Chapter 10 Grudge
GRUDGE
Seeing my dad is like food for my soul. He’s the man I looked up to.
The man who taught me how to ride every version of a bike, from pedals to engines.
While some would consider him the poster child of why you shouldn’t join a motorcycle club, I see him as a man who carved out a life for himself and his family outside the constraints of the law.
I admire what he did. A fucking Fed shouldn’t have been trying to cozy up to the club anyway. The man who died made his choice the moment he pulled on a leather jacket and started to hang around with us.
Dad stepped up for the brotherhood and did what needed to be done.
I’d like to hope I’d have the same courage, if it were required. And it’s a reminder that there are numerous Outlaws in prison. It’ll be my job to reach out to their families to see if they need anything.
The decision to swing by to see Butcher and tell him about the meeting with my father is a spontaneous one. But seeing Butcher with his hands on Lucy’s shoulders as I pull up his driveway makes my brain short-circuit.
A million thoughts rush in. Why is she here? Why is Butcher being so nice to her? To my face, he’s always been, Fuck Lucy De Bose. Apart from the one time he spoke about her as unfinished business. So, to see him, now, looking at her fondly, is a complete contradiction.
And why the fuck is she everywhere I am these days? I just dropped Mom at home after a late lunch at the diner. But the whole time I was sitting there eating a steaming plate of lasagna, my mind was on Lucy and the fear in her eyes.
The truck skids on the gravel as I brake harshly and just glare at the two of them. They turn to stare at me, and for a millisecond, I think of simply reversing, until Butcher waves me in and suggests I park on the other side of Lucy’s truck.
Why the hell didn’t I check the tracker for where she was? Because never, not in a million years, did I think she’d be at Butcher’s house.
But then…
Greer!
Fuck, she showed up last month to help Greer out when she was involved in a police investigation.
I park the truck and jump out of it. The wind immediately blows straight through me and I immediately resent nature’s sting.
“Why are you here?” I ask as soon as I near her.
“Funnily enough, I don’t have to report in to you,” she says.
I look to Butcher for answers.
“She came to see Greer. And we were just having words.”
The conflict in my gut is weird. A part of me is grateful for the way Butcher always has my back. And yet, I hate the idea she came here when she was scared, instead of running to me. “About?”
Butcher tips his head to Lucy. “As the counselor said, we don’t report to you.”
I run my tongue over my teeth. “I need to talk to you,” I say to Butcher. Then, I look to Lucy. “And can we just decide anything this side of town is mine, and anything the other side of town is yours? Because I sure as fuck am fed up with coming across you every time I turn around.”
I’m sure, later, likely over a fifth beer, I’ll dissect why I find myself simultaneously wishing she’d run to me while I also force her to agree to stay away.
Lucy folds her arms across her chest. “No. Absolutely not. We’re not childishly dividing the town and its inhabitants like it’s a packet of Skittles.”
“My friends and my clubhouse are no concern of yours.” I say the words before I properly think them through, and, Jesus, they do sound childish.
“Well, as you know, I haven’t been back in town for a very long time. So, excuse me for enjoying the company of the first friend I’ve made.”
“And Greer is a friend of the club who—”
“Time out,” Butcher calls, stepping between us.
“Look, the two of you can bicker here all day, but if you draw Greer into this, I’m gonna be pissed.
Grudge, Lucy did the club a favor when she accompanied Greer to the police interview.
She wants to be friends with Lucy; I’m not going to stop her.
Now, I’m going to go inside. You two, come to some sort of fucking understanding.
Grudge, just come on in when you’re done.
” Butcher turns to look at Lucy. “Remember what I said.”
I used to think I had a strong personal constitution, but my stomach flips again when the wind changes direction and I realize she still wears the same perfume. The one with the glass bottle she used to say was the color of irises.
Never smelled anything quite like it since.
Butcher trudges up the steps of his log cabin, and I look beyond Lucy to the meadows. In summer, they’re filled with wildflowers and grasses, but now, they’re going dormant for winter.
Bit like how I’ve been living for the last decade.
“You don’t get to yell at me in front of other people,” Lucy shouts as soon as Butcher closes the door. “Yes, there is personal stuff between us, but do you really have to let it pour out everywhere like a leaking sieve?”
Her words are a verbal slap, and I return my gaze to her. “You know the easiest way for you to solve this? Go back home.”
She throws up her hands in exasperation, and I remember her practicing for some debate team meetup. I’d throw out random questions, and she’d get frustrated, throwing her hands up just like she did now.
There’s so much of who we used to be left in us, and yet, we’re completely different people.
“When couples divorce, they typically split assets, not towns. Stop behaving like a child.”
“A child,” I say. “A fucking child. I’ll tell you what a child does. They duck out of difficult conversations, they hate conflict, they want the easiest life possible. They run and hide. If one of us is a child, it certainly isn’t me.”
“You have no idea what leaving you cost me,” she says.
“Cost you? It cost you fucking nothing.”
“You have no idea what it did to me.”
But instead of coming up with another argument, I step forward.
Lucy steps toward me, her bag dropping to the ground.
Suddenly, I’m crowding her like I used to.
And she steps up onto my boots and throws her arms around my neck like she used to.
It’s unclear who moves to make our lips meet. Maybe we both do.
But our whole life story tumbles between us as I kiss her like it’s the first and last time I’ll ever get the chance to hold her. My memories of how it used to feel to have Lucy De Bose in my arms are nothing compared to the reality.
We fit.
The pieces of a complex puzzle tipping out of the box, landing completed.
I’m the lock and she’s my key.
I scoop my hands beneath her ass and lift her into my arms. Lucy wraps her legs around my waist, squeezing them tight.
Some things are the same. She still feels light as a feather in my arms. And like she always used to, she slides one hand into my hair. Her tits, a little fuller now, press against my chest.
But some things are different.
She’s wilder. And I hate that the lips I’m kissing, should’ve been kissing for the last decade, have likely kissed others.
Who she is and how she expresses her sexuality now is likely the sum of all the people she’s slept with, and not just me.
“Zach,” she says breathlessly, before kissing me again.
The sound of my name falling from those lips again, in a moment like this, ignite something deep inside me.
I stride the few paces to the truck, pick her up, and slam her back up against the door.
If we weren’t outside of Butcher’s house, I’d throw her into the back of the truck and strip us both naked.
But why did she do it?
I force the question from my brain, because if I think about it, I’ll have to stop this.
I lower her a little, so her pussy rests right over my cock. Denim layers stand between us, but I can still feel her heat.
“Fuck,” I curse, and move her to the other side of the truck.
I shouldn’t worry whether Butcher can see.
I should have more sense than to do this.
But maybe this is the closure I need.
Maybe it’s better we’re outside. In the open. Unconstrained.
Using my body, I lock her up against the truck and move my hand to her throat as my tongue seeks hers. My fingers trace the shape of her neck. Her skin is as smooth as it always was. This close to her, the scent from it is even stronger.
I’m here, fully present. And I’m also twenty-nine years old, having the most enlightening and formative sexual moment of my life.
It’s Lucy.
Always has been.
Never can be.
I begin to pulse my fingers, tightening and relaxing. Always avoiding her carotid arteries. Somewhere deep in the recess of my brain, the word consent flashes.
I ignore it.
Lucy knows how to stop me if she needs me to. We talked about it so often. Had so many rules, she can’t have forgotten them all.
Her safe word was sunset because she used to love sitting out watching the sun go down with me.
She could also snap her fingers three times if she couldn’t speak, or knock on my body with a single knuckle three times.
Given the way she’s grinding against me, given the way she’s tugging on my hair and fucking my tongue with hers, she doesn’t need them.
But why did she do it?
The words come back to me. Louder this time. This isn’t closure. This is the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing and hoping for a different result.
As good as it feels in this moment, it’s not going to feel good in an hour when I’m still utterly clueless as to why she left me when I needed her most.
I release her throat.
“Luce,” I murmur against her lips, but she doesn’t stop.
Pressing her to the truck with my chest, I reach behind me and disentangle her arms from around my neck.
“Luce,” I repeat, this time a little louder.
When she snaps out of the sexual haze she’s in, her lips are plump and likely bruised. Her chin is a little red from my scruff. And her eyes are wide, filled with a need I want to deliver on.
“For my own sanity, before we go any farther, I need to know why you did what you did,” I say.
The words may as well have thrown a bucket of cold water over her.
She looks around like she has no idea how she got here.
How she ended up in my arms. How she’s so aroused that her neck and the small vee of her chest I can see beneath her blouse have turned the mottled pink they always did when she was close to coming.
“Put me down,” she says quietly.
I put my hands beneath her armpits, and when her feet are on solid ground, I hold her hand to help steady her.
She studies the ground for a second. “We shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”
She pushes me away and hurries to grab her bag before heading to her truck. And the tide of anger I had when I first arrived returns.
“Just fucking tell me,” I yell.
But she doesn’t answer.
She simply gets in her father’s truck and drives away.