Twenty-One
B reaking my phone was not my finest hour, and it was definitely something I deeply regretted, because of how it had affected Camille. She’d rallied since she broke out of whatever the fuck that state was that she was in, but I knew it could happen again. I settled her at the bar with Tommy, and asked her to order us something to eat, while I sorted a phone.
I headed straight for Ice’s room, and banged on the door. Lissa wrenched it open instantly, a panicked look on her face, and fuck, I should have thought this through. Of course she’d have assumed something was wrong with Camille.
“Is she okay?”
I deserved that, for sure. “I’m sorry, darlin’, your girl is fine. She’s just ordering us some breakfast, or I dunno, lunch. What time is it?”
“Still early, dickhead. What do you want?” Lissa backed out of the way as Ice approached me, that usual snarky look on his face. I opened my mouth to speak, and he handed me something; a smartphone.
“Figured this would be what you’d want. I’ve synced it up to yours, so you should have most things. Anything you lost, though, well that’ll serve you right for smashing yours, right?”
Ever gracious, this guy. Still, he pre-empted my request, and saved me from being away from Camille for too long.
“Thank you, honestly. Uh… Lissa, can I get a minute with my brother here?”
Ice folded his arms, shaking his head at me.
“No secrets with us, man. She stays.”
I stepped inside and closed the door. I could understand him wanting to keep his old lady involved, but things worked a certain way around here, and I was his VP, dammit.
“Club business, Ice.”
“Bullshit, it’s about Cammy, and she stays.” Fucker thought he knew it all, didn’t he?
“Okay, yeah, that’s cool. Not like I’m your VP or anything, and you’re supposed to show me some measure of fucking respect. That extremely thorough background check you did on Camille, I need to see it.”
Lissa gasped, and turned to slap at Ice’s chest.
“You did what?!” I smirked, because he brought this on himself, didn’t he?
“Jesus! Thanks, man.” He turned to explain to her, while I ran a hand through my hair, and groaned with frustration at the delay I thought we’d managed to avoid.
“Come on, will you? I need it now.”
Ice caught Lissa’s hand and kissed it, and that simple gesture of love, of fucking belonging to each other, hurt me. It burned in my chest like it could destroy me. I wanted that, and I wasn’t going to fucking get it.
“Listen, man. I get it. You like her, and you want to know her better, maybe understand what shit she has in her past, but it’s her business. It stays in the file where it’s safe from everyone’s eyes.”
I bit back a frustrated curse, because I wasn’t letting that shit happen again so soon after earlier. I had better control of myself, of my temper, than this, or at least I always had before everything.
“I need to understand what I triggered. I need to understand her, so I can fucking avoid it happening again.”
“So don’t yell at her. It’s pretty fucking simple, man.”
I looked at Lissa next, hoping she’d give me more.
“Please, tell me something that means I don’t scare her again. I care too much about her to want to make that happen again.”
Lissa glared at Ice. “Well, unlike this dickhead, I have no idea what it was, and even if she tells me, I can’t tell you. Just like I couldn’t tell her anything you told me in our session yesterday. It’s confidential. ”
Fuck me. “Ice, as your VP, I’m fucking ordering you to give me that file.”
He rubbed a hand over his buzzcut hair, his eyes darting to Lissa before returning to mine.
“Please don’t do this to me, man. Reacher has seen it all, so go talk to him. This isn’t my shit, and I don’t want to be involved. Bad enough that this little vixen is gonna start quizzing me after you bugger off.”
“Please. There’s something she’s deathly afraid of, or more likely, it’s someone. A person. A bastard who hurt her in some way. Tell me, and I can avenge her. I’ll kill the fucker, so she never has to be afraid again.”
Lissa gasped, and Ice cursed. “Go see the Pres, I can’t do any more than this, and I can’t tell you without his approval anyway. He already fucking threw his weight around about this.”
And he could have just told me that part first. Asshole .
Cammy
T ommy seemed like a nice guy, and didn’t mind that it was still fairly early, offering to make us breakfast rolls when I asked about food.
“Thank you for the coffee. I always need a mass of it in the mornings.”
“Yeah, don’t we all, right? We always have coffee on the go here. I’ll go sort your breakfast, so if anyone needs me, I’m back in the kitchen.”
He left me alone, and it struck me again how comfortable I felt in this place, even though I barely knew anyone here. I opened up my version of the bucket list, and added a few things that I’d missed before. There was something cathartic about creating a list now to work on, because I had a better chance of achieving more of my items, but then I was struck again by how unlikely it was that we’d finish the list Stitch made, if he really was on borrowed time.
It was unbelievably heartbreaking that someone so young and decent was struck by something so life limiting, because even if he had months left, how many of them would be bedridden or worse? He hadn’t mentioned if he had to go through chemo or any other radical treatments, and I hadn’t wanted to ask. He was clearly trying to pretend this wasn’t happening to him, and why would I force him to face it, if he could have some blissful ignorance before it became real and final?
I heard boots on the hard floor, and turned to watch him walking toward me. He was beautiful really, tall, wiry, and smiling as he approached. I loved his smile, because it was always reflected in his very blue eyes, and seemed to light the room up.
“Hi.”
His grin widened, and he winked at me.
“You know I love it when you say that. Sorry I was so long, Ice can be a prick, but I have a phone again, and it looks like my list automatically went into the cloud.”
“Great. I have one in mind though. That place you wanted to revisit, the one that appeared twice. Can we go there today?”
His shoulders dropped a little. “I can’t fucking ride yet, or I’d definitely take you there. It’s lovely in summer, but you can’t get to it by car.”
Oh. There went my big idea.
“I’m sorry. I thought it’d be a good one to try, but I guess it might not be one you want to rush to anyway. We can pick another.”
“I like the idea of the video one, girl.”
I blushed, especially with Tommy’s perfect timing to return with two toasted breakfast sandwiches. Even though he couldn’t possibly know what Stitch meant, it felt like he could guess.
“Wow, that looks great, kid, thanks.” Stitch leaned close to his breakfast and inhaled deeply.
“God yes, breakfast of kings.”
I giggled, reaching for mine. “Well, I’m no king but I’m eating it anyway. Thanks, Tommy.” He nodded, sliding a coffee in front of Stitch, then made himself scarce.
“You’re a fucking queen, Camille. Thank you for giving me another chance.”
“I might just make you earn it though, Stitch.”
He shot me a grin as he swallowed his first bite.
“With orgasms? I’m cool with that. I promised I’d live up to the name, right?”
Oh god yes. I opened my mouth to speak, and caught the eye of another biker suddenly leaning against the bar on his other side. The scary tattooed one .
“What name, VP? Because I know you’re not gonna do to her what got you your road name, right? Tommy won’t appreciate the mess here in the bar, and she seems like such a nice lady.”
Stitch cursed, and shot him a glare.
“Do you mind, Torch, we’re having a fucking meal here.”
He laughed. “Yeah, you don’t wanna be thinking about that kinda shit while you eat, I get it. Hey lovely, you get bored of him, you come see me, yeah? I’ll rock your fucking world.”
Stitch lurched up from his seat, and shoved the other biker, and then the guy was backing off.
“Whoa, sorry, VP. I was just messing. No harm done, right, lovely? Just a little banter. I’ll uh, stay wayyy over here.”
He held up his hands, and walked back a few steps, before he turned and ambled over to the other end of the bar, but his grin was already back on his face.