Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
L orelai…
We had a pleasant breakfast. Hangman was good in the kitchen and let me help by handing me a knife, cutting board, and some fresh fruit to go with our waffles.
I carefully peeled and cut the two small melons and peeled and sectioned the two or three mandarin oranges while he whipped up some batter and took out a waffle maker from under one of the kitchen counter cabinets. His kitchen was small, but serviceable and laid out well from what I could tell.
He handed me plates, silverware, and even some napkins and said, “Why don’t you go on out and set the little bistro table out on the porch, it’s out that door,” he jerked his head to the front or back door of the house – I couldn’t honestly tell which was supposed to be which, but I guessed it was the back door given that it was past the little dining area and wasn’t the door that people predominantly came through.
“I’d like that,” I said gratefully. I was certainly starting to feel cooped up.
“Go on, then,” he said with a smile, jerking his head in the direction of the door. I took up the two stacked plates and went out. It was pleasantly warm, a little humid, but not terribly overpowering.
I set the table while he cooked in the kitchen and drifted back and forth to bring out the bowl of fruit, once I had washed and added some grapes, and then back again to bring out our coffees. By then, Hangman was following me up with a plate stacked with waffles in one hand and a bottle of pure maple syrup in the other.
We sat across from each other in the dappled sunlight coming through a big magnolia tree at the corner of the house and I closed my eyes and just basked in the warmth and the heavenly scent of the large flowers that were easily the size of dinner plates on the tree.
“Even in my old ratty tee shirt and pair of my whore pants you look lovely when you do that,” he remarked and I blinked my eyes open and stared, fork suspended in my hand. What he’d said dumbfounded me.
“Whore pants?” I asked and he laughed out loud.
“Not on you,” he said. “When they’re on me.”
I looked down into my lap and back up at him, confused.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
He snickered and said, “I’m being a dirty old biker.”
I looked him over, and couldn’t help but smile as I said, “You’re not old,” following the statement up with a light wink.
He laughed then, genuinely and from the heart, shaking his head and pushing his bite of waffle he was going to take next around in a puddle of maple syrup.
“You had me going there for a second, you do innocent very well.”
I blushed lightly and stammered, “Actually, I really haven’t heard the term ‘whore pants’ before, but I have an imagination.”
He chuckled at that and I blushed furiously.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I’m not sure with how comfortable you are joking around like that. I don’t want to overstep.”
I chewed my bite of cantaloupe melon thoughtfully, the sweet, bright flavor bursting across my tongue and told the truth, “I don’t honestly know how I should feel – like, I don’t remember anything, but I’ve been having these dreams. Like it’s just beyond some thin veil in my mind and all I can do is watch in horror and hope that it honestly doesn’t all come through… I guess I can’t be too choosey, though. Either I’m going to remember all of it or nothing. Things are coming back, but it’s scary… you know?”
He looked somber and nodded his head slowly, putting down his fork and gripping one fist with his hand, propping his elbows on the table. He rested his chin on his knuckles and said, “Actually, I do know… and I wish I could say it gets better. I mean, it does after a long while, but right now?”
“This is just the calm before another storm?” I asked quietly.
He nodded slowly and sighed.
“Hit the nail right on the head with that one,” he agreed.
I nodded.
“I guess I just feel it, you know? It’s just like when the skies go dark and that smell comes up and you know you only have seconds before the sky opens up with a deluge and all the crashing thunder and lightning. It’s like this deep existential dread, knowing it’s coming but not knowing if it’s going to be so awful it sweeps you away…”
I had turned my face away from his, to look over the porch railing out over the cemetery. I felt chilled, despite the heat, despite the humidity and the perfectly bright and beautiful sunny morning around us. Big fat fluffy white cumulous clouds in a perfect blue sky, the Spanish Moss swaying lightly from the gnarled old oak trees. Pops of bright pinks and bits of salmon dotting among the graves as flowers bloomed in the grounds out there. It was perfect. Silent. Steady. The cemetery with its old stones a testament to endurance and withstanding the passage of time and here I sat, fragile as a willow sapling, knowing what was about to come with no way of knowing if I could stop it or withstand it and I was scared…
Hangman reached out a hand and covered mine where it rested on the sun warmed metal table. I blinked away tears I hadn’t realized were beginning to make my vision swim and turned from my blank staring reverie overlooking the gorgeous cemetery grounds and met his kind, green eyes with the star shot of gold around his pupils. They were striking, so alive and colorful as compared to my boring gray ones.
“Willows are flexible,” he reminded me, and I startled.
Had I said any of that out loud?
I felt myself color slightly with embarrassment.
“I have faith in you, Lorelai. You’ve already been bent past the point of breaking and you’ve sprung back. I think you’re capable of withstanding the next gust. In fact, I’m so confident that you are, I’d put even money on it.”
I stared at him from across the little breakfast table and only looked away when the tread of boot hit the stairs at the other end of the porch. I quickly took my hand back when a new man I didn’t know rounded the corner with a large, white paper shopping bag with the twisted handles, and a small stack of boxes under his other arm.
“Reck,” Hangman said, perking up. “What’s up, man?”
“Synister sent me around,” he said. “Wants me to install some security shit in and around your apartment. Wants everyone at the table tonight.”
Hangman looked uneasy, “You know I’m not down for any of that shit,” he said.
“Temporary measure,” the man he’d called Reck, said. “Don’t y’all look cozy?” he remarked and it held more questions than accusations or whatever.
Curiosity… I thought to myself. It held more curiosity than any sort of malice or unease. Like he’d never seen Hangman do such a thing before.
“Lorelai,” Hangman drawled, “This is Requiem, he’s responsible for club security.”
“Hi,” I said faintly.
“Nice to meet you,” Requiem said, and he looked me up and down, again with more curiosity than anything.
“I don’t like it,” Hangman said and Requiem was the sole subject of his attention, now.
“Look, call Syn. I think he’s trying to split the fuckin’ difference with you here – it’s either that or?—”
“Fine,” Hangman bit out but he didn’t look happy about it.
I tried not to shrink too much in my seat as my mind finished what Requiem had finished with all manner of potentially rough and icky things – the crypt echoing off the inside of my skull more than anything else.
Hangman pinned me with a look, and I felt my tense posture ease. The expression on his handsome face clear – I didn’t have to worry about a thing. Not while he was sitting here.
“Cool, I’m going to get to work inside, do me a favor man – make me something to eat. I’m fuckin’ starving and that shit looks good.”
Hangman cracked a smile then and said, “As soon as we’re finished eating,” he agreed.
“Thanks,” Requiem let himself into the apartment up here and disappeared around the brick fireplace and wall around to the hallway where the bedroom and bathroom resided.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“Installing cameras and a security system,” Hangman answered. “It’s what he does. He owns and operates a security firm. Installing state-of-the-art systems, specializing in asset protection and sometimes personal protection.”
“Oh, wow,” I said faintly.
“It’s good money,” he said taking a bite. We were both almost through with our plates.
“So, he’s installing cameras to what? Keep an eye on me while you’re gone tonight?”
“Yup,” he answered around his mouthful of food.
I fixed my gaze on nothing at all, shuddering slightly in my seat.
“Better than a babysitter, or locking you up,” he said.
“But you don’t want cameras?”
“Fuck no, too much like big brother is watching for my tastes, I like to be left alone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly after a few moments.
He shook his head, “It’s nothing on you, Sweetpea. Syn and the rest have major trust issues. It’s a whole thing – they just want to make sure the club is protected.”
“Why would I say or do anything?” I asked mollified.
“Trust, like Rome, isn’t built in a day – or even two,” he said patiently. “Just relax, and let me handle it, right?”
I blinked at him, “So, you won’t trust me after a day or two but I’m supposed to trust all of you?” I asked.
“Ouch,” he said with a gusty sigh. “Touché, you got me there.”
I frowned, “I think I’m angry,” I said. “Not because you all insist on treating me like a child or – or – or a criminal or something; but the hypocrisy of it all.”
“Hey, fair,” he said leaning back into his seat, pushing his plate away from him. “We are hypocritical,” he confessed. “We’re also criminals…”
I blinked at the raw confession stupidly, “I guess that sort of trumps the hypocrisy when you put it like that,” I said gently and I felt almost as confused as I did afraid in that moment.
“We stopped caring what people think a long time ago,” he said quietly.
“I’m so confused,” I confessed and he nodded.
“We have that effect on people.”
I rubbed my lips together and didn’t really know what to say, so I took a stab at it with the truth.
“I just want to feel safe again…”
“Safety is an illusion,” he told me, “But I understand.” He sighed and licked his lips, looking me up and down before saying, “I know it sounds stupid, but just go along with it and with us for right now, and I promise you – you’re the safest you’ve ever been in your life. Cross us, and it’s a totally different matter. You understand?”
I nodded, and for the moment, that initial fear of Hangman made a reappearance. He must have seen something in my face, because he shook his head.
“I know you don’t have a fuck of a lot of reason to trust me, Sweetpea. I’m working on that, slowly but surely… but believe me when I say; I got your best interests at heart. The only thing you have to do right now is stay in your lane, rest, and recuperate. Try to remember and enjoy the peace and quiet around here. It’s a reprieve for now, but it’s a limited one. Eventually, you’re going to go back to your life before if I have anything to say about it. When you do, shit’s going to get… weird for a while.”
I thought about what he said, falling silent and introspective for a time. Wondering if I was being too complacent. Wondering if I was being too cooperative… but then I would catch Hangman looking at me in that way that was raw and unfiltered that screamed he genuinely cared about my wellbeing.
I couldn’t tell you what it was, but I believed him. I believed in that look wholeheartedly. Even knowing I should likely never trust another person ever again, or at least having the feeling that I shouldn’t… it didn’t take remembering all the awful things to know that. It was just enough to know what awful things likely took place or happened…
In the end, as I finished what was on my plate, I figured that I could give him a little longer. After all, where else did I have to go? He was right, I could see it, my eventual return would be fraught with questions that I didn’t have any answers to.
I would need to come up with something before that happened…
Ugh. It was all so goddamned complicated and confusing. I just needed more time… time I wasn’t sure would honestly help in the slightest, but rather was just delaying the inevitable.
I found myself feeling sorry for Hangman and his friends by the time we’d returned to the kitchen with our plates and breakfast leavings.
I occupied myself with rinsing them and loading the dishwasher and such, as Hangman occupied himself with making up another waffle for the man whose drill whirred in the hallway, screwing in the new eye in the sky to watch me continue to be bored out of my mind up here.
“Req! Food!” Hangman called and I jumped at the suddenness and loudness of his voice. He stepped up behind me, a hand lightly on my back as he reached above my head to pull down a plate out of the cabinet in front of me.
“Sorry, Sweetpea,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
I nodded, and didn’t say anything, accepting the apology mutely.
In the end, I could see that he was trying; walking a tightrope between me and his friends – people he’d known forever and a day as opposed to me who had what? Only been here a day or two?
You are being impatient when you frame it like that, I thought to myself and even though it likely went against anyone else’s better judgment, I decided to trust my gut which told me to trust Hangman, that he knew what he was doing.
Time would only tell if I would be glad that I did…