Chapter 13 Catfish
CATFISH
Wren rubs their palms up and down the legs of their jeans, and I take my hand off the wheel for a moment to place it over one of theirs. “We’re okay,” I say. “There are no headlights following us. When it tried to gun the engine to follow us, its rear spun out a little.”
“Why didn’t we stop, attack it? You’re armed, right?”
That was my first thought, until I did the math.
I had no idea how many people were in that Silverado.
And as much as I wanted to slam the brake, let the fuckers ride straight into the back of my truck, and then jump out to put a bullet through their heads, the idea that there might have been more of them than there were of me was too big a risk.
Protect Wren.
That was our mandate.
And while taking out the occupants of the Silverado might have been the fastest way to solve the problem, in my head, I saw myself being overwhelmed by four of them and them taking Wren anyway.
So, I did the only thing I could think of. Gave in to Wren’s plan to get the plate, then got the fuck out of Dodge.
“Yeah. I am. But we don’t know how many armed men were in that Silverado.”
I reach for my phone and dial Grudge’s number.
“What’s up?” Grudge says, his voice echoing around my truck speakers.
“I’m in the truck with Wren. Just got trailed out of the store. They ran Eric and John off the road. I managed to leave ‘em behind on the rural road that cuts through toward Mom’s place.”
“Details?”
“A Silverado. Black. Was lingering around the grocery store lot. Maybe followed us in there, but I didn’t see it. Wasn’t sure how many people were in it, so didn’t engage. It hit a snowbank, so might have trouble getting out.”
“Jackal and Shade are in the clubhouse. We’ll take a ride out now to see. You good?”
I feel how clammy Wren’s palm is. “Yeah. We’ll be fine. We’re headed to Mom’s to drop her groceries off. Will need a new escort back to the ranch house, though.”
“I’ll figure it out. Take care of Wren, yeah?”
I glance over at their pale face. I hate how this is the default for their life. “On it.”
The call ends, and I squeeze Wren’s hand before placing my own back on the wheel.
“We’ll be at Mom’s any minute.”
I’ve taken this route a thousand times before, but today, every shadow between the cottonwoods feels like it’s got teeth.
Wren hasn’t taken their hand off the handle of the door since I called Grudge.
The second we pull off the main road, I crawl onto Mom’s gravel drive. Her porch light flips on the second my tires crunch over the gravel near the family room window.
As I kill the engine, I turn to Wren. “It’ll take them a little while to get another protection crew to cover the ride home. I think you’re safe enough in the truck while I unload. But if you wanna come in…Mom already wanted to meet you.”
Wren strokes the end of their hair and looks down at their hoodie and cargoes. “I’m hardly dressed for meeting your mom.”
I reach for their hand and kiss the back of it. “Wren, you look good enough to fucking eat. But if you don’t feel up to it, that’s okay too.”
Wren looks at the front door as if it’s gonna bite them. “Fine.”
I can’t help but chuckle. “You said that with all the excitement of someone facing a firing squad.”
“I don’t often poll well with parents.”
“My mom isn’t an ordinary parent.”
Wren smiles finally. “That’s what I’m worried about. That she’s going to read my aura within five seconds of stepping inside and decide we’re a bad match.”
I slip my hand around the back of their neck and tug them to me. “Well, it’s a good thing I don’t believe any of that bullshit.”
It’s only a slight lie. Do I believe a lump of rock is gonna change the way my day goes? No. But do I believe that believing in the lump of rock leads to a self-belief that leads to a good outcome anyway? Sure, I do.
Mom has already got the door cracked by the time we’ve grabbed the groceries and hit the ramp. There’s a grin on her face a mile wide when I gesture with a handful of shopping bags for Wren to step past me with theirs.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Mom says when I dip to kiss her cheek on the way to the kitchen.
“Hey, Mom.”
“You must be the mysterious Wren,” Mom says as she follows us into the kitchen.
Wren wipes their palm on their cargoes, then shakes Mom’s hand. “I guess that’s one way of describing me.”
Mom laughs. “Well, I’m Lorraine, and I’d like to think I’m mysterious too. Oh, your hands are freezing. And shaking.” She turns to me. “What trouble did you get this…Wren…into?”
“We ran into some trouble on the way over here,” I say, dancing over the details.
“Thank you for the crystals,” Wren says. “I’m grateful for all the help I can get right now.”
Mom narrows her eyes when she looks at me. “He’s a good boy, for the most part, but can be a menace when he wants to. Come in, take your coat off. You both look like you could use a drink.”
I set my bags down on the counter, and Wren helps unpack without being asked. But I see the way they weigh up the window and rear door, as if checking their exits.
Mom clocks it too and just rolls to put a pot of coffee on.
The house smells like cedar and cinnamon. It’s cozy and safe.
We never had much, but Mom made it home. She kept us anchored when Dad walked. Even when things got hard, we never felt it.
“You know what you two need?” Mom asks.
“Not sure I want to hear the answer to that,” I reply, and Wren grins. Winking at them feels like the easiest thing.
“Pff. You need Irish coffee.”
“That sounds good,” Wren says. “And much appreciated.”
Mom pulls three thick glass mugs that are etched with strange patterns. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she says.
I take the glasses off her lap and put them on the counter near the coffee maker. “What’s with all the fancy glassware?”
“Friend of mine in Aspen does them. They’re sigils.”
Wren picks one up. “Inscribed symbols believed to have magical powers.”
Mom nods. “Yes. You can have your coffee in that one. It says I trust the universe is looking out for me. I’ll have this one”—she points to the center one—“it says my sleep is deep, sound, and restful. And River can have the one on the end.”
“Why, does it say I’ll be a good son or some bullshit?”
Mom glances at Wren and then smiles. “No, it says my story is just beginning.”
I turn and grab the whiskey from the cupboard so neither of them can see my smile. “Here.”
Mom grins as she takes the bottle from me, and we all work in silence for a moment as Wren finishes emptying the bags, Mom makes our Irish coffees, and I put the groceries away.
Once we’re done, Mom encourages us to move to the family room, where she has a fire going. Unable to resist its charm, I open the glass door, stoke it, and throw a couple more logs on the fire.
“Remind me to bring you some more wood in from outside before I go.”
“I can manage,” she says, stubbornly.
“I have no doubt you can. But I don’t want you getting cold unnecessarily.”
“Wren, can you pass me that blue book from the shelf? The thick one,” Mom says.
“No,” I say. “Don’t fucking move, Wren.”
Mom chuckles. “Oh yes. It’s baby book time.”
“No,” I say, moving to stand in front of the bookshelf so neither of them can get it.
“I have waited my entire life to show your baby book to the love you bring home.”
Wren puts their hands together. “And I’ve waited my entire life to see it. My mom made me one, but it was lost in one of my many moves. You should thank your lucky stars you have yours and the mom who loved you enough to make one.”
Neither of us comments about how Mom basically said I loved Wren, even though it’s way too early for such a statement. And my heart aches for Wren at the sadness in their tone when they talk about their own missing baby book.
But I point to the two of them, narrowing my eyes. “You can both stop that right now. Nobody needs to be seeing me in my birthday suit sitting in the tub when I was three.”
“Oh, but we do,” Wren pleads.
But it’s the smile on their face, the bite of color in their cheeks that makes me fold like a weak hand in poker.
“I fucking hate you, Ma,” I say as I grab it and put it on the coffee table between them.
When Wren flips it open to the first page, I instantly want to crawl into a hole. Pink. Squishy. Screaming my lungs out. Wearing just a diaper and a hand-knitted beanie.
Wren gasps and covers their mouth. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah. Well. God ain’t gonna help you when we get home.”
Mom flips the page. “He had the skinniest little chicken legs but had more energy than anyone could keep up with.” Then, another flip. “Oh, Lord. Do you remember this day? You’d been out five minutes and then came off your bike into the mud.”
I sip my drink. “I remember you hosed me off in the yard.”
Mom looks to Wren. “Well, would you put all that in the washing machine or the bathtub?”
Wren leans closer, and their smile softens into something quieter.
“Puberty hit late,” Mom says. “Then one summer, it was like…BAM. Shot up like a weed. Went from soft to strong.”
I snort, trying to save some face. “Alright, that’s enough memory lane.”
“This was the day he patched in,” Mom says, looking at the image with pride. I’m shirtless but wearing my cut.
“Your hair,” Wren says. “It was so long.”
“I cut it right after the whole Catfishing thing and never shared a photo of me with it shorter online.”
“You got any tips?” Wren asks.
“About cutting your hair?” I tip my chin to Mom. “Mom did it out in the yard.”
Mom smiles. “I donated it to one of those cancer wig charities.”
“You’re too sweet to be a biker,” Wren says.
Mom shakes her head. “Nope. He has a temper when he gets bothered.”
“I didn’t mean tips about the hair; I meant tips about looking like this.” Wren points to my physique, running their fingers over my arms and shoulders.
“For getting jacked?”
Ma cackles.
“Yeah.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You want to work out with me?”
Wren nods.
“Alright, but don’t blame me when you need a crane to lower you onto the toilet the next day because your legs don’t work.”
“See, you even have the same hobbies,” Mom says, rustling in the drawer next to the sofa.
“Here.” She hands a smooth, pale white stone with gray marbling to Wren. “It’s howlite. It helps calm explosive emotions. Good for when you’re dealing with people who are on edge or carrying rage that isn’t yours to hold. Might need it with my son around.”
I roll my eyes. “I was about to ask if you still had the shotgun behind the sofa and the means to protect yourself, but I might just take you out into the yard and shoot you myself.”
Ma scoffs. “Of course I do. And the revolver in the drawer next to the bed. Don’t be insulting me, River Lee Haines.”
“Oh, you got full-named,” Wren says with a mischievous grin on their face. “That means you’re in big trouble.”
I point to Wren. “You, shush. Mom, I was just checking.”
Mom takes a sip of her Irish Whiskey. “You know, I was looking at your birth chart when you left the other night.”
I put a palm over my face. “Oh, Lord. Do you have to be so…you…in front of Wren?”
“Don’t you start. You were born under a new moon, River. That means something. You’ve always had this path, one that is special and different. You’ve never been just one thing. You’re meant to straddle worlds.”
Wren raises an eyebrow. “That actually explains a lot.”
I snort. “I’m not that deep.”
Ma grins. “You are. You just don’t like people knowing it.”
Wren smiles at me. “I do now.”
And I look away, because if I stare at them for much longer, I’ll say something to Wren about how I’m feeling that I won’t be able to take back.
I don’t know where it’s coming from, the urge to entwine our lives so…
permanently. Intelligent me knows it’s reckless to allow such new emotions to be so…
big. But the me standing here, watching my mom and Wren grin at each other, can’t contain them.
When it’s time to leave, we hug Mom on the porch. She presses a crystal into my hand. “This one’s for you. Don’t ask me what it’s for, because you won’t like the answer.”
The pale pink color gives me a hint it’s for love, and while my usual urge is to take them to pacify Mom and then throw them in a drawer in my apartment, I stuff this one in the pocket of my jacket.
“Night, Mom. I love you.”
She places a hand to my cheek when I bend to kiss her. “Look after both of you.”
“Always.”
Once we’re back in the truck, being followed by a truck that surprisingly contains Jackal and Shade and not two prospects, we ride back to the ranch. Jackal told me they saw the spot the Silverado hit the snowbank. But it was gone by the time they got there.
“Your mom is amazing,” Wren says.
“I’m glad you think so. Lots of people just think she’s a little eccentric.”
“I want to do something. To help her. To help you. And for your sister.”
“Like what?”
“I can upgrade all their security systems. Remote monitoring. Motion sensors. It’s the least I can do. And if I’m doing it for the club, I should do it for them too.”
“Yeah? That would be great. I keep meaning to. I’ll pay for it all.”
“No.” Wren shifts in their seat so they face me. “You’re already protecting me. Let me protect them while you do it.”
I grip the wheel and try to swallow past the emotions clogging my throat. “I won’t argue. Thank you.”
We drive away slowly, the snow picking up again. And for once, life doesn’t feel so heavy.
Not when there’s someone with me to help carry the weight.