a show of fanning herself with her hand. I've propped my phone up on the dining room table so I can see her while I sort through old family photos. “I mean this in the nicest possible way, but your first tries read like a how-to manual written by someone who’s never been kissed trying to write steamy fanfiction. But I really like the changes you’ve made. You know I don’t trust them, but whatever those bikers are doing to you, it’s gold for your career. I bet Colleen is eating it up.”
“She is. I had to convince her that I wanted to change direction a little bit, but when she read my first chapters she was sold.”
My experience with Dragon, Skyhigh and Blackout is definitely fueling my creativity. I had no idea how badly I needed to get pulled out of my comfort zone until they came in and shattered it. The scene I'm planning to write today? I think it might even make Grace blush, and that's saying something. I’ve been obsessing over what would’ve happened when I was in Dragon’s lap if we’d had time to keep going. God, I can still remember the size of Blackout’s erection and the feel of Dragon underneath me before the gunshots began.
Jesus, the drive-by. I haven’t told Grace and I’m not planning to. She’d stage an intervention and if I wasn’t the one in this situation, I’d probably agree. But there's something about them that's irresistible. And the way they get my creative juices flowing… well…
“Earth to Willow. You're blushing.”
Crap. “What?”
Grace laughs at my expression. “Since I know where you were last night, I suppose I have a suspicion where your mind is right now. Am I going to want a biker of my own by the end of this book?”
“Hey!” Terry yells in the background. “Do I need to get tattoos and a motorcycle?”
She rolls her eyes. “You're fine the way you are, baby. I married you for a reason. Now shut up while I talk smut with my friend.”
He laughs, not sounding worried. “I think I could pull off a tattoo.”
Thinking of what Dragon said about bikers and commitment, I feel a little wistful. I've always wanted to find someone who gets me and that I can really be myself with and the first guys in a while that I’ve really felt a spark with are ones I shouldn’t be thinking about as anything but temporary fun.
For now they seem set on corrupting me as much as possible, but in a few months, maybe even weeks, will the novelty wear off?
There’s no point in worrying about it.
For now we’re having fun, and having breakfast with Dragon this morning was… really nice. Cozy. At least until he got called in to work?
I giggle a little at that thought, like being a biker is his nine-to-five job.
“What's so funny?” Grace eyes me curiously through the phone.
“Nothing.” I force myself to keep a straight face. She raises a skeptical eyebrow, but it'd be hard to explain, so I move on. “So you think it's good enough?”
“Send it. Write more. And send that to me. That last chapter did both me and Terry a favor.”
“Loved it!” Terry yells in the background.
“Oh God, is he reading it, too?” I'm not sure I'm ready for that.
With a shake of her head, Grace lets out a little laugh. “Nope. I just liked it that much.”
And then it clicks. “Oh! Ew! I don’t want to hear about your sex lives!”
“Aaaaaanyway, I need to get out and get started on errands, and you need to keep writing while you've still got the mojo. I've sent you the few comments I have, but it’s pretty solid. I see a bestseller in your future.” The video sways as she picks her phone up. “Love you, babe.”
I blow her a kiss and disconnect.
I finish sorting the photos into stacks of either people and places I recognize or stuff I’ll probably never identify but will live in the attic forever just in case. I want to get everything digitized eventually, but in the meantime it’s fun to go through it all. To the side I’ve saved a picture of me and Grace playing in an open fire hydrant when I was about eight and staying here for the summer. Getting a nice framed print made of it would be perfect for her birthday.
My desk waits for me, but I'm a little unsure where I want to go next so instead, I brave the attic. There’s enough stuff up there to give me years’ worth of procrastination.
The attic space is hot, dusty, and with such a low ceiling that I have to almost crawl around. I grab the first box that looks likely to have more memorabilia and haul it to the ladder. It’s lighter than I expect, so when I get it down safely, I pull the lid off to check. Inside is a black leather jacket, folded neatly, with darker patches where something must have been covering the leather to keep it from sun damage. I've seen enough biker jackets in the last couple of days to recognize it as one, or that it at least used to be one. Why would Grandma have this?
I pull it out, only to find a random assortment of personal belongings. An old pair of sneakers. A t-shirt from a local annual music festival dated fifteen years ago. And below that, there are some knickknacks in a plastic bag, like an old steel lighter of the type where you flip the cap off the top, a couple of pens for some reason and… a box of ammunition. Mom and Dad are enough into off-grid living that they taught me how to fire a gun, but it’s the last thing I’d expect to find here.
No seriously, why would Grandma have this?
There's also a silver pocket watch with an embossed dog’s head on the front. The name 'Brutus' is stenciled underneath. On the back, 'L. Tanner' is engraved. Is that the owner's name? Grandma never mentioned anyone named that, at least that I can remember. But when I flip the jacket around and see there's still a patch on the breast that also reads 'Tanner', I guess that must be it.
Was he an Outlaw Son? Why are the patches torn off? And why was it all sitting in my Grandmother’s attic? It has to be related to the dog buried in the backyard, right? So many questions, and no Grandma around to ask.
As I put all of it back in the box for safekeeping until I figure out what to do about it, a faded Post-It note flutters out of the jacket. There's a phone number on it in my grandmother’s handwriting. Tanner's?
This feels like a story just waiting to be written. A girl inherits a house, finds an old box full of mysterious things and an unlabeled phone number. I can’t call it.
Can I?
No. Who knows how old all this stuff is? If that was his dog, and it was in the ground long enough to decompose to bones, it has to have been years. I should show this stuff to the guys. Maybe they can explain what it's about. But I mean… I do have a phone number. By now it’s probably someone else’s number, but what if it isn’t? If someone called me about things they found from my past, I’d at least think it was a fun little side quest.
I pull my phone out and dial the number, but I don't tap the call button right away. What's the worst that happens? Someone answers and isn't interested? Or no one answers at all?
I call and it actually rings.
And rings. And rings. Finally the answering service connects. “Tanner. You know what to do.” His voice is coarse and short. He doesn't exactly sound pleasant, but then again, I bet Dragon’s message sounds about the same.
The beep sounds, signaling my turn to speak. Words come pretty easily for me when I’m typing, but out loud I stumble through my story, taking five times as long as I have to. I tell him about the box, and leave my number in case he wants to get in contact and get his stuff back. My good deed for the day.
So now I can take the rest of the day off, right? Never mind that I haven't written a word.
But first, washing off the grime from the attic.