Chapter 6
WREN
After an unexpectedly calm night with Catfish, I hoped that I would sleep better than I had in a long while. I went to bed with the faintest feeling of ease. But I wake with the world sitting on my chest again. Thoughts running riot as my heart races.
And nothing will be solved if I continue to lie in bed, staring at the ceiling.
The floor is cool as I step out of bed and pad to the kitchen. Remembering what Niro said, I force a glass of water down my throat before I go about making some coffee. But as I grab the mug from the cupboard, it slips through my shaking hands and drops to the ground.
I’m not sure whether it’s the lack of sleep, or too much coffee, or a rawness that starts in my gut that causes it to fall. But the whole thing plays in slow motion as I watch it explode into a million pieces as it hits the ground.
And the shocking thing about PTSD is, I can’t even take in the beauty of the explosion before waves of fear engulf me.
Getting beaten for breaking a glass.
Getting locked in my room for forgetting to flush the toilet.
Being forced to eat the fish that had made me sick the night before for lunch.
I press myself up against the counter and hunch over, automatically trying to make myself small. Make myself disappear.
But the shards of mug that cover the kitchen floor will give me away.
I drop to my knees and begin trying to scoop the pieces up with my bare hands, ignoring the way they dig into my knees.
The sooner I can get rid of the evidence, the less chance there is that I’ll find myself in trouble—
“Wren. Stop.” Catfish’s voice cuts through the waves of noise and fear.
I realize my breath is coming sharply. Too fast for my level of exertion. I place my hand on my chest, take a deep breath. Then another one.
It takes a moment, but when I look up, I see Catfish, barefoot, wearing a pair of hastily pulled on jeans that are still open at the waist, the zipper only half pulled up, so I can see the top edge of a thick thatch of pubic hair.
As my gaze roams up his body, I take in the sharp shadows of his abs and the uniqueness of his ink. There’s a lot of fine-line work. A raven or crow maybe, sitting on a branch; around it is what looks like a circular chart with dots and solid lines.
It’s art, the canvas, his beautifully sculpted pec.
A thin line runs from the raven to a small circle on his neck that looks like it sits over his jugular.
But when I reach his eyes, all I see is concern and worry. “Don’t move, sweetheart.”
The use of the endearment catches me off guard.
He moves to the door and grabs his thick biker boots and slips them on without socks. Then, he returns to me, stomping over the shattered mug like it doesn’t matter and lifts me off the ground.
The cool marble of the kitchen counter is cool when he places me on it.
Finally, I find my voice. “The mug. I need to clean it up. I need to know how much it cost so I can repay Quinn. I didn’t mean to—”
“Wren. Look at me.” Again, Catfish’s gruff voice cuts through the noise. “You’re safe.”
I’ve been told that before. When Mom died, they contacted the man who contributed his DNA then split.
He refused to acknowledge my existence. I moved in with my grandmother, but she passed away seven months later.
After that, every time I got moved to some new distant relative, to some new foster parent, to some derelict house with random strangers, someone would tell me I was safe.
But it was never long until I wasn’t.
“I wish I could believe that.”
His eyes search mine, but whatever they are looking for, the stain of disappointment in them says he didn’t find it. “Yeah. Me too. Sit there and let me clean this up.”
“If you just get me some shoes from my room, I could—”
“Wren. You’re testing my fucking patience. Just sit still.”
I huff at that. “So much for being safe.”
Catfish glares at me. “I have never raised a hand to a…”
“Woman?” I finish. “Nothing like a bit of misgendering to make you feel safe.”
Catfish turns away from me, tugs a hand through his hair, and I see his shoulders lift and rise three times as he takes a series of deep breaths.
When he turns back, he looks calmer. “Wren. To the best of my knowledge, you’re the first non-binary person I ever met.
I’m sorry for fucking it up. Yeah, I was about to say I have never raised a hand to a woman, because it’s true, I haven’t.
But I also haven’t ever hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.
And my bar of people deserving it is pretty fucking high.
Because being bullied as a kid gave me a different perspective, now, on what using my build, strength, and position as a biker looks like.
And it doesn’t look like me losing my shit at someone for dropping a mug.
I’m sorry for misgendering you. And I’m sorry if I scared you. ”
His monologue takes the wind out of my sails. Maybe I wanted somewhere to redirect all the feelings of disappointment I had in myself. “Okay.”
Four letters that don’t really begin to express the feelings I have listening to him speak.
“To make it right, would you let me look at your knees and hands?”
Having forgotten about the pain of them momentarily, I lift my hands to study them. Blood trickles down my palm from one cut but prickles the surface in many more.
My left knee is worse, and as I properly study it, the rush of pain cuts through all the other noise in my head.
“I got it.” I look back to Catfish, who hasn’t stepped any closer, his hands out in front of him like a promise he won’t move unless I tell him to.
“It’s killing me you’re hurt, so this isn’t the time to prove how fucking self-sufficient you are.”
“Fine,” I say.
It takes him a second to reach me. He grabs the paper towel, then checks over all the injuries before deciding to start on the largest one on my knee.
Gently, he removes the ceramic chard, and I hiss. “Does it need stitching?”
I don’t like stitches because I don’t like medical needles. Piercings I’m fine with. But I don’t like needles because I don’t trust the medical professionals who wield them. Even the thought of the needle going in and out of my skin makes me a little spacey.
Catfish runs the paper towel under the tap and then cleans the wound gently. “Don’t think so. I think a Band-Aid should be okay, but we have a doctor we can call if you’re worried.”
Vehemently, I shake my head. “God, no. I really don’t want to see a doctor. They ask way too many questions I don’t really want to have to answer.”
His touch pulls me back into my own skin. The heat from his bare chest tugs at something inside of me. And I refuse to believe that this man is the cause.
It would be foolish to lean into it.
His hands look so masculine and mine look so feminine in his.
I struggle with the dichotomy and dysphoria.
Objectively, if they weren’t my hands or his hands, it would be a …
hot image. A size difference. Smooth versus rough.
But I find myself wishing mine weren’t so fragile looking.
I wish I could lift heavier than I do, but no matter how many farmer’s carries I do at the gym, I never seem to be able to build up the same kind of strength.
“When I was seven, Willa accidentally fired a nail from a nail gun through my hand,” he says suddenly, turning his hand over to show a silver scar in the shape of a star. And despite the awfulness of the statement, a chuckle escapes me.
“How does something like that accidentally happen?”
Catfish grins as he resumes cleaning little shards out of my skin. “Willa is four years older than me. And from the day I was born, she preferred me to her dolls. Legend has it, she’d shove me in her toy stroller and walk me around the yard for days.”
I can imagine it. I bet he was a cute baby, all swaddled in a bright purple doll’s stroller. “You’ve lived an eventful life.”
Catfish looks up at me and grins. It makes my insides ripple with excitement. “You want life to be any other way?”
I look around the apartment atop the bakery in a town I never knew existed. “I think it’s fair to say I could do with the dial turning down a little on my level of excitement right about now.”
“That’s fair,” Catfish says, tossing the last bit of paper towel into a garbage bin under the sink. Then, he opens and closes a few cupboards before finding a medical kit.
“If we run out of Band-Aids, I’ll have one of the prospects outside make a run to the store to grab us some more.”
“Must be fun having people you can give orders to,” I say.
Catfish looks up at me. “Not really. Some clubs get a real hard-on for hazing their prospects. We believe in testing their loyalty. Their willingness to do whatever it takes. We’re not gonna give them alcohol poisoning for shits and giggles.
I mean, anything that involves the hospital is going to cause ‘em to go broke with medical bills before they even start. Not to mention the questions they’d get asked. ”
That’s more noble an answer than I was expecting. I feel like after meeting both the New Jersey and Colorado Outlaws, my worldview of what a motorcycle club is is changing. “Wait, you never finished your story about Willa shooting you with a nail gun.”
Catfish presses the sticky part of the Band-Aid to my skin with firm thumbs. “She was pissed at me. I broke the arm off one of her dolls. So, she reached for the nearest thing she could find in the garage.”
I cover my mouth to stifle the laugh. “That sounds like she intentionally hit you with a nail gun rather than accidentally hit you.”
Catfish tips his head to one side. “Nah. I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt. She said she wanted to scare me, but the gun was heavier than she thought, and it wobbled in her hand. As she tried to catch it, she fired a nail from the nail gun.”
“Then she’s got really good aim.”
“Or really good luck.” Catfish attaches the final Band-Aid. “There. All done.”
“Thank you.”
Catfish pauses with his hands on my knees, kneading them softly. “You feeling calmer, now?”
I take a breath and silently check through my body.
My mind’s a little quieter. My heart rate definitely slower.
The negative energy has worked its course through me. “I am. You know you said yesterday to just ask for what I need?”
He nods. “You need something?”
“I need to get out of here. I need some air. I need to feel the burn of the cold and not feel like my ribs are crushing me.”
There’s something about the way he listens to me when I talk. The way his eyes drop to my lips then back to my face stirs me.
He glances at the clock on the microwave, then tilts his head to look out of the kitchen window over the street. When he’s done, he lifts me up and then deposits me in the hallway outside my room. “Don’t ask any questions, and dress warm.”
He disappears inside his room, and I hear some banging around as I pull on the warmest and thickest clothes I brought with me.
I hear the thud of his footsteps in the hallway as I pull my boots on. And when I join him in the kitchen, he’s already swept up the shattered mug. “Thank you. For dealing with that.” I tip my chin over to the spot where I broke the mug, then look back to him. “And thank you. For dealing with me.”
“My pleasure. You ready?” he asks, pulling a Stetson off the wall.
A goddamn, bona fide Stetson.
I nod. “I am, but I’m not sure my coat is warm enough.” I left my thick one behind two homes ago.
He reaches for his thick, fleece-lined Iron Outlaws jacket and puts it over my shoulders, then grabs his phone and dials a number. “Quinn. It’s a cold day. Any chance you can make coffee for the two prospects? I’ll leave some cash on the counter for you. Throw them a pastry too.”
There’s a pause, but I can’t quite hear what Quinn’s saying.
“Yeah. I’ll let them know.”
“There are prospects outside? What are you doing?” I ask.
“Yeah. Extra protection. But now we’re giving them both a reason to step inside out of the cold for a second.”
“Why?”
“So that we have time to slip out the back door.”