3. Smoke
3
SMOKE
W hen my alarm goes off in the morning, the first thing I notice is that the house is utterly silent.
The second is that I can smell coffee.
And bread.
Despite the external silence, my head rages with a thousand bells when I try to move.
Fucking whiskey and painkillers.
Seems to be the only combination that allows me to sleep without nightmares.
Gingerly, I make my way out of bed.
The dressing grips and tugs at my skin as I move and is a constant reminder of what I’ve lost. I have an appointment today to get the dressing changed, which is always a bundle of fun.
Not looking forward to conversations about exudate management, which is a fancy word for the shit oozing from me, and serious pain management, which I’m avoiding because I have the kind of personality that might find heavy-duty drugs a little too enticing.
Not even the panoramic view of the mountains from the family room brightens my spirits as I follow my nose to the kitchen.
There’s a pot of coffee sitting on the counter in a coffee maker I sure as fuck don’t own.
It’s silver with fancy buttons, but the brewed pot is filled with the liquid of the gods.
I grab a mug off the drying rack, because it’s easier than trying to reach into the cupboard.
I’m guessing it’s the one Quinn used and washed by hand, and my cock stirs in my boxer briefs that she’s had her lips on it.
Fuck my life.
I’ve barely thought about sex since the accident, but now I’m getting aroused by ceramic.
The nutty aroma gets even stronger as I pour a large mugful.
It’s piping hot and burns my lips when I sip some, but man, it might be the nicest coffee I’ve ever tasted.
There’s a wooden cutting board with a small dish of butter sat in some ice, a little dish of jam with a glass lid, and a checkered cloth, which I remove to reveal a fresh loaf of bread with a few slices already cut in perfectly even strokes.
Next to it is a small note.
Thanks for not kicking me out.
Yet. The bread’s warm, the coffee’s hot.
Try not to choke on either.
Quinn.
The sass in the note arouses me, and it’s not just the brattiness in the way she speaks to me.
It’s the domesticity of it.
I’ve spent years not getting attached to anyone I fuck.
I’m an exhibitionist who loves sex, and there’s nowhere in the clubhouse I haven’t fucked.
My routine’s been so good, I haven’t wanted a relationship in a long time.
But I can’t help liking that Quinn made the bread with her own hands, setting it to rise last night.
And she’s taken the time to decant shit into pretty dishes and make an ordinary plate of bread and butter into something…
special.
There’s something soul-stirring about being thought about and cared for.
Try not to choke on either.
I smile at that and run my finger over the words.
If she were mine, I’d be so eager to get home so I could thrust my cock so far down her throat, she’d gag, and tears would spill down her face.
I’d tell her to try not to choke on this either.
“Fuck,” I curse, slamming the note back down onto the table.
It’s Quinn.
Quinn.
And there’s so much water between us, we’d drown if we tried to reach each other.
I’m sexually very open, but even I squirm a little at the idea of fucking an ex’s little sister.
That’s surely some kind of etiquette faux pas, something you just don’t do.
I manage to make a couple of slices of toast. Buttering the damn things is a lesson in patience.
It hurts to spread the butter, hurts to spread the jam, and hurts to raise it to my mouth to eat it.
I switch hands to my left side, and it makes it marginally more bearable.
As I eat, I walk around the kitchen and look at the things she’s brought over.
There’s one of those Dutch oven things and a large industrial-scale food mixer, all shiny and chrome, that takes up half the counter.
I catch sight of my laundered clothes flapping on the line.
Quinn must have been up early to get that done.
It’s gonna be a small pleasure to put on sun-dried things that have been washed in my own laundry soap.
On the kitchen table is a pile of books, maybe twenty of them.
The first pile looks like a whole bunch of romance books with naked-chested guys on the cover or odd-looking cartoony covers where the couple have no faces.
I pick up a book that’s got two famous actresses on the cover.
The cover is worn, the pages have that well-flicked-through vibe, where the cover no longer sits flat, and the corners are rounded.
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman.
When I open it, there is line after line of highlighted text and colored sticky tabs.
All the quotes noted with blue tabs have the same melancholy tone.
One is about loneliness, another about a soul filled with sorrow.
A sense of loss and sadness that makes me feel all those things too.
I slam the book back onto the pile and go take a shower, which ends up being a terrible idea.
I’m not supposed to get the dressing wet, so I try to point the showerhead away from it but fail miserably.
Yet, I figure I’ll be getting it changed in about thirty minutes, so who cares?
It hurts to get into the truck instead of onto my bike, the two vehicles side by side in the garage.
Much as I’d love the joy of the ride, the feel of the wind on my face, I’m just not sure my body is up to my bike yet.
By the time I get to the medical center for my appointment, there is a large wet patch on my T-shirt from the soggy dressing, and the one on my arm is dripping slow and steady onto my jeans.
I grab the clean T-shirt I brought with me and step inside.
The person assigned to change the dressing looks a little disgusted.
But honestly, I stank like rotten fish, and that was worse than this mess.
Thankfully, the oozing is easing.
Might only need one more dressing change, where it will be healed enough to go without.
When I step outside, there’s a bike next to my truck, and Butcher is leaning against it.
The salt in his salt-and-pepper hair stands out in the bright sunlight.
There’s a weathered expression on his face, and something unreadable in his eyes.
“Heard you were going to be here,” he says, standing to his full height when he sees me.
“Welcome back.”
I glance up and down the street.
I don’t know why, but I’m not ready to see him.
Not ready to talk to him.
Being road captain is something I’ve always been proud of.
For some reason, I don’t feel worthy of the title anymore.
“Thanks, Butcher.”
He takes a drag of his cigarette, then points it in my direction as he exhales a stream of smoke.
“I’ve seen that look before. Never expected to see it on you.”
“What look?” I tuck my hands into my jean pockets.
“Doubt.”
I huff and shake my head.
“Not doubting shit,” I lie.
He lifts off the bike and walks toward me, before grabbing my shoulders.
“What happened was not your fault.”
I step back out of his reach.
“Nope. Not talking about that with you. Or anyone. Shit happened. I’m home.”
Butcher eyes me carefully.
I know he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.
“You and I both know this isn’t how that kind of thing works. Bottling shit. Pretending everything is fine.”
I force a smile onto my face, even though I can barely remember how.
“No pretending. No bottling. I’m back and ready.”
Butcher gives me a look that says the conversation is far from over, but then surprises me by not pushing further.
“Well, in that case, welcome back. Glad to see you’re taking care of the medical side of things.” He glances up to the large sign over the building.
“We need you back in fighting form. You’ve been missed. And there’s a lot to catch you up on that we couldn’t tell you about over insecure phone and internet lines.”
“Is one of those things how you nearly had Atom tossed from the club because he finally got together with Ember?”
Butcher runs his tongue over his top teeth, clearly struggling for an answer.
“Not my proudest moment.”
I huff at that.
“If I’d been here, I’d have given you a slap for considering it, Prez.”
“Not as simple as that. There were lines drawn. Expect my men to respect them.” He takes another drag of his cigarette.
“But I’ll admit, I’m hating the way Atom and Ember are both keeping me at arm’s length, right now.”
Wrinkles furrow my brow.
“Thought you guys talked it out.”
Butcher shrugs.
“Of a fashion. But I did some serious damage. The two of them aren’t ignoring me, they’re both even talking to me, but there’s a gap. Some distance. Gonna take a while for the pair of them to trust me. And that’s nothing I can fix standing here today.”
I think about the gap between Quinn and me.
Not everything is fixable.
In a small way, I let her down.
Was never able to figure out what happened to Mel after she disappeared.
But Atom, Ember, and Butcher should be something that can be made right.
“Some say life is about learning lessons. Learn the lesson quick, change your behavior fast, and it doesn’t hurt. But if you keep refusing to learn the lesson, it gets more painful each time. It goes from minor consequences to big-ass painful ones.”
Like your own overconfidence.
Couldn’t be told that you might be reading the weather wrong.
I wish I could bury the painful thought, but the truth is, I believe it.
My cockiness got us into trouble almost as bad as the Yarnell Hill fire back in 2013.
I fucking studied that shit, and yet I still got caught out by a fire that overtook us.
“Not sure I’m catching what you’re saying,” Butcher says.
I shake my head and come back to the moment.
Try to focus on the feel of concrete beneath the sole of my boots, the scent of greasy food coming from somewhere, the sound of an airplane overhead.
“What I’m saying is, you learned it now. You can’t tell a brother who he can and can’t have as his old lady. And you can’t interfere in Em’s life anymore. It’ll just drive a deeper wedge between the two of you. Learn that now, and you got a fighting chance of having a better relationship with the two of them in the future. Have the ability to enjoy your grandkids.”
“Jesus Christ. Not sure I’m ready for a room full of little Atoms.”
I grin at that.
“But think about the strength the club will have if they all join. We’d have a defensive row of rock-solid ranchers. Nobody is getting through that.”
Butcher stubs his cigarette out, then drops it in the trash.
The move irks me a little.
All it takes is for someone to have put their newspaper in the trash and for Butcher’s cigarette to not be properly out, and we got ourselves a fire.
“By the time all those little Atoms are full-grown, someone else will be president. You coming to the clubhouse?”
My stomach flips at the thought of it.
“Not today. Got some other life-admin shit to take care of now that I’m back.”
Butcher nods in understanding, and a trickle of shame flows through my veins.
“Then show up tomorrow. We got Church at noon. It’s not optional.”
“Understood.”
I watch Butcher as he rides off on his bike.
The throaty roar of the engine, the scent of gasoline and exhaust fumes, and the way the sun glints off the chrome makes me envious.
Maybe I’ll try the bike when I get home.
Hell, who am I kidding?
I can’t even pick up my own fucking laundry without pain.
Just be happy you’re alive.
The unbidden thought feels like betrayal.
Like those men who snuck onto the Titanic lifeboats before women and children but were plagued their entire life with the shame of what they did.
My life came at a cost.
“One foot in front of the other,” I mumble to myself as I pull out my phone.
I make a list.
A really fucking long one.
One that will keep me busy all day.
Because when I’m busy, I don’t have time to think.
By the time I return home six hours later, I see Quinn’s car on the drive.
Mixed feelings wash in.
What I wouldn’t give for some peace.
And I swear I can smell sugar and lemons on the breeze.
Must be that thing, Pavlov’s dogs or whatever it’s called, where the dogs were conditioned to associate a bell ringing with being given food.
Now, whenever I see anything to do with Quinn, I associated it with those scents.
I park the truck and realize that getting the groceries out of the back is going to be even more painful than getting them in.
A guy who was collecting shopping carts saw me struggling and gave me a hand by lifting everything up on the tailgate.
Once it was up there, I worked through the pain to shuffle things along with my feet.
But now…
Lowering the tailgate hurts.
Lowering the steps to the tailgate hurts.
Dragging the first few bags to the edge of the tailgate hurts.
In fact, I hate the fucking tailgate so damn bad, I stamp on the fucker, which hurts me a lot more than it hurts it.
“Are you going to ask me to give you a hand, or are you going to force me to watch you injure yourself some more?” Quinn says, stepping out onto the porch.
I don’t want her help.
I don’t know why it matters that I don’t seem incompetent in her eyes.
But before I can answer, she’s already by the truck, reaching up for the three bags I just nudged to the edge.
Bones yaps and barks around her feet.
So much for being a guard dog.
He’d more than likely lick me to death.
“I’ve got it,” I say, although I swear, she must be able to see the sweat popping on my brow.
“Given enough time, I’m sure you would,” she says.
“But I made dinner, and it’s going to spoil if we don’t eat it soon. So, let’s just get this done.”
“Where’s the prospect who’s supposed to be watching you?”
Quinn gestures behind the house.
“Out back somewhere. Something about a perimeter walk.”
Of course, he’d be nowhere in sight when he could help carry shit in.
She takes the three bags and carries them into the house, and I try not to look at the way the hem of her sundress swishes around her thighs as she walks barefoot to the door.
Bones prances between the truck and the porch.
Like he can’t decide whether he should stay with me or run after Quinn.
“It’s okay, bud,” I say to him.
“You can go with her.”
Bones barks and runs inside.
When Quinn comes back out, she’s humming some song I can’t catch, and when she reaches for the twelve-pack of beer I’ve just kicked along the truck bed, I see the scars on her wrist. Don’t know why I hadn’t noticed them before.
They’re faint, but still there.
“They tied you up?” I ask, as the reality I’ve been ignoring hits me.
They hurt her. Like, really hurt her.
She stops, quickly, then rubs a hand over the marks on the other wrist.
“The second time, yes.” She grabs the beer.
“Where do you want me to put this?”
“The second time?”
Jesus.
I need to catch up with Atom to properly understand exactly what happened while I was away.
She nods. “Cable ties. They dug into my skin while I tried to break them to get free.”
The matter-of-fact way she says it bothers me.
Because her eyes—which make me think of dark moss on the trunk of a pine, more brown than green—tell me a completely different story.
Just the memory of them has terrified her.
And for that alone, I want to kill them all.