Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
Riff
I said something wrong.
I saw it in the way her face shut down, how the color she’d gained from food and warmth and safety drained from her face, leaving her ashen, in the way her pretty gray eyes went haunted and sad before she started to shut down, pulling into herself, huddling into her nest of blankets, and drifting off to sleep.
The thing was, I had no fucking idea what I’d said.
I exhaled hard as I tiptoed around the room in the early morning, the beeping and scraping of a snowplow somewhere nearby waking me up a while before.
I had a feeling that I would need to get accustomed to not knowing what to say, not understanding what might trigger her. I couldn’t even begin to understand what was going on in her head and heart. So until I got a chance to talk to someone who might be able to shed some light on how to approach Vienna, I was going to have to deal with sticking my damn foot in my mouth.
“Morning, Vernon,” I said to the cat as he walked out of the bathroom, flicking his tail in greeting before climbing back up in the bed with Vienna.
Well, at least we didn’t have to worry about him doing any damage to the room. Before he’d been dumped, someone had clearly litter-trained him at some point.
After brushing my teeth, I made my way back into the room, feeling a chill I’d missed before, having become accustomed to it in my sleep.
It looked like the ancient windows weren’t doing much to keep the cold out.
I walked over to my bed, grabbing the covers, and carefully placing them over Vienna as the cat eyed me, almost like he saw himself as her guardian now.
I made my way to the door, quietly pulling it open, only to find the entire fucking path connecting all the rooms was covered in a solid twelve or so inches of snow.
As if having the exact same thought at the same moment, Raff’s door slid open, and his head popped out, hair still wet from his shower.
“Shoulda asked the guy at the desk for a shovel to keep outside our doors,” he said, eyeing the snow.
As if on cue, we could hear the rumble of a snowblower grumbling to life over near the office, snow immediately flying through the air and onto the packed parking lot. I guess he’d worry about that later.
“There’s a vending machine in the office,” he told me. “As soon as this gets cleared, I’ll go grab us something to hold us all over until we can get into town.”
We both glanced in that direction, squinting at the blinding white snow blanketing the entire area.
Already, though, there were signs of life. I imagined that people in this area were used to the snow, and were quick to get it dealt with, so life could go back to normal.
“Pretty, though,” Raff said, nodding.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“She sleeping?”
“Yeah. You got an extra blanket? It’s cold in here.”
“Yeah,” he said, disappearing, then coming back and reaching outward as far as he could without sinking his leg into the snow. I did the same, gathering the blankets. “Thanks. I’ll leave the door unlocked, so you don’t have to knock,” I said, disappearing back into the room that I’d just made significantly colder, but Vienna was still out cold, so I carefully draped another blanket over her before getting myself ready for the day, cursing my lack of real winter clothing.
What can I say?
We generally traveled across the South. We needed shorts and t-shirts, not jackets, gloves, and hats. And definitely not snow boots.
I imagined the town had some of that shit to offer, though, so Raff could go and grab it for us if we were going to be stuck here a few more days.
Eventually, it was the snowblower moving past our door that woke up Vienna. It happened the same way it had the last time, gasping and shooting up in bed, eyes panicked, her body pulling into itself.
“Just the snow blower,” I told her, watching her panicked gaze shoot to me before she slowly started to relax.
Her gaze slid down to her bed, brows knitting. “Where did all these blankets come from?” she asked.
“My bed. And Raff’s beds,” I told her. “It’s been chilly in here this morning. I didn’t want you to get a chill. Are you dying?” I asked, knowing I could never sleep under, what, five blankets.
“No,” she said, shaking her head at herself. “I don’t want to move,” she admitted.
But she eventually crawled out from under the nest and made her way into the bathroom. The water turned on in the shower, and I felt like the biggest kind of monster for the way my mind immediately started to imagine her stepping inside the water, but my imagination added more flesh to her bones, rounding her out…
“Fuck,” I hissed, shaking my head at myself.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Maybe Raff had been right in that hotel room before the job. Maybe I did need to get laid.
I mean, clearly.
There was no other reason to be fantasizing about a woman who’d been held captive and brutalized for months.
“Well, the vending machine had all the classic chips, cookies, and sugary drinks,” Raff said as he came in, dropping his armful of goodies onto my bed. “Not exactly a great start to the day, but it does look like the general store people are snow blowing too, so we can get something real there later.”
“And some warm shit for going out in this,” I said. “She was comfortable under all of those,” I told him, waving toward the blanket mound on her bed.
Vienna came back out a while later, likely after having used up all of the hot water, dressed in another of the outfits Raff had gotten her—a striped green and white sweater and yoga pants.
“A well-rounded breakfast,” she said with a hint of a smile as she chose an electrolyte drink, a bag of mini chocolate chip cookies, and some sour cream and onion chips.
We all picked at the snacks while watching the local weather report, all of us seeming relieved to learn the storm was just a freak front and no more were coming along behind it.
I got up to feed Vernon as Vienna curled back into her nest and opened her book, and Raff offered to head into town to see what was and wasn’t open yet.
“We can’t leave Vernon, though,” Vienna said, shooting me big eyes. “He’s not even supposed to be here.”
“We can put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and keep Vernon in the bathroom. It won’t be for long.”
She seemed uncertain until Raff returned two hours later with lots of warm shit to wear and the news of breakfast being served at the restaurant in town. The lure of french toast, it seemed, trumped her worries about Vernon being found out.
I mean, it wasn’t like they’d take the cat, anyway. If anything, we’d get charged extra for any possible damage.
Once Vienna was all snuggled up in a hat, scarf, gloves, boots, and this fluffy as fuck lined jacket with a bison print across it, and had a stomach full of carbs, eggs, and caffeine, she was a lot more relaxed and interested in walking around, mostly just looking in the windows of shops the town had to offer.
Raff went to the general store to stock up on the makings for sandwiches, since his room had a mini fridge to keep things fresh, as well as various other snacks and drinks, while he waved us off toward the bookstore.
Vienna was tense as we closed in on it, clearly fearful of being around people. Each time she saw a man, she moved behind me. I don’t know if she was worried they might hurt her, or they might somehow ‘see’ her trauma. Or both. But she visibly relaxed when the bookstore door chimed as we entered, and we moved inside the space to find an elderly woman behind the desk, and no one else to be seen.
I hung back, mostly just watching Vienna as she eagerly scanned titles, touched spines, and occasionally picked up books to read the blurbs.
She didn’t, though, take any with her.
And it wasn’t until I saw the way she longingly looked at one of the books as she set it back on the shelf that I realized it was because she had no cash of her own to buy any.
Keeping an eye on her, I backtracked and picked up all of the ones I’d seen her pick up, having a stack nearly up to my chin by the time I rounded the little accessory section.
Vienna was distracted by a stack of postcards, so I grabbed several bookmarks for her to add to my stack.
“What are you doing?” she asked, eyes wide when she finally turned and saw the stack of books in my arms.
“Shopping for books,” I said. “Funny, but I thought that’s what you wanted to do,” I said, pointedly looking at her empty hands.
“So, you like reading rom-coms and cozy mysteries?” she asked, shooting the stack a small smirk.
“Love ‘em,” I said, getting a surprised little twinkling laugh out of her.
“I really don’t need all of those,” she said, shaking her head, feeling guilty about the money.
Which, as I tried to impress on her the night before, was silly. I had more than I could spend.
Most of the club brothers made the exact same income. But Raff and I were given more, thanks to our lives being so consumed by the job compared to the others.
It was enough to get myself a house.
Then fucking fill it with books.
“Sure you do,” I said, tone light.
“Listen to the young man, honey,” the owner said, nodding as she looked at us. “He speaks nothing but the truth.”
“Exactly,” I agreed, shooting the older woman a smile as I brought the books over to the counter.
“Little word of advice from an older broad,” she said, leaning over the counter a bit toward Vienna like she was about to share a big secret. “When a handsome young man wants to buy you things, just smile pretty and let him.”
“She clearly knows what she’s talking about,” I said, snatching the book from the stand that Vienna was running her finger over, and handing it to the woman, who was just barely keeping a big grin to herself.
“Did you buy half the store?” Raff asked as he came in, looking a bit like a fucking snowman in his oversized black and red scarf and puffy white coat.
“Oh, lordy, there are two of you,” the woman said, fanning herself with one of Vienna’s books. “I think I read a book like that once,” she added with a wicked little wink in Vienna’s direction.
I tensed, worried talk of anything sexual might trigger Vienna, but she shot the woman a smirk as her cheeks went a bright shade of pink. Making me think she may have read a book or two like that before all this shit happened too.
“You know, we sell these very nice tote bags,” the owner said, waving toward a stack of them at the end of the counter with a big store logo on the front.
“Sign us up,” I said, grabbing three of them and passing them to her.
“Riff!” Vienna said, eyes wide, trying to silently argue with me.
“Hey, they have travel mugs too,” Raff said, snagging one and putting it on the counter.
“You’re not helping,” she said, but she was dangerously close to smiling right then.
“I told you I have a shopping problem,” Raff said, sounding grave. “I just trip, fall into a display,” he said, acting that out, “and come back with a bunch of things to buy. Look, this looks fun,” he said, waving the cover of a book at Vienna that had a woman swan diving off of a boat into the water.
“I don’t know where you found these two gentlemen,” the owner said. “But if they have a daddy or grandaddy, you send that man my way,” she said as she handed Vienna a bag of books in the tote as she finished ringing up the rest. Which may or may not have included a novelty pen, a fancy faux leather-bound notebook, a book light, and a pair of socks with books printed all over them.
She may have objected in the store, even looked incredibly uncomfortable as we said our goodbyes to the store owner, but as we walked back to the motel, there was a brightness in her eyes that would have had me buying her an entire fucking library to see there again.
Back in the room, she emptied all the bags, looking at her score while still wearing her bison coat and hat, then rearranging things into different piles, and carefully tucking them back into the bags, and piling them all on the desk where nothing could happen to them.
Then she climbed back into her nest with the book she was already mostly finished with, reading while she absentmindedly stroked Vernon’s head.
I moved outside with Raff, watching the plows clear the main road in town.
“What did Slash have to say?” I asked.
“To take our time, not draw attention to ourselves. Might have a different kind of precious cargo now, but the car is still loaded with guns,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m fine with taking our time. And Vienna seems okay. So long as she can make her nest and read, she seems content.”
“She’s gonna be alright, man,” he said, making my gaze slide over to him, finding him watching me. “Can see the worry all over you when you look at her. But she’s gonna be okay. It’s just gonna take time.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding. I believed that. I did. I was just impatient, I guess, to see less sadness and fear in her eyes.
“And I figure it’s probably a good sign that she’s so comfortable with you. She’s always making sure you’re right there with her.”
“I don’t know if it is a good thing to have a… comfort person.”
“Why not?”
“Off the top of my head, because I live on the road.”
“So Slash sends someone else on the road with me for a while,” he said. “Besides, we planned to be in Shady Valley for a while this time anyway.”
There were times over the years when one of us had to sit out on a trip. If we were hurt or sick. And someone else would go with us. But that was rare. And neither of us were a fan of the disruption of what had become safe and comfortable for us.
Eventually, though, we were going to need to slow down or hand over this job to others. No one wanted to live on the road forever.
And the more I saw the brothers starting to settle down, find love, and start families, the more I wondered if that could be in the cards for me too.
Admittedly, Raff probably had a few years of dogging around in him, but I was starting to crave stability and a constant place to lay my head and call home.
“Besides, the fuck are you borrowing tomorrow’s worries for?” Raff asked, shrugging. “We’re in a chill town, lots of snow that we never get to see, that girl in there is warm and in love with her books. Shit is good today.”
I always envied Raff’s ability to put shit into perspective like that. To just… shut down the worries.
It wasn’t something I’d lucked out with.
But as I went back into the room, finding Vienna curled up, lips curved up at whatever she was reading as she picked at a snack bag of animal crackers, I had to agree he was right.
Shit was good today.