12. Smoke
12
SMOKE
I lean back in the Adirondack chair, eyes closed beneath my sunglasses, and run my fingers loosely over the neck of my beer.
Everyone else seems to be out in the sun, enjoying the very last of the August cookouts we’re going to have, and I’m tucked beneath the large tree in the shade.
Because burns don’t like being burned.
Not every burn has a dressing.
Some patches of skin were lightly burned and blistered, and I swear when the sun touched them, it was as though someone had touched me with a cattle iron.
So here I am, attempting to drink and sleep my way out of my funk.
Life goes on around me.
Old ladies chase after kids, AC/DC plays loudly, and there’s the smell of grilling meat.
But the grill is too close to the planters one of the old ladies filled.
Too many cigarettes are getting stubbed out on the dirt.
And I’m about to lose my ever-loving shit at the number of kids running around in the chaos near naked flames.
Meanwhile, I can’t stop thinking how Hassan, Tim, and Billy will never get the chance to enjoy a day like this.
The breeze prickles over my skin and irritation grates through me, shredding my insides.
Breezes become winds, winds become unpredictable, and something utterly uncontrollable can take lives in a heartbeat.
It feels wrong that I’m sitting here, allegedly enjoying a beer on a sunny day with my brothers, when those men are gone, buried or cremated.
Fuck, knowing the butterfly effect, there could be traces of Tim’s ashes in the breeze.
Whether my eyes are open or closed, I can still see his face, the moment he realized he wasn’t going to make it.
The moment I managed to resuscitate him long enough to tell me to let his mom know he loved her.
My hands shook as I moved them over his eyelids to close them.
They came to the hospital and took all the statements for the investigation.
I’ve done everything I was supposed to.
Except call my fire chief back.
Life has taken on this wild cycle where my thoughts go back to the fire, yet they’re interspersed with trying to figure out how to live a normal life again.
I take a large gulp of the beer in my hand.
I’ve got no idea whether this is bottle number five or seventeen.
Just that beer has been the only thing keeping me moving through the day as I think of Quinn packing up to leave my house.
And I try not to think about what happened the last time I was drunk.
How I ended up in bed with Quinn.
How I wish I’d been sober enough to be aware of any of it, so I could remember what it felt like to hold her against me.
Because despite all my words this morning, I needed her out so I could stamp out the flicker of feelings I have for her.
Because out of sight is out of mind.
At some point, I consider getting up to grab some food.
Some steak and a plate full of potato salad.
But I started pouring alcohol into my system about two hours ago and haven’t looked back.
When there’s a thud next to me, I open one eye to see who it is.
“Brought you this,” Atom says, shoving a plate of the food I’d been considering at me.
There are long, juicy ribs covered in a thick barbecue sauce, a steak, cooked to perfection, fresh summer corn on the cob, potato salad, more coleslaw than I can face, and a bread roll plopped on top like a cherry.
“Eat it, because your alcohol-to-protein ratio is fucked.”
“Was just thinking that solid food would take up the room of at least another four of these.”
Atom tosses a fork at me.
“Just eat the food instead of moping.”
I wriggle up the chair a little.
The food smells good, and despite my protestations, I’m gonna attempt to lick this plate clean.
“Who said I’m moping?”
“Well, Butcher said he tried to talk to you and got monosyllabic answers. Isla said she tried to talk to you, and you just ignored her. And we all know Dice is already in the back room starting up a sex train with Poppy and Karlie, and you would normally be the first to choo-choo your way to that motherfucker.”
He does the thing with his hand that kids do, like he’s pulling down on the horn of a truck or train.
I flip him the bird.
“You wanna try fucking with open and oozing burns on your ribs? One thrust and something splits open.”
Atom looks down at his own plate.
“Now there’s a delicious image as I’m about to eat my food.”
I shake my head and smirk.
“Plus,” he continues, “you should gamify that. Bonus points to the girl who fucks you until you come without causing a medical situation. Get a nurse’s outfit. I fucking love it when Ember plays Nurse Deeks.”
I turn and look at him.
“Nurse fucking Deeks.”
He shrugs.
“She gives good bed bath.”
“Jesus.” I shake my head.
“Not sure I needed to know that about Prez’s daughter.”
Atom just laughs, and we then eat our food in companionable silence.
“You know,” Atom says as he throws a napkin down onto his plate and puts it on the floor next to his chair when he’s done, “nobody would think less of you if you just wanted some time off from the club while you get your body and head back in gear after what happened.”
I look over at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs, haplessly.
“You know what it means. Being here, doing this, takes commitment. A desire to be all in for the good of the club. If you need some time and space to get there, we’ll all be cool. I can continue to carry the road captain load until you’re back.”
“Fuck you,” I grumble.
“You’re down, man,” Atom says.
“Not down for the count, but you’re clearly lost. Maybe you’re back there in the fire. Physically, you’re sitting on this chair, but mentally, you’re not here. This is my version of an intervention. Because whatever you say, you are not you right now.”
Different emotions roll through me in waves.
I’m pissed that Atom is ruining today, not that I was enjoying it all that much.
I’m embarrassed that my best friend thinks I’m somehow less.
And I feel a huge wave of shame and guilt when I acknowledge at the pit of my soul that he’s right.
Doesn’t stop me from coming out swinging, though.
“You know what, maybe I’m not the man who left for this jump season. I watched my team die because of instructions I gave to hold their ground. Maybe I don’t need you armchair quarterbacking the way I handle my feelings around that.”
Atom’s face changes, and maybe that’s the toughest part of all.
He’s troubled, sad even, and lost.
The logical part of me knows why.
He thinks he’s losing me.
Hell, I’m fucking losing me.
I stand, using the arms of the chair for assistance, and it still feels as though someone is shoving a thousand hot pokers into my ribs.
“I’m doing fine.”
Atom tips his chin to my midsection, and I realize I have my arm wrapped across it to protect it.
“Yeah. Looks like it.”
I make a move to walk off.
“One more thing,” Atom says.
“Two, actually. First, I’m here for you. Whatever that looks like and whatever it takes. You wanna get a superlight dirt bike, easier to handle, just so you can ride, I’ll go with you on the same. You need to drink yourself into oblivion, I’ll match you drink for drink, and we can hold each other’s head when we puke. Or you need a ride to a therapist, I’ll fucking drive with you, sit next to you if that’s what you need. I’m gonna get helping you wrong, because unless you tell me what you need, I’m gonna guess, and there’s a high probability that if I guess, I’ll get it wrong. So be angry at me, swear and cuss me out, tell me to mind my own fucking business, whatever you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
I wouldn’t expect anything less from this brother.
He’s been that solid and steady rock for me for decades.
When I wanted to jump off bridges and rocks into the sea.
When I wanted to jump out of planes and take part in sex trains and do a million and one other reckless things.
Maybe that’s what I need.
A way to express that energy.
“And the second?”
“A heads up. Quinn is coming with Ember later, and I don’t know if you want her to see this version of you.”
My first instinct is to look around the lot to see if she’s already here.
Not sure I like the idea of her surrounded by my brothers, fucking horny lot that they are.
The second is, none of the club girls, with their ass cheeks showing beneath cute short skirts, can hold a candle to her, so it’s gonna be like chumming the water.
“She shouldn’t be here.”
Atom looks up at me.
“She’s either yours, and therefore she should be by your side, or she’s not yours, and it’s none of your fucking business whether she’s here or not. Either way, she’s coming with Ember, and you have about two hours to decide which version of that you want when she gets here.”
There’s a tightness in my chest, and it’s more than the dressings on the burns and the tape.
“What Quinn does is none of my concern.”
Atom stands and patronizingly taps the side of my face.
“You carry on telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.”
As he walks away, I hear Def Leppard’s “Love Bites” coming from the speakers.
I don’t know who the fuck put the rock ballad on, but the last thing I need is to listen to lyrics talking about not wanting to touch someone too much because fucking them might make you go crazy.
Three hours later, when I’m so drunk I can barely stand, and Isla is trying her best to persuade me to take her to my room, those lyrics become all the more real.
Because Quinn arrives, and the rest of the world falls out of focus.