15. Smoke
15
SMOKE
I ’m on fire.
So hot, I can feel the skin being pulled off my body.
It’s like a perverse barbecue.
Or like that scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark , when the Ark of the Covenant opens and everyone’s faces melt.
And yet, even with the fierce and debilitating pain, I can’t rouse myself from sleep.
Until I hear my name called.
It’s Quinn.
She’s hanging clothes in the yard, and she turns and smiles at me before calling out my name.
“Ronan.”
I sit up with a gasp, and the world spins as I realize I’m alone in bed.
“Fuck,” I gasp, rubbing both hands over my face.
There’s a large glass of water next to the bed and some pain meds.
I tip several into my hand, then toss them back before chasing them with the room-temperature water.
Flopping back into bed, I try to piece together the night.
Drinking like time wouldn’t wait.
Isla.
Quinn arriving, looking so fucking pretty in a cute sundress, so different to the club girls, and yet everything I wanted.
“Ah, fuck,” I mutter, placing my forearm over my eyes.
I fought with Taco.
He touched her hair.
That’s my first thought, and it inspires the same kind of reaction all over again today.
I want to hit him.
Again.
They had some conversation about women without a property patch being fair game, and for a heartbeat, I saw her in a leather cut with a Property of Smoke patch on the back.
And even with limp whisky dick, I formed a chub at the thought.
I groan when I remember arguing with Taco.
Something about me fucking Isla.
Something about Quinn being able to fuck whoever she wanted.
She hadn’t wanted to be part of our argument.
“Fuck!” Butcher got involved, and I squirm on the bed as I recall Butcher splitting us up and more fighting.
A pissing contest. Whose dick was biggest.
And then…
I don’t remember the rest clearly.
Except Butcher’s hand connecting with Quinn, knocking her to the ground, and me feeling utterly fucking wretched that my drinking had led to her fall.
Seems like that’s all I’m capable of: letting Moran women get hurt.
Then, I realize, Quinn is no longer here.
There is no sign of her or any of her things.
Did she sleep here? Did she leave alone?
For a moment, I think of Taco, but somehow, I know she wouldn’t have gone to find him.
And I find myself hoping she went back to my home.
I drag my ass to the edge of the bed and tentatively put my feet on the ground.
The world spins.
My stomach roils.
I got up at four to puke, so now it’s empty and I need something to settle it.
Tugging on some jeans is tough, pulling on my boots, tougher.
I amble to the kitchen, using the wall as a crutch.
I run my fingers along the trim to help with my center of gravity.
“Well, if it isn’t my mouthy fucking road captain,” Butcher says.
“How’s the head?”
“Morning to you too, Prez.”
I grab the coffee pot, pour a large mug, and then take a sip.
It’s bitter and nasty.
What I wouldn’t give for some of Quinn’s coffee.
Perhaps a couple of those lemon and blueberry scones.
Ate two of them before I left yesterday, when she went to hide in her room.
Fucking tastiest thing I’ve eaten in a while.
“What got into you yesterday?” he asks.
“Too much fucking alcohol. Probably mixed with my pain meds,” I lie.
I touch the dressing, hoping he’ll buy what I’m saying.
“You want to believe that bullshit, go ahead. You got something for the Moran girl? Do I need to get her out of your place?”
I shake my head.
“She’s moving out today,” I say as I realize that’s the reason I stormed into the clubhouse and started drinking as though my life depended on it.
“You hit Taco.”
“You hit Quinn.”
“Wouldn’t have hit Quinn if you hadn’t given me a reason to stand between the two of you,” Butcher says.
“Sorry I hit her, but you put us all in that situation. You told Taco you’d tear his fucking hands off if he touched her again. That doesn’t sound like the indifferent bullshit you’re spouting this morning.”
I place my hands on the counter and drop my head before closing my eyes.
“You happen to know what time she left?”
“Sorry, I don’t. Just got out of bed to get some food. Listen, I can’t imagine what it must be like, to have gone through what you went through this summer. Imagine it shook you, rattled your nerves a little. My best advice? Find yourself, first. Not someone else.”
Butcher leaves the kitchen and I’m alone with my thoughts, shitty as they are.
“Fuck it,” I say for possibly the fiftieth time this morning.
Gingerly, I tear the dressing off my burns.
The nurse said I probably wouldn’t get a fresh one put on when I went in next.
I simply pre-empted the move.
The skin is definitely smoother.
Scabbed over. Not oozing.
It’s enough progress that I pull the rest of the tape off and throw it all in the garbage.
I shouldn’t drive. I know I shouldn’t.
I know I’m still drunk.
But I need to apologize to Quinn.
Because, given the behavior I can remember leading up to the two of us ending up in my room together, I can only imagine what an asshole I was while she was there.
I have vague recollections.
The world spinning. Feeling sick.
My burns aching.
Oh, God.
The shame and tears.
Did I tell her everything?
Does she know how badly I let my team down?
The rest is a blur. Perhaps she held my hand.
I think I showered. Was she there?
Did she see me at my worst?
Why is my dressing not a soggy mess if I did?
Ronan.
She called me by my name.
You just have to get through today.
Then, sleep. Then, do your best again tomorrow.
Feeling cared for.
I stuff some toast down my throat, and a fractal of a memory comes to me that she might have given me toast. But maybe I’m confusing that with one of the mornings at home.
Once I have some coffee and toast lining my stomach, I get dressed and drive myself to the bakery, where I park up around the back of the property.
As I approach the gate, I hear her.
“You’re a sneaky mother trucker,” she says.
My head throbs like someone is splitting it open with a large axe when I push the gate open.
She’s on her knees, trying to get the wheel back onto one of the industrial baking racks that lies on the ground like a toppled tower of Babylon.
The rack is twice her size, and even yelling at an inanimate object, she’s the prettiest woman I’ve seen in a long while.
And I can’t think of any place I wanted to be but in her presence.
“Steady,” I say, kneeling next to her.
“You’re gonna cross thread the screw part of the wheel.”
Quinn hands the wheel to me.
“Here. If you can fix it, I’ll give you a cinnamon roll.”
“Promises, promises,” I say as I fiddle with the wheel.
It’s tricky. Doesn’t line up quite right because my diagnosis is correct, the screw thread has been cross threaded at some point.
But with a bit of perseverance, I manage to get it on.
I stand and lift the baking rack upright before giving it a little shove back and forth to prove it now works.
My brain sloshes about in my skull as I do.
Fucking hangover.
When I offer Quinn my hand to help her to her feet, she takes it.
“Thank you.”
For the wheel or for helping her stand, I’m not sure.
“Are you feeling okay?”
I debate lying, but I decide to be honest. “Not really.”
Her smile is soft, measured.
“Come inside.”
There’s a hose connected to an exterior faucet that’s in my way, and I kick it over to the wall so I can wheel the rack back into the kitchen.
The scent of baking is strong.
Fresh bread. Cookies.
A rack of plump croissants cooling.
Quinn tips her head at a small desk chair.
“Sit there.”
But I don’t.
I follow her into the bakery, where there are a few customers waiting and one of the women is busy serving them.
On the wall is a photograph I remember seeing a thousand times.
Melody told me it was from when the store opened, and I do a little math.
Must be twenty years old, by now.
It’s faded a little, the once-white frame now yellowed.
Quinn’s mom is grinning and holding tight to Melody’s hand.
A very young Quinn looks totally disinterested.
Geez, how had I forgotten they had an older brother, Silas?
He fucked off to work on the oil rigs or something.
Couldn’t wait to get out of here.
Come to think of it, I think I remember Melody telling me that Quinn wasn’t hugely interested in the bakery.
Yet she’s so fucking talented at it.
Silently, she hands me a coffee and a plate with a thickly iced cinnamon bun on it.
“It destroyed everything,” Quinn says quietly, joining me in looking at the photo.
“When Melody went missing. Everything in this building reminded my parents of her. Mom didn’t want to run the bakery anymore. Dad didn’t want to be here, surrounded by memories. And while I’ll never be sure why I wasn’t enough for them to focus on, I feel like they didn’t want me or Silas as a reminder of the other child they had once.” She touches the photograph, running her hand over her sister’s cheek.
“If you know what happened, please tell me.” Tears fill her eyes.
“I can’t live the rest of my life not knowing.”
I gently place my arm around her while holding the plate and guide her into the back.
“Sit,” I say. Nudging her to the chair.
I look around and find a mug to pour half my coffee in, Then, I grab a knife from the knife rack to cut the cinnamon roll in half.
Once I’m done, I hand them to Quinn, then sit opposite her on the floor, my back to what I think is the dishwasher.
“Butcher asked the club lawyer his opinion, and he advised me on what to say. So, what you hear now, I’ll never repeat, as it will contradict what I said back then.”
Quinn places the plate on her knee, then swipes beneath her eyes with her spare hand.
“What do you know?”
I shake my head.
“I promise you that the truth is I don’t know what happened to Melody, sugar. But what I do know is that she broke up with me two days before it happened. Told me she wanted more action in her life. That the bakery was boring, and going to college was boring. She didn’t like that I was spending time with the club instead of her, and I refused to include her in club business. She was chomping at the bit for a life she didn’t have. She told me she was moving on to someone else.”
Quinn takes a sip of coffee.
“Why didn’t you tell the police that?”
I shake my head.
“The club lawyer’s job was to do whatever it took to keep us out of jail. To avoid suspicion, whatever it takes. He said that her dumping me two days before she went missing, for another mysterious guy, would be motive. I already belonged to a motorcycle club gang. And if she’d dumped me, as opposed to me dumping her, I could have been enraged. That was the word the lawyer used. Enraged . I would have the means to make her disappear. The lawyer said the best thing I could do was to be devastated by her going missing. So that’s what I did.”
Quinn sighs, and I hate the disappointment in her eyes.
“Had she fallen in with any other people? Could they have taken her?”
I stuff some of the cinnamon roll in my mouth.
“I’ve thought all of it through a thousand times. I’ve even followed up on a couple of things. I don’t know a single reason that would help explain what happened to her.”
She studies me carefully.
“You promise that’s the truth, Smoke?”
“It’s the only truth there is. I had nothing to do with it and don’t know how it happened.” The sun lights her hair from behind, creating a burnished halo around her.
“You deserve a better answer, and I wish I could give it to you. And for the record, I liked Melody, but I was never in love with her. In truth, we barely knew one another.”
Quinn drops her head.
“I’m also sorry if I was a dick last night. I only have the vaguest memories of what happened after we were outside. I’m sorry if I hurt you further.”
She shakes her head but doesn’t look up.
“You were probably the sweetest you’ve ever been.”
There is a layer of hurt so thick in her words that it settles like a blanket between us.
I climb to my knees and crawl the few steps to her, before placing my palms on her knees.
“In a different universe, Quinn, I’d be a better man with better answers. But I’m sorry no one has ever made you feel worth staying for, because you are. You don’t need to rush to move out today. Take your time. When you’re ready.”
I touch the ends of her hair, and she finally raises her eyes to mine.
I ruin everything I touch, but goddamn if I don’t want to taste her.
Yet now isn’t the time or the moment.
Not when Melody is standing between us so clearly.
“We’re always going to remind each other of her, aren’t we?” she asks.
With twenty-six letters in the alphabet, and a billion words at my disposal, I hate that there are only two words I can come up with. “We are.”